Matt Joseph Diaz

This week, Matt shares what he wishes he learned in high school.

Of course, summertime also seems to come hand-in-hand with partial nudity. Wearing next to nothing out in public is just as important a part of summer as barbecues and trips to the beach. That is, unless you’re anything outside the socially acceptable body types. Then it suddenly becomes an opportunity for people to dole out their own specific kind of “fashion justice.”

Being unable to post photos of funny signs outside of bars or live-tweet bad reality TV had more of an effect than I'd anticipated.

“She just grabbed the bacon off my plate! She didn’t ask, she didn’t even say anything, she just assumed it was OK and took it!”
“It’s just bacon —”
“It’s NOT about the Bacon, Donald. It’s about the principle.”

I've long considered myself a collector of failed relationships. From the girlfriend I asked out during a bar crawl and dated for eight days to the conservative Christian who thought her love was “saving me from a life of debauchery,” I actually gained a little pride from my list of failed love affairs. However, while these relationships were problematic, what made them “failures?”

Sex is an activity. It’s something we can choose to do or not do — and the passion, the love, the intimacy, those are all different qualities we can ascribe to it based on how it happens and who it’s with. Sex doesn’t have any inherent morality or intimacy, it’s solely about those involved.

Though it's worth noting that my weight was beginning to become a health concern, I’d never considered my body a “problem” until I heard how doctors talked about it. In the same way a hurt child won’t start to cry until he sees the worry in his parent’s face, I never felt bad about my body until the first time I felt like I was being looked at with disgust. So whatever route you decide to take with the health of a child, make sure it’s treated as a growing opportunity and not a solution to a problem. Your children are not problems — they are the foundation upon which the adults of tomorrow will be built.

I feel equipped to talk about the intricacies of the body positivity movement; for with all its beauty and empowerment, there are aspects of body positivity that try to control how others view and treat their bodies. Though I understand the intention, behavior like this flies in the face of the ideals the movement is trying to create. Put simply: it's time we stop trying to police body positivity.

While every generation has its triumphs (Barack Obama, gay marriage, legalized marijuana) and missteps (Ed Hardy Shirts, Lost, making Gerard Butler famous,) millennials are actually a lot better than we get credit for. Need proof?

Wondering how you can be be ready for the beach? Wonder no more! Matt shares three steps to help you get your body positivity on!