Photo: Curvy Kate
I bet they're SO sorry now.
By Rebecca Jane Stokes — Written on Aug 21, 2016
When Selen Alfuran was growing up in London, her classmates treated her truly viciously.
She worried everyday about the teasing and the taunts, especially in the locker room on the days she had gym.
What was so different about Selen that made her such a target for teenage bullies? Her big boobs.
At 34 years old, Selen's boobs are a 32J, but I seriously doubt any of the kids she went to school with would mock her if they saw her today.
Selen is now a model for a high end lingerie company called Curvy Kate, proving that you don't have to be stick skinny to be a model, you just have to embrace your natural beauty.
It is crazy to me, looking at these photos of Selen, that people could be so cruel to her.
I go immediately into mom mode: "They must just all be jealous!" But while that's probably true, it doesn't erase the sting of all the hateful remarks she had to deal with everyday.
I know this because I was teased for having big boobs too.
"Are you a turtle?" One boy you asked me. When I explained that no, I was not a turtle, he would cackle, snap my bra strap and bellow "THEN WHY DO YOU SNAP?"
For Selen it wasn't just her big boobs that made fitting in difficult for her to do.
Born half-Turkish and half-African, Selen suffered a lot of racial persecution.
"I had a hard time coming to terms with my racial identity as a kid and a teenager. I knew what I was, I knew what my parents were, but I did not know how I could be who I was without constantly having to explain myself. I would tell people, from time to time, that I was just white, or that I was just black, but no one quite believed me. I just wanted to be 'normal' like most of my friends."
For Selen the cultural melting pot of London should have made her feel included and welcomed, but as is often the cause it had the opposite effect.
Selen isn't letting bitterness overtake her. Instead, she is using her newfound platform as a model to spread the word about self-acceptance no matter the what color of your skin or the size of your cup may be.
It might be that I'm PMS-ing but this just made me deeply, deeply teary in the best possible way.
