Lena Dunham has taken to Instagram to talk about her relationship to the body positivity movement – namely, that she does not identify as being “body positive.”

For Endometriosis Awareness Month (March), Dunham posted a black-and-white photo of herself in a black bodysuit to Instagram, along with this message: “I’ve never called myself ‘body positive’ because my relationship with my curves and scars isn’t overtly political – it’s wildly personal. And it isn’t always positive. I take enormous comfort in the body positivity movement, but I think of myself as something more like ‘body tolerant.’”

On learning to tolerate her body, as opposed to loving it all the time, Dunham said: “With a chronic disease (or three), it’s impossible not to resent your body sometimes. But we are no longer in an on-and-off toxic romance. We are also not monogamous. I drift toward her and away from her, trying hard to remember that, no matter how I fight it, she is me. I am her. We only have each other, so we gotta stick together. And sometimes that means a little lace to remind her I care.”

Dunham has been suffering from endometriosis – a painful disorder in which endometrial tissue grows outside the uterus – for over ten years. It led her to undergo a hysterectomy (the surgical removal of the uterus), which she detailed in a 2018 essay for Vogue.

“I know that a hysterectomy isn’t the right choice for everyone,” she wrote, “that it’s not a guarantee that this pain will disappear, and that you are performing it due to your deeply held, essential and – to my mind – feminist belief that women should be able to make a choice about how they want to spend their childbearing years.”

Dunham has also spoken publicly about other health conditions she’s dealt with, such as Ehler-Danlos syndrome, which weakens connective tissues in the body.

Read her full Instagram message on endometriosis, body tolerance and body positivity below.

View this post on Instagram

Ya know when you’re home alone and you realize you’d be happier in a hot lil’ onesie than your ketchup & cat food stained pajamas? And it’s not about a boy or a photo shoot or a weight loss before-and-after, it’s just for the feeling of glee you get from dressing your one and only corporeal form in pleasing fabrics, the unique pleasure of admiring the twists and turns of the body that loves the heck out of you even when you don’t love it. I’ve never called myself “body positive” because my relationship with my curves and scars isn’t overtly political— it’s wildly personal. And it isn’t always positive. I take enormous comfort in the body positivity movement, but I think of myself as something more like “body tolerant.” With a chronic disease (or three), it’s impossible not to resent your body sometimes. But we are no longer in an on-and-off toxic romance. We are also not monogamous. I drift toward her and away from her, trying hard to remember that, no matter how I fight it, she is me. I am her. We only have each other, so we gotta stick together. And sometimes that means a little lace to remind her I care. To other people living with #endometriosis, I’ve learned more from you than I can even explain… #EndometriosisAwarenessMonth

A post shared by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on

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