I believe it starts at a young age for all of us. I’m talking about that feeling you get when you and your friends go out somewhere fun, like a waterpark, and you can’t help but notice their bodies look different than yours. You go out to restaurants and they have posters up of models with “flawless” bodies, their skin is blemish free, their stomach magically never folds when they sit, and they are everything the men want. At least that’s what is pushed into your head throughout adolescence until finally during that crucial time as a young woman when your body is changing and you start feeling self conscious in your own skin.

My body started changing fairly early, when I was younger, I wore a B Cup bra in 4th grade. I remember the attention the boys used to give me just because I had developing breasts. Of course, at that age it wasn’t good attention, I was already being sexualized at the young age of 9. Then you start to notice the girls around you either want to be your friend or they start body shaming you. You start internalizing all of the hate, looking in the mirror questioning your body and whether they are right….

This is just the beginning, as you make it into middle school, the boys are just starting to really notice you. This is also a time when you are developing into a woman and hormones and emotions are running high. Every little thing is a big thing. Boys and girls are starting to experiment with each other and the pressure to be “cool” and fit in starts becoming a priority. You want to wear make up like some of the other girls. You want to feel pretty, wanted, loved. You really start looking at the women on magazines and posters when you go out and wonder why your body doesn’t look like theirs.

I remember around this age my dad took me to a restaurant and I saw a poster of a model advertising beer. She was wearing a bikini and had flawless tan skin and a flat stomach. She had long bleach blonde hair and was looking at the camera in a sexually inviting way. I remember asking my dad when my body would ever look like hers. To this day, I can see that poster in my head and know exactly the place we were. This just goes to show the lasting impression these images have on us as young women. I told my boyfriend this story the other day while explaining my goals for Sea Nympho and I literally got choked up. I had involuntary tears forcing their way out of my eyes. I can remember how I felt about myself and how I always used to wear baggy clothes and pants. I didn’t like my body. I was thicker than a lot of girls my age.

Back then, low-rise jeans were popular and I couldn’t wear those because I have always had, what I like to call, a “dent” in my lower stomach under my belly button. It has always been there, I can’t ever remember a time in my life where I didn’t have it. Low-rise jeans, bikinis, even underwear just sucked. It just happens to be right where this “dent” is in my body and it just makes me feel like I have a huge gut hanging over my pants or bottoms. Bikinis and underwear, no matter how many times I try to pull them up they just roll down under it.

Needless to say, when high school came, I had severe body issues. I wore a DD cup in 9th grade and boys and men looked at me differently. More like an object of desire, I was no longer a girl with feelings, I was a sex object. I wasn’t seeing what the boys saw though. I wanted love, like every other girl. Today though, that isn’t how it works. Movies and TV shows have made young girls believe there is some fairy tale where a man is going to come and treat her how she deserves to be treated and respected. That he will shower her with romance and sweep her off her feet and take care of her. Girls grow into women that are so emotionally unstable and confused because they were forced to endure through the lies of everything they thought they knew about love. Being objectified and sexualized and used, women eventually lower their standards for love. “What is wrong with me?” we ask. We internalize all of it, we analyze it and pick apart each look, each picture, each word that was said to us and how it was said. Then look in the mirror and begin to see ourselves the way others make us feel. I remember riding the bus home from school one day and someone on my bus asked me if I had a C-section… in 9th grade! All because I had this stupid “dent.”

Finding bathing suits was near impossible, my breast size was so much bigger than my bottoms and the struggle to fit in was weighing on me. I felt like bikinis didn’t look good on me but all the girls my age were wearing them. When I would wear a bikini, I was so self conscious about my stomach and would constantly have to pull my bottoms up over my stomach. I wanted boys to look at me and think I was pretty, but why? Why did I care about that so much? Did I want boys to tell me I was beautiful because I didn’t feel beautiful? Girls are put under so much stress to be beautiful all the time, instead of just living and enjoying their lives. Who decides what is beautiful and what is not? Why do we get this unrealistic view of what beauty is? This needs to stop! WE ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL! We should always feel sexy in our own skin!

This is why I am so passionate about Sea Nympho.

Women of all ages need to feel beautiful on the inside and outside. They need to be able to have bathing suits that cater to curvier girls as well as slender ones. We need longer shirts and not just crop tops, so we can show what we want to show, and cover what we want to cover. We need designs that make us feel beautiful and not like a busted can of biscuits! We need a group of women that support each other and help each other grow not break each other down. I want more than a brand, I want a community. I want woman to see another woman wearing Sea Nympho products and know that she could go say “Hi” without judgement. I want no woman left out and to know she has someone to talk to. Being a part of the Sea Nympho Community, you know you have got Sea Sisters!

Don’t let the world tell us who we need to be. Be who you are and let the world adapt.

If you would like to be more involved in the Sea Sisters community, follow our Facebook Page and keep up with your fellow Sea Sisters!

Let’s be that change we want to see in the world!

-Becki