– It was so embarrassing – VG

Sophie Elise Isachsen’s new book, “Things I Have Learned”, is primarily about one thing: shame. Shame related to sexuality, shame related to sexual orientation, shame related to popularity, fear of not fitting in.

But above all, it is about the shame of her own abdomen, the “cunt” as Sophie Elise herself calls it.

He was twelve when he looked in the mirror and fantasized about cutting his lips, he says in the book.

Many years later, after thinking about it for a while and after the debate that followed NRK’s ​​”Innafor” about abdominal surgery, he had a secret operation.

VG Reviewer for “Things I’ve Learned”: Sharp over shame and pussy

The operation and the shame

Sophie Elise meets VG on the occasion of the book launch. Here he talks openly about all the concerns associated with the launch of the new book, the one that feels closer and more intimate than anything else he has written.

– You write about abdominal surgery in the book, and it seems like something completely different than other surgeries you’ve had. What is it that makes this so different?

– It’s difficult to explain, but maybe because it was a shame for me. I wouldn’t even show it to a surgeon. I don’t know why the other things were so obvious to me. The only thing I had seen of intimate surgery was “Inside”, and that show became something big, people talked about feminism, people despised it and it became a great debate. Then I had a little kick.

After Sophie Elise had surgery on her abdomen, she didn’t feel much better. One night he was having dinner with some friends in his hometown, Harstad. After a heated debate about the abdomen, it was opened.

When she said that, she realized that it would have been worse to keep it to herself.

For the 25-year-old, this conversation became a turning point. Suddenly they talked about the shame and she was able to count all the worries related to her own abdomen. Something that now counts in his new book.

– But do you allow yourself to be openly dissatisfied with your own abdomen as the biggest influencer in Norway?

– Yes, I’m just a person, it must be law. I think there are many girls and boys who are ashamed of their own sexuality, and they should be allowed to talk about whether you are known or unknown.

– Was it more embarrassing to show that you have that shame?

– It went hand in hand. He conquered my whole body, and I couldn’t reflect so much on him. Thought I’d keep it very private, he says and adds:

– So, do you think it’s cool to sit here, or wherever, and talk about “my pussy, your my pussy”? But I honestly thought it was important and correct to write about it, and I vouch for the way I wrote it.

– The risk I have to take

– But in the other hand; You are so open about your complexes here, are you afraid to attribute them to complexes around your own abdomen, when they may not have “reason” to have it?

– I cannot understand that those who are not “right” can start looking for a reason. For me, those reasons have been incredibly obvious. So I think that’s the risk that I have to take, that maybe it gives others a complex, but what would have been the alternative then? Don’t you ever talk about it when there may be thousands of people who feel the same way?

On several occasions, Sophie Elise says that you are not necessarily happier with the surgery. She also writes that in the book.

– It is a typical thing that you say to recover, but frankly it was not like that for me. The intimate operation did not break the barrier that must be broken to be close, intimate and vulnerable. It did not.

– What do you think would have happened if you had gone, for example, to your mother, when you were 17 years old, and you said that you were not satisfied with your abdomen?

– It’s hard to imagine, because I could never do that. I couldn’t tell anyone. If it had been a mother, a psychologist or a doctor, I think everyone would have said, “Nonsense, you must not think about that.” It hadn’t helped at all.

– But what had helped?

– That someone had said that they understood, that they had asked, that they were curious about what I was not sure. Only to find a non-judgmental attitude. This is something that I feel is lacking in society. He remembers all the times someone has said that their shame or worries are “nonsense,” and then so long before they dare to open up again, he says.

– Just how I wanted to look

– He writes in the book that he has never said that having surgery will make him happier. But, have you thought that on Instagram, which is open to surgery, you seem happy? Can you symbolize that surgery makes you happy?

– I see what you mean. But the question is whether I should pretend that I have a more crazy life than I have, because I have had surgery. It will also be wrong. Yes, I’m fine, but it has nothing to do with the surgery. It’s just me, so whatever it is for others is up to them.

To write the book, the 25-year-old has had to examine herself in a way she hadn’t done before. She has asked herself the questions: “Am I a bad person? Am I the most dangerous role model in Norway? ». He has even asked his psychologist. But in the end, he has come to the conclusion that he is neither a bad person nor Norway’s most dangerous role model.

– You say that you have not felt anything different, that shame does not necessarily escape. Why do you do that then?

– Say it! There are probably many reasons. I thought that then everything would be fine, that then I would feel more sexually secure. But as I write in the book; If I had said I did it because it hurt, people would have thought it was okay. When you have a physical ailment, you do well, as long as it is not aesthetic. But for me it was both.

– Are you glad you did?

– Yes, but I don’t think about it much. I don’t think it would have been that different from or from. But what was the turning point for me was in Harstad, when we had this conversation, this group of friends, it changed everything.

– Have you been criticized for representing something that says that if you don’t like something, if you are ashamed of something, then you can fix it?

– People don’t know anything about it. There may be many things that I don’t like about myself and that I don’t fix. There may be things that I do not care about and that I operate. I have an aesthetic that I liked; Big tits, big ass, the “bimbo look.” And I have never been dissatisfied with my butt, I have never been particularly dissatisfied with my boobs. You might think he’s as idiotic as you want him to be, but it was just my kind of aesthetic, it was the way he wanted to see me.