Stretch marks.

Stretch marks. They're a totally normal and natural component of the human body, yet the beauty industry decided they are an unforgivable trauma and must be eradicated at all costs. Especially when they appear on one's breasts, the apparent pinnacle of your femininity. It's pretty stupid, really. I think most girls grow up without seeing real tits, and all they have to compare themselves with are breasts whose true form has been concealed with silicon, makeup, clever lighting, professional photography, and digital 'enhancement'. We're told that's beautiful, and we think it's normal to look like that. I can rationalize that the beauty industry trains women to hate their bodies, but it still affects me in very powerful ways. Because it's hard to block out something that pounds at you every day.


My question is, why are stretch marks "officially" ugly in Western culture? They are not inherently ugly. There are some African societies that consider stretch marks beautiful! So why do we let the beauty industry think for us, and coerce us into using creams, lotions, serums, laser surgery, body makeup, and other middling crap to disguise our individual bodies?

I think stretch marks should be considered gorgeous. In fact, they shouldn't be called stretch marks at all. They should be called "wisdom marks" or "woman marks". They're the marks you got when you were maturing from a young girl to an independent woman, as your wonderful body curved up and formed itself. The lines accompanying your life experience, all the sorrows and joys. The legacy from the beautiful act of nurturing a child inside you. If the industry somehow adopted and marketed this point of view, who would want a pure-skinned woman? She'd be seen as naive, unshaped, incomplete and unmarked (and not in the good way).

And you know what stretch marks are? They're little rips in the dermis. Maybe you're too filled with awesome for it all to be contained in your body.