Thanks for writing in! Perhaps when I get home I will submit a “23 years old, 6 fried plantains” belly.

One thing I didn’t mention in my post is that I by no means mean to take away from the experiences of women who DO consider their bodies in terms of their reproductive histories. As a woman with a very abbreviated reproductive history, perhaps I can’t share in the body-image dynamic. I do hope, however, that if I choose to expand my reproductive repertoire, it doesn’t come at the expense of the other ways I use my body.

A simple “35 years old, lawyer” might tell us as much about body-image expectations as a pregnancy history—I hope some women decide to contextualize themselves that way, too!

We would be delighted to publish a belly with the heading “Just ate a big sandwich” or “Bike to work daily” and nothing else. What information people want associated with their bellies is expanding, as you’ve noticed if you’ve looked through them all. Pushing that boundary sounds fabulous!

Our submissions seem to come in cohorts: Right now we’re in the middle of a bunch of 20-somethings with no pregnancies. For a long while we had only 30-somethings with multiple pregnancies. Feel free to take us out of both paradigms and into a place where people are defining their body by whatever rubric they find most appealing and relevant.

Choosing to be child-free is frankly a choice I wish more people felt comfortable making. And most women, even those who choose to become mothers, feel that same bothersomeness of fertility. With the exception of about three months I’ve spent a lot of time since I was 17 working to not become pregnant.

Sincerely,
Karen Rayne