I wanted to share with you an amazing list of BODY LOVE warriors and all of their contact information. I met most of these sheroes via the Body Love Conference in Tucson this past weekend that took place at the University of Arizona. It was a day and weekend so full of so much BODY ACCEPTANCE. An amazing collection of humans that teach us how to LOVE our bodies, how to trust our bodies and how to celebrate our bodies…. and I do mean ALL bodies. Skinny, fat, thick, athletic, gay, straight, bisexual, physically challenged, able bodied and very other kind of body you could imagine were celebrated and supported at the Body Love Conference!
Jes Baker, The Militant Baker
Let’s start first with the creator and queen bee of the Body Love Conference, Jes Baker, also known as The Militant Baker. Jes is a body acceptance bad ass and she pulled this amazing event together with a crazy, smart and sexy team of bad ass women. I am so in awe of their organizational skills. The whole event of around 400 people happened seamlessly and they brought together such a strong group of presenters. KUDOS Jes. You changed the world …. you definitely changed me. Follow Jes on Twitter here: @militant_baker
The keynote was from Tess Munster, the creator of the Eff Your Beauty Standards movement. You can find Tess on her own website www.TessMunster.com or you can follow her on Instagram and Facebook as #effyourbeautystandards Tess also has an awesome Instagram page with 17K + Followers.
Hi Curvies. So, as some of you know, I was at the Body Love Conference this past weekend in Tucson and I was so blessed to be asked to speak at the conference about one of my favorite topics! “Hot Sexy & The Curvy Girl” was my topic and I wanted to share with all of you the tips I shared with my audience there at the University of Arizona.
And, in case you have not heard of the Body Love Conference, it was created by Jes Baker, www.TheMilitantBaker.com and her amazing team of body love warriors. Their website is www.BodyLoveConference.com and be sure to go and “like” their page, too, so you will be up to date on the next conference, assuming there is one. The first one was such an amazing experience. I have a feeling there will be many more. www.Facebook.com/bodyloveconference
5 Tips for Loving Your Fat, Curvy, Plush, Thick Body (And loving your curvy self.)
There are the 5 things I told my audience at the Body Love Conference I wanted them to take away from my presentation:
1. Stop Faking It. In life and in the bedroom. Life is way too short for bad sex or shitty relationships. Communication is lubrication in your bedroom. Your lover cannot read your mind. (I do own a website called www.StopFakingItJustHaveOne.com because I feel strongly that every woman over the age of 18 should have a silver bullet!)
2. Do Not Settle! Here is a link to my article for the Huffington Post called “Do Not Settle, Curvy Girls“ Don’t be afraid to break up with friend or family that do not ALWAYS 100% of the time lift you up and make you feel like a million dollars. If you have a mean old Aunt Helen that always mentions your weight, ask her kindly to please mind her own business. If she can’t, then walk away from that toxic b.s. please. Do not settle for those horrible bottom feeders out there that prey on women with low self esteem. They are the worst of the worst and will never make you feel like a goddess.
3. Learn to silence the inner mean girl. When you hear her, address her and quiet her down. Do not be your own biggest bully. When you feel the negative self talk creeping into your brain, tell her what I do….. SILENCE! Focus on the stuff you love about yourself or your body and control the negative thoughts with some mediation or focusing on what is so beautiful about you. I mean, hey, you woke up this morning and that is pretty freaking awesome. You are what you think you are. We all know that to be true, right?
4. Find 3 or 4 features about your physical body that you love. (I know you have a million other fabulous features and are an amazing person, but in this case, force yourself to find 4 things you love about your body.) I started with “I love my eyes. I have adorable toes. My nipples are so cute and I have really nice lips.” If that sounds conceited – then good. Because I truly believe those are 4 great features on my body. I have come to love many other features on my physical person – but those are the 4 I started with about 16 years ago. I still like those 4 features and when I hear the mean girl bubble up, I remind myself of those 4 always. And I have found a few more things about my body I love. As always, I love that I am a good person and a good daughter and friend. But, in this case, I really want you to focus on 3 or 4 things you SUPER love about your body right this moment.
5. Maturbate more often to fall in love with the pleasure your fat, thick, thin, athletic, thick, plush, curvaceous body is capable of. Take my 21 day challenge and masturbate every day for the next 21 days. 21 day masturbation challenge It’s my theory that the more we understand how much pleasure our bodies can create, the more we can start to fall in love with our bodies and maybe even learn to forgive our bodies for whatever we think needs forgiving. Try it! Report back, please.
I hope that helps. That is what I presented, in a nutshell. The room was full and so much energy and excitement. It was such an amazing experience to see like 90-ish smiling faces laughing, blushing and smiling back at me last Saturday.
Big huge Curvy Girl love to Jes and her #blc team for creating something so amazing and so enlightening. So much connection and so much love. MUAH!
If you haven’t liked us on Facebook, you can find us at www.facebook.com/curvygirlinc and we have a ton of fun there. We talk about issues that have to do with body acceptance and we also share all of our plus size lingerie on that page. So come join the party.
Sincerely, Chrystal Bougon
Owner and Resident Curvy Girl at Curvy Girl Lingerie
This April 5th some of the most amazing Body Love Activists and Leaders in the Self-Acceptance Movement are converging in Tucson for the Body Love Conference. http://www.bodyloveconference.comThis event and idea comes from the very Sassy and Fierce Jes Baker – also known as The Militant Baker.
I am so excited to be joining all of these amazing women and all of their body love allies for this inspirational conference. The point of the conference is to spread the word and help expand the definition of beauty. To create a consciousness and awareness that all bodies are beautiful and perfect exactly as they exist at this very moment in time.
From Jes Baker’s Body Love Conference Letter on the official website for the conference:
I’m often asked why I emphasize the importance of loving our body when we are made up of so many other components. This is a great question, and to it I respond: we are more likely to be told by the world that we are good people; funny, creative, intelligent, communicative, generous, maybe even extraordinary. What we are NOT told is that our bodies are beautiful just the way they are. We are taught that our figure is flawed, and not only is it flawed, but that the majority of our worth lies within our physical appearance. Which, of course is never “perfect enough” by societies standards. This affects our lives on a monumental level
I am personally going to be talking about my mission to help all women fall in love with their bodies by realizing how much pleasure their fat, thick, plush, thin, athletic, slim, fluffy and skinny bodies are capable of. I feel like that when women learn how much pleasure their body can create, they find it easier to love their bodies and build confidence and their own self esteem. We can learn to love our bodies no matter their size.
I own the ONLY plus size lingerie store in the entire country called Curvy Girl Lingerie (opened in Oct. 2012 in San Jose, CA) and have been in the business of selling romance knows since 2003. I have talked with tens of thousands of women about their bodies, their sexual response cycle and their vulnerabilities. We are truly all in this struggle together and I want to help women connect with their sexy bodies through pleasure.
Tess Munster
A few of the other inspirational speakers include Tess Munster, founder of Eff Your Beauty Standards (she is also the keynote speaker). Tess has thousands of fans on Facebook and Instagram and she inspires plus size women daily! Can’t wait to hear her presentation.
Jen McLellan, founder of Plus Size Birth and the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/plussizemommymemoirs Plus Size Mommy Memoirs. Jen is an advocate for plus size moms and her blog and page offers practical strategies plus
Plus-Size-Mommy-Memoirs
size women are supported before, during, and after pregnancy. In an interview about the Body Love Conference, Jen Mc Lellan said:
Plus size women are often mistreated by the medical community. I’ll be sharing tips on how to make sure you’ve hired a size friendly care provider during pregnancy and beyond. Our bodies aren’t broken. Our bodies are amazing!”
The creator of “Your Body is Not An Apology“, Sonya Renee Taylor, will be presenting will be talking about body shame and transforming historical patterns around women’s bodies. Can you believe so many amazing women in one spot? I am giddy about it!
So many amazing speakers and topics – but most importantly an epic event designed to expand all of our minds. ”The Body Love Conference is the first event of its kind; a comprehensive and inclusive event that focuses on assisting all shapes, sizes and shades to embrace and love the skin they’re in right now.”
This event is open to the public and will be filled with lots of women who have been told by the media that their bodies are not perfect enough. We have all been subjected to the media’s war on women’s bodies. When we are too skinny, we get shamed and grief about being too thin. When we are what someone considers too fat, we get shamed and sold a bill of goods by the diet industry, fitness industry and the media that we must be unhealthy. You can’t win when you own a body, these days. Fat or thin, the war on our bodies is real. As I like to share with my customers and followers – STOP buying what the media is selling.
And as Jes Baker says:
The Body Love Conference is the first event of its kind; a comprehensive and inclusive event that focuses on assisting all shapes, sizes and shades to embrace and love the skin they’re in right now.
And I am thrilled to be at the inaugural event to help kick this off in Arizona. Hopefully this will touch and inspire young women all over the planet that their bodies are PERFECT and that they do not need to have a thigh gap and a bikini bridge to have a super sexy, happy, fulfilled life. Sexy is NOT a Size. And as Sonya so eloquently put it, our bodies are not an apology.
Hope to see you there!
Chrystal Bougon
Owner and Resident Curvy Girl at Curvy Girl Lingerie
