I would never have imagined discovering so much about self -acceptance by working on this comic - blog

ACCEPTATION DE SOI - La voie de la sagesse est une fiction. Je voulais créer une histoire comme j’aime en lire ou en voir au cinéma, décalée, avec de l’humour, du rythme, des ascenseurs émotionnels, des personnages parfois un peu barrés, souvent empêtrés dans leurs contradictions.

The starting point for writing, on the other hand, was personal.Like Nina, the journalist of the graphic novel, I wondered: why give so much importance to my appearance, who never satisfies me?

Why, aware of my many privileges, and even if I know that in the bottom, my ass, we don't care, I lose a crazy time to observe myself, to ruminate a piece of fat, a scar, a ride, a yellowed tooth, dry hair?

I know it, I am conditioned to do a lot of stuff that I don't want to do (banish dairy products in the evening, it would swell the belly [sic], shower with ice water for less cellulite, epilate, forbid me the bread for 4 days/week [I never get there, obviously].Really not exhaustive list.Understand that I am conditioned to make my life more complicated does not help me to simplify it.

Reflexes stronger than me

My body does not define my value as a person, but I care as if I had nothing else to offer [genre, my brain].Why are these reflexes stronger than me?

I asked women of different ages and horizons, if in the last 24 hours, part of their body had grieved them, if only a second?100% replied yes.I told myself that I may have had something to start moving.

During my research for the book, I came across nymphoplasty.This cosmetic surgery operation of the vulva, which aims, by shortening the large and/or small lips, to obtain "the split apricot" or even "the sex of Barbie" (re sic, barbie has no sex).

I learned that this operation, which can lead to painful complications given many testimonies, was almost never (if not completely never) motivated by a medical need.Furthermore, it can be practiced on minors.A flood of questions overwhelmed me: how is it possible?What.Can the doctor accept this?Which parent can accept this?How can a child 14, a child, already to hate his intimacy, not even completely trained yet?And I by the way, have I already been disgusted by my intimacy?By my vulva?Do I find it hard to say "my vulva", as if it were in itself already a little disgusting?

I had my narrative red thread.

Face my contradictions

It is therefore by immersing herself in a journalistic investigation around the fate of Aliénor, a 14 -year -old teenager who died following a nymphoplasty, that Nina will face her contradictions.

The striking meetings that Nina is about to live will question her about her relationship to the body and the world.The generation of Aliénor and her cousin Anaïs, a high school student, questions her a lot.These girls, these young women, seem so much more informed, more aware of the patriarchy, more comfortable in their bodies, ready to defend their rights ... But they still do not have the possibility of carrying a T-shirt abovenavel by 35 degrees without passing for anti-republican seductors, for example.

My relationship to the body and the world

And this flow of images continuously filtered by social networks, the omnipresence of tele-shopping influencers who promote such makeup or such anti-mockered cream, this body of women, even very young women, always so hypersexualized ...Really escape?

But basically Nina, what does she really know about their lives, she who is already "old"?

Even if the book can tackle difficult subjects, I absolutely wanted what remains funny, sparkling and surprising.The good surprise?See that women and men are embarked by this story, amused and touched.

There is no quest for morality, no answers to everything either, but there are questions, attempts, laughs, meetings, adventures.

As in life, Nina could never have imagined where this investigation go lead her!She decentrals and can embrace more experiences, sensations, reflections.

Myself, by working there, I would never have imagined what this book was going to wake up.

To see also on the HuffPost: in drawing or in 3D, the female sex is exposed more and more