The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

By: Sonya Renee Taylor • Review by Katherine Perry, LICSW

In The Body is Not an Apology, Sonya Renee Taylor discusses the body positivity movement, and its limitations. She moves beyond this framework and introduces the concept of radical self-love. It’s a simple concept, in theory. Everyone is born with the capacity for self-love, the ability to see themself as worthy of love and respect, without any regard for social norms. As Taylor points out, a toddler never says “ugh, I just hate my thighs.” Nevertheless, the idea of self-love really is radical to our adult selves. 

Taylor also introduces us to the concept of body terrorism - all of the many ways, big and small, that we unlearn that capacity for self-love. Society teaches us, almost from the time we are born, that there is a correct way to exist, and a correct body to have. Whether we don’t fit that standard because of our race, gender identity, sexual orientation, body shape or size, disability status, or any combination of those things, we learn from a very young age to apologize for simply existing in the body in which we were born. This conditioning makes the very idea of seeing ourselves as worthy of love seem impossible. 

Taylor lays out these concepts so clearly that they seem almost obvious, but when I first read The Body is Not an Apology, I was blown away. I was forty years old, and had done quite a lot of work to accept myself as a fat, queer person. I considered myself a strong anti-diet culture warrior, a feminist, and a queer liberationist, but some part of me still felt the need to apologize for existing in the “wrong” kind of body. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to reclaim their power as a marginalized person.