Lena Dunham has written a short, defiant essay about body image and the importance of un-retouched imagery. The Girls creator posted the piece on her Instagram account yesterday, along with several un-photoshopped images from a recent Glamour cover shoot.

“Throughout my teens I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was fucking funny looking,” Dunham wrote in the caption. “Potbelly, rabbit teeth, knock knees – I could never seem to get it right and it haunted my every move. I posed as the sassy confident one, secretly horrified and hurt by careless comments and hostility.”

“Let's get something straight: I didn't hate what I looked like – I hated the culture that was telling me to hate it.”

The Not That Kind Of Girl author has long been an advocate for body positivity; broadcasting brutally honest portrayals of sex on Girls, appearing in body positive lingerie campaigns, and banning magazines from retouching her photographs. In the most recent February edition of Glamour, Dunham appears on the cover (alongside the other Girls cast members) with a trace of cellulite on her upper thigh.

“This body is on the cover of a magazine that millions of women will read, without photoshop, my thigh on full imperfect display,” she wrote. “Whether you agree with my politics, like my show or connect to what I do, it doesn't matter – my body isn't fair game. No ones is, no matter their size, colour, gender identity, and there's a place for us all in popular culture to be recognised as beautiful.”

Read the full message below, or check out the original Glamour shoot and interview here.