I have always had a pooch; a little pocket of flesh just above my nethers. I have been a buck twenty five I have been well over two hundred pounds and the pooch just gets bigger or smaller, it never completely goes away. As a young kid in dance class, I would sit self-consciously with a protective arm around my little-kid belly. It hurts my heart now to think of it; that I was self-hating even then. My family gave me what they thought was a playful nickname, “ballerina belly.” How does family always know just where to stick the knife?

 When I was a teenager and I read all these fashion mags I definitely got the idea that there was something wrong with my pooch. I would stand in front of the mirror pincering the flesh in a grip of self-loathing. I willed the flesh to melt away. I desperately wanted those perfectly smooth bellies all the models and actresses seemed to have. I wanted washboard abs. So many diets were tried and sit-ups done in the name of achieving this un-achievable end. My body was simply not built to be flat-bellied. I have finally come to accept that and I’m ok with it most of the time. But, some days I still feel like that little girl with her arm around her belly trying to hide.

 So this picture in Glamour makes me wildly happy. Look at this woman. She is GORgeous. And happy. And confident. And there is that pooch in all its glory. I happen to think it actually makes her sexier. It makes her real. So many of the magazine images I was fed as a teenager were false idols; women photoshopped within an inch of their lives. They were never achievable because they were never real. Here is a real woman and her real pooch. God I love her. She’s actually making me question my sexuality because I just want to lick her. Yummm.

 Glamour has reportedly been “inundated with emails” in praise of this model. Here’s to hoping it will lead to more real women gracing the pages of magazines. We don’t need Photoshop to be beautiful, thanks.