Laura

Dear Body,

I no longer maintain the steady desire to be completely and utterly at war with you.

I mean, cause lets face it, its not like you're going anywhere just yet and I'm here and it looks like we're pretty much all we got indefinitely. No boy or girl I have ever met has managed to make me feel better about you. No amount of weight loss at whatever drastic cost has managed to make me see you differently. So baby, it must be me and not you and I'm sorry you're taking the brunt of this abusive relationship.

I'm not gonna lie. Lets shoot it straight. You're no model, never was. The only reason we ended up there was your pouty lips and Bettie Page hair and my momentary non-aversion to being totally naked totally all of the time. Lets face it, mother was fat. Father was fat. Both sets of grandparents are fat. My rail thin sister? Also getting fat. We're probably lucky we're only as fat as we are. Go us!

A few months back the first early morning “women-only” carriages started operating in Tokyo. Previously, the infamous Saikyo Line only had such coaches in use late at night, but with reported groping incidents roughly tripling from 778 cases in 1996, to 2,201 in 2004, the East Japan Railway Company decided such drastic action was necessary.

Reaction to the new service was generally positive. Tomoyo Okamto, a 27-year-old office worker, spoke for many women by saying, “I had been worried only because men are in the same carriages in the morning. I’m relieved now.”

And despite the extra crush in the regular (and presumably women-free) carriages, there was a similar sense of contentment. Middle-aged company employee Hitoshi Ishida was happy as, “it’s a good change because I no longer have to carry a bag and hang onto a strap to avoid being mistaken for a molester.”