#ThighReading is the body-positive confidence boost we need this summer
A post shared by Ally Dumais 🐙 (@youreonlycurious) on Jul 28, 2015 at 10:02am PDT
#ThighReading is the body-positive hashtag taking social media by storm. The hashtag encourages women to share pictures of their bare thighs, complete with all of their wonderful and natural imperfections, on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
The hashtag is a play on palm reading as women are utilizing it to embrace the lines, stretch marks, and cellulite on their legs. Just like palm readings, these scars and markings tell stories of each woman strong enough to show them off. The hashtag celebrates thigh lines as beautiful indications of history.
The trend began when one Twitter user tweeted a photo of her stretch mark scars on July 20. She told Elite Daily:
"I was sitting on my couch (I lounge around naked a lot) looking at my thighs and feeling the grooves of my stretch marks, and the thought that they looked like lifelines, like a palm reading, just came to me."
After women began sending back pictures of their thigh readings, the hashtag took off and became a viral sensation.
As a result, social media now fosters a plethora of images displaying what women's thighs really look like. Gone are deceiving airbrushed modeling shots littering our social feeds. Instead, we're now exposed to the reality of our bodies and can therefore accept and appreciate them.
People are using the hashtag to expose self-harm scars, cancer markings, or simply areas of their bodies that they typically attempt to hide. People are done hiding parts of themselves that society deems unattractive. This hashtag is spreading the self-love and self-confidence one thigh reading at a time.
Watch this video to find out why today's thigh gap trend is actually dangerous:
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