L'chaim

A riff from elsewhere, on the general mantras regarding "you're too fat" messages, which in turn was based on this article with the shocking news that Bullies Target Obese Kids (who knew?):

I'm just thinking: the "it's for your health" crap. I mean, even besides the whole, it sort of gives the game away that someone doesn't necessarily have your best interests in mind when they also call you an ugly old hag or "bitchcunt" and other hilariously witty epithets. But, yeah, sure: health is a good thing. Eat better, if you can, get more exercise, assuming you're able. All over it. Eating more fruits and vegetables and fiber and fish. Haven't had fast food for quite a while. Doing Pilates twice a week now. Getting back into dance and yoga. Signed up for pole dancing next week, yah rly. Because it makes me feel better, physically and mentally. Health, yes. And yeah, I don't actually eat all that much, amount wise; mainly this has to do with the meds I'm on. Will it result in weight loss eventually? Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is, if I made that my priority, I'd make myself nuts, so I'm not. Again: in the interest of health. Mine.

So, but yeah, in terms of ingesting shit that's bad for you? Today it occurred to me: y'know, I could eat McChuck's three times a day and wash it down with a donut milkshake, and I'm betting it still wouldn't be as bad for me as swallowing the toxic go-ahead-and-hate-yourself-for-not-being-thin-enough (along with every other reason, of course) bullshit being shoveled at us from all sides. I mean, you can't not swallow any, fuck knows. But, just sucking it up undiluted? In the apparent belief that it's, I don't know, a health drink? Might as well go out into the Gulf right now and take a nice big gulp out of the noxious oil slick. And fuck yes, that eventually takes a physical toll, too. The more I learn about mind-body-well, that's another thread.

I got a fair share of bullying as a kid, surprise. The main theme wasn't fat, although that was certainly a motif through at least some years. I hovered around the "high end of normal" until I was 21 or so, except when I was dieting. Which, the first time I did that, I was 10. Yeah, ten. Why? Three guesses. It didn't quite develop into an eating disorder, but I have a feeling I was well on my way; for whatever reason, at some point the suggestion by a doctor that if I remained as underweight as I was I wouldn't hit puberty upset me more than the prospect of getting fat, so I started eating again, and that was that; by the end of sixth grade I was back to normal, if not well before that. There are pictures of me from that proto-anorexia or whatever it was period, though: you can count all my ribs through the T-shirts I'm wearing. I'd throw away lunch and exercise till I was dizzy and nearly passed out.

Then, when I was 17, Mom and I decided to do Jenny Craig together, (Mom's idea, natch) because we'd both hit the horrifying weight of-what was it? 138? At 5'4? My god, we were sometimes into the double digit sizes. Thank fuck we straightened that out in time, I say. Mom's instructor was a "former" anorexic who would lecture about how she trained herself out of having a glass of wine at the end of the day by chanting about how she didn't need it a hundred times. Something like that. But by the end of it I was wearing a size 4, at least for a year or so; no one made fun of me for being fat at that point.

So, instead, for instance, the same boy who'd started our acquaintance by randomly calling me a "bitch" in class back in junior high, before I'd so much as spoken to him or he knew my name (it took me till much later to realize it had happened when I knew the answer to something he didn't) prank calling me drunk in the middle of the night and making remarks about, like, the shape of my face. Seriously. Or the shoes I wore. Like that. In itself? No big deal. Years and years' worth of that kind of shit? It gets old.

I know a bunch of people who don't like the Judy Blume book "Blubber" because it's depressingly-some would say gratuitously-true to the way kid harassment works: the name calling, the hazing, the sheer thoughtless nastiness. It seems to suggest that the bullies are right, is the argument from those people. Personally, I still think it's one of her better ones. There's a point where the title character has brought a "diet" meal to school, and when the ringleader points it out she says something like, she's going to lose weight and then they won't be able to make fun of her anymore. To which the ringleader responds by forcing her to repeat that "My name will always be Blubber" and then telling her not to forget it, because "even if you only weigh fifty pounds you'll still be a smelly whale." It is rather instructive, at that. And then when the protagonist stands up to the ringleader, she becomes the goat for a while. She fights back, and she manages to get off the hot seat, but it's not really a moral victory; life just kind of goes on.

And yet, of course, it's not pure randomness that the designated goat is the "fat girl." You do get a glimpse behind the scapegoating impulse that can, in fact, land on anyone; but fact is, it does land more often on some people than others; this is was we call "structural" shit, of course.

As for not standing up for yourself...well, it's an interesting set of mixed messages out there, for sure.

Frex: vacations, I'd go to my grandparents' house in Arizona, a "safe space" for me, on the whole. I liked to read the books on her shelves-I was always a reader; most of them had been around since the year one. She had the original "Weight Watchers" book from 1960, beehive do's and pointy boobs on the front cover, glowing testimonials on the back. One of the chapter titles, as I recall:

"You Have To Hate Yourself Enough."

To lose weight, that is. Motivation to go on a diet starts through hating yourself. It was that bald.

Oh, they've softened that line since then, I'm sure, have WW. That, and bits like the inspirational little stories sprinkled throughout like:

the one of the sweet but painfully sad and alone (what else would she be?) fat woman who began to "blossom" as the pounds came off. And then, one day, she Met A Man! And it was wonderful and romantic! And he proposed to her! Swoon! But, he also told her he could "never marry a fat girl." Panic, when she hit the dreaded "plateau!" She'd "never make it to her wedding," she cried to her WW buddies! But, somehow, they got her through it, the pounds started to come off again, and she wore her beautiful size seven wedding dress to marry her wonderful husband, and they lived happily ever after^. Seriously. That was in the book. I remember it well; I read it over and over again, along with the Dr. Spock book and the ten year old guide to the best restaurants in Phoenix.

(^That is, he carried her over the threshold with one arm, no doubt, and they lived happily ever after until she gained the weight back again and he dumped her for his secretary, or she didn't gain the weight back and he dumped her anyway because she got too old for him or she got breast cancer and it was too upsetting or he didn't like the way she snored, or he didn't leave her but he beat the shit out of her or just wore her down till she took a wee fistful of Valium every day, or...yes well they left that bit out, never mind, moving on)

"The flip side of this charming worldview..."

(riffing off the same SP post that inspired this one)

I hadn't even gotten into fillyjonk's other point, the one that started me commenting on this piece, before I got distracted by what felt like the main point. Said other point being:

The flip side of this charming worldview, of course, is male anger at women who don’t make themselves available — see many of our friends in that now-closed thread — or women who have the gall to have a body they find unattractive. That’s the real problem with feminism, with fatness, with (for some pseudo-enlightened guys) the extremely thin beauty ideal: it’s a boner-killer, and boner primacy is a paramount law of the dude cabal. You don’t have to read very far between the lines of most troll comments to see that’s what it boils down to: how dare you possess a womanly body I can’t or don’t want to fuck.

One of the -other- charming Tucker Max slogans, by the way, (not sure if it made it to an actual bus ad or not; I wouldn't be surprised) was "Fat girls aren't people." A motto he, like so many of his fellow yrch, upholds faithfully by the same kind of invasive in-your-space crap as goes to the "lucky" "hot girls," except instead of aggressive and hostile come-ons often laced with insults, you get...insults, often laced with aggressive and hostile-come-ons. e.g. (via the same Schmucker-related comment thread, I can't be arsed linking back to the original again):

Hey Sara Lee, I was only kidding! COME BACK HERE--MY FRIEND LIKES TO GO HOGGIN. MORE CUSHION FOR THE PUSHIN! IT'S LIKE RIDING A MOPED!!

Of course, this is the same attraction/disgust other "undesirable" women get: the exotically fetishized racial "Other," particularly those whose stereotypes don't map to "hyperfeminine" (i.e. the Asian "Lotus Blossom"); trans women; women with disabilities (viz Fuckhead's charming "I'm two thirds of the way to a Helen Keller"), women who are -too- "slutty" or "low-class," including sex workers; and so forth.

And yes, of course, in this "charming worldview," women are never entirely "people," not -really- (nor for that matter are quite a lot of men, but that's not the subject of this particular post) . Women who're "friends" or "girlfriends" or otherwise "special" may be (sort of) excepted, as long as they don't step out of line or lose their attractiveness and/or utility or make too many demands, like decent treatment. **

But the women deemed "unfuckable" (except, of course, when it's in the name of supposed desperation, or in the interest of gathering exotic/disgusting stories to tell one's friends, or in the dudely bonding activity of attempting to degrade via fucking, or even that the dude in question is secretly attracted but of course can't admit to any such thing in front of his dudebros)--well, those women get to be, shall we say, more -overtly- "not real people." Further objectified. Further dehumanized. Further to fall. Ain't it the way.

One could examine -how- each of these particular ways of being "unpersoned" starts with being "unwomaned." As noted in previous posts and elsewhere, the way trans women are treated perhaps most sharply illuminates this curious phenomenon (i.e. [cis] women aren't -really- people, but compared to people and especially women who get cast outside either the favored or disfavored gender boxes, it's still a lot more "personed"). The "unwomaning"/"desexing" (and/or fetishizing) of women of color and women with disabilities each respectively happens in its own way, within its own context(s), but in service of roughly the same ends.

Fat-bashing and especially fat-woman-bashing is an interesting one, and one I realize I haven't talked about much in this blog, curiously enough, because I am fat. As for the etiology of "fat is a feminist issue," today is my day for quoting Shapely Prose, I guess, because this here is a really good breakdown:

(summarizing themes from feminist philosopher Susan Bordo's book Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body):

-Voracious hunger is considered a sign of manliness.

-Hunger for food and desire for sexuality are constructed as analogous, but this is a gendered analogy. When women are targeted, “their hunger for food is employed solely as a metaphor for their sexual appetite.” When men are targeted, the metaphor goes in reverse: eating delicious food is depicted as a sexual conquest. (The examples for this include hilariously awful ads of men whispering sweet nothings to their Betty Crocker desserts.)

-Female hunger is represented in terms of misogynistic fear: sex is imagined as a form of eating in which the woman consumes and destroys a male object of desire.

...The connection between hunger and desire, especially, can be subterranean: the ideal of thinness, of course, depends on you having the goal of a certain kind of fuckability — but even eating itself is depicted as an act of sensual abandon instead of a necessity for every living thing on earth. As such, men are commended for having hearty appetites — boys will be boys — and women are told to keep their mouths (and their knees) shut.

The quote I highlighted above is the one that was most illuminating to me, because it says (in my non-theory translation) that dieting is the ultimate act of repressive femininity. Essentially, what Bordo argues is that not eating when your body needs food is participating in your own marginalization — but it’s marginalization dressed up as a sexual ideal. This, I think, is why trolls and anti-FA jerkwads are so obsessed with the idea that we want them all to have sex with fatties: fat is, on some unacknowledged level, about sex in our culture.

And of course, while these days women aren't supposed to keep their knees shut, "sluttiness" is still considered degrading, even monstrous, particularly if it's the woman's idea/desire. Also see.

This is all even before we get to: what if the woman desires women rather than men.

Let's skip over the relatively obvious trope of "any woman who doesn't desire the misogynist is a dyke (and probably fat and ugly to boot, and nobody wants those grapes -anyway-), whether she actually is one or not."

Let's start with "yes I am, and especially seeing you represented as the alternative, THANK THE SWEET WEEPING JESUS, because annoying as tolerating your existence is -now-, I can't even imagine what it'd be like to -want- attention from a shitbag like you, which is of course assuming not only straight but either with really low self-esteem or a taste for smug often-not-exactly-gorgeous-themselves mediocrities with more beer than brains."

Not that I am saying that the latter is a small population: hey, it was good enough for Laura Bush.

But the truth is, as much as the political lesbian and other such might like to romanticize the notion, being Sapphically inclined is not actually all that much of an opt-out from being on the receiving end of this sort of bullshit. For one thing, as noted here recently, women, dykes included, can be appalling assholes too. In eerily similar-sounding ways those of the brodudes, even, amazingly enough.

Mostly, though, what happens is, as with any other woman, you're going along your way, minding your own business, and some hairbag or frathole or other form of arrested male development decides to inform you that He Would Not Fuck You Anyway, He Does Not Like You, Spam He Am.

This happens in a variety of contexts, online or off. Occasionally it's completely out of the blue; you just happen to be unfortunate enough to occupy the same airspace (or bandwidth) as the meatsack, and, more to the point, his buddies; you are merely the means to the end of scoring a laugh/bonding moment.

Other times it (also) turns out to be, however obscurely, the meatsack's way of expressing that you have Stepped Beyond Your Place, whatever that entails. A political opinion he does not care for, say; or your not smiling when urged to do so; or laughing too loudly in public (what if it were at him!)

The implication that being adjudged "fuckable"*** by some random wet fart is something one should aspire to in the first place should be as obvious and pathetic as its rough equivalent, the small child changing from "You're pretty!" to "You're ugly! I hate you!" when one tells her firmly that it is past her bedtime (actual experience and Click Moment when I was a young woman of babysitting age).

And yet, as has been the thesis here, grown men resort to this devastating retort all the bloody time. More to the point, they feel comfortable referring to an implicit, sometimes explicit, authority in doing so. "Every straight man with a set of eyes." It's true because it's true, because it's true. Obviously the chode in question is being ridiculously self-absorbed; yes, attraction is subjective, but it's more than that. He's comfortable believing he's the center of the universe because he's -used- to that impression being reinforced. Of -course- he doesn't find you fuckable, unworthy woman; and of -course- this should be something you should worry about. What, you thought your life had nothing to do with the whims and demands of Average Entitled Dudebro? Think again. Attention, attention must be paid.

And sooner or later, the old "just ignore them, dear" bromide being as ineffectual to address the root of the problem--i.e. the misogynistic entitled assholes are being misogynistic entitled assholes, and it's their own damn choice to do so, which is unsurprising because they're only being rewarded for it, by and large--one sighs, and cracks one's knuckles, and puts down one's copy of Fun Home or whatever else was a hell of a lot more interesting than the overgrown fratholes who still run way too much of the planet, and -gives- them some attention.

One trusts the recipients of said troll food attention are suitably appreciative.


**If you're depressed enough already after reading that Gawker piece, you might as well skip the comments, a good chunk of which boil down to,

"I don't believe it, and even if it's true that's not really that big a deal anyway, not like -real- abuse, and also it's her own damn fault for taking so much horrific crap from anyone. No sympathy."

The ex ("Bunny") herself would appear to be largely in agreement with the sentiment that she has/had her own reasons for dating a knob like Tucker, and so forth. And no, the repeated labeling of other women as "whores" and so on isn't exactly endearing, that is true. That said, I find her a hell of a lot more sympathetic than him. For one thing, she's actually a much more interesting writer.

***p.s. in case you didn't get your full share of ugly: not just fuckable, but rapeable.

In which I channel my inner radfem, or something:

I am liking this website right now. Anti-bra.

Why? Simple. I hate the fucking things.

I am sorry that the 70's era bra-burning thing is a myth (although I'm sure someone tried it somewhere), because in theory it sounds very satisfying, although in reality I imagine it'd be something of an anti-climax, plus setting that microfiber whatsit shit on fire probably'd be bad for the environment, and smell terrible.

It's not really a the result of lengthy, deep, forehead-crinkling "examination," this conclusion of mine; although, yes yes sure obviously the fact that I wear 'em even though I can't stand 'em is about Teh Pat, or The Man, or The System, or what you will. But I'd happily keep wearing them if I actually got any use or pleasure out of them. It's very personal, and very physical. I realize this is not gonna be one size fits all (hah), lots of women really do feel better with 'em on, I buy it. I'm just not one of 'em. I. Just. Hate. Wearing. Bras.

Well, let me clarify. I'm femmey, in a low key way. I could like bras as fetish wear, or fashion sometimes, same as I like corsets. But I so hate them as effectively -mandatory-. I'm sure I'd have felt the same way about corsets if I were expected to wear one all day ever fucking day. I can't even wear tight jeans for very long.

And even the most comfortable bras, even the ones that -do- fit, sort of, it's like--it's elastic digging into my shoulders. It's multiple metal hooks near my bare skin. It's a pinchy band right on or around my solar plexus where none was required or desired. Don't even get me started on the underwire ones, or the ones with itchy twee lace. I may be femmey, but comfort comes first 95% of the time. And for me--not speaking for anyone else--bras are NOT comfortable. Ever. At best, they're tolerable. And yeah, I did the "find your real size" thing, and still, except for very -rare- occasions where yeah I really do want "support" because it hurts if they jiggle--nope. Still uncomfortable. Still would rather go without. Still remove it first thing I get home, practically before putting my purse down, sometimes before taking off my shoes.

And, thing is, bras: as a very Zaftig person, yep, I -do- get policed regularly should I visibly go without in public. On the street, I mean. Certainly at any kind of corporate or "real" job I ever did, I didn't even think of trying. But I mean, I consider it par for the course to have to put on certain kinds of "drag" for certain situations. Bras? It's basically been: anywhere outside my apartment. Because, it's very -obvious- if I go without, let's say. Oddly enough, (or not) the disapproving comments (and even a catcall, once) seem to come from women at least as often as men.

So, I like this site, because it reminds me I've been thinking of just saying fuck it and doing without more often anyway. The gallery of the range of "normal" breasts is worth looking at especially, check it out. (Of course Not Safe For Fucking Work, it's bare breasties! and, well, proving the point...)

I don't love everything they say. The emphasis on "but breasts are for babies!"...yes, it's true, obviously, and the weirdness this culture has about public breast feeding zomg is certainly fucked up. And they're not obnoxious about the whole, breasts aren't -inherently- sexual although they certainly can be, pretty much on board; just, I've seen too many cultural feminists take that shit and torque it into their own weird eroticization is always bad mkay, did we mention we canz has BABIEZ??? oh, too bad for you if you're one of the women who can't, but, you know, the -principle- of the thing, MOON WOMB SPOON JUNE.

As for the anti-augmentation--yes wrt the industry and health concerns and all; but again, I've seen too many feminsts use it as an excuse for misogynist bashing to not have my knee jerk a little. especially when they make aesthetic criticisms of the way surgically enhanced breasts look--lookit, artifice is fine too, you're willing to expand your generosity of beauty appreciation to all kinds of "normal," leave other women's bodies the hell alone; even if you think they're only doing it to please someone else or harming themselves, (also consider the possibility that you may be incorrect) exchanging one form of shaming and tsking and hectoring for another isn't a way out.

The cancer connection--well, maybe. I don't know anyone who wears the things 24/7. I imagine there might be something to that severe a constriction that consistently not being great for the lymph nodes, but I really don't know. But yeah, wrt the whole "o you need to wear a bra or they'll sag earlier"--which I've gotten, yep, thanks Mom--fuck it.

a) really, only makes a difference as long as it's actually on
b) anyway, so the hell what if they do sag? It's called "gravity," generally a good thing or we'd all be floating on the fucking ceiling innit?

They -did- make the same argument about not getting rid of the corset, back in the day, of course: but but but the waistline will just expand out of control unless you wear one, at least during the day! And: well, um, yeah. They do that. And?

I will say that the camisole solution--in general, don't prefer it, more comfortable when it's not too hot, sure, but when it is it's just one more layer to put up with, and there's still the Annoying Little Strap issue to contend with.

You can fill in the rest, I'm not saying anything eight kazillion other feminists haven't said. Just rabbiting into the void here, really. And, hey, if it inspires anyone else who also hates the fucking things but hasn't quite gone as far as pitching them, solidarity, yo.

If you're like, hey, but I love my bra, as far as I'm concerned, for whatever it's worth, you are totally golden. Work away. All's you have to do is -not- give -me- static if I go without, and I will most certainly not give you static for adoring your Wonderbra, or indeed silicone or other high artifice/bodily modifications.

If you are thinking, hey, this isn't her usual subject matter, what's up with that? It is because I cannot be arsed to write about anything that involves more research or thought or care than "hey, I just clicked this link, say that reminds me: did I ever mention I hate bras?" and, well, I'm just sitting here, really.

And, that is all.

ETA: Comrade Physioprof spotted something in that site that I missed:

The first comprehensive study on this subject was done by medical researcher Sydney Singer, after his wife Soma Grismaijer discovered a lump on her breast. She got rid of hers in two months by quitting wearing bra, doing regular breast massage and exercise, drinking only purified water, and taking some herbs and supplemental vitamins and minerals.

Yeah, no. Really: No. I mean, I'm sure all those things are fine to do, too, -before- you find something? but sorry, but if you have a lump, go to the fucking doctor. Yeah, patriarchal Westernized medicine and all; somehow I'm not gonna take whatsis' husband's word for the self-healing spiel, thanks. I'd like to see how exactly they conducted the "comprehensive study," too, now, frankly.

'K, I rescind endorsement of the site. The gallery is still cool, though, and I still think it's worth repeating:

No one should have to wear uncomfortable tit-slings if they don't want to.

Really, why do people need to tart it up with this other crap? *sigh*

11th Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy

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"Thin brains in thirty days. BRAWWWWK!"

Body Impolitic is kicking off a new contest for Stupidest Fat Related Comment:

This week, we’ve found two.

First, we have this completely not fat-related article about San Francisco’s wild parrots and whether or not they should be fed by tourists. The reasons to limit tourist feeding are that “the parrots are harmed by relying on the handouts instead of fending for themselves, and are more susceptible to spreading and catching disease.” Even though this is hardly a topic you’d expect to lead to stupid fat comments, this gem leaps out:

[a commenter] says “… protecting them from feeding is a good idea. Obesity is a real problem in this country, and you have to start somewhere.”

yes, we’re all worried about the avian obesity epidemic.

i can see it now: the new “Polly Wanna Cracker” diet. you eat nothing but crackers and gorp, and you have to eat it out of someone else’s hand (portion control, you know). comes complete with bonus exercise tape based on standing on one leg, arm flapping and loud, throaty squawks.