I thought it might be interesting to do a study of my own body – the parts I like, and the parts I don’t. I think what’s been most interesting about this is as I grew to accept this part of myself, I’ve also been able to come to terms with the parts of my body that I’ve liked the least. I suppose it’s useful to have an understanding of which are the parts of you that you don’t like so that you can work on them, or figure out how to make them better, or at the very least, hate them less.

Let’s start from the top, I suppose.

Fair warning, there are pics of me in only my underwear below.

Eyes



I like my eyes. I think I always have. My eyebrows used to be a mess, but I get them waxed/cleaned up every few months and vaguely maintain in-between which keeps them from looking too unkempt – I still need to fill them in a bit when I dress up though, because they’re a little sparse just above my nose. I have this bad habit of ripping my eyebrow hairs out when I’m bored, especially if I can get a good grip of some of the longer ones! I’ve ripped huge tracks through my eyebrows this way :S Getting them taken care of helps with this, as they trim them down the longer hairs, which are the easiest to grab!

Eyebrows were a game-changer for me. Once I got them under control, it was as if my whole look changed. Everything felt more clean and complete. For crossdressers, I think eyebrows are a big deal – they can make or break a look.

My eyelashes are pretty awesome. They’re long and fairly thick, and you can see them from a mile away. They respond well to eyelash-curlers.

Ears



I feel like I have big ears. Maybe they’re just normal-sized. I don’t really know. In my left ear I have three holes, and in my right, I have six – the three you see here, plus a few more in the cartilage. I think it looks pretty awesome. I suppose I didn’t really care about my ears up until I got them pierced around five years ago. Now I love them :) (That said, my cartilage piercings refuse to heal properly, and I’ve had them for at least 4 years now. I guess that’s the major thing I don’t like about them. That, and the random hairs that pop out every so often, but I’m constantly on the lookout for those, and will tweeze them out as soon as their tiny heads breach the surface of my skin).

Nose



Look at that massive honker. I have a giant nose. It’s wide, and is replete with two cavernous nostrils. It’s also hairy – inside and out! I have a nose trimmer which I’ll use to trim the inside, although sometimes I’ll feel a random hair poking out, and I’ll just rip it out with my fingers. (Ripping hair out of myself seems to be a theme. Your word of the day is Trichotillomania – I’m certain I don’t have it, but I’m definitely a casual puller). The outside is hairy too – I pluck the hair out with tweezers sometimes, and use those nose cleaning strips too, which rip out the hair and also any gunk collected in your pores. It’s SO gross, but so much fun.

Mouth



I feel like my lips are pretty dry and cracked. if I don’t stay on top of using lip balm, I feel like I just end up spending weeks and weeks of having dried, peeling lips. My wife always said they looked soft, like pillows. That’s nice, I guess :D I like my smirk. I get comments on my smirk. The smirk serves a purpose, however. It evolved over time due to my being embarrassed about my teeth which I don’t particularly like. The smirk was constructed in such a way as to allow me to smile without being a toothy mess. I don’t actually hate my teeth though – they’re a bit goofy, but not awful. I’m getting over it.

Neck



No real problems with my neck. It’s bigger than your average woman’s neck, but I guess I can’t be mad at that. It’s thick, and it has an adam’s apple, which isn’t the worst in the world. I think I like my neck, actually. I mean, the beard growth is annoying because I get pretty bad razor burn on it, which kind of means I can’t really dress up two days in a row. But eh, we all got problems.

Chest





Nothing really to say here – I’m not mad at it. The skin’s a bit funny, but it’s not overly muscular, and it’s not overly fatty. It just kind of is. My skin’s a bit funny, but my skin’s a bit funny all over – kind of mottled and bumpy, but it’s not something I’m upset about. When I dress up, I tend to always wear a necklace or something – it pulls the eye down a bit, and draws attention to it, and not the weirdo skin around it.

Shoulders / Arms





I think these have always worked out for me – kind of lean with some muscle. Someone I worked with (who saw me dressed) compared my arms, favourably, with those of Michelle Obama, which is about as flattering as it gets :D I got a tattoo of Ariel last year, after wanting one for at least a decade, and it turned out beautifully! Bumpy, mottled skin, but it’s never bothered me. I’m trying to get into a routine of doing free-weights a few times a month, just to keep stuff in shape.

Hands





– I think I have fat hands. Stubby fingers. Hairy knuckles. I used to bite the hair out of my knuckles, and kind of… graze it off the back of my palms with my teeth like a hungry cow. Pretty gross. Now I just shave all of it when it’s shaving time. My stubby fingers annoy me a lot. They’re probably not actually stubby, but when I look at them, I feel like they should be a centimetre or so longer. I can’t grow my nails out at all. The moment that there’s just a few millimetres of growth past the quick, I start being unable to type. And any longer than that, and even when I’m not doing anything with my hands, the tips of my fingers hurt until I cut them back. I don’t know if this is normal, but I’ve never heard of anyone else having this ridiculous issue.

Hips / Bum





No real hips to speak of, but my butt is one of my favourite features. It’s a bit hairy sometimes, and it’s got stretch-marks and some blemishes, but it’s round (from some angles) and looks good in underwear. And hopefully all the squats I’m doing will keep it in shape. I’d be pretty happy if my fat ended up here instead of my stomach, but I guess that’s just not how my body works!

Legs / Feet





My legs are my real money-makers. I’m genuinely in love with my legs, and it helps that I walk a lot, and run semi-regularly, which keeps them in shape. They’re long and generally shapely, and look good in tights/jeans/leggings, or just nothing at all.

I like my legs.

My feet though… I’ve gotten better about. I think up until a few years ago, the only thing I didn’t like about my legs was that there were feet at the end of them. For a large portion of my life I’ve tried to avoid them as much as possible. That said, since I started taking better care of them and getting pedicures fairly frequently, I’ve moved from active-disgust to acceptance, to even generally being kind of cool about the fact that they exist. Wearing open-toe shoes was something I never thought I’d be comfortable doing, but I’m getting there and not hating it. That’s kind of awesome.