You Don't Have to Wear the Crop Top Today: A harm reduction approach to body liberation.

I follow an instagram account of a woman whose body looks vaguely like mine (a strategy I recommend).

Her account is NOT political or liberatory.

It’s fashion.

She earns commissions from the clothes she influences. 

She makes videos where she shows her belly sticking out in one outfit and then shows a dozen other ways to dress so the belly does not look so stuck out.

They’re like before and after shots, except she changes the clothes, not her body.

Which, in this thin-is-in-weightloss-is-everything-GLP-1s-are-miracles climate, is political. A mainstream mid-size white woman choosing publicly not to lose weight? Wow.

To be clear, what she’s offering is for her fellow midsize girlies (like me)– people close to thin privilege but not quite there– just a few fashion tricks away from looking thin and getting the perks that go with it. 

I love her account even though “looking thin” is not my ultimate goal.  

Some of my actual goals are:

• To connect ever more deeply with my body

• To learn more about myself and embrace all that I don’t know

• To extend self-compassion to all parts of me

• To experience moments of just totally feeling myself (cuz that’s fun, and fun is always the point in my book)

For me, these goals fit under the umbrella of Body Liberation.

But some days “Body Liberation” feels like a tall order. Liberate my body? Are you for real?

I know that’s why a lot of people gravitate towards the term “body neutral.” There’s something relieving about not being asked to be positive or negative, just neutral. Low effort. Phew.

Still, I’ve never found “body neutral” to be a particularly inspiring term. I don’t tend to wake up in the morning hoping to feel neutral. I love a big, beautiful goal and “Body Liberation” and “Body Love” have always held that for me. (Virgie Tovar recently wrote about why she prefers the term “Body Love” and she connects it to bell hooks’ definition of love as a political practice. The piece is gorgeous, strong recommend).

But some days Body Liberation and Body Love feel like I’m supposed to leave the house in a crop top with my belly hanging out, proudly showing it off to the world.  And while I do own a few crop tops, on most days I don’t desire that particular experience.

So then what?

I bristle at the phrase “flattering clothes” – a euphemism meaning the clothes make you look smaller. I don’t like it because it supports the culture that says smaller is always better, a statement I don’t believe.

Yet I can’t ignore that the culture exists, can’t pretend that it’s not real. I can’t unsee the ways that thin people get treated better than larger folks.

Learning how to dress in “flattering clothes” can be a harm reduction approach. I’d always rather my clients choose to wear “slimming fabric” than skip breakfast. Learning the tummy hiding method can be a baby step away from harmful, disordered behavior. Then from there I can choose to intentionally move from “does this hide my stomach?” to “how does this make me feel?” 

This is about releasing black and white binaries, as much as it is about baby steps. I can still hold Body Liberation and Body Love as the goal while feeling different about it on different days. I can ride the waves, the ebb and flow, without much fanfare and meaning making.

Harm reduction can be a powerful tool of self compassion. I can say to myself “The big goal feels too much today. That’s okay. What’s a supportive step I can take in that direction?”

The clothing example may not feel applicable to all bodies, but the body liberation harm reduction model can apply to anyone: what’s at least a little better for me? What would suck less? How can I reduce harm to myself as I move the needle towards Body Liberation?