Sex/Image/Awareness: A Conversation with Wenjie Xie '19
BY THAO WILLIAMS
Last week I discussed the empowerment of Burlesque with an anonymous interviewee. This week I’m discussing the same topics with Wenjie Xie, Vassar Class of 2019 and former Burlesque Member.
TW: If you’re comfortable sharing, what was your relationship with your body and image like in the past? Was there anything that contributed to or amplified how you felt?
WX: Honestly, my body image for the majority of my life has been extremely poor. As an Asian woman and dancer, I uncritically accepted the fact that both cultures surrounding those identities worship thinness and weight loss. My mom has been overweight the majority of her life and so conversations about dieting were commonplace growing up. My parents also had no qualms in outright criticizing certain body parts that they felt were too large to be aesthetically pleasing. Thus, from an early age, I became highly conscious of my apparent physical flaws and learned disordered eating habits. This was reinforced by my experiences at school and in dance. For instance, as the co-captain in my dance team, I was constantly compared to the captain who was the same height as me but was significantly thinner. Since her thinness--achieved by being significantly underweight--was viewed as normal, I believed that I was just overweight. Hearing snide comments about having “thunder thighs” and being “thick” and too heavy to lift also confirmed this belief. By the time I reached college, my distorted self-perceptions, constantly fluctuating weight, and other mental health issues cumulated in developing an eating disorder. At the peak of my weight loss, I was forcibly sent by Vassar to the ER due to concerns about high risk of heart failure common to those with anorexia. I finally realized how distorted my body image was when being significantly underweight still wasn’t “thin enough” for me.
TW: What drew you to joining burlesque? How or why did you join?
WX: To me, burlesque is sexy and liberating and exciting and celebrates all bodies for the way they are. I think I first joined burlesque because I wanted to be a part of the community and become a person who feels empowered and sexy and confident.
TW: Do you think burlesque has changed the way you perceive body image/beauty standards/sexuality for you or others?
WX: Burlesque has definitely helped a lot in my recovery process. Having frank conversations about body image and insecurities and generally being vulnerable to a group of supportive and body-positive people helped me gain perspective and feel safe within the community, which helped me gain enough courage to perform. Also, watching people with all different body types perform and look stunning whilst doing so helped me realize the double standard with which I was judging myself. Thinness did not equate beauty or confidence and had no bearing on how I saw other people’s performance and that helped prompt a lot of self-reflection. The most growth happened whenever I forced myself to perform when I was feeling super self-conscious and wanted to hide my body. Long story short, performing for burlesque helped dissolve a little of the body dysmorphia I felt and gain confidence in expressing my sexuality.
TW: What rituals do you have that feel empowering (burlesque related or not)?
WX: Honestly, stripping on-stage feels pretty empowering. Something about knowing that my body is nowhere near perfect but is still worthy of attention because I decided to stop hiding my body out of shame feels pretty great. Putting on makeup and costumes and being able to put on a different persona for a performance also feels liberating and helps me give myself permission to present different facets of myself and my sexuality. Outside of burlesque, divorcing myself from my scale and measuring tape has also been empowering.
TW: What would you say to someone thinking about joining burlesque?
WX: In my experience, the main reason I hear for people not joining burlesque despite wanting to is that they feel too self-conscious to perform and strip in front of people. To that, I want people to know that burlesque is so much more than just performance and taking off clothes. It is about community and body positivity and forming bonds with others and accepting your body along with other aspects of yourself. In fact, the bulk of burlesque constitutes of the conversations had and activities done during the 4 hours of GB a week. Performance is just one avenue through which people can express themselves and is very flexible. You can choose which pieces to perform in, how much skin you are comfortable showing, choose to help out backstage instead, or just not be a part of the performance. How involved in that aspect of burlesque is determined by the individual and boundaries are always respected.