A Thank-You Letter to T.I

(This is, in reality, a thank-you letter to all guys who appreciate curves!)

I am a genetic anomaly.

I'm an Asian with, what some may call, a "black girl's ass." (Excuse all the quotation marks, they're really just an excuse to make up my own terms and I will disperse them quite plentifully throughout :P )

I am what some guys call "thick." Until recently, I've never taken this descriptor as much of a compliment.

Coming from Chinese culture, where a majority of women (due to lifestyle and genetics) are very thin, and the ideal of beauty happens to coincide with a BMI of 17, you can see how having "meat on your bones" is not appreciated.

This is not a tirade for the "plus-sized" girls. I do believe that every body is beautiful, although that doesn't hold true for health. Maybe I'll discuss that topic at another time.

 I'm specifically addressing the girls with tight waists and thick thighs, with asses that Beyonce would be proud to call "bootylicious."
The type of girls featured in the videos of musicians trying to appeal to a primarily male audience.

"Whatever you like," TI

I remember watching ATL for the first time and marveling at how, for once (it seemed to me), a curvier girl was portrayed as the sexiest one.

(source)

This was during a period of my life in which I was struggling profusely with body image and experiencing "moderate" bulimia. I know that your self-esteem shouldn't be determined by male attention, but I have to admit- it was very gratifying to realize that having an ass was an attribute I didn't have to be ashamed of. To know that your body is, at least in some cultures, considered beautiful and an object of desire, was a step towards accepting myself. The other steps had to go beyond that, but at least it was a start.

No, I do not make myself exclusive to any one race; this is simply a note towards how urban culture gave me the realization that my body was not "unacceptable" everywhere.

Now I'm in a place where I can see past all of my relatives' comments on how big my butt is, or how I shouldn't wear shorts because my thighs are too big. I can love how my thighs have grown with strength from leg presses and squats, how functional my butt can be when sitting on hard chairs. I'm living a much healthier and maintainable lifestyle.

Thanks, T.I.