Tales Straight from Swan Lake

"That's not what I think of when I think of ___________"

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:54:31 GMT

"That's not what I think of when I think of _______ so it must not be _______" right?

I'm fat, don't shave regularly and don't typically wear a whole heck of a lot of make up. I swear a lot. I'm a lot of traditionally supposedly non-feminine things. So I must not be a woman, right?

Except, I do have the genitalia necessary to technically qualify me as a woman. And I do identify myself as female, sometimes even embracing a few of the stereotypes associated with femininity, such as adeptness in the kitchen and a fondness for wearing things with a hint of lace. It would be easy to describe me a number of different ways and get a different idea of me each time as a completely different person.

But it's all me. I'm the same person, just described differently. I'm a loudmouthed former sorority girl who misses her college days and doing all kinds of absurd things to make people laugh, I'm an athletic former volleyball team captain, I'm a shy homebody who often would rather stay inside reading a book or writing, I'm a cynic who actively enjoys swearing; I tend to arrogantly think I have a lot of attention and at the same time I doubt my ability to do even the simplest of things.

"But," you're probably thinking "shy girls aren't the type who join sororities!" or "quiet readers aren't the type to swear a lot" or "self-conscious people don't play sports".

Well, some do. And I happen to be one of those. Like so many other things in life, human beings are NOT one dimensional. Most are thought of as such because it's easier to compartmentalize people. It's easier to describe someone like me as a "stupid bitch" or a "shy, self conscious bookworm" etc.

Honestly, the compartmentalization, stereotyping doesn't bother me so much. Obviously I don't particularly ENJOY that someone might look down on my twisted sense of humor or assume I'm no fun because I can be quiet. However, though I believe progressive thought can be contagious and can eventually change general perception, in the moment, if someone perceives me in some one dimensional way there's not really anything I can do about it right away. What does bother me really is what people do with their perceptions.

For instance, treating me like I obviously couldn't possibly understand what someone's talking about, or that I'm obviously not cool enough to have seen x movie, etc, etc, etc.

Which in the grand scheme of things of course is not the worst thing that could happen, just terribly annoying and at times a little hurtful when people feel the need to be condescending.

And so basically, I feel the same way about perceptions toward relationships like mine and my boyfriend's.

I'll be the first to tell you our situation is NOT ideal. Neither one of us at all really LIKES the fact that we're long distance, or the fact that we're currently both too horrendously poor to even afford plane tickets to see each other. Or to even take the time off to take said trips to see each other. I haven't seen him since May. Before that it was January. It sucks. We don't know when it will change. Neither one of us can afford to just up and move somewhere without a job lined up so right now it's all up to job hunting. Which, in case nobody's noticed, the job market basically sucks lately, particularly for my field thanks to several states cutting budgets for public libraries. So believe me when I say it sucks and we absolutely hate the distance.

But we also do really genuinely love one another. We're there for each other, as much as we can be, we have fun together, he's one of the best friends I've ever made. We're good to each other and as much as I feel like a sixteen year old trying to explain to her friends what she sees in the bad boy, I think we're good FOR each other. He's the first man who's not a teacher or a relative who makes me feel like I'm actually WORTH something, like I'm worth believing in, like I can actually do something with my life but if I don't ever write that bestseller I've been dreaming about since I was nine it's really OK. I think I make him feel pretty similar. We're pretty open with each other about everything. I don't know that there's anyone else I'm more honest with. We trust each other.

It isn't perfect, to that I will agree, but there are way too many good things about our relationship for me to say "oh, well since we aren't in the same zip code we may as well scrap it all". And believe me, I know that it has the potential to end bitterly when one or both of us move to be closer to each other if the relationship doesn't work out. We are not so fucking blissfully delusional that we're blind to the fact that our relationship not working out is a possibility. We've both acknowledged that possibility from the start. But right now things are just too good to give up what we have now for what we can't predict might or might not happen in the future. There are just way to many positives and basically only one negative, the distance, which we do our best to work around and hope will end soon.

So I get really annoyed when people seem to think my relationship isn't "real". Which again, ultimately I don't really have the patience to bother with people's thoughts about this, and ultimately people's thoughts are their own to think. What bother's me is when people joke about LDR's saying things like, "if it's not in the same area code it's not cheating" blah blah blah, etc, etc, etc. Or when my mother thinks it's alright to just simply ignore my boyfriend's existence entirely and hint at trying to hook me up with guys saying "I want grandkids!". As if it weren't obnoxious and embarrassing enough that she did it to me all the time when I was single, but her insistence on doing when I do have a boyfriend and acting as if he doesn't exist just irks to the point of my wanting to reach over and throttle her.

I know, I know what you're probably thinking, "you should just talk to your mother" and if she were the kind who seemed to give a shit about other people's feelings aside from her own, I would. However, we've never had the sort of relationship where we could just "talk" and communicate effectively. Every time either one of us has ever tried we've misunderstood one another. Not to mention that the fact that she's about as sensitive to other's feelings as Simon is to American Idol contestants makes it frustrating enough to talk to her about anything when there ISN'T an emotional investment at stake. When there is one, it's damn near impossible. The fact that she has a nasty and twisted warped take on reality doesn't help matters either. I've been down the "talk" road before and I really don't want to walk it again. Ultimately I always wind up upset and getting advice I can't make sense of that when followed yields bad results and makes me feel stupid for the whole situation and even stupider for having ever listened to my mother's half brained advice delivered in hurtful, snide comments.

Mostly, I just don't want to fight about him with my mother. There's so much that's been good about him coming into my life that I don't want our relationship to be a source of bitterness with my family. I won't "just talk" about it to my mother because it won't make either me or her happy, it won't do any good, more likely than not we'd both be bound to say hurtful things to each other, and I'm not just going to give up on something that makes me this happy just because he's not the perfect doctor living down the street from me that she always wanted me to be with.

Because, ultimately, this makes me happy. That's what it all boils down to. Our relationship is warm and good and happy and whole. And I'm always amazed at how easy and laid back it is. Neither one of us feels we have to have anything to prove to each other or hide from each other. It is everything I ever wanted in a relationship, and quite frankly, with so much good going for us, I have a hard time even seeing the distance which admittedly blows, as that big a barrier.

It may not be perfect. It may not be what anyone thinks of right away when they think of a relationship, but it is. It may not be what anyone thinks of right away when they think of something that could make them happy, but it makes me happy. The distance doesn't make me happy, but the relationship does. The man does. The relationship with the man does. Like so many other things in life, relationships are not one dimensional. I feel pretty lucky to have found what I've found and I think it's pretty damned hard to find something that can make you this happy. And I am not willing to say that I should put a geographic limit on something this good.

Well, crap - part two

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:55:01 GMT

Well, crap. I spent so much time bitching last night about the crappy plus size selection at Macy's that I didn't get the chance to talk much about what was also bothering me about the whole operation.

My sister only weighs about 20 lbs more than me. She's about two to three inches shorter. What's odd is she can wear smaller jeans than me and I can wear smaller dresses. Explain that one sizing experts. Anyway, what that means is that I can shop in the misses wear and typically pull off anything from a "Large" to "Extra Large" and 12-16. Sometimes even Juniors sizes 15-17. What that means is that a lot more cute stuff generally is available to me rather than to her. This is 20 lbs that makes the difference from a "misses" to a "plus".

And it makes her feel like crap. It makes her hate her body and herself.

It isn't her fault that designers won't put nice things in her size. And it isn't her fault that she's single. And yet, to her the two are intertwined, centered around the supposed wrongness of her body.

I don't know how to tell her that her body isn't wrong. Every time I do I get variations of "yes it is" as a response or "then why am I still single?" I hate saying "no, you aren't fat" because I feel avoidance of the word "fat" is what makes it seem so much like a death sentence anyway. But I know that saying "yes, you are fat. So what? That doesn't mean you're unattractive or unlovable" would be no comfort to her. It would have the opposite intended impact.

How do you tell someone that their body is not the route of their problems these days? When everything from gum commercials to laundry detergent ads tells you that you aren't good enough and that thinner = better?

Honestly, I'm asking because I have no idea. I never really figured out how to be able to tell myself "yes, you're fat, but you're also beautiful" without having read considerable amounts of feminist and fat acceptance literature and even scientific researching to convince me first. I don't know how to point her to the literature without seeming unsupportive of her ambition to be thinner.

And besides that, I feel trying to push FA on someone "for their own good" is hardly better than fat-shaming people "for their own good". Do I believe she'd have a higher quality of life if she stopped hating herself? Yes. But she's free to believe what she will and do what she will, even if scientific research NOT paid for by the weight loss industry shows that dieting can actually be more detrimental to one's health than just being fat.

Mostly, it's triggering for me as well. When she goes on her self-hating diatrabes I can't help but recall when I used to feel that way and consider going back to it. I find myself more critical of my body when I'm around her. And I find it harder to be body-positive about both our bodies.

Typically, I say your body is your own to do whatever you will with it. But when it's someone I care about and know so well, it's hard watching them be so miserable with themselves as they try to diet down to some arbitrary standard of "beauty".

Well, crap

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:05:17 GMT

So my sister and I are going to a wedding. Saturday. Tomorrow technically I guess.

She went shopping for a dress today. Yesterday technically I guess. Thursday. She found a dress. A cute dress. It looks cute on her. We get it home. She tries it on again. At home she doesn't like it.

She says it's too long. Everything at the store was "too everything". "Too long" sleeves were "too short" or the fabric was "too weird". I don't blame her for being picky. Plus sizes are basically ghetto-ized. On a fracking other floor to be precise. Past the kids. As if to say "you know, it's only socially acceptable to be a plus size after you've popped out the obligatory one or two brats." Not to mention, the selection is total crap when it comes to department stores anyway. TOTAL CRAP. Sure, there were a few cute immitations of what was in the misses wear. But For the most part it was crap. Weird fabric, odd cuts and not much selection. Not even much stuff that was cute to be honest. Not to mention, a bunch of crap that clung weirdly because the fabric was total CRAP. Now, since coming to embrace FA I've also come to believe that an outfit must not necessarily make you look thinner in order to be good. However, let's face it, when fabric clings weirdly it's not comfortable to begin with. Not to mention it accentuates attributes that a lot of women in plus sizes have been brainwashed to think are less than er.. savory. Quite frankly, when you really look at it, there's not a goddamn thing wrong with rolls or off deposits of fat or whatever else. Not a damn thing wrong I say aside from what everyone has been told in magazines and news and commercials and etcetera. But when everything you've been told says "your dress MUST MAKE YOU LOOK THINNER!" throwing on a dress, no matter how beautiful, no matter how much it makes you look awesome, often for many, if it doesn't make you look thinner it doesn't make you feel confident.

For the record, I do think the dress makes her look thinner. And it's darn cute at that. And the fabric doesn't tug awkwardly, etc. But she doesn't feel confident in it. She doesn't feel great in it. And for fuck's sake, if you're going to spend 100$ plus on a dress, isn't it fair to expect to FEEL like 100$ or more in it?

So designers. Fucking cut the goddamn crap. Stop saying "well, shit doesn't look as good on fat people" because there's just a lot of crap fat people have to deal with. It's really more like picking the lesser of a few evils when it comes to plus size shopping in a department store. Stop saying "well it costs more because of more fabric" because that's bullshit. Stop saying "it's harder to design for fat people" because it is NOT the fat chick's fault that YOU'RE unimaginative. And for fuck's sake, stop fucking saying that "I'd hate to design for fat people because I'd feel like I'd be enabling a lifestyle". It isn't and you aren't and you should really just go fuck yourself with a spiky fingered glove. It isn't about "enabling" whatever lifestyle you imagine the fat girl to have. It's about giving people beautiful clothes to wear. Isn't THAT why you became a designer?

I don't get it. People talk about how fat people look so bad, but all that's available the fatter you are tends to be more and more bad-looking crap. Designers don't want to "enable" fat people but yet, fat people are supposedly fucking obligated to find something that makes them look thinner to spare everyone else's precious eyes. What are fat people supposed to do? Go fucking naked? Course, we know the uproar that would cause "OMGWTFHORSYBIRD! The FATZ ROLLZ!!!!11" Aside from that, there's nothing else for the fatty to do but stay home. Which, admit it you bigot, is what you want the fatty to do anyway.

And damn, this was supposed to be a rant about how I don't know how to tell my sister all this crap and how being fat does NOT necessarily make her a bad BAAAAAD person, nor does it account for her singleness. But, as I spent all my time ranting about the goddamn Macy's plus size selection, I'm too tired to rant about that.

You work hard so I don't have to

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:15:04 GMT

"So he wants us to work hard and get a good education so we can get a good job and earn a lot of money so he can take it all and give it to people who didn't work hard to get educated and get a good job???"

This is a quote I've really been sucking on for a while, at first I figured just because it was so enraging. The quote is courtesy of a friend and in reference to what a student had to say about Obama's education speech.

After thinking on it for a while though I realized it's not so much the fact that the quote is enraging, especially when it's a response to such an inspiring and well-intentioned speech, as it is that it seems to me it's the entire American Right Wing mantra.

"I have to work hard so taxes can eat my paycheck? I have to work hard so someone else can get my money? I worked hard, I deserve my Wii and my Hummer and my...."

You know what? Sure you do. Far be it for me to be the one to decide who deserves what. You deserve all your little heart desires. And if you believe hard work makes you more "deserving" then sure, maybe if you bust your ass all your life you deserve your Hummer/Wii/private jet/Nike Airs/whatever. Except, people don't always get what they deserve. People get what they get. I'm sure at one point in your life you've heard the phrase, "life isn't fair." And you know what? Even if it were, who decided hard work equated to deservingness? Maybe non-douches are more deserving or smarter people or funnier people or whatever else. Or maybe crap just happens. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things in people's own lives that they have control over. But any and all of those things you can control most of the time can be taken out of your control at just about what any time. Think you always have total control over your body? Talk to a rape victim or someone with cancer. Talk to any fatty who's dieted all their lives to no avail. Think you have total control over your finances? Talk to an identity theft victim or someone who just got laid off. Think you have total control over your life? Uh... boy have you got some living to do. Talk to a holocaust survivor or a terrorist attack survivor. Talk to a kid in foster care.

The idea that everyone has complete control over his or her own destiny and can make things as good for themselves as they want is great. It's so great a lot of people want to believe it. And many do, it's partly true. If you bust your ass and work hard, sometimes that's all it takes to get what you want. Other times a little bit of luck is required. The timing needs to be right or the situation or any number of x,y,z factors. The reality is, sometimes things work out great. Other times shit happens and the best you can do is cope. Unexpected job loss, accidents, attacks, what insurance companies like to call "acts of God" sometimes, any number of these things could happen to anyone right now. These things are happening to people right now. The truth is, everything can be great one second and go to shit the other. And if you think the playing field is even to begin with boy are you sadly misinformed.

I could lie and say that everyone who qualifies for some kind of government aid is just unlucky, but there are those who abuse the system, as with anything. But I think they're fewer than those who just get a stroke of bad luck, or maybe stroke after stroke after stroke of bad luck on top of a shitty start to begin with. And giving those people aid isn't about giving them a band-aid to cover shit up and telling them it's alright and that they don't have to work if they don't want to. If it were, there wouldn't be the restrictions and paperwork and x,y,z hoops people have to jump through to get it. It's about giving people who've had everything go to shit, a chance to rebuild. It's about giving someone who never had much of a chance to begin with the chance they never got. Because ultimately, if the unthinkable happens and YOUR life goes to shit, you, yes even you in all your hateful, selfish, unimaginative glory, deserve the chance to rebuild it, but you might not be able to do it on your own. That's where the aid comes in.

Those taxes you vote against to help those in need, they don't go to fatten up our politicians wallets, they uh, you know, go to people who need it. So when your life goes to crap and you don't get a lot of aid, just remember, you have only yourself to blame.

For Fuck's Sake

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:17:37 GMT

I've already said it about fifty times today when I've heard this bullshit today but I have to type it in all caps because I'd rather not disturb the neighbors who probably already think I'm nuts by shouting "FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/08/obama-schoolchildren-stay-school-responsibility/

I mean, really? Really? This bit really fucking gets me Florida Republican party chairman Jim Greer, who said last week he was "absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology,"

Oh yes, we're using taxpayer dollars to make all your precious angels good little socialists who're sure to raise their right arms in salute whenever the Furher enters the room - I mean, President.

Give me a friggin' break. Course, this asshole changed his tune after hearing the speech which had absolutely NO political slant WHAT SO EVER. Don't believe me? Read the friggin' thing http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/07/obama.school.speech.pdf . Everybody had to freak the fuck out before this shit happened and make it out to be some diabolical plan to end precious friggin' American Christianity or Great Grand Friggin' Wonderful American Capitalism, or some other such idiotic nonsense when all the FRACK IT WAS WAS A PRESIDENT TELLING OUR NATION'S YOUTH TO STOP BEING A BUNCH OF SLACKERS. Socialism I say! Gasp! Blasphemy! How DARE you tell an unmotivated child to get off his/her ass and do his/homework? How DARE you you Socialist Nazi Communist Godless America-Hater?

*headfuckingdesk*

It's not like he's the first president to address students in their school either. If he were I could sorta understand the uproar. Sorta. Quite frankly though, I don't really understand the logic of people's fear of politicians warping youngster's minds. I mean, most highschoolers can't even vote. Kids who are younger have plenty of years and other political figures to warp their perceptions before they hit voting age. And it's not like they take everything a grown adult tells them for face value anyway. Uh, hi, abstinence speakers anyone? Wait, that's right, they totally work and everyone's still a virgin after prom. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight... But wait, it totally makes sense he's brainwashing our kids because he's planning a coup and we need the brainwashed kids to take over the reich.

Am I laying the sarcasm on a little too thick? I friggin' hope so. Because this criticism just makes it WAY too easy to be snarky, which says to me, it's completely idiotic. Which, leads me to believe that a lot of people are just so intent on hating Obama that he could have Mother Theresa's track record and STILL be considered the spawn of friggin' Satan.

Either that or they're getting their news from sources that talk about Obama's new health plan sentencing all elderly, disabled or otherwise physically disadvantaged people to an untimely death http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/07/palin-obamas-death-panel_n_254399.html *headdeskx100*

And now for something completely different...

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:30:38 GMT

The Swan gives dating advice to those who don't need it most.

In light of the recent PA shooting and having read several articles debating whether Sodini's actions were hate crime or weren't and many that don't even bother even going that far, content to report the poor womens' deaths with cold detachment, and mostly, reading some of the really offensive shit out there that was either something Sodini read, said, or something only truly refined idiots could claim would have saved this man (note, they don't seem to care about saving the women) from his fate of suicide after murder, I've come to think it's high time I outlined my thoughts on women, dating, men, dating, rejection, the suckiness of life as a whole, and people's expectations.

Barely a year and a half ago, I was a younger, somewhat (in my opinion) less self-absorbed, non-racist, less violent (like much less), much less religious, less lonely, female version of this Sodini guy. Okay, so really we weren't terribly alike in a lot of ways, mostly just in one, loneliness. I was lonely. I didn't really like my job. I felt like a failure. Here I had a college degree and I was folding shirts for money. More than once I remember tearing up as I folded the shirts those nights working retail. I was only 22, and fresh out of college, but I was convinced my life was over. The fragile little glass bubble of confidence I'd managed to painstakingly create out of almost nothing in college had burst leaving only the broken shards that cut painfully into my insecurities. I hated myself and I hated the Bush administration almost as much, convinced that the administration was responsible for the lack of jobs and therefore my lack of a flashy office job that gave me excuse to wear flashy outfits and cute heals, and money to buy expensive drinks in overrated nightclubs with ridiculously high cover charges. I'd never been a big Sex and the City fan, but I was enamored of the Carrie Bradshaw life. I wanted it and I didn't have it. I missed my friends, most of whom were a state or two (or more) away.

Just as I blamed the Bush administration for my lack of what I deemed a decent job, so too, I blamed my older sister for my lack of a boyfriend. I blamed her for all the stupid advice she'd given me on men, I blamed her for my fear of them, my awkwardness around them, and mostly assumed I was how I was around men because of something that happened to me which has now been forgiven. Months later, when I had to move in with her because she was kind enough to let me borrow her car after wrecking mine, I became even more bitter and even more depressed with my life and hated myself even more, convinced I was a huge huge failure. Not to mention, I gained back some of the weight I'd lost from my frantic exercising days in college. Guys didn't hit on me (not that they had much before) and hardly looked at me anymore it seemed. I wasn't sure I could ever possibly get more pathetic.

Then, a few things happened. I quit my retail job. I picked up more hours at my library job. My grandpa died. And I read. I read Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl books and Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. Which, if you've read them, you know they are marginally different, being only common perhaps in that both follow the stories of young blonde girls, and fall under the same genre of young adult fiction (well, at least in the states. I'm told the aussies classify it as adult fiction, not sure what it's considered in Europe). I'll never claim that those books changed my life, but I will always, ALWAYS advocate them as must reads because I think they both contain invaluable lessons about life. One lesson, taught by Stargirl Caraway was to be yourself, be true to yourself and that the best way to be happiest is to uncompromisingly be yourself. The second lesson Stargirl taught me was this: being happy doesn't have to be so complicated and love can't be rushed, nor does happiness have to go hand in hand with romantic love. The lesson Lisle Memminger taught me was this: life is short, love now.

And, not for the first time in my life I'm sure, for there must have been a time in my life when as a little girl I was carefree and did so, but certainly for the first time in a long time, I emulated those lessons. I was myself. I was myself to be happy. I let go of past romantic interests. Not right away, mind you, and not without difficulty. I had to write a few letters never meant for sending and I had to cry a lot and play music that made me remember a certain time or conversation, but slowly, I was letting go. It was as though putting the pent up feelings of all my inward romances into words was as good as throwing leaves to the wind to be carried away and worn down into nothing and eventually something new by time and nature. Finally, my self worth did not rely solely on all my past failed attempts at love, nor did it rely on my current nonexistent love life. Sure, I still got depressed about being alone, but it became infanitly better to the crushing sense of defeat and desperate worthlessness I'd felt before.

As for retail and grandpa, well, retail taught me not to continue to do something that makes you unhappy, and grandpa taught me, ironically enough, as he himself wasn't a terribly patient man, that somethings are better solved with patience and gentleness rather than an angry attempt to hurry.

I applied to graduate schools. Online I made the best friend I'd made since starting college, who later turned into my boyfriend, and the biggest advocate for my self love. The advocacy grew into my own advocacy for my own self-love and gradually, my move towards accepting my body. It was not a fast process and by no means is it over, but I can tell you, there is no way my boyfriend and I would be doing as well as we are now if so many of the lessons I learned I hadn't learned first. Which is why I very much believe in the "love finds you when you're ready for it" ideology, an ideology, I admit is potentially dangerous.

The potentially dangerous part of this comes in when people mistake "being ready for love" for "being deserving of love" which is a nasty, horrible idea that the media looooooves to prey on because it makes lots of money. "Not popular with the guys ladeez? Obviously it's because you have teh fatz and no menz like womenz wif teh fatz! Try our product today! It's healtheee!" or "want to chat up that hot chick at the bar? Better make sure you have our supar machy-machismo-macho ice gum so she'll want to kiss your icy cool mouth!"

Being "deserving" of romantic love and being ready for romantic love are not the same thing and really, I think it's stupid to think of something like love as something to "deserve" because really great people find love and really shitty people find love. It isn't a degree you work toward, it's something that just happens when two people are mutually drawn to each other and ready to wear their hearts on their sleeves a little. Which takes a certain level of bravery and honesty people obtain at different times of their life.

Being "deserving" of love also creates a certain ideology of entitlement which is also somewhat dangerous. It's easy to fall into the "I deserve someone more than he/she does" mentality, get bitter and angry. I've been there too and I can tell you from experience, it doesn't make you happy and it most certainly is not the kind of mentality that prepares you for love. It sounds cheesy, but I read in a book once that if you have too much hate inside you, there's no room for love and I really think it's true. Hatred, even only self-hatred, is never attractive. Hell, it isn't even the kind of mentality that'll get you a date or even a telephone number. It certainly never did for me all those years I spent loathing myself.

Not to mention, I think this sense of entitlement is heightened in men, particularly white men, who are pretty much catered to by all of society pretty much since their birth. Combine this sense of entitlement with the idea that people must become "deserving" of love and you get a recipe for bitter resentment, and in some extreme cases violent murder, rape, abuse, assault, or a combination of all of the above.

Not getting laid guys? I'll have you know there are plenty of slutty teenage sluts out there getting laid right NOW by their boyfriends (how dare they sleep with someone they're in a relationship with, right?!). How DARE they deny YOU? Come on! You're not bad looking, your personality ain't bad, you don't live with your parents, you drive a decent car... YOU FRACKING DESERVE SEX! WHY ARE THESE SLUTS NOT GIVING IT TO YOU?!

Here's why: contrary to what the patriarchy has taught you, male success does not instantly give you the E-Z Pass on the sex turnpike. There are no E-Z passes because believe it or not, sex is a consensual thing. Two people have to be into it to make it sex, which is why no matter how much of a smooth talker you are you're always just going to have to wait your turn to give your change to the tollbooth operator (this is turning into a weird analogy, but it's kinda working I think). If you want something that'll last a little longer than sex, consider it an airline boarding. Yeah, some people get the first class tickets and get to board first. Some just get to board first because that's the way their ticket worked out. That's life, things sometimes take a while just friggin' because. Sometimes people can go on dates and not be attracted to each other at all. Heck, especially if two people are prone to shyness it's entirely possible for shy people to be sitting right next to a potentially compatible partner and not be intrigued by them at all simply because both are to shy to say anything at all! That's one of the many reasons I can imagine why many great people out there are single, it's because it involves more than just one person "getting their due" so to speak, it involves two people and their complex feelings toward each other. Guys, it isn't just about a man getting the playboy bunny trophy wife because he "deserves it", it's about mutual attraction (not necessarily entirely or at all physical, though it's more important to some couples than others), respect, personality compatibility, and a million other things. I don't pretend to be an expert on romantic love, but I think we can all agree it's complicated and that that is the reason why many people are without it, rather than that they're being screwed out of what they deserve or whatever. And when in despair, rather than thinking something is wrong with the person or group of people with whom you seek a romantic relationship, or thinking something automatically that something is wrong with you, think maybe instead (trust me, I know it's hard) that perhaps romantic love does not hold for you all the wonders our society promises it does. BUT, when that doesn't work and you're desperate for dating advice, here's the best I can come up with.

Have respect for your fellow human beings. That means, men, that women have just as much of a right to turn you down as you do them, in essence every right if you do not find them appealing or just don't feel like talking to them. Have respect for yourself. Don't assume if you're turned down that every single person out there thinks the same darn thing, or obviously must, otherwise you'd have a date by now, right? Wrong. Some men/women may be too shy to come up to you. Especially if you're shy this has to be an easy thing to understand. All the men/women you never approached? Men/women probably have the same amount of people they thought seemed interesting that they never pursued.

Broaden your scope a little. Don't outrule someone automatically just because they aren't your "type" because they look too nerdy or too meatheadish or too serious or too sloppy, or are, horror of horrors! Fat! Yes, I realize that this means possibly contemplating the possibility of loving a real person rather than an ideal, but you might be surprised. I'm certainly not saying you have to force yourself into a relationship with someone you aren't physically attracted to nor am I saying you should force yourself into a relationship with someone who can't engage your mind. But I AM saying it won't kill you to give people chances and in doing so, you just might find something special. Or at least find that in learning to be more accepting of others you learn to cut yourself a bit of slack and don't hate the world as much.

Try new things. Yes, this too sounds trite and annoying and chirpy and shitty I know, and like a bitter taunt to someone who lives somewhere rural (like I did) where new things seem hard to come by, but really, try new things. If you've never written, try writing. Who fucking cares if it's awful? No one has to read it aside from you. Read history books on time periods you're interested in. Research the history behind the story of a film you like. Start reading a new genre. Try a new sport or exercise. Volunteer. Try learning to play a new musical instrument or learning how to fix a car. And if your answer to this is a bitter "I don't have time, I have to work two craptastic jobs I hate just to get by" then consider rearranging things to maybe go back to school, find out what you really want to do, etc. None of these things may bring you romantic love but you'd be surprised how the actual act of DOING them is empowering and helps you to learn more about yourself and to love and respect yourself. Which, ultimately the relationship you have with yourself is the most important since you're stuck with yourself for at least a little while.

And by all means, don't resort to violence. Regardless of what you think you deserve, no one else deserves violence for something you think you're entitled to.

Life sucks

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:46:43 GMT

Basically. And I know of sucky lives mine is really pretty non-sucky. But I really feel like whining about the suck so I'm going to whine about it.

This last semester blew chunks. I hated it. Classes that weren't ridiculously hard were disorganized and all over the place. I still don't even know for sure if I got everything in right for all the assignments for one class where all the instructions were ridiculous.

Can I just say something to the professors of the world that will never read this? Course I fucking can, it's my blog. Fine then, here I am saying it:

GET YOUR FUCKING SHIT TOGETHER. No, seriously. I know the frazzled all-over the place professor who grades your assignments two semesters after you turned them in can be endearing, and in some cases the most intelligent, but for GODSAKES GET YOUR FUCKING SHIT TOGETHER. Please give clear, straightforward directions. I promise, it makes life easier for all parties involved. Students know what they have to do so they're happy and they don't have to bombard you with e-mails asking what it is you want so you're happy. I promise, it's just easier.

The worst part is, I spent all semester worrying over grades and everything and worrying over getting a loan I STILL have yet to acquire (so now I might not even graduate since I still owe the school 8000 dollars) that even though the semester's over and there's really nothing I can do anymore I'm STILL worrying because I'm just used to worrying. I know I should just relax, have fun, but I feel guilty doing it when my life still feels as though it's frayed at the ends and I don't have a decent job lined up. I still have my old one and I even got some more hours, but it's not enough, I won't have health insurance anymore, and I'm really just sick of being so co-dependent on everyone but I hate applying to jobs because I feel like a library school dunce and unqualified for EVERYTHING. I feel stupid applying to these jobs, laughably inexperienced.

Mostly, I'm kind of annoyed at my school. Once again, I feel like I've graduated from a school with a degree that's worthless and not trade oriented enough.

On how not to be an asshole

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:58:55 GMT

A few days ago I read a blog post that I don't really know what to make of to be honest. For full background reading you can follow this link http://robinabrahams.com/2009/06/etiquette-is-a-blunt-instrument/. On the one hand, it seems pretty rational.

"Just as we expect more than etiquette strictly demands from those whom we love, we should be willing to accept less than etiquette demands if there are no emotions at stake."

That's very true in a lot of ways. We know what buttons are pushed by what kinds of statements when it comes to those we know well and love, and consequently, people who don't know you well or are just meeting you for the first time likely aren't going to know what those special triggers of yours are. All very rational, and part of being an adult I think, is learning to accept that just because someone hurt you does not mean that it was necessarily their intent to hurt you. Often hurt feelings are the result of misunderstanding, miscommunication, or a combination of the two.

However, I have a problem with this statement: "And it’s absolutely vital to sanity to realize that when you step out of your circle of loved ones, you no longer have the right to that kind of customized treatment. People will say things that are hurtful to you, and if those things are within the common bounds of civility we’ve defined as a society, you cowboy up and answer them politely."

Again, true, to expect customized treatment outside your circle of loved ones is well, yeah, kind of silly. However, I think this kind of "you cowboy up" rationale is exactly what a lot of people who often are intentionally offensive, hurtful, rude, etc just for shock value, cheap laughs, or to make themselves feel better etc use when they've hurt someone when they don't want to apologize.

I dunno, I see a lot of that rationale being used for trolldom. I feel it's not far from "Oh come on, you're just letting your feewings get the better of you" or "you're just overly sensitive" or "it's not MY fault you took it the wrong way" which, let's not even get into that whole thing because I think it's an incredibly sticky mess of an issue to get into because quite frankly, I think a lot of times "oh you just don't get it, I didn't mean it that way" is rather like saying, "Oh, I didn't mean to be offensive toward you, I meant to be offensive toward all the people not partaking in this conversation who I'm otherizing" 'cause uh, that's totally NOT better.

This all goes back to a post I made a while back about trolls chalking up any kind of uproar over their statements to "teh ninnies' feewings" and about how I really just don't think it's that goddamn fucking hard to try to not hurt someone. Obviously at least every once in a while you're going to step on a sore spot for someone. That's part of being human. Heck, sometimes even with loved ones we forget crap and that's often how arguments start. But I am saying, loved one or no, if there's someone who you know is going to be upset by a statement you're thinking of making, maybe think twice about it. Try to reword it. Or if you're thinking of saying it because you're angry and you think you DO want to hurt them, don't. We all have our sore spots and we all know how much harder they hurt when someone presses them. Don't go picking fights like that. You can state your opinion, sure, but even when being the bluntest of bluntest people (me) there are ways to say even the most unwanted (which are often true) statements with civility. That also includes fucking being PC. I've said it before but I'm saying it again, 'cause damnit I don't think it can be said enough. If you think it takes too much work to try to be PC you strike me as lazy and most likely privileged. And yeah, you're probably an asshole. Choosing to remain ignorant on this sort of thing is like choosing to remain ignorant about learning how to fly and still expecting to be able to wing it (ha) and fly an aircraft, not only awesomely, but so awesome everyone thanks you for your awesome flying skillz. When instead, it's much more likely you might even learn how to get the thing in the air and keep it there a while, heck, maybe even land it ok enough to where you survive, but will probably likely hurt anyone you encounter in the process and will most likely hurt yourself. And yeah, that makes you an asshole.

So here's how not to be one. Don't say shit just to piss people off. The only one who can gauge when you're doing this is you, so show some fucking integrity to yourself and refrain from this kind of behavior. Obviously, sometimes there may be things you want to say, or feel strongly need to be said even though it might piss people off. You're welcome to say them, but try to keep them decently said. After all, no one's going to listen to you if you come off as an asshole anyway. You're going to hurt feelings. You are. And even if you didn't mean to, it is going to be your fault. Got that? It is going to be YOUR FAULT. No more victim blaming, no more "but they're the ninny" none of this bullshit "it's THEIR fault they wanted to take it that way" because they didn't WANT to take it that way, they just fucking did and you set them off. It's your fault. We know you didn't mean it. Heck, even if you did, we're not saying you're a bad person. Got that? Even if you pull an asshole move you're NOT a bad person. And no one's calling you one. If they call you anything, it'll be asshole, dick, or douche, because, for at least a moment, you were one. So acknowledge it. Acknowledge you hurt the feelings. Cause nothing hurts already hurt feelings more than trying to invalidate them. It sucks and it's a shitty thing to do to someone. Acknowledge you hurt their feelings. And this might be hard too, but you need to do it.

Apologize. Just fucking apologize. Two words. That's it. I'M SORRY. That's all you have to do. Two painless words. Don't include qualifiers. Don't say, "I'm sorry you can't take a joke" or even the slightly more fauxgressive but no less shitty "I'm sorry you got upset/took it the wrong way" or even "I'm sorry you're upset". Even if that's all you may be sorry for, don't fucking say it. It's a shitty thing to do. Half-plogies are not acceptable. Just say you're sorry. If you feel you must, maybe try to explain how you meant it to come out, but be careful with this too. Because this is often where a lot of victim blaming comes in too. Be sure not to paint it as though it's that person's fault they're upset, even if you think it is. If you don't think you can do this, just apologize and move on. It's not worth making both of you more upset just so you can selfishly try to validate your intentions.

This sounds hard right? Just remember how goddamn fucking much I swear hear and think of how much I have to NOT swear around screaming kids at the library all day (screaming kids who a lot of parents don't tend to parent, mind you). And somehow, I manage eight hours without exploding. I'm not saying I'm a saint for this. But I am saying I think a lot of the time we exaggerate how difficult it is to refrain from saying something offensive just for the sake of being offensive. When the reality is, no, it's really just NOT that fracking hard. See how easy it was to substitute "fracking" for the swear?

Enjoymentless feminists

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:34:21 GMT

Watching "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" last night I was struck by how hard it is for me to fully enjoy the movie anymore. For a very long time I always knew a common recurring theme of C.S. Lewis's was that of a witch pretty much mucking everything up for everyone and for almost as long a time I've suspected the significance of that to be Jack's (he called himself Jack, you probably would too if your parents called you "Clive Staples")rather sexist sentiments. But ultimately I've tried to look past that sort of thing and enjoy the Narnia movies and enjoy re-reading the books I loved reading as a kid.

It hasn't really been easy. Much as I felt the movies were brilliantly done (one of the few really really well done Disney things in like... ever, IMHO) and much as it would obviously be untrue to the books were Disney to switch things around I can't help but get a little bit of a chill every time I watch the part just after Aslan and the Witch have met and she says, "How do I know you'll keep your promise?" and he growls at her, scaring her so much she half falls back into the throne she was carried in by servants.

Sure, you could look at the surface and say it's the classic fantasy tale of good versus evil. But I have a hard time accepting just that because of the two witches in Lewis's stories and the banning of Susan from Narnia at the end of his series basically, because she becomes a woman. The others call her a "silly girl" and say she "became too preoccupied with silly things" which anyone with half a brain could take to mean "lipstick and boys". In fact, one of the siblings may have actually said so, I can't recall right now though because well, I don't take my giant paving stone of a book of all the chronicles of Narnia with color drawings everywhere I go, you know?

I have a hard time accepting that it's just good vs. evil when Aslan vs. Jadis (White Witch) is also very male vs. female. That scene of intimidating the witch is very symbolic to me of "putting women in their place". Aslan's line "do not cite the deep magic to me, witch. I was there when it was written" sounds a lot like "don't tell me the way things are, woman. Shut up and let the men tell you about the world". Though I know that a large part of the intent of Lewis's writing was for it to sound a lot like a fight between God and Satan, I don't think it's an accident that a woman got the part of Satan.

This also, certainly isn't a question of whether or not the witch's character is evil. I think too often too many people fall into the trap of evaluating literature wrongly when it comes to this sort of thing and say something to the effect of "she wasn't evil, she was misunderstood". True enough, I don't doubt that can happen. And it's also true that in any story the events are going to be swayed to paint the victor as the "good" side. Heck, by saying that I'm certainly not even saying that I don't like the occasional "other side" tale, the sort of post-colonialist take on a fairy tale or fantasy story. But I AM saying that if you want to keep things in context the character ain't so great of a person. I suppose evil is the wrong word, call me naive, but I typically don't like to use such black and white terminology as good and evil. So I guess cunning and malicious are better words to describe the witch. Anyway, what I'm getting at is this, she's the antagonist. There's no arguing that unless you take the story out of context. However, why is she the antagonist? Why is a woman who just wants a bit of power for a change the antagonist? Why is it that at once both her ability (er... capacity maybe?) to be beautiful and her ability to fight like a man are to be condemned? Why is it because she wants the kind of power Aslan has, is she considered evil? And why is it that she's described as "not even human, though she claims she is"?

I'll tell you why. Because aside from the religious message Jack Lewis was trying to send, whether consciously or subconsciously a very anti-feminist message was leaking in too. And the message was this: Women don't belong in power. The only power women deserve is that given to them by men (ie, Susan and Lucy's queenship). That power can be taken away (Aslan's refusal to allow Susan back into Narnia after basically becoming what society told her to become). Women are to be feared for their femininity. Women with too little femininity are to be feared. Women aren't human, even if they claim they are. Not to mention that on top of that you get a pretty heaping dollop of western attitude toward nature, cause I mean, humans just HAVE to be the kings and queens of nature, er, right? ASLAN SAID SO! The biggest most powerfulest man said so!

I suppose this is what people mean when they say feminists can't just enjoy anything. In a way I suppose it's true. There's a lot of crap out there that's hard to enjoy once you start looking at it critically. But does that mean we should stop? I don't think so. I think the cop out of calling feminists humorless or anti-fun is only yet another silencing. When people say "feminists can't enjoy anything" what they really mean is "cut it out, you're making it harder for me to write, advertise, heck, even crack a joke". What they really mean is "you're thinking more critically than me and I don't like it". And when they say, "don't you want to have a laugh?" what they really mean is "isn't your tiny brain going to explode from overenlightenment?"

Don't be fooled. Like Jadis with the silver apple, the temptation to comply is great. But isn't it worth being slightly less lighthearted to be more enlightened?

Uglies, fatties and brain surgery, oh my!

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:09:15 GMT

If anyone hasn't yet read Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series I very much recommend it. It's a young adult series and not particularly difficult or advanced reading but it is a poignant series about coming of age and accepting your own body.

Now Westerfeld doesn't really delve deep into the anti-fat realm of learning to like your body (and respecting the fact that your body is yours to do what you will with) which is not terribly surprising given that a) it's entirely possible it could make the book less popular b) the book already had a pretty good balance of accepting your own "ugliness" and actions or c) like so many people who've been relatively thin all their lives, didn't see it as a large struggle to tackle. Which is fine really, as a (aspiring) writer I recognize and respect the fact that everyone is perfectly entitled to write about whatever they damn well please. I just don't have to necessarily agree with every word they pen (like "Of Mice and Men", way to be totally original Steinbeck and make the only female character some evil seductress only out to cause trouble). Quite frankly, I'm happy for a body positive book at all in the young adult genre and I feel that Westerfeld is hitting on something really relevant in his series.

If you haven't read it, the Uglies series takes place in the not so far off future, a land where everyone is at the age of 16 taken under the knife to become "pretties". Everyone accepts the brainwashing that making everyone pretty is why they have such a peaceful society, that making everyone the same mold of an arbitrary standard of "beautiful" makes everyone equal and that even if it didn't the logic is "the government is paying for you to become perfect, who doesn't want to become perfect if given the chance?" Except there's something else that happens in the surgery. Something besides grinding bones down to delicate perfection and sucking all excess fat out of places where it's unwanted (read, basically everywhere). A part of the surgery no one knows about that happens in the brain. Lesions are inserted to make the newly made "pretties" more easily controlled, less capable of taking care of themselves and "bubbleheaded" as some of the characters call it.

It's a pretty (har) striking parallel to our current society, is it not? Ultimately, many don't care how smart, caring, strong or capable someone is, it's all about looks, especially when it comes to a certain gender (though the other certainly isn't exempt). The recent debate over a WOMAN candidate for supreme court justice's weight demonstrates that, it was written well at The Huffington Post "To some men, the only thing worse than a woman in power is a woman in power who they don't want to sleep with."

Somehow, even without mandating plastic surgery at age sixteen for everyone, our society has come to expect, even demand "beauty" out of everyone (especially every woman) and the general consensus is that if you aren't pretty, or if one thing about you isn't pretty you just aren't TRYING hard enough. So much of our society focuses on weight because thanks to the multi-billion dollar "weight loss" (read, scam) industry paying off doctors and pharmaceutical companies to stress that thin=healthy, focusing on someone's weight is an easy way to be a bigot and hate someone because you aren't attracted to them without looking like a bigot to many faux-gressives. It's an easy way to be a hateful, condescending asshole just because of looks because, well gosh, it's for the health of fatties everywhere, it's not bigoted at all (sarcasm).

Even in ways not focused on weight (which is, supposedly, the easiest changeable physical trait) we come to demand the cultural construct of beauty on everyone. Got scars like mine? Well you despicable ugly, go get some fucking miderma and spare me the pain of looking at your misshapen skin. Can't change it with miderma? "STAY INSIDE YOU UGLY, AND NEVER COME OUT AND SPARE MY DELICATE EYES! HOW CAN YOU DARE TO LIVE UNDER SUCH HORRIBLE SKIN?!!" So many not only see this as acceptable, but a necessary duty of those lucky enough to be born with all the physical traits akin to "beauty" or traits close enough to "pass" if you, you know, blink and sort of shake your head a lot (also sarcasm).

And now, not only are people going under the knife to have already dangerous proceedures like plastic surgery or weight loss surgery (like bariatric) which basically mutilate perfectly healthy organs, people are starting to have BRAIN surgery as weight loss surgery. http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=174333345&blogId=492628019

Yep, you read that right. People are basically shocking their perfectly healthy brains just to lose 11 lbs.

Not only is it completely ludicrous that anyone fat must take any necessary action to become thin but the idea that the situation is desperate enough to have BRAIN SURGERY (something that still ain't all that great when it's necessary to begin with) is mind (ha) boggling. Aside from the fact that this is not a well researched procedure that probably won't work well anyway (like lots of other weight loss procedures) what kind of result will this have on the brain? You know, that thing that controls all your functioning?

Not to mention, this seems to me that if it works AND has damage on the brain we all might get to live the plot of Westerfeld's novels because there are plenty of doctors (and people) out there who really just want stupid, stupid fatties to shut up and fucking be compliant already.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but this is fucking scary.

Taking a break

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:30:26 GMT

From ranting about societal issues to rant about my day. Mr. Nice Christian Guy, you're just going to have to wait a little longer. You're such a pussy*, I'm sure that's no problem for you anyway.

The crap that pissed me of happened hours ago and I admit to still seething somewhat over it. I suppose it really all started last month when, to my horror, just before my boyfriend was to come up I was basically broke. I asked my sister if I could borrow some money, just a hundred dollars maybe so I could fill up my gas tank (I don't live particularly close to the airport you see) and so I could actually have some food here for my boyfriend and I to eat.

As it turned out, that was the wrong thing to do. Not only did she forget to deposit the money (which would have been fine had I not gone and you know, USED my debit card) but then when we found out about that (again, ok, not so great, but people make mistakes and one overdraft charge, no biggie) my sister decided to write a check from my parents. They were already going to write me a check for my rent anyway and so my sister just advised them to add on another hundred to the total to cover the charge and so I could have a bit of gas money. Which would have been great had the check not bounced. Which still would not have been so terribly tragic had all this bullshit not gone down while my boyfriend was here.

My parents pay my rent. They do. I'm lucky. And I'm grateful that they can give me the opportunity to get out of grad school without drowning in ocean upon ocean of loan money. My boyfriend knows this. Many people who know me know this. Still, it's not something I like to draw attention to mostly because though logically I know I shouldn't be, I'm still somewhat ashamed. So you can imagine how embarrassed I was to admit that not only am I completely dependent, I'm also flat broke, not the greatest at managing money (though by no means am I the worst) and am spawn of parents who continually overdraw their account because neither one of them bothers to a) balance their checkbook, b) actually write shit down or c) TELL each other that they're paying or buying things. I really do love them and I'm grateful for all they've done and continue to do for me. However, I still can't help being ashamed of their financial woes sometimes. I'm not proud of it really, and I don't think for a second it's because they warrant my thinking of them as "monetarily moronic", rather, our society has a really invasive and perverse ideology that if you're poor it's your own darn fault. That you're either lazy, stupid or a combination of both.

Which ties into, I'm sure, all the shame I felt when I had to be rejected by my own bank to cash my paycheck because of my overdraft charges and the shame I felt today when I went to a bank I don't even have an account at anymore just because it's closer to me and got told I owed them over $3000 and was glared at, treated poorly, talked to like I was a naughty three year old, and basically just humiliated for a mistake made by the bank, not by me. The reason I don't bank with them anymore (the bank is National City if you care to know) is because last year I was stolen from. I was a victim of identity theft. I closed the account last year and was reimbursed over $1500 just this past January and March. So this bullshit they came up with I found out later after my sister called them (because I was too hysterical) was from last year, already sorted out, and not at ALL something they needed to make me experience was something I got to be treated like shit over. Can just I say that even if I DID owe the bank this money (which I didn't) I deserve to be treated poorly?

We've all been there with that "trashy problem customer" with that certain "history" (well, all of us who've worked in a customer service environment) and I'm guilty of being less considerate to customers I assume to be worse customers. It's something I've been trying to be conscious about fixing because the more I feel that humans deserve to be treated with courtesy regardless of others' perceptions about them the more I try to look at every situation and question my own assumptions.

And the conclusions I've drawn are this:

1. That customer is a human being
2. That customer has feelings
3. That customer deserves to be treated as kindly as your best
4. That customer isn't stupid (regardless of what you might think) and can tell when you're being an asshole
5. see 2
6. That customer knows his/her situation a lot fucking better half the time than you do
7. That customer is probably just having a really hard time and regardless of their history could very well just be getting screwed by the system. We all know computers and workers at institutions fuck up. Accept that possibility and investigate it
8. That customer deserves to be treated well even if all your worst suspicions are true. It's not in your job description to be a condescending asshole or pass judgment and you'd do well to remember that
9. That customer doesn't need shit from his/her fellow customers. If you're standing in line behind that customer be patient. It's hard, I know, but keep from glaring or muttering under your breath. Your opinion isn't needed and you're not helping. It's not in your life description to shame someone into what you deem acceptable financial stability.

I know this probably sounds like too much. It probably sounds like pansy ass, hippie pinko bullshit that encourages poor people to be lazy and stupid. But it doesn't matter. What matters is you shut up and be a decent human being to your fellow human beings. Because with times this shitty and banks this determined to not cash any check that comes their way that person who's just having a really fucking bad day could be you next.

*Using this word in jest, I don't really appreciate the fact that one of the worst insults for a male is a slang word for female genitalia, however, I felt it worked best for the sort of irony I was trying to achieve.

"It's just an excuse for being fat!" and "No More Mr. Nice Christian Guy"

Thu, 28 May 2009 02:59:28 GMT

This is something I've heard more and more recently as I've come in to poking around the Fat-o-Sphere and I can tell you now it's something almost laughable to me (almost. Sometimes it's still hurtful, even though it's not true) but not so long ago I would have either said it myself or nodded along looking down guiltily at my spare tire. Everything from showing outrage at United Airline's new policy of basically making fatties fly standby at double the price or just imploring clothing manufacturers to make NICE QUALITY clothes for larger people at a DECENT price get's met with this whole idea of "enabling" or "encouraging" fatties. As if giving people nice clothing (which, let's face it is something almost everyone wants unless they're a nudist) "encourages" the fatty's "poor lifestyle" and allowing a fatty to take their scheduled flight for the price they originally paid for it "enables" them in their lifestyle. Heaven forbid we ENCOURAGE people to take care of themselves and learn that they can find a hawt dress whatever the size. Heaven forbid we ENABLE human beings to have basic right of getting the product they paid for (a flight). So often in Fat Acceptance conversations the fact that people deserve basic human rights no matter what tends to get lost in a lot of "many people are just naturally fat/chubby" which is great to continue to repeat cause it's ya know, TRUE (and the sooner we all fucking accept it the better), but the fact that even if it were a fatty's fault it doesn't give anyone the right to publicly ridicule them via blatant "ewwww! Fatty fat cow!" catcalls, refusal to make any kind of nice clothing for them, denying them the right to have the transportation they paid for, or go on tv and basically call everyone fat a combination of stupid, lazy, unattractive, unlovable, gluttonous and again STUPID.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's the sort of thing people mean to skip. I think often in arguments with fat haters it's hard to remember to include that when so much of the fat-hating argument depends on society's acceptance of the idea that if someone is a certain way of their own accord it gives everyone else full right to treat them like crap for it. It's easy to get caught up in saying "but dude there is so much fucking SCIENCE out there proving that diets DON'T work" and "people's bodies have natural set points! It's not someone's fault if theirs is higher!" and forget to say "but ya know, even if everything you said were true and everyone over a size 8 truly was eating themselves into a lifetime of health problems it wouldn't give you the right to treat them with less respect." It's easy to not want to include it, lemme tell ya, with trolls I'm still somewhat afraid of mentioning it because I'm afraid people will seize on it and "go AHA! So you ADMIT to being a lazy, stupid, gluttonous slob!" But it's an important thing to remember because when all the science in the world won't convince someone and you have to resign yourself to the fact that they aren't ready to understand or don't want to understand (and possibly never will) it's good to remember that human beings no matter what deserve basic human rights.

The past administration's use of starvation as a torture tactic (limiting detainees to 1000 calories per day) has turned the idea of Fat Acceptance into a human rights issue for me in a way no other bit of assholery quite could. You know, tons of people everyday hurt themselves thanks to this activity or that but you don't see doctors, insurance agents, strangers on TV and strangers in public glaring at them and considering it their public duty to lecture them on how it was their "poor lifestyle choice" that got them their broken leg or fractured wrist. No doubt it's a damn dangerous world out there but you don't see people getting lectured for "being selfish" and daring to set foot outdoors in order to, you know, fucking LIVE their lives (kinda like how most people need to eat to survive). But many still assume, even many of those who claim to be tolerant, that it's ok to treat a fatty like shit because well "it's their FAULT they're fat".

So clearly one needs an excuse for being fat but no one needs an excuse to be a prejudiced, condescending asshole.

ETA: So it appears Mr. Nice Christian Guy has to wait till another time.

"But it'll only change your face. It won't change the person the face made you" - house

Wed, 27 May 2009 03:28:40 GMT

I don't think I've talked much about it before mostly because my interests in feminism and body acceptance have really only been expanded upon recently. For a long time it was never something I wanted to admit to even though it seems so obvious. I guess it goes along with accepting that I will likely always be in the "overweight" BMI category and that I will likely never be the sort of woman appearing on magazine covers who young girls look at and wish they could have my body. It goes along with accepting that I am and likely always will be (yes, just say it) sort of fat. I'm not saying that to be down on myself. I'm saying it because it's the truth. I'm chubby and almost always have been. It's apparent my body LIKES being this way even if I'm not so sure yet if I do. Even if I went back and changed that one point in my life, that one point for so long I've pinned on my chubbiness that in actuality in light of a lot of research I've done lately probably is only responsible for about 10% of my weight, if that. Which, just so you know, if I lost 10% of my weight I'd still be in the "overweight" category.

This concept of going back and changing is very much tied up in my fantasy of being thin. When I was about seven or eight I read a book called Bunnacula by James Howe about a bunny adopted by a family who turns out to be a vampire bunny (he sucked the juice out of vegetables). I remember reading a scene about a boy who liked to read and often spend weekend nights up late reading and munching on snacks to keep him awake. I remember thinking "hey, I like to do that!" and took that as my cue to do the same. For a long time I remember thinking how it was so so much food I would binge eat but looking back now through non-judgemental eyes I realize it wasn't nearly as much as I thought it was. Something people would look at a young boy my age eating the same and think "he doesn't eat much, does he?"

I don't know how to explain my feelings about this eating. I don't know how to explain what I've learned from body acceptance and science in light of the public dogma of eating and/or fat = bad. And I don't know how to shake the shame I'm ashamed to say I feel in admitting it. All I know is for a long time it was something I wished I could go back and change, I was convinced I would be so much thinner if I hadn't read that book and hadn't spent weekends where I had nothing else planned (which were rare come to think of it since I was such an athletic and spoiled kid going to this practice or that lesson or competition all the time) happily reading and munching on a random snack like cinnamon toast or drinking hot chocolate.

The evil twin to this thinking and also very tied up in my fantasy of being thin was the thought that I shouldn't go back and change this event (which probably wouldn't have made me much if any thinner really) because being chubby almost all my life was a deeply ingrained essential part of myself. The snobbier side of me wants to think it made me deeper, more sensitive. But I know this isn't really true and is in itself a form of size discrimination. Though being chubby and living with a terribly fat-phobic, fat-hating mother (and father) has probably helped me to understand the ways in which fatter people are treated more like lower class citizens the fatter they are (especially fat women) which has intertwined well with my sensitive side, my recent acceptance of the fantasy of being thin as nothing more than a well, fantasy has brought me to the realization that perhaps, just perhaps I might be prone to being just a little bit sensitive and the deep, thoughtful character I identify as.

This goes against a lot of what I believe in because for the most part I do very much believe that circumstances, culture and family structures one encounters do have a huge impact on the kind of person someone becomes. Don't believe me? Ask someone raised in a monotheist religion if they seriously think it's plausible there are multiple gods. The likelihood of them saying "no" is very high. Similarly, someone raised in a polytheist religion is likely to think the idea of one god is silly. I know every experience I've had is part of what makes me who I am, and that includes the experience of always being one of the heaviest girls on my sports teams, the experience of perpetually being awkward and afraid that my fat wouldn't be "acceptable" (i.e. acceptably covered), the experience of hating what I see in the mirror and the experience of enduring the constant snide remarks from my mother when shopping for clothing has had a huge impact on who I have become.

Which is why being thin won't change who I am. And it can never erase who I was. But not being thin in a culture that abhors fat as the end all, be all worst thing there is to be has had an impact. Does that make sense?

My fat, particularly my belly always prone to be large and beer belly-ish has always been the one part of me I wish I could fix (well, aside for my shitty self esteem and my volatile temper) and the part of my I always thought was keeping me from being pretty and feminine. But I guess all my rambling is to say that there have been times when I've whittled it down somewhat (for it to only return months later despite my still sticking to whatever diet) I've still seen it as this huge, loathsome thing worthy of detesting, worthy of hoping I could rip apart. There have been times when I've come closer to somewhat representing the cultural standard of beauty and thinness and I STILL felt terrible about myself, I STILL wanted to rip my body apart, I STILL felt inadequate, not good enough and essentially like the stupid, lazy, lower class citizen the media convinces everyone that people like me and fatter are.

Partly, my fat made me this way. Partly society's hatred of fat did. I'm mostly working on liking who I am, liking who I've become and accepting that really there may always be a part of me that has to work on believing in myself, a part of me that has to work on believing I'm beautiful and I admit, it was WAY harder believing when I was single than it is now that I have a handsome and loving boyfriend.

So I guess I'm trying to say that I'm trying to like who I am. I'm trying to like who I've become. But I don't have to like how I got here. I don't have to like that constant sexualization of women's bodies has lead me to constantly evaluate my own body and I don't have to like how society treats people's bodies like public property.

I'm ending this here because I have to cheer for the Cavs and I really just can't do both at once. Maybe I'll be able to elaborate on this later.

ETA: DAMN YOU ORLANDO MAGIC!!!! ARRRRRRRRRRGH!

Said better than I could say it

Wed, 13 May 2009 01:50:45 GMT

http://www.fatshionista.com/cms/index.php?option=com_mojo&Itemid=69&p=196#comments

Somebody somewhere sometime once said into the internet "you cannot hate someone for their own good" and it's so true. All that above is what drives me so bananas about the whole "but it's for your health!" argument. Because chivalrous as your trying to rescue all the fatties of the world from their unhealthiness is, one, it's been shown through countless studies that weight is NOT NECESSARILY A DETERMINING FACTOR OF HEALTH and two, a fatty's health, a skinny's health an in-betweenie's health is NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.

I remember hearing a thin woman gripe about how sometimes total strangers have the audacity to assume they can lecture her on not starving herself and complain that in our society it's more acceptable to confront a thin woman about her health than it is to confront a fat woman. I was completely frustrated with this statement because not only is it the absolute opposite of true, but I couldn't help but be dismayed that she couldn't make the connection to how rude she felt someone's comment on her health was and how rude it is to comment on ANYONE'S health based on size alone. Not to mention I felt this was a completely privileged statement that only someone who'd been thin all her life could make. Of course she would think it was more common for an underweight looking woman to be rudely lectured on health by strangers because it was what she experienced. It's akin to the frustration I experience when I hear someone white say racism doesn't still exist (though I make no attempt to even hint that body prejudice is at all the same as racial prejudice - trust me, I know I'm privileged in ways I'm not even aware of because I'm traditionally white looking and middle class etc.) or when I hear a male gripe about how he doesn't see sexism in the world anymore. To which my thought is always, "Of course you wouldn't. You don't see it expressed towards you." Someone once summarized it really well in saying something to the effect of "being privileged doesn't mean you're going to rub in other people's faces the many ways in which society caters more towards you. It means that people's who possess traits that are abhorred have to worry about things being made more difficult for them in ways you can't even think of."

Having thin privilege means you don't have to worry about your doctor overlooking health issues you may have and instead telling you to just lose weight. Having thin privilege means that people are less likely to assume you are a stupid, lazy, gluttonous, drain on society. Having thin privilege means you are less likely to be sized out of designer fashions and instead forced to buy either cheap clothing from stores like Target or Wal-mart or extremely pricey "Big & Tall" sizes. Having thin privilege means you are a heck of a lot less likely (if likely at all) to get glared at for having a bag of Doritos and a tub of ice cream in your shopping cart. It means you're a lot less likely to be ridiculed in public for your body. It means you're less likely to have trouble getting health coverage because of your weight. It means you're a lot less likely to get glared at and complained about on an airplane. It means you're a lot less likely to have family members decry your body. It means, in short, that you are socially conditioned to feel you don't owe it to anyone to apologize for the way your body is. So if you're thin and have been so all or most of your life and you don't think fat prejudice is a problem, I implore you to attempt to look outside the life you have always known and accept that things might be different for others. I implore you to look at the ways in which people make things harder for someone who is fat(ter). And of course if you're white and don't think racism exists, I implore you to open your thoughts a bit*. I implore you to examine your own thoughts on race. And if you're male and don't think sexism is still a problem I implore you to examine how the media treats the body of an intelligent, Harvard educated woman (such as Michelle Obama)as public property*. I implore you to examine your reaction to this post. Because if it was just a gut reaction "oh shut up you fat, ugly bitch" then I hate to break it to you, but you might be sexist which means, you guessed it, sexism is alive and well.

In short, just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because discrimination doesn't happen to YOU doesn't mean it doesn't happen at ALL. And of course, logically, the fact that it happens to SOME and NOT all is what makes it discrimination.

*I make no attempt to speak for anyone of any race. I know that there are probably a million ways I don't understand the experiences of many black, latino or asian women (and men) I only use racism as an example of how someone's own privilege can blind them to the fact that they have it to begin with.

**I also make no attempt to speak for women as a whole, merely detailing my thoughts.

"Why smart girls don't marry for love" or "why shit like this pisses me off"

Sun, 10 May 2009 04:31:54 GMT

Now granted, AOL interviews can't be terribly credited for being terribly intelligent, however, I can't help but be disgusted by this http://www.aolhealth.com/healthy-living/relationships/marry-for-money

I mean... really? So because our society is ridiculous women should just smarten themselves up and marry for money? Right? Because that's totally progressive right?

Wrong. I'm honestly too tired to flesh this out appropriately but CHRIST. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? So instead of insisting that husbands do half the work and be just as willing to take time off for kids and trying to... I don't know, DO something to even out the pay gap between men and women you're seriously just telling women to suck it up and instead marry a rich dude?

Gimme a break. And while you're at it, why don't you stop ruining shit that the two waves of feminism fought so hard for? Gah.

I suppose this makes me angrier than it should since I'm still slightly prickly thanks to a comment of my sister's on the fact that my boyfriend and I don't often go "Dutch". But that I feel is a post for another day. Particularly a day when I'm not drunk and fuming.

"What would you know about the LBGT community? You're gay!" or "It's funny to me, so lighten up!"

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:36:17 GMT

I've already talked about this sort of thing a bit and I'm going to preclude this by honestly saying that I'm pretty much you're traditional version of straight and damn well know that I DON'T know what it's like to be homosexual or transsexual or bisexual or even just not sexual at all (ok, I'm not actively practicing being sexual yet, but I can tell you it hasn't been for lack of urges) and I know that there are probably about a bagillion ways that I don't even know how privileged I am because I'm a girl who prefers boys when it comes to sexuality. Sure, I get that I could get married one day if I wanted to in just about any church I wanted to by any sort of religious authority I wanted to (well, assuming I'd want to convert to something else, which considering how blase I am about Catholicism while still sort of liking bits and pieces of it I can't imagine myself getting jumped up enough about anything else in order to convert) and that for the most part I can go out with my significant other (when he's here, one week till I see him again, YAYZ!) without getting glares from people (my sister and I have gotten this which we find hilarious - apparently we don't look enough alike to be anything other than lovers and of course if we WERE lesbians we'd be riding the fast train to HELLL!!!11eleventy) and if that mythical day ever comes when our lives coincide enough to where we could live together at the worst we'd be seen as "living in sin" rather than people who'd find much worse names to call our living arrangement and would look down on our relationship (not to mention assume we were both overly sexual and continually cheating on each other and drains on society, _insert other LBGT stereotypes here_)

My posting all the above is not to show how good of a PC liberal I am. It's just to note what I know and how there are probably a bunch of other things I don't know. There's nothing wrong with someone or bad about them if they DON'T know or see how they may be privileged in one way or another. But it does make them ignorant of the knowledge and in my opinion it just makes you a stubborn asswipe if you refuse to see that if/when someone else points out "you realize you may just think blank because you're x and y but not z and this culture loves and privileges x and y but not z, right?"

So take for example this epic fail from a supposedly feminist blogger http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2009/04/teabag-me.html
and then it's supposed "apology" which in my opinion may as well not have even been made for all the good it did or how sincere it was http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2009/04/ann-coulter-really-is-cunt-people.html

Now really, Ann Coulter really is, in my opinion a completely embarrassing American, woman and human being. Her uber-conservatism is completely backwards and ridiculous and she really does just strike me as a completely loathsome and hateful individual. However, saying "har har, she's transsexual" in my opinion just completely undermines everything someone who might stand against her would stand for, ie. feminism, LBGT rights, etc. It's strikingly reminiscent of when not long ago newspapers printed awful cartoons of manly looking women as making fun of feminists or suffragists. Hell, isn't there still a huge annoying swag of the population that still abhors the word "feminists" because it's STILL equated with "bad, awful, ugly women who cause trouble and cause trouble cause they can't get teh cawk cause they're UGLEEEEEEEEE!!!11eleventy" Not to mention, not only is it giving power to that ever invasive assumption of feminists and that other stupid, sexist assumption of women in general (you know, the invasive thought that you fucking OWE it to the goddamned world to be some preconceived, restrictive concept of "beautiful" and not cause too much trouble if you happen to have a vagina) it INSULT'S a HUGE group of people at the same time by re-enforcing the ideal that there is something wrong and awful and NOT normal about being transgendered or homosexual or bisexual or any combination of a crapload of other things that are perfectly fine to be that are not considered to be an acceptable part of some bogus preconceived notion of "normal".

And to top it all off, then you're saying, "but it's ok, cause it's a JOKE har har!" I am really just so fucking SICK to my teeth of hearing "It's a JOKE, lighten up!" So is it a joke to the eleven year old boy who recently died because he killed himself thanks to taunts at school over his supposed gayness? Is it just a joke to the numerous members of the LBGT community who endure violence just for being themselves? Is it a FUCKING joke to women when you joke about rape? Here's the thing, it may be funny to your privileged self, but it is NOT funny to millions of others and then issuing a faux-pology that basically says "I'm sorry... that you can't lighten up" basically just further seems to invalidate their right to be offended.

I'm not saying offensive shit can't be damn funny. Certain comedians wouldn't be funny to me if that weren't the case. But shit like this is just offensive and oppressive not to mention it's really annoying to be told "you're such a PC-er-than-thou, uppity asshole" when you're ruffled about something that's offensive and NOT ALL THAT FUNNY OR CREATIVE TO BEGIN WITH. SHEESH. Grow the fuck up and try to actually look critically at something. It sucks being told that you made a mistake. Criticism is never fun to take. Trust me, I KNOW, this is coming from the music and lit major who used to fucking cry her eyes out every other night because she was repeatedly told she was either flat or unintelligent. But criticism, even sometimes the biting kind (if you can take it with the giant chunk of sea salt that THAT particular breed of criticism often requires), makes you a better person if you can apply it. I'm not saying it's great to be told "YOU SUCK!" at every turn, especially not for a variety of reasons (being fat, unfeminine, unmasculine, etc, etc, etc.) but I am saying that taking a second look at something you said when someone tells you "hey, that was just low/below-the-belt/stupid/offensive/whatever" won't fucking kill you.

Not to mention saying beforehand, "I know people might think this is offensive but I think it's funny" is just actively looking for trouble, in my opinion. To me it says, "I might hurt people by saying this, but IMA GONNA SAY IT ANYWAY WOOHOO!" which just makes me headdesk. I also say this as someone who used to untill fairly recently, continually used the word "retarded" as a euphemism for "dumb, weird, annoying, stupid, combination of all the above". And as someone who's only fairly recently realized that calling her sister who doesn't have my 20/20 vision and supar crazay hearing "Helen Keller" is probably not the best thing in the world to do. Nobody's perfect, and I'm certainly not pretending I am. But using that as an excuse to continually be offensive because it just "takes too much work" and infringes on the awesomeness that you think is your "supar kewl unique self" is at best lazy, at worst, juvenile and a passive form of oppression. You can be yourself, you're funny, edgy, kewl, unique, awesome self without hurting feelings. It might take more work, but that's part of being a fucking civilized ADULT. If that seems like too much for you, go sit at the kiddie table, I'm sure they've still got another Big Bird chair they can pull up.

Also, saying "I realize I said this in front of the wrong audience" as the author did in their faux-pology is yet another REALLY bad way to "apologize". It's
basically like saying "I'm only sorry for stealing cause I got caught".

Also also, when comedians joke about offensive shit, often the reason why they're funny and successful is because a lot of people laugh at how absurd it would be if they actually thought said comedian truly believed the offensive shit he/she was saying. At least that's my opinion. It's akin to the "oh, but they know me" argument or the "oh, but you don't know him" argument. Sorry, but you slap this shit out there for the interwebz and it's likely that for at least one soul this will be their first encounter with you and after this, you seriously would blame someone for NOT wanting to stick around to get to know you better? Sorry, I'm just not impressed.

"What would you know about rape? You're a rape victim!" or "The dick as the social gallows"

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:21:41 GMT

So my recent delves into feminism, fat acceptance (yes, you read that right, those two words CAN exist next to each other in the same sentence quite peacefully without the world exploding) has lead me to this http://kateharding.net/2007/05/16/let-me-save-you-the-trouble-i-know-im-a-fat-cunt-and-ive-already-been-raped/ link which is somewhat old, but still pretty relevant in the fact that a) the douchehounds Opie and Anthony still have a pretty ridiculous following of blatant assholes b) their Cleveland wannabe, Rover, from Rover's Morning Glory is often quite similar to their style of asshole-ery (and in my opinion, often worse) and c) I see no proof that this sort of idiotic ideology has been sated as so many "what use is there for feminist anymore?!" morons claim there is. There's often this "what are you bitching about, you got your rights in the 70's?" reaction to feminism. Aside from the fact that it's really goddamn fucking annoying to be told your ideas are just "stupid" (regardless of whether or not they really are) because they are ideals other people don't agree with (or ideals others just don't even give a chance because they assume it's an ideal they won't agree with), that kind of statement just proves how many people are still ignorant of just how patriarchal our society still is. It's the kind of statement you often get from a spoiled white male who has never had to worry about often getting paid less for doing the same job as someone else, who has never had to worry about the double edged sword sex (the slut/prude double edge) presents, who has in fact, never had to worry about being the object of a viscous rape "joke".

Which brings us back to the link I linked. The woman who all the terrible quotes were directed at merely spoke up. That's what warranted all those cruel, viscous, and violent comments. Now quite frankly, I feel I need to put a few disclaimer's here. First, I'm not saying that there aren't women who lie about being raped. People lie about a myriad of different things for a myriad of different reasons, and yes some of those things lied about could quite possibly be rape and yes, sometimes the reason could quite possibly be for attention. However, I think people need to look at the facts out there and think carefully about them before just slapping the label of "LIAR!" on every woman who says "hey, guess what asshole? I WAS raped and I can tell you, it's NOT funny".

So the facts from this somewhat old but no less valid article http://www.womanabuseprevention.com/html/sexual_assault.html where it notes that one in four women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. So that's a pretty high number if you ask me, especially if you consider the fact that often rapes aren't reported and that assaults that take place in relationships often aren't even thought of as rapes/assaults sometimes not even by the victims. So really, I think it's a safe bet to assume that when a woman tells you she's been raped, she probably isn't lying. Telling her she is, not only refuses to help her, it also further hurts someone who has already been hurt. It silences someone, because if no one's going to listen, often going the trouble of trying to just GET someone to goddamn listen is painful enough, it's no fucking wonder so many rapes don't get reported. Not to mention silencing the victim via not listening was the rapists intent to begin with since rape is about power, not about sex. I think it's pretty obvious that it's about power when people say things like "I don't want to rape her, I just want to fuck her until she can't do anything else" why? Because making sure she can't do anything else would 'put her in her place' so to speak?

Then you get comments like this if the woman is fat: "Your experience of being raped is absolutely not relevant. Think of the ramifacations of your actions before you make such an emotional based argument." Does that sound to anyone else like "What would you know about rape? You're a rape victim!"? To that I say, "Uhmmmm... WHAT?" Why is her experience not relevant? Is it because she's fat and therefore "lucky" to even be "rape-able"? Is it because she's "lying" as so many other commenters have cruelly suggested? Or is it because as another commenter so eloquently put it, that having sex is "your one and only purpose in this world" and that if you aren't smart enough to know your purpose (or substitute place) and do your womanly duty of pleasing men in the world then "You should consider yourself lucky that some man finds a hideous troll like yourself rape-able." Actual quotes kids. The thread where these quotes came from has since been closed and/or deleted (I'm not surprised) but these are actual quotes from actual people. These are actual thoughts people have. And seeing as Kate Harding only gave the cliff's notes on her blog, I think it's safe to say there are whole whopping bucketload of men who think this way.

Hell, there are even some women who still kind of think this way. I've heard first hand women say things like, "She's totally lying about being raped to cover for being a slut" and "she was totally asking for it for dressing the way she did" and "well, she was causing problems [translation: speaking up]". I myself was once in the camp of "well she might be lying, she is a bit of a drama queen" and I'm ashamed to admit thinking I'd be perfectly safe from rape because I a) was chubby and b) dressed pretty moderately most of the time and c) was "smart" and never went out on my own. Then I had two "close calls". The first confused me on end for a few years. I'll never KNOW what the first's intentions were since I said a few things that rather sobered the both of us, but considering the way he acted towards me afterward, I can't help but feel had it not been for my big mouth, there could have been something even more confusing and much more damaging. The second was a more blatant attempt. Well more blatant in the fact that it was pretty obvious I'd been drugged. Neither times was I wearing anything suggestive. Neither times was I being "stupid" and putting myself in an "obviously dangerous" situation. Neither times was I the traditional version of "hawt" and "fuck-able". I was just a twenty-some year old 5'9 175-180 lb woman in jeans and a long sleeved shirt looking to have a few drinks and a good time.

Scary and confusing as both those situations were I'm thankful for two things about them, that one, neither one of them went any further, and that two, they taught me that rape can happen to anyone. Repeat that last line for me if you have a difficult grasp on that concept. Rape CAN happen to ANYONE. And it DOES happen to people from a variety of different backgrounds, people with different looks and people of different genders. And it is NEVER something that is "okay" or "understandable". It is never "asked for" or "unavoidable" and it certainly shouldn't be doled out as punishment as one male commenter suggested in reaction to the idiocy that went on. He said, "As a man, a real man I might add, I am horrified by Antony and Fuckwad’s “jokes” on this show. Anybody daring to make such harsh and hurtful comments, especially in public deserves to a. lose their job, b, be put in jail and c, get acquainted with the biggest fag in the jail. And fucked. To death. These people are sick and I fully intend on telling them so." Does reading that make you want to facepalm? If it doesn't, please read it again. Here everyone's saying how it's not funny to joke about fucking someone "to death" and here this dude goes and says this. WHAT?!? Seriously dude, that statement right there is EXACTLY the kind of statement that is unacceptable, albeit a statement veiled in ableism he presumes to be his understanding of women's issues. Not to mention his indication that men who say women's sole purpose is to be fucked aren't "real" is just idiotic. It's the same idiocy that people use when using "real woman" as a euphemism for "fat woman". Thin women are real women too. And unfortunately, idiotic men who spew this sort of hateful shit are real too. They are real, their words are real and their ACTIONS are real. RAPE IS REAL.

So I'm just going to say this in the hopes that at least one misinformed dude hears it.

YOUR DICK IS NOT THE SOCIAL GALLOWS! No one deserves to have their body violated. NO ONE. I don't care if they've violated a number of bodies I don't care if they drink blood and make baby-flavored doughnuts, I don't care if someone dismembers every man they come across they do not deserve to be "fucked to death" and nor are they "just asking for it". Your dick is not entitled to be the enforcement of whatever fucked social construct YOU want to maintain. If you have a problem with women or men do what you will to legally work against them, protest them, what have you, but this ideology that people DESERVE violence, particularly sexual violence only PROMOTES MORE violence. So before people call rape victims liars, or say they were asking for it or what have you, I really wish people would "think about the ramifications of your [their] actions before you [they] make such an emotional based argument".

GAHHHHHHHH!

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:55:55 GMT

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. So I really wanted to send an e-mail response to this http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/columnists/advice/chi-0328-ask-amymar28,0,6031867.column craptastic advice column tidbit, but since I'm sure my snark wouldn't be appreciated or even published, I'll post my response here. I'm still thinking about e-mailing it though, if anyone else wants to here's her e-mail askamy@tribune.com.

Dear Amy, I'm sending this to you as a response to some advice you gave last week. The advice you gave is as follows:

"You do need to lose weight. But losing weight for someone else is a terrible idea, and losing weight for someone else simply doesn't work. People who are addicted to food and eating face a lifelong struggle, and the motivation has to come from within. You have to do it for yourself––for your own health and well-being.

Your boyfriend is dangling a deal that you should not take. True partners commit to loving the whole person. They encourage rather than demand.

Perhaps this is your boyfriend's way of trying to encourage you to do something you should already be committed to doing, but he has chosen a hurtful way to express this.

You two need to talk more about your weight. Get specific. Ask him the exact circumference of the hoop you must climb through to be with him. And then know that even if you are able to meet his conditions, at the end of the day you will be with someone who might always find another bridge for you to cross."

So, Dear Amy, I'm curious, when did you have time to go to medical school, demonstrate an exhaustive review of the available literature, and give "Just Fluffy" a physical examination in order to correctly determine that she "needs" to lose weight? And also, when did you have the time after all that to stalk Fluffy for over a month or so to be able to correctly determine that her weight is rightly attributable to her "addiction to eating" or her tendency to be an "emotional eater"? You're right that she should not lose weight for him and that he has been hurtful in his mandate, but your assumptions that she is unhealthy do not help her in this situation, and asking him just how much she needs to lose in order to commit, aside from being a completely humiliating act, sounds to me like a recipe for an even more nonfunctional relationship. There should be no price one must pay for commitment.

The fact that he said "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it" when she mentioned the unavoidable weight gain due to a possible future pregnancy is very telling. It sounds like a fairly accurate translation of that statement might be "And I reserve the right to bully you about your weight and body any time in the future". It sounds like this man has other issues that HE'S not willing to work on and rather than work on them is putting everything on the woman. But good job further propagating the idea that relationships are all "womens work".

Signed, Rightly Pissed off in Pennsylvania

Writer's Block: Personal Strength

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:25:30 GMT

Where do you find your personal strength?

The Fantasy

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:58:33 GMT

For the entire writing of this by Kate Harding go here --> http://kateharding.net/2007/11/27/the-fantasy-of-being-thin/#comment-88686

"I started thinking about what it was really like before I’d actually made peace with my body. And what it was really like was this: The Fantasy of Being Thin absolutely dominated my life — even after I’d gotten thin once, found myself just as depressive and scattered and frustrated as always, and then gained all the weight back because, you know, diets don’t work. The reality of being thin didn’t even sink in after all that, because The Fantasy of Being Thin was still far more familiar to me, still what I knew best. I’d spent years and years nurturing that fantasy, and only a couple years as an actual thin person. Reality didn’t have a chance.

We’ve talked a lot here about how being fat shouldn’t stop you from doing the things you’ve always believed you couldn’t do until you were thin. Put on a bathing suit and go waterskiing. Apply for that awesome job you’re just barely qualified for. Ask that hot guy out. Join a gym. Wear a gorgeous dress. All of those concrete things you’ve been putting off? Just fucking do them, now, because this IS your life, happening as we speak.

But exhortations like that don’t take into account magical thinking about thinness, which I suspect — and the quote above suggests — is really quite common. Because, you see, the Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has. It’s not just, “When I’m thin, I’ll look good in a bathing suit”; it’s “When I’m thin, I will be the kind of person who struts down the beach in a bikini, making men weep.” See also:

* When I’m thin, I’ll have no trouble finding a partner/reinvigorating my marriage.
* When I’m thin, I’ll have the job I’ve always wanted.
* When I’m thin, I won’t be depressed anymore.
* When I’m thin, I’ll be an adventurous world traveler instead of being freaked out by any country where I don’t speak the language and/or the plumbing is questionable.
* When I’m thin, I’ll become really outdoorsy.
* When I’m thin, I’ll be more extroverted and charismatic, and thus have more friends than I know what to do with.

Et cetera, et cetera. Those are examples from my personal Fantasy of Being Thin, but I’m sure you’ve got your own. (Please do share in comments!)

In light of that, it’s a lot easier to understand why some people freak out when you say no, really, your chances of losing weight permanently are virtually nil, so you’d be better off focusing on feeling good and enjoying your life as a fat person. To someone fully wrapped up in The Fantasy of Being Thin, that doesn’t just mean, “All the best evidence suggests you will be fat for the rest of your life, but that’s really not a terrible thing.” It means, “You will NEVER be the person you want to be! All the evidence suggests you will never find a satisfying relationship or get a promotion or make more friends or feel confident trying new things!”

So if that’s what you hear when I say, “Diets don’t work,” then yeah, I can see how that would be a major bummer.

Overcoming The Fantasy of Being Thin might be the hardest part of making it all the way into fat acceptance-land. And that might just be why I’d pushed that part of the process out of my memory: it fucking sucked. Because I didn’t just have to accept the size of my thighs; I had to accept who I am, rather than continuing to wait until I magically became the person I’d always imagined being. Ouch.

That is, of course, a pretty normal part of getting older. You start to realize that yeah, this actually is it, and although you can still try enough new things to keep anyone busy for two lifetimes, you’re pretty much stuck with a basic context. There are skills, experiences, and material things you will almost certainly never have, period. It’s a challenge for all of us to understand that accepting this fact of life does not necessarily mean cutting off options or giving up dreams, but simply — as in the proverbial story about the creation of the David — chipping away all that is not you. But for a fat person, it can be even harder, because so many fucking sources encourage us to believe that inside every one of us is “a thin person waiting to get out” — and that thin person is SO MUCH COOLER.

The reality is, I will never be the kind of person who thinks roughing it in Tibet sounds like a hoot; give me a decent hotel in London any day. I will probably never learn to waterski well, or snow ski at all, or do a back handspring. I can be outgoing and charismatic in small doses, but I will always then need time to recharge my batteries with the dogs and a good book; I’ll never be someone with a chock-full social calendar, because I would find that unbearably exhausting. (And no matter how well I’ve learned to fake it — and thus how much this surprises some people who know me — new social situations will most likely always intimidate the crap out of me.) I might learn to speak one foreign language fluently over the course of my life, but probably not five. I will never publish a novel until I finish writing one. I will always have to be aware of my natural tendency toward depression and might always have to medicate it. Smart money says I am never going to chuck city life to buy an alpaca farm or start a new career as a river guide. And my chances of marrying George Clooney are very, very slim.

None of that is because I’m fat. It’s because I’m me.

But when I was invested in The Fantasy of Being Thin, I really believed that changing this one “simple” (ha!) thing would unlock a whole new identity — this totally fabulous, free-spirited, try-anything-once kind of chick who was effortlessly a magnet for interesting people and experiences. And of course, the dark side of that is that being fat then became an excuse not to do much of anything, because it wouldn’t be the real me doing it, so what was the point? If I wouldn’t find the right guy until I was thin, why bother dating? If I wouldn’t have a breakthrough on the novel until I was thin, why bother writing? If I wouldn’t be the life of the party until I was thin, why bother trying to make new friends? If I wouldn’t feel like climbing a mountain until I was thin, why bother traveling at all?

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Accepting my fat really wasn’t the hard part. Accepting my personality — and my many limitations that have jack shit to do with my thighs — was. But oddly enough, once I started to do that, my life became about a zillion times more satisfying. I found the right guy, I took up yoga, I started taking my writing more seriously, I stopped apologizing for taking vacations in the U.S. and Canada instead of somewhere more exotic, etc. And lo and behold, things got a lot more fun around here. The thin person inside me finally got out — it just turned out she was actually a fat person. A reasonably attractive, semi-outgoing fat person who has an open mind and an active imagination but also happens to really like routine and familiarity and quiet time alone.

That was never who I expected to be — it was just always who I was.

So giving up dieting and accepting my body didn’t just mean admitting I would never be thin; it meant admitting I would never be a million things I might have been. (Which, I’m told, is a phenomenon sometimes known as “maturity.”) I am absolutely not one for settling — which is where the confusion about pessimism comes in, I think — but I am one for self-awareness and self-forgiveness. Meaning, there’s a big difference between saying you can’t be anything other than what you are right now, and you don’t have to be anything other than what you are right now. You will probably never be permanently thin, unless you are already, but other than that, the sky’s the limit. You can be anything or anyone you want to be, in theory.

The question is, who do you really want to be, and what are you going to do about it? (Okay, two questions.) The Fantasy of Being Thin is a really convenient excuse for not asking yourself those questions sincerely — and that’s exactly why it’s dangerous. It keeps you from being not only who you are, but who you actually could be, if you worked with what you’ve got. And that person trapped inside you really might be cooler than you are right now.

She’s just not [necessarily] thin(ner)."

(ending edited just so any thin women reading don't feel they have to be fat(ter) to be cooler :) )

This is why lately I've been ranting over how ridiculous it is to continually torture yourself over losing weight, because about a month (month and a half, two months maybe) ago, I read this and it was like thunderbolts clapping in my brain. Finally something in my life felt like a scene from a high fantasy story, the sky shook with magnitude, castles were crumbling, voices boomed, and beautiful, reasonable facts swept in and destroyed the lifetime of hate I'd been putting myself through, sweeping the negative thoughts away in a mighty current of loathing and superstitious fear. It didn't erase every self-hating thought I've ever had, nor did it bar me from every negative comment that may ever be made about my body, but it did deal me a huge heaping dollop of glorious release (after about a week of emotional turmoil I was already experiencing thanks to reading a wonderful book about self acceptance - it was great, really, just a lot of hard things to think about). So often in our ridiculous thin worshiping culture we are told we need to be thin before we become anything else, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that before reading this and many other things I bought every single shrinkwrapped and prepackaged thin worshiping message. And I lost a lot by buying into it. I lost a lot of self respect, self esteem, peace of mind, sanity, and yes, sometimes pounds, but mostly what I lost was time. Fortunately, most of those things can be regained (hahaha). Slowly, I'm working on rectifying my broken self-esteem/respect. Slowly I'm trying to regain my sanity (though going back to school might have been counterproductive for that). Slowly, I'm working towards a gentle peace of mind, and the pounds well... ones I lost in college I think are back, probably to stay, but since fully coming to really actively try to constructively and fully embrace myself (though I know it hasn't been that long), they've pretty much stayed where they are. Sadly, the one thing I cannot regain from all that I sacrificed to self-loathing was also the most precious (cliche as I know it sounds), my time.

For the longest time, these are the things I used to think about the fantasy of being thin:

-When I am thin I will have a boyfriend (randomly got one when I was still my chunky self instead)
-When I am thin I will travel the world (did some of that, started out doing it at my heaviest weight, 210 lbs actually)
-When I am thin I will be graceful (I'm not really a klutz anymore, I don't know why I still think of myself as one)
-When I am thin I will be a better dancer (I'm actually not a trainwreck once I loosen up)
-When I am thin I will randomly dance with a lot of guys (I actually did that when I was my chunkier 210 lb self too... hmmm)
-When I am thin I will be a better performer
-When I am thin I will be able to audition for that part
-When I am thin people will like my voice better (yes, I used to think it was a waste that I had a decent voice and a chubby body!)
-When I am thin I'll have a lot more confidence
-When I am thin people will be drawn to me and I'll be a social butterfly

so on and so on and so on. I'm quite lucky I never really tied my writing to being thin, although for the longest time I was in a state of "if ever I get published I'd SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO need to diet before I'd get photos for the book jacket".

I'm posting this here as a reminder to me to never waste my time on it again. I'm posting it here as an inspiration for everything I can be and do and as a reminder that I do not need to be thin(ner) to be/do them. I'm posting this here because I'm on my period and feeling quite self conscious about my body this week, try as I might to pick myself up and reading all the above just helps the best. I'm also posting it to anyone else who hasn't read it yet, as I feel like it's something everyone needs to read in today's thin-obsessed culture. I certainly needed to hear it, and it's done a lot for my psyche. I just wish I would have read it sooner, though part of me wonders that it may not have had the impact it did two months ago had I read it 8 or 9 months ago, a year or two ago, or my junior year of high school when I was in the bowels of a very self-destructive bout of self-hate manifested as an eating disorder and an obsession with working out. I've fooled myself for years as I did then, that it wasn't that bad, that it wasn't that extreme, and that if only I could get close to that point again I'd be thin again. No, I won't lie to myself anymore, and there's no point lying to the internet. What it was, was either a mild bout of anorexia or something very damn near close. I'm only fortunate that it didn't last long enough to do any more damage to my mind and body, because it and years afterward of idolizing the body I got from doing it did quite enough damage. And lying about it to make it seem less extreme certainly didn't help.

This is also why I don't believe in saying, "oh, I'm not going on a diet, I'm trying for a lifestyle change!" Because I really only believe in lifestyle changes for something you really want. Example, I made a change a while back to walk more, and I love it. It's great for my peace of mind and it makes me feel stronger, I made the change, and I've mostly stuck with it because I enjoy it. I am not however, going to waste hours at the gym as a new "lifestyle change" and deny my body what it wants/needs. Especially since I don't really enjoy going to the gym. I'd be up for trying rock climbing (probably not on a real mountain at first though) but I'm not going to try it as a lifestyle change until I know it's a lifestyle I actually, WANT. I'm all for changes, but only in favor of changes for as long as they offer benefits. If I cease to feel good about having long walk, I will cease to do it, perhaps I'll try swimming or dancing instead. Another reason why I don't believe in lifestyle changes is because they're far too close to diets (well, actually in my opinion, they're glorified diets), especially for someone like me. They're far too close to that toxic kind of thinking one obtains through dieting and all it takes to go back into that calorie counting/cutting, insanity driving, crazy town from a "healthy lifestyle change" is an extra emotional night after a day where nothing seems to fit right. I'm done doing that. I'm done flirting with eating disorder and I'm done with reveling in that feeling of how thin I feel when my stomach is literally churning as a means of my body crying out in anguish over what new torture I'm putting it through. And I'm definitely done criticizing other bodies, especially criticizing other bodies as a means of feeling better about my own.

Instead, I choose to revel in how good I feel after a good meal. I choose to see how beautiful I am and how unique and even more exquisite my flaws make me(I don't care if I'm sounding vain here, I don't do this often enough). I choose to really look at people and see just how beautiful everyone is. I choose to exercise when my body tells me to and to stop when it tells me to as well. I choose to revel in how easy that decision is without factoring in how many calories I may or may not burn, how fat my stomach is or isn't, and how much easier shopping will be when I am not afraid to get a bigger size if that's what it takes for me to feel comfortable. I choose instead to buy clothing that fits and shows how beautiful my body is NOW not clothing that may or may not fit a possibly different body in the uncertain future. And I choose to actively be myself every day. I am and am not so many things and I don't owe anyone an explanation for who I am, and I certainly don't owe anyone any explanation for my body. I do not owe it to anyone to be anything, least of all thin or "beautiful". I only owe it to myself to be the happiest and healthiest I can be. And I can be all of that, without being any smaller, without being any different at all.

feewings

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:32:27 GMT

Ok, for starters, I'm going to say that I don't know why I do this sort of shit to myself. I don't know why I bother poking around message boards and opening up threads that are obviously going to offend me on sight (ie, "America is fat"). So now that I've got that as a disclaimer, I'm going to say that this argument is just old. "Obesity levels rising blah blah blah..." "unhealthy eating habits blah blah..." "sedentary lifestyle blah..." but aside from that being something I'm just entirely SICK of hearing and how no one seems to want to care NEARLY as much about the sharp increase in anorectics and other eating disorders (golly, correlation anyone?) I'm mostly just sick of saying things like that to this argument and being rightly offended and then told that I need to grow up and that it's not about my "feewings" it's about an unhealthy lifestyle. And that they don't mind fat people who are "healthy/trying/starving themselves" but can't stand to see them at McDonald's.

Ok, how about I start saying this bullshit? Thin people suck. Thin people are unhealthy. Due to the sharp increase in eating disorders it's only logical to assume that every thin person has an eating disorder. That every thin person, ESPECIALLY rail thin people are unhealthy and malnourished. Only fat people are the ones who are exercising reasonable exercise habits and are treating their bodies well by giving them all the nourishment they need. We have to address this! We have to force thin people into hating their bodies enough to forcibly change them, even if that means their eating an unhealthy amount, even if that means they eat until they are uncomfortable every day. Because if they do all this and still remain thin they are just LYING, right? They just aren't trying hard enough, right? They just aren't as proactive about their health as fat people, they just don't care enough, they are just resigned to their unhealthy lifestyle and are too stupid to realize it's unhealthy, right? And when they go out in public, dear god, for my sake, please don't force me to be audience to your awful addiction to starvation. Please, skinnies, for everyone's sake order a burger, fries and milkshake, even if you just ate an hour ago. You need to bulk up, you ugly, unhealthy skinny.

I hope it's obvious enough that the above is sarcasm, because I don't for a second believe that. It sounds ridiculous right? It should. Because it is. But reverse that paragraph in your mind for me. Spin it around in terms of fat people. I'm not going to do the whole thing again, because I think we've all heard that schpeal. You know, especially the whole "you just aren't TRYING hard enough, fatty" the whole, "I don't CARE if you're starving. You're obviously lying and snarfing chocolate when no one can see cause you've barely made a dent in your weight!" And of course my favorite, "please, I'm so sick of seeing fat people at McDonald's ordering that cheeseburger, fries and milkshake. Is it really that dang hard to order a salad?" Sorry, but no one is obligated to order a salad, just because it bothers YOU. Did you think that maybe they aren't ordering a salad because McDonald's salads are ridic expensive, don't fill you up and don't even taste good? And did you think, "Hey, maybe that person just hasn't had a chance to grab a bite all day and that's why they're eating so much?" Or, "that person's probably just had a really busy day and McD's is the closest 'food' joint to his/her work"?

But when I point out all the offensive illogicalities in this argument, I'm at best just not able to keep my "feewings" out of an argument, at worst, a lying bitter chubby girl because of course I must be eating like crap and never exercising in order to maintain my tummy and jiggly thighs.

And what am I arguing about anyway? I'm chubby, not fat, I'm not part of that horrible, grotesque obesity blob that's about to engulf the entirety of western culture. I'm just a little chubby. Almost cute. Guess what? My almost cute self, is also almost obese. No, seriously. According to the BMI I'm overweight, and not many lbs shy of obese. Or maybe I actually already am obese, being as I haven't weighed myself in god knows how long. But how many people would I tell this to who would say, "No Swan. You so aren't. The chart's wrong. The scale must've been wrong. etc..." No in fact, while I'd allow for the scale to have perhaps been a bit off, most are fairly accurate. Being off by a few lbs is pretty negligible anyway since you can gain about 3-5 lbs just in water weight in ONE day. Go weigh yourself, then drink a gallon of water and weigh yourself again, see what happens. In any case, I am either part of the epidemic or pretty dang close to it. And you know something? I'm also healthy, athletic, and a decently sensible eater. I'm also quite attractive and quite normal looking to my friends (and to new doctors who often do a double take at me and at the weight on my chart). Which I'd wager is why none of them believe me when I tell them about how close I am to being a part of "the problem". Because "No no, you aren't FAT. You aren't ... you aren't.... [awkward silence] ... but you aren't unhealthy!" (really? I didn't know that).

And yes, I'd argue that "the chart's wrong". Because quite frankly the BMI is bogus. But, that's not my point. My point is, rather than attack the thought process that thin=good and fat=bad, we attack the scale, the charts, whatever, but not the thought process. We say, "no no, you aren't FAT" to save our friends from the stigma our brains have been trained to recognize, rather than say, "well, that's just a number. It doesn't mean anything".

So really, I'm sick of being told that I need to grow up and develop thick skin. I'm sick of being told that it's not about my "feewings" and about how unhealthy my habits are and how much more unhealthy those who are fatter than me's habits are (yes, I know that was awkward wording). Because that in itself is the most condescending and presumptuous and asinine thing you could think to say in your argument. I guarantee that people would find it just as offensive were our society twisted around to believe the rubbish-y paragraph I've typed above and it's just as illogical AND hurtful. It's just as pathology provoking, especially if it were a mantra repeated every minute of every day by commercials, doctors, nutritionists, clothing designers, etc, etc, etc. I don't understand why it's so bad to point this out. The offensive thinking is destructive (see, above where I mentioned eating disorders. Or maybe at some point I'll delve into my own spots of eating disorder). Why are we still clinging to this destructive thinking?

Gah

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:54:50 GMT

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1156678/AMANDA-PLATELL-Sorry-NHS-treat-people-fat.html

Sorry, but really, WHAT? Firstly, this sentence For more than a decade the liberal consensus has been that being fat was like having a brain tumour - you couldn't help it. is more than just incorrect, it's completely misleading. Ok, so really, thinking I was chubby and needed to lose weight since the age of SEVEN has been the result of there being a consensus that says I couldn't help being a stout, healthy little girl with a round face? REALLY? Huh. So I'd HATE to think of what might happen in a society that breeds insecurity for girls and women coupled with an economy that depends on the insecurities of everyone in order to be able to sell more shit (sarcasm).

Aside from that, her scathing remarks about the gap between the rich and the poor doesn't even consider the fact that though it oftentimes may be cheaper for a parent to bake a healthy meal for his or her kids, if he or she is of a lower class it's not necessarily a guarantee that he or she will have the time to bake said meals if he or she has to balance more than one job or isn't always able to be home with the kids. Heck, I don't even have to cook for anyone else but me, and when I get home from work and have to start on classwork you can bet I haven't got the time for anything healthier than a salad and some soup, and that's on a day when I'm feeling particularly motivated.

And honestly, I'm so goddamned sick of the "risk for heart attack because of weight" claim. Because plenty of skinny people have heart attacks too. They aren't caused simply by being fat. They're caused by things like a sedentary lifestyle and an unhealthy eating regime. Yes, sometimes that does mean weight gain for people, but that generally isn't the sole reason why people are fat. Even ridiculous articles like this http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MED_DUELING_DIETS?SITE=ALMON&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT that are trying yet again to make people just STOP eating themselves into oblivion already, contradict themselves by including notes from the study that demonstrate that there are a lot of other factors involved besides just being a lazy, constantly ravenous blob.

And REALLY? Really, you're pissed off about these people getting gastric bypasses and staples? Why not rail against the society that hates them so much to make them think they need these sorts of procedures to begin with, rather than dishing out more hate? Because, you know, obviously the shaming hate is working wonders. Is it really that far-fetched to think that perhaps there's a correlation between the OBESITY DUN DUN DUN CRISIS and the fact that we so abhor fat as the end all, be all WORST thing it is for a person to be?

Also, I actually DO have big bones AND a genetic predisposition to have a little extra fat. My ribcage is almost identical to my father's (who, by the way is pretty skinny and not all that much taller than I am) and my face still always wants to cling to baby fat, no matter how damn much I starve myself and torture myself at the gym. Do you realize that JUST in order to be able to be by BMI standards "normal" I had to limit myself to 800 calories a day and work out 6 hours a day? Just to be "normal" I had to practically be fucking anorexic (thank god it only lasted a few months). Just to be "normal" and I still could barely squeeze into a size ten. That's not me making excuses for myself. That's my body FUCKING BEING MY BODY. I can't begin to tell you how fucking wonderful it was the day it finally completely came home that I actually just have a naturally wide and long torso that has NOTHING to do with how fat or not fat I am and everything to do with the fact that my BONE STRUCTURE is solid and never going to change no matter how many doughnuts I do or don't eat, and more importantly, is beautiful and has NOTHING to do with how healthy I am or am not or how worthwhile of a person I am.

The reason why people are getting gastric bypasses and stomach staples and god knows whatever the fuck else is because fucking asinine morons like you keep saying that bodies like mine (and gasp! bodies that might actually be bigger) just aren't good enough. Instead of saying "hey, fatties, just eat sensibly, and if that's not good enough, semi starve yourself, and if that's not good enough, well all out starve yourself to save me some fucking tax dollars" why not instead try to say "hey, fatties, you're wonderful the way you are, and no matter what you should always do what's best for your health. Yes, that includes exercising to the best of your ability and eating sensibly. And NO, eating sensibly does not mean skipping meals." I guarantee there'd be less of these weight loss surgeries if everyone whatever size felt that it was socially acceptable to be whatever size they were. I'd also wager there'd be less fat people who "only have themselves to blame" if society weren't cramming diets that don't work, and often lead to weight GAIN, down our throats. Why not try that approach, instead of promoting self-hate? Oh wait, I'm betting it has something to do with your own self hate, which you've so nicely clued us in to in your article.

Besides, we couldn't promote self-love, alli wouldn't sell as well!

Lastly, studies have actually shown that a LOT of times cancer is lifestyle induced. I'm sure it depends on the type of cancer (ie, lung cancer) but studies have shown it's up to 85% lifestyle induced where studies have shown someone's weight to be anywhere from 40-60% lifestyle induced. I'm not going to say it doesn't suck that someone with breast cancer can't get treatment, because it does. But with those numbers out there you'd think it'd be more socially acceptable to lecture a patient for having lung cancer from smoking two packs a day for forty years than it is to lecture and what's worse, not believe patients who tell you they do live healthfully, and don't have any health conditions for being fat. Gimme a fucking break, Amanda Platell.

Um....

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:35:02 GMT

um... http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/196277/Desperate-virgin-Charlotte-Royce-sheds-13-stone-for-sex.html

I don't even know where to begin on this. Ok, maybe I do. Once upon a time there was a girl named...... Aura-Lay, who really felt like Charlotte she was going to stay a virgin forever if she didn't become that magical size eight she hadn't been since the sixth grade. She was shy around men (when she wasn't outright deer in headlights, fight or flight scared shitless of them) and always attributed her lack of male attention to the fact that she was chubbier than most of her girlfriends, rather than the more logical explanation, that she hid behind all of her thinner friends and rarely ever talked to any males, and even more rarely ever made her attraction to any men known. Wait, make that rarely a NEVER, because she was convinced that any male she ever openly pursued would laugh in her face because she was too ugly and fat. Years later, she would look back, still that borderline size 12/14 she'd begun to find not quite so loathesome and would realize that she'd gotten male attention, she'd just been far too wrapped up in her own self-loathing to see hardly any of it, the few times she'd seen it had been of course when obvious "hey, I like you situations" had presented themselves, and of course she'd been too flabbergasted that someone could even stand to look at her for more than a few moments that she'd convinced herself that their attentions didn't "count" because they all must have been delusional or drunk (or both). It didn't help that most of the time the men were drunk for these sort of confessions. She's almost 24 now, and she's still a virgin. Some idiot snark would say "that's probably because she's still chubby" but it's actually because she found something better than some guy who finds her "hot" enough for a one night bang, it's because she found a wonderful guy who loves her enough to wait until she sorts out all her twisted fears of sex.

Now, we work into some of the comments on this article, particularly this one which I found particularly doucherific.

"When you're morbidly obese you're not just aesthetically unappealing to a lot of potential suitors, you're emotionally unappealing. You're not the ideal of attraction or health. Being that obese says a lot more than just being fat. It suggests that you're unhealthy, have poor self-control, and possibly don't care about your health or appearance. It says that we'll probably spend way too many nights at home on a couch eating ready-made meals and snacks. It says that, should I fall in love with you, I'm going to spend my days worrying about you dying young. It says, should we get married, that you're likely going to be a negative influence on the health and emotions of our children. The incompatibilities go way deeper than physical attraction for many people."

No, no, no, no, no, no, NO. YOU say that about someone fat, their weight does not say that about them. I happen to have met in my lifetime quite a few thin people who live that sort of sedentary lifestyle you've detailed and you know, I'm a fat person who would prefer to take the time to make my own organic meals (generally one consisting of mostly veggies since I hate cooking meat since the mess takes a lot longer to clean up) on evenings and take a walk, weather permitting. YOU say that that's the sort of person I am, my weight does not. My cellulite is not proclaiming a sedentary life devoted to gorging on twinkies (which ummmm... ick, I actually kinda think they're gross), your idiotic assumptions are. And according to my doctors my fat body is well equipped to stick around for a good long while, provided I avoid the obvious fatal accident.

I do care a great deal about my health, which is why I no longer stick to "calorie saving" by substituting splenda for sugar or egg beaters for eggs because I don't feel comfortable putting something with that many lab-made chemicals into my body, regardless of weather or not it will help me become a more socially acceptable (in your eyes) size.

And not to be a bitch, but REALLY? You're REALLY looking for a girl who will go on bike rides with you when you're scoping out bodies at the bar? I'm so sick of the claim that it's a "difference of lifestyles" when to be quite frank, I don't really know a whole heck of a lot of medically "thin" people who honest to galoshes claim that they want to be with someone as "active" as they are. Heck, I don't even care about that, and I DO consider myself pretty athletic. I'm not going to be winning any olympic medals in my lifetime, but I like to walk a lot, love to play a few sports, and am looking to get back into yoga and martial arts. I couldn't care less if my boyfriend were active or not, because I do the athletic things I do for MY body and MY piece of mind, not anybody else's. I think it's great that he'd like to walk with me sometimes when I go for a walk and likes to swim and lift weights, but ultimately, it was never even in the top ten list of things I was looking for (not that I really kept a list or requirements in my head) when I met my boy swan. We met and talked and became really good friends. We became attracted to the compatibility we had as friends and the ease with which we could make each other smile, encourage one another, just be there for one another.

I realize we've only been together a few months and that we had an easier time than most at not basing our initial attraction to each other on looks (after all, we couldn't even, you know, SEE each other) but, yeesh.

I've talked myself out on this one. I had a point, but I think I sat on it and have yet to feel it through my inactive thighs (sarcasm). But I'll just finish with this question, are there SERIOUSLY no other interesting things to write about that reporters are stuck with writing the trash in the article above? I don't know what's worse, the fact that there are far more important things that the writer could be writing, or the fact that they aren't being written/published because they won't sell as well.

Stop

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:27:55 GMT

Please stop. Please stop telling me "well you looked so good the other day in that dress" or "I'm so jealous of you" or "oh my God you skinny bitch". Please stop telling me that I eat so healthfully and that it's great I exercise so much. You don't see how much I exercise. I walk three times a week. That's it. Sometimes I'm too tired and take the bus. Then it's only one or two times a week. I eat a lot. I'm not denying myself. I'm not any more virtuous or "together" or good because to you I look better.

So please stop. Please stop telling me you're proud or that you hate that I can "eat whatever you [I] want and never get fat" or that you're impressed or jealous. Please stop telling her that she should look like me, that she'll never get a man the way she is or that she looks bad.

Please just stop it.

Because we all know that if/when the next fad diet works for you, you'll start to lose weight again. And then you'll find you're upset because though the pounds are coming off you still hate your body and are miserable to boot because you aren't letting yourself have a goddamned cookie every once in a fucking while. And then, because fads don't work, that stupid dieting you do doesn't work, you'll stop losing and because you hate yourself, and hate yourself for hating yourself, and are miserable because while others are living, you're letting life pass you by in lieu of hoping for that mystical, magical day when you'll be OMG-Dreams-DO-Come-True! thin, you'll start to look around and rip on every other body around you. When that happens, I will cease to have the family's "exemplary" body. I will cease to have been "lucky enough" to have gotten my father's "skinny" genes and I will again be the strong, big-boned, athletic girl who you always wished was wispy and ballet-dancer-strong instead of solid and can-move-all-her-own-furniture strong.

So stop it. Because for the first time in my life I'm actively trying to move to a point to where I can love my body, regardless of the shape of it, or how it "looks"; regardless of how "virtuous" or "not virtuous" I look within the span of gaining or losing a few pounds. Stop harping on me or singing my praises about how good or bad you think I look based on how good or bad you feel about yourself. Maybe try to see instead that you're still the same person you were in your "thin" days with the same body, it just doesn't look the same. Different doesn't always mean better or worse, it just means different. That's life. Differences, changes come and go. Why oh WHY waste so much time agonizing over how to expedite those changes? Why oh WHY, really, WHY compromise your life now for a possible "better" life you might not get to have tomorrow?

"I want to save your life"

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:42:35 GMT

Anyone seen the commercials yet? It's something that's going to be on WE. I can't find a video online of the commercial but basically it's a reality show and the commercial shows a girl coming out of a food joint with a hot dog (she looks to be only a little chubby to me to begin with, mind you) and this 'diet detective' in his car writes something down on his paper... then the I WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE title comes up...

My rant about this:

This is probably the biggest issue I have with fat prejudice. It's people who say, "I get disgusted when I see a fat person eating at a fast food restaurant." Those who say they have an issue with anyone eating things that are bad for them I respect a little bit more, at least they just want (or at least say they want, though I'd still wager it's a more cleverly disguised way of exposing their fat hate) people to eat more healthfully, which is not intrinsically bad. The thing is, WHY is it so taboo to see a fat person eat "bad" food? Unless you know how that person eats every single day of their life (in which case you must either be a close friend, roommate, SO, or family member... or a stalker) you cannot based on that one instance assume that woman is just a little rounder than you because she always drives (of course she drives! fat women don't walk!) to the hot dog shop EVARY DAY. We all learned about the food pyramid in grade school and we all got the schpeal about how fats are fine, and actually something your body needs, just not in excess. So WHY the HELL is this woman who most likely probably eats pretty sensibly most of the time getting trashed for eating ONE fucking hot dog? Is that ONE hot dog really going to make her so so SO much fatter? Is that ONE hot dog going to lead her down the "OMG SHE'S EATING EVERYTHING!!!11" path for the rest of her life? I really doubt it. This is the big problem I've always had with fat-phobia, is that one "bad" choice MUST necessarily denote a whole slew of "bad" choices and that one either eats well or eats poorly, there is no middle ground. Aside from the fact that it's absurd, I'm damn certain it's what leads to a lot of binging so common among people who diet regularly because if they've already "ruined" a "good" day the thinking is they may as well throw the whole day out the window. Not true. But thanks to our fucked up society, enough of us think it is to keep the weight watchers gurus getting fat (lol) off our suffering. I can't know how others have thought, but seeing as whole books have been written on the guilt women feel after indulging themselves and ruining a "good" day and thereafter falling into a binge, I'm going to take a stab at saying that I'm not the only one who's had several issues with this kind of destructive thinking.

Forget the fact that true self control means moderation and allowing oneself regular treats so as to not later go overboard, forget that moderation includes allowing oneself to have "bad" days every so often. Maybe as often as two or three times a week (maybe more). No no, forget all that. If you eat a hot dog, you fail. Go to the gym, fattie. And skip dinner while you're at it.

And on top of that, even if this woman isn't practicing true moderation, even if on the off chance the diet detective is lucky enough to score mostly women who either do treat their bodies poorly or women who are confused and self-hating enough to be convinced they MUST be treating their bodies poorly SO FUCKING WHAT? Even if all of everything the half crazed exercise instructors and anorexic "nutritionists" and out of whack BMI charts is true and people who eat hot dogs are killing themselves were true SO WHAT? Nobody has the authority to tell someone else to put down that hot dog, to instead go for the broccoli, etc. Let the woman enjoy a hot dog for fuck's sake.

/end rant