Paloma Faith discusses body confidence and sexual empowerment in her 40s, and her words are definitely ones to live by.
Midlife can be a difficult time, and one when women find themselves navigating intense hormonal and bodily changes brought about by menopause and perimenopause, while getting to grips with changing family dynamics as the needs of children and life change. Some women grapple with whether to dye their hair or embrace their natural grey, and others experience a clothing crisis and wonder if they should change up what they wear - an over 50 capsule wardrobe might be different to the ones from your younger years.
On the other hand, this time of life can be completely liberating, and you can actually just not care about any of it. Do whatever you want with your hair, wear the clothes you love, and love the midlife body that will never look the same as it did 20 years ago, but is still capable of incredible things. Paloma Faith is doing just this, and inspiring us with the level of body positivity she's found in her 40s.
Speaking on BBC Women's Hour, the singer described feeling much more sexually empowered at a time her body would be considered "not as good as it used to be." She's thrown all concern for this out the window though, with the most fantastic outlook. "My body is no longer as good as it used to be, I just no longer care," she explained, candidly.
Paloma continues, "Back in my 20s, all I could think about all the time was 'oh, I don't know about this lump and bump,' but I had an amazing body. The irony is, as soon as you've had your haemorrhoids, you've completely defecated all over the place during childbirth, you're suddenly like, 'I'm sexually empowered!'"
With inspiring confidence, Paloma simply added, "I am so desirable now." As women, and especially those who have given birth, we often wear the signs that our body carried a child so visibly, and are conditioned to believe we should dislike or try to alter these in some way. In middle age when other bodily changes compound these existing insecurities, how refreshing to embrace them like Paloma and see your body for how powerful and strong thing these attributes actually make it.
Like a lot of women, it took time for the singer to attain the level of confidence she has. Speaking after the birth of her child in 2016, she said, "I wrote the song My Body as a bit of a talking to myself as I think we can be quite hard on our bodies that it isn’t how it was and you want your partner to keep the lights off."
She later wrote on Instagram a sweet message for anyone having the same concerns about their body, saying, "So to all the women out there who are feeling insecure about their bodies because of the pressure we put on ourselves or that society puts on us, you are not alone and it’s ok not to feel ok. We are who we are." These are 100 per cent words to live by, and we salute Paloma for them.
