Red No. 3

I am the 95% of dieters who regain the weight.

2012-01-25T09:55:00.003-05:00

I am the 95% of dieters who regain the weight.

I didn't try to be part of the 95%. When I gained weight in college, I was struggling with accepting my changing body but also knew that dieting wasn't an answer. But then one summer I got very ill with a drug-resistant Strep infection and was basically on an extreme diet for 4-6 weeks when I could barely keep down food. After putting on about 50 lbs over a year, I lost it all in a month. When I recovered, though, the weight came right back on and then some. My weight stabilized after about a year and remained fairly stable for the next decade with a natural fluctuation of about 15 lbs up and down.

There is an old saying in Fat Acceptance that losing weight is as easy as holding your breath. Keeping it off is as easy as continuing to hold your breath. Dieting has breed a myth of its success off the fact that its not hard to induce weight loss. This period of "success" is what convinces dieters that its their fault when the diet fails. The truth is that the diet failed and was always going to fail. When I did might sound extreme, but its actually tame compared to some commercial diet plans. Even the most pseudo-reasonable "lifestyle change" relies on a fundamentally unsustainable formula. Sooner or later, we need to breathe. The diet industry, though, thrives on sustainability. Every time a diet fails, that's just a new customer. More billions to make off of peddling fat stigmatization.

I am the 95%. I did not fail. A culture of fat shame and fat hate has failed me.

There is a reason my picture is at the top of the page

2011-12-15T00:27:00.001-05:00

So, someone on reddit linked to my post about White Knights today and my traffic shot up. I'm always amused by this in Blogger stats. They have a little chart of my blog traffic that defaults to the current week and usually there are normal little ups and downs but sometimes something throws off the curve and I get a straight line hugging the bottom of the chart and then a line going straight up to the top. This happens most reliably when I get linked on reddit or when I get linked from Shakesville.

Anyhow, someone made a sad little quip about supposed "white knights" and someone responded to them by linking to my deconstruction of that line of attack. It will not surprise you to learn that the response was a whole lot of guys dismissing me as a white knight and generally belittling me in a general.

Quite a few took the time to mock me for being fat. They saw my photo in my blog header and decided they could just stop right there. Clearly someone so fat wasn't worth listening to. It was a potent reminder of how much risk fat people face when they are publicly fat. Of how much entitlement people feel to insult and demean us on sight. Which, as it happens, is precisely why my photo is up there.

I put my photo on the top of my blog specifically to say "fuck you" to each and every person who thinks I don't matter because I'm fat. I put it up there knowing it would incite hatred and wanting that reaction. I don't want to comfort these assholes by hiding. I don't want to feel like I'm not putting myself out there to stand behind what I believe in. Mind you, I don't think this is something fat people are obligated to do. The risks are real, after all, and I can't ask anyone else to take on those risks. I can ask myself, though. I can decide for myself that I can take the abuse. When I was considering it, I was thinking about all the other fat bloggers who I knew what they looked like. It might not be because their photo was on every page of their blog, but they are putting themselves out there. I found that really inspiring and when I took some great shots of myself in Santa Monica last year, I decided to just go with it.

I'm not going to lie, there are moments where the insults hurt. Where the risks are realized and they sting, but they are getting less and less. Today, reading the insults, I mostly just laughed. Really? That photo up there is so outrageously ugly that you can dismiss everything I have to say? Bullshit. I look great in that picture. I love that picture. Not every fat person can get to the point where the really love how they look, even for just a moment in one photo. I am fortunate to have gotten to that point and its something that I can come back to in the times when I'm struggling. Is that vanity? Maybe. Maybe some vanity is a good thing for fat people to have. Given the way we are told to feel about ourselves, I don't really think there is any danger in going too far in the other way. That scale is never going to get imbalanced that way so we should have no shame of whatever bit of vanity we may get.

I put my photo in my header because I think I look awesome and I want the people who hate me to see it and know just how awesome I am. I want them to look at that picture and then tell me I'm ugly so I can know that they don't know what they are talking about. Never am I more confident than when responding to someone trying to strip me of my confidence. For me, the vulnerability of being fat and visible is ultimately a source of strength.

Like I said, I don't think this needs to be everyone's choice. Even those who shy away from linking their photos to their fat politics are still living their lives visibly fat. Even those who still hate their bodies are publicly fat and that should inspire us all. There is tremendous power in being seen. That is why people want to drag us down. They want to take that power away from us, but they never can. Our bodies are powerful and we can be inspired by this power. Not to put our photos on the internet, but to do anything in our lives. Being seen while fat is a real power we all have. They will never take that from us.

A Message to My Fellow Fat Admirers

2011-11-09T19:46:00.000-05:00

Dudes!

What up?

So, I've noticed some of my fellow male fat admirers throwing tantrums when women object to be sexualized without consent. These dudes whine about how the women are telling them aren't allowed to find fat bodies attractive.

Cut that shit out. Like now.

No one is out to confiscate your boners. Sexual attraction to fat bodies is totally awesome. There may be people out there who want to shame you for your sexuality, but its not these women. So, by all means, holster your outrage and listen up.

The issue these women are complaining about isn't sexual attraction. They are asking to be treated with respect and dignity. Try not to be shocked at this stunning request. You still get that be sexually attracted to fat women. Just, maybe respect them.

And actually, strike that maybe.

Don't act all mystified at this concept. Its possible to interact with people you feel a sexual attraction towards without sexualizing them. Sexual attraction doesn't mandate objectification. That's just you being an asshole. Trust me, I've been attracted to fat women as long as I can remember. I'm still able to appreciate context and react accordingly. Its NOT. FUCKING. HARD. I'm sick and tired of men acting like this is impossible and that people are trying to police their arousal. Are these women saying its wrong to have sexual desire for fat bodies? NO. Its not about your sexuality. Its about THEIR sexuality. They may well be very happy to experience a fat admirer's sexual desire, but on their terms and with their consent. This isn't outrageous or obnoxious. Its their right.

I get that no one has ever told you that you should respect fat women, but you should. I get that men are often taught by our culture to sexualize and objectify women constantly, but that doesn't make it okay and it certainly doesn't make you the victim when people tell you to stop. Our culture systematically attempts to strip women of their sexual agency and men have a responsibility to do their part to stop that. Which mans starting with not doing yourself and continues with telling other men to stop doing it.

This is especially important for fat women who already live in a culture that conspires to desexualize them. They often find themselves in scenarios where they are told to choose between never being desired sexually or always being objectified sexually. That's fucked up and wrong. You should be able to know that by just basic empathy, but I'd submit that as fat admirers its in our interest to combat thin privilege and male privilege. Not just because standing with our current or prospective romantic and sexual partners on issues of basic human dignity is the right thing to do (though that really should be enough), but its in our self-interest, too. Those restricted options women face impact us, too. We are being taught that our sexuality is wrong and that if we act upon it that we are deviants. We are told we don't deserve to open, loving relationships with partners we are sexually attracted to. We are told we shouldn't date them because they are "unhealthy". We are told there must be some defect that causes our sexuality. We are being denied the opportunity to embrace our sexuality in the ways men with conventional attractions take for granted. The women who complain about objectification of fat women aren't trying to take away our sexuality, they are trying to fight for it! We should stand with them and resist those who tell us to sexualize and objectify fat women because they don't deserve better and we don't deserve better.

I know there must be a lot of questions circling your head right now. Like, "but, Brian, how will I masterbate?" First off, find someone with a hand to spare and ask them smack you in the back of the head. What did I tell you about no one confiscating your boners? I'm telling you to recognize context as an element of personal expression. Fat people have a lot of reasons to display their body that have nothing to do with your personal gratification and that's what you need to respect. Maybe its body-positive photography on Tumblr. Maybe its burlesque dance. Maybe its just going to the beach in a bikini. These things aren't done to get you off, and that's okay. You can appreciate what they are doing for what it is. You can and should support fat women being affirmational about their bodies without expecting that is being done for your limited benefit. Its okay to just say "that's beautiful". It doesn't have to be about what's going on in your pants.

And, in case you hadn't noticed (and of course you have), there are fat women who want to express their sexuality in a way which DOES consent to your sexual gratification. You are lucky in that if you want to consume pornography that you have a wealth of options that are produced and controlled by the women appearing in it. These women have a made a choice for their own sexual expression and agency. Women of a myriad of shapes, sizes, colors, ages, and even gender identity. So fucking spare me the complaints when women who don't consent take issue with being objectified. The problem is respecting their sexual agency. Objectification means you don't. Indeed, you probably specifically seek out women are not trying to express their own sexuality. Don't be that guy. Be better.

Maggie does a Podcast!

2011-10-19T09:13:00.001-04:00

Okay, so maybe not Maggie and more me. I was honored to be invited to join the Friend of Marilyn radio show and podcast from Access Manawatu, but Maggie was the topic of discussion. Check out the October 12 episode on iTunes or RSS as I talk with host Cat Pause about the Maggie book and my appropriation of Maggie for body positive messages. I'm surprisingly happy with the discussion considering how self-critical I can be about these things. Download and listen now!

Also, check out Maggie's recent adventures from my Tumblr:

“Maggie Explores the Galaxy”

“Maggie Reclaims the Word Fat”

“Maggie rejects Fatphobic Fashion Dictates”

“Maggie Makes a Yay Scale”

“Maggie Goes to the Beach”

“Maggie Takes Up Hiking”

The right way to fat shame our children

2011-10-02T22:00:00.003-04:00

Of course, there isn't a right way to fat shame our children, but that won't stop folks from trying. "Maggie Goes on a Diet" was clearly the wrong way, buts its not like people want fat kids to feel okay in their bodies. The solution? Why, semantics, of course!

You saw this dynamic a lot in the hand-wringing over "Maggie". People thought it was really important to do something about all this fat kids, but Maggie's attempt just seemed mean. Surely they could have all the shame without the guilt? Well, if there is one thing the diet industry specializes in, its guilt-free through cheap pretense. The problem with Maggie isn't its content or intent. It was the word "diet". Just take that out and everything will be okay.

Well, fat activists aren't likely to agree, but unfortunately lots of people are. The semantics around "diet" are something a bedrock in the weight loss industry. While Maggie's author clearly didn't get the script, another new book for kids gets the pretense right. Former New York City mayor Ed Koch has also written a children's book about how awful it is to be a fat child and how fat kids should really do something about that. Unlike "Maggie", Koch's book, "Eddie Shapes Up," might end up in a lot of homes and classrooms. While the celebrity author helps a lot, it also keeps to the agreed upon script.

According to reviews, the book gives lip service to ideas of there being "all kinds of bodies" and makes sure not to use the "d" word. Diet has a bad reputation, you see. Why? Well, because diets fail. Like, virtually all of the time. That's created quite a marketing problem for the diet industry. They solved it through a masterful bit of unified denial. Diets are what everyone else is selling you. Diets are what everyone else is buying. Diets are everything you did before now. Diets are never what you are doing now, because we all know that diets don't work. So Eddie doesn't go on a diet. He "shapes up" and "gets healthy".

This semantic game is played a lot. It sort of acts like a dog whistle to allow fat shaming while letting everyone feel less guilty about it. Inevitably, it gets defended with lines like "how can anyone disagree with this". Indeed, the plans often offered in these scenarios could be fairly innocuous and fat neutral. The problem is, these scenarios aren't fat neutral and that is the problem. Their proposals are secondary to their purpose. So long as the purpose is to "fight" to existence of fat children (or combat, wage war, or whatever other violent vocabulary is favored), they are still working to shame fat children. No matter what semantics they use to advance their war, that statement of purpose is what is creating the problem.

"Eddie Shapes Up" will no doubt curry favor with a lot of people who don't want to think they are shaming fat children, but still feel a deep need to wring their hands over fat kids. It'll be compared quite positively in relation to Maggie. Don't believe this hype. There is no right way to fat shame children. We don't need to teach fat shame to teach healthy eating and activity. Indeed, you can't. Because actually healthy eating and activity is not some magic that makes fat people into not fat people. It can improve health for those who desire that, but its not likely to make you weigh less. So, what do you get when you teach people those things as a means to weighing less in response to an "epidemic" of fat children? You teach them that their bodies are wrong that healthy eating and activity don't work to fix it. Every time someone self-righteously demands to know how I can be against this sort of thing, I have to think, "How can I not be against it?"

We need to move past fat shaming and fat stigmatizing if we actually care about the health and well-being of our children, both fat and thin. All kids should learn that all bodies are okay. None of the exceptions and qualifications so often tacked on. No matter the content of one's proposals, so long as its being taught under the banner of fighting childhood "obesity", then its just a pretense.

ALL fat bodies are made into a public concern

2011-09-29T22:21:00.003-04:00

Like most fat people, Chris Christie is apologetic for his body. Most fat people have internalized the fat shaming that gets directed at them every day of their lives. Most never even think to question it. Of course they shouldn't be fat. Its not a topic they ever give any consideration. Indeed, they often have more hostility towards fat activists because of this. Its important to remember, though, that internalizing fat shame doesn't immunize you from it.

There has been lot of concern trolling of Chris Christie lately along those very lines. People are gravely concerned about the prospects of him running for President. Not for his politics, mind you, but for his health. He obviously is much too unhealthy to consider higher office. This concern trolling has now reached the editorial pages of the Washington Post thanks to a supremely self-righteous bit of concern trolling from Eugene Robinson. He acknowledges that Christie feels ashamed of his size, but this merely justifies his paternalistic lecture about how Christie needs to lose weight if he plans to run for President. It is a shameful hit-piece and has no place in our political discussion. It builds on all sorts of tired and clichéd attacks on fat people.

Perhaps the most fundamental being the notion that this needs to be said. It is always preposterous when you see people so proud of themselves for stepping up and telling a fat person to stop being so fat. Already, we're seeing other pundits contribute to this by congratulating Robinson for saying the things that needed to be said. Why does everyone person who tries to put fatties in their place think they are the first person to do so? Heck, Robinson even quotes Christie saying he knows all of this. Christie AGREES, but that's still not enough to prevent the smug satisfaction over "telling it like it is".

Robinson also asserts that Christie is obviously too unhealthy to run for President. His proof? Well, just look at him being all fat and stuff. It takes him a while to offer anything more than his obvious fatness to justify his obvious lack of health, and even then the evidence is weaker than he'd like us to believe. Christie has had problems with asthma and was hospitalized for it briefly over the summer. When this happened, Christie obviously takes responsibility for his fatness, but also noted that he's relatively healthy by objective indicators. That doesn't slow Robinson down who proceeds to threaten Christie with the usual litany of fat diseases he's obviously going to fat himself with any day now.

Robinson continues by trotting out some dubious statistics about how fat people are causing the national health crisis. He tries to be clear that he's not blaming Christie for the National Debt crisis, shortly after blaming all fat people for the National Debt crisis. Easier to blame us collectively than individually, but don't forget that you can't do one without the other. We can't all be responsible for something without being responsible as individuals. Fat people having higher health care costs is something oft asserted, but with little discussion of what goes into that. Reading through Robinson's evidence, at least part of the increase is just based on costs associated with trying to make fat patients into not-fat patients. We'll never know much of the increase is due to fat people not receiving adequate preventive care due to stigmas involving seeking medical treatment while fat nor how much may be attributable to the life-time of weight cycling seen in virtually all fat patients who have made countless attempts to lose weight.

Robinson concludes by giving false lip-service to the notion that Christie isn't at fault for his weight. Sadly, this kind of tone is used by a lot of liberals eager to shame fat people collectively but rightfully squeamish about doing it individually. They like to talk about how they understand genetic factors, or they may try to blame evil corporations. Anything to comfort themselves with the notion that they aren't bullying fat people even while they are talking about how we need to eliminate fat people. Its an extremely hollow bit of pandering that I'm getting quite sick of. You can't write a whole column about how Christie needs to stop being so fat already and just assert that you aren't blaming him so you are somehow so terribly mature. Its a charade and one fat people aren't falling for. When you fixated on shaming and stigmatizing fatness, you are shaming and stigmatizing fat people. I don't care if you want to think you're better than that, but you aren't. You aren't saying anything different than all of the other people who tell us every day that our bodies are unacceptable. Your message is substantively NO different, no matter how you want to excuse it to yourselves.

Again, though, the tragedy of all of this is like with most fat shaming, its directed at someone who agrees with it. Maybe Christie will object to the the tone or venue, but he's repeatedly endorsed the substance. Yet people will still make a point to shame him over and over and over again. Christie will win himself no reprieve for his own acceptance of shame for his weight. It simply doesn't matter to the people doing the shaming. To them, if he didn't want to be shamed for his body, he should just stop being so fat at them.

What bothers me the most with Robinson's article, though, is his self-justification where he explains why this is his business. Christie's weight isn't a private matter, you see, because he has chosen to enter the public arena. Much like the "hasn't anyone told you to stop being fat" sentiment, this is the sort of wildly divorced from reality assertion that any fat person should just laugh at it. Really, his body is a public concern just because he's a public figure? Funny, because to most fat people, it seems like people are always making our bodies their business. No special justification needed, this is just another day in the life for a fat person. Our bodies are always treated like public property and we are subjected to repeated shaming and belittling for our transgressive size. Robinson may want to act like he's just making a special allowance for himself, but this is no special risk Christie faces for being in the public eye. Going out in public while fat is enough to make it a public issue for most people. What is happening to Christie is happening to fat people every day. Don't think for a second that he's some kind of special victim for being a fat politician, nor that he faces some sort of special responsibility for it, either. This is positively mundane.

I'm no fan of Christie politically. I think he'd make an awful President. There are lots of ways to make that case without concern trolling him for being fat. That is unequivocally wrong and I demand better. There is nothing mature about fixating on his weight instead of his policies. Christie gives people ample reason to oppose him based on his ideology. That has far more to do with how he'll govern than his pants size.

Its not discrimination if I think its wrong for everyone!

2011-09-27T14:07:00.003-04:00

In reading some of the discussion around L Word actress Leisha Hailey being kicked off a Southwest Air flight for kissing her girlfriend, I was reminded of a favorite defense trotted out in favor of discrimination. "But I think publicly kissing your partner is wrong no matter what your sexuality!" Indeed, its Southwest's defense here, too. Its not the sexual orientation, its the behavior. There is roughly no reason to ever take this sort of line seriously.

Its a pretty common tactic and that's what we need to recognize. This is a tactic and even an earnest proponent of it references it while willfully ignoring the larger social context. They think if they, individually, are willing to apply something to everyone, that's a get out of prejudice free card. That doesn't really work on a personal level, and it is pretty much insulting on a cultural level.

I'll take the cultural level first, because, well, it's low-hanging fruit. Trotting out this kind of "well, I'd discriminate against everyone" line in response to instances of discrimination is just an attempt at derailing. It doesn't matter why you'd do it. What matters are the systems of discrimination. By centering the discussion on your hypothetical motives, you just seek to distract from focusing on the larger social issues at play. You make something about you which isn't remotely about you. The reality is, your supposed even-handedness isn't what is happening in our culture. When gay people are scolded for showing affection, there is no counterpart among straight couples. Straight couples aren't being thrown off airplanes for kissing. Thin people aren't subjected to ridicule for eating in public. Men aren't viciously denounced for being sexually assertive. Your standards aren't the point, because your standards clearly aren't what's happening.

I feel this generally fails on the personal level, too. All too often, "but, its wrong for everyone" thinking only ever comes up when its wrong for the group society agrees its wrong for. Its essentially a hallow claim. You protest that you'd feel the same way if this were happening to a socially privileged group, but you never have to worry about that because it never will happen to a socially privileged group. Its just something to make you feel better about cheering for the stigmatization of marginalized groups.

The fat community sees this played out a number of ways. I suspect the most recognizable would be the fashion policing of fat bodies. Fat people are often scolded for their clothing choices by people who insist they'd find it distasteful on any better. Not coincidentally, though, they only ever voice that disgust with fat people for whom it is culturally protected to scold and demean for their bodies. They love claiming their prejudice is without regard for body size, but they never question their own actions and how even-handed they actually are when directly scolding people. They might like to think it and maybe they'd snark at celebrities, but I've seen little reason to think these people are seeking out thin bodies to police at the rates they are seeking out fat bodies. People like claiming they think its wrong for everyone, but the next time you hear someone say that, ask them to demonstrate that thinking in action. They like saying that to scold marginalized people, but how much time are they actually out there being publicly outraged when privileged people do it? I doubt many would even pass that test, much less be able to justify the recentering aspects of that position that draw attention away from social discrimination.

Maggie After Dieting

2011-09-19T01:24:00.008-04:00

So, by now, I'm sure you've become aware of a rather awful book aimed at children called "Maggie Goes on a Diet". The book depicts a teenaged girl who is bullied for her size and then goes on a diet and becomes thin and popular. While the protaganist is 14, the book's target audience is actually girls as young as 6. The cover depicts fat Maggie holding a dress in front of a mirror with her thin reflection looking back at her.

So, yeah, pretty much a horrible, horrible thing. Its been getting widespread condemnation, which, of course, means even people who think fat people don't deserve respect think this goes too far. The imagery of the cover really struck me for how tactless it is. It reinforces so many notions of there being thin people just waiting to come out of our fat bodies, a cliché which mostly serves to dehumanize fat people. We aren't actual people, just something covering up thin people. While a lot of mainstream critics were blandly attacking the book for not promoting fat stigma the right way, I kind of kept thinking to what happens after the book.

See, most fat people have dieted and lost weight in their lives. Maggie's story is one I've heard time and time again in fat accepting communities. Growing up fat and getting teased. Finally being able to maintain a low weight for some brief period of time before the inevitable swing of weight cycling brings their size up higher than it was to start. Indeed, its a cycle most fat people experience over and over. Maggie's story rings true to many fat people. Its just not the whole story.

So, as I had been dabling with Tumblr, I saw an opportunity for an art project and several weeks ago started posting my own book covers for sequels to Maggie's first story. Starting with "Maggie Gains Back the Weight and Learns to Accept Her Body":
Whether fat haters like it or not, gaining back the weight is next chapter of virtually ever diet success story. Not because Maggie failed or wanted to gain back the weight, but because dieting is a failed system. I did this pretty quickly in Photoshop, but it got a very nice response on Tumblr and I solicited suggestions from folks on Twitter. I got quite a few great ones (many of which I haven't gotten to, yet) of what else Maggie could do to empower herself. @FatandtheIvy had a particular good one which lead to my next Maggie sequel, “Maggie Gets a Master’s Degree in Gender Studies”:
As I continued making these, I've tried to avoid putting too much baggage on Maggie. She's really meant to be an "every fat woman", so I want people to feel free to envision her whatever they like. As far as I'm concerned, she's female presenting, relatively fair-skinned, and has red hair either by nature or design. Anything else, feel free to imagine. She can be cis or trans. She may be queer or straight or ace. I try not to even think of her as necessarily white, though I presume that was her original creator's intention. She's not pale, after all. I've known people of Latin America, Middle-Eastern, and Asian decent with similar coloring. I've clearly decided that Maggie is not bound by her original creator's intentions and I'm trying to recognize that she need not be bound by my own, either. Maggie is all about possibilities and the possibilities available to fat people are far more numerous than we are often led to believe. Yes, Maggie went on a diet. That just gives her something in common with nearly every fat activist out there. She, like every other fat person, deserved more than for that to be the whole of her story.

So, because not everyone follows me on Tumblr or Twitter, here are the continuing adventures of Maggie as she subverts her diet propaganda roots and empowers herself:

“Maggie Joins a Roller Derby League”
“Maggie Learns to Belly Dance”
“Maggie Goes to Re/Dress NYC”
"Maggie Joins a Punk Rock Band"
"Maggie Protests Fat Stigma"

More, surely, to come. You can follow me on Tumblr for updates.

The continued failure of fat people prevention

2011-09-02T14:18:00.004-04:00

If fat people were preventable, why are there so many fat people?

Its notable that anti-fat crusading celebrity chefs have shifted to talking about "preventing" fat people. Its a tacit admission that there is no safe, reliable way to make a fat person into a not-fat person. Which in the minds of fat-haters just increases the imperative to prevent us. Stop us before we fat! Not that this relieves any stigmatization of actual fat people as they focus on the potentially fat.

If anything, it makes it much worse as we're now a cautionary tale complete with an utterly made-up statistic of fat people costing "$10,273,973 per hour". Imagine if that song from from Rent had a chorus of "How about... the supposed economic impact of the continued existence of fat people." As a Shakesville commenter notes, this highly specific number is clearly derived from a far less specific $90 billion a year number. Basically, if you take $90 billion and divide it by the number of hours in a year (8,760), and then round up to the nearest whole dollar, you get their figure. They took a broad statistical estimate (prone to all of the usual manipulations that come with estimates based on assumptions which presuppose what you want to believe) and broke it down to the hour to make it seem more authoritative.

Still, we get back to the essential question here, if fat bodies can be prevented, why are the so many fat bodies to use as cautionary examples? Why has Jamie Oliver and those who have come before him failed so triumphantly to prevent fat people? The prevention and elimination of fat bodies has been a medical imperative for decades. Stigmatization of fat bodies is enforced through massive amounts of social shaming from family and peers and authoritative shaming from medical professionals. If fat people were preventable, everything ever done by those trying to prevent them has been a spectacular failure.

In his petition, Jaime Oliver says we must "demand better" from our UN Representative. I'm not sure what he thinks better will be exactly. He's already gotten the whole structure of our society behind him. Its a rather massive degree of entitlement for people who already run the world to be demanding more. But such is thin privilege.

He isn't wrong that we need to demand better, though. But who we need to demand it from are Oliver and his cronies. We need to demand better from every self-appointed "obesity" expert who perpetuates shame and stigmatization in the name of failed policies. We need to demand better than treatments that have never been shown to work and prevention that has never been shown to be effective. Fat people must demand better. Better health care. More respect. Less discrimination.

You're damn right, Jamie Oliver, that we should demand better. Better than you. Better than self-promotional marketing campaigns that will do far more the elevate the global brand of a celebrity chef than improve the life of one fat person, much less make anyone thinner. We need to demand options to improve our health and well-being that are not fixated on making our fat bodies not fat. We need to demand that health stop being an issue of right or wrong, good or bad. We need to stop shaming people for their health concerns and valorizing those who do "right". We need to stop the endless repetition of failed directives and stop predicating medical treatment and medicinal shaming on the size and shape of our bodies. Fat people deserve better. We demand better.

Bigotry doesn't always announce itself

2011-08-31T23:34:00.000-04:00

"I never said I hated fat people!"

A few weeks back I saw someone pull out this line in an argument. Variations of this remark come up a lot among people defending bigoted remarks of many stripes, and fat people certain see a good amount of this. In this case, someone had written an article suggesting fat people are unfit to serve in political office. (the original article seems to be down as a result of a site update, so no link) Calling for discrimination seems to be pretty clearly a case of bigotry to me, but not to many. After all, they never said they hated fat people.

Bigotry doesn't always announce itself. Indeed, it rarely does. Lots of bigots out there like to flatter themselves with justifications and explanations for why their calls for discrimination, stigmatization, and disempowerment aren't actually bigotry. Its an example of the entitlement that comes with privilege. They feel entitled to not have their hate labeled as such. Doing so would terribly rude and hostile. Far more rude and hostile than suggesting a class of people be barred from public office. So long as they don't label what they do and say as hate, no one else can.

Well, that's bullshit, isn't it? We can't count on hate to be self-labeled. Sure, a lot of people DO feel free to hate fat people because we live in a culture which privileges such hate. That a few do so openly, though, is a reflection of the far greater number that so less overtly. They fully believe themselves when they decry the awful treatment of themselves when called out on their privilege, too. They believe every one of their justifications for their hate. There is no "deep down" where they know they are hateful. Deep down, the just know they are right and will angrily defend their righteousness.

Fat hate has an especially potent system for denial, too. Its not hate or bigotry. Oh, no. They actually just act out of concern for fat people. This doesn't make fat the last acceptable thing to hate, of course. Indeed, this dynamic plays out precisely with hatred for women, African-Americans, gays, and so many others. There is always a culturally acceptable coat of paint slapped on the hatred so everyone can pretend its something else. You see this in the white racists so concerned about how the end of slavery has destroyed black families. You see this in the homophobes so concerned about the supposed mental instability of gays and lesbians. You see it in the misogynists who are so concerned about protecting women by infantalizing them and lionizing them as their noble protectors.

For us fatties, its always concern for health. Fat people must be barred from politics because they are so gosh darn unhealthy. We'll just go dying in the middle of our terms, leaving chaos in our wake. Sure, we keep electing 80 year old white men to office. Sure, we elect persons who have recovered from cancer. But fat people are just going to die any day now! I mean, there isn't actually anything to justify the perpetual death threat our culture puts fat people in, but why let relevance keep people from dredging up health. Dan Savage brought health in to justify his disgust with "girl love handles". No, it wasn't some arbitrary system of aesthetics that Savage was elevating to a beauty mandate. Its not that he finds it ugly (though, he totally does), its that he finds it so gosh darn unhealthy. I'm sure health concerns were paramount in the minds of those who decided to pick on a 19-year old recovering bulimic for looking slightly heavier since getting treatment for her eating disorder.

Limiting activists to calling out that has announced itself is a way of privileging the status quo and skewing the debate in its favor. Its all about making sure the culturally dominant hatreds end up looking like the moderate stance. They want to position those calling for empowerment as an extreme opposing the actual extreme of people expressing crass, direct hate. Then the status quo gets to act all above the fray for its sainted reasonableness by not hating too obviously. Compromise!

We must call out all hate. Not just the hate that makes itself plain. The hate that tries to blend into the background noise of our culture is far more insidious and far more of a threat. We will not wait for hate to make itself known before we speak out. We will seek it out and expose it.

In defense of Fat Cosplay

2011-07-31T19:25:00.003-04:00

I feel a great disturbance in the force. As if a million voices cried out in entitled indignation at having to see a fat person enjoying their life and were suddenly not silenced. Indeed, they won't shut up about it.

Its a disturbance we feel every July coming out of San Diego and sporadically the rest of the year at conventions around the world. Pity the poor convention goer who must endure the sight of fat people doing stuff. I mean, don't they know they are fat?!?

I know I shouldn't be surprised. These are issues of privilege, after all, and privilege means never having to have the slightest iota of self-awareness. As a geek/nerd/etc., though, I find it especially disappointing when my fellow geeks wallow in what entitlements they do get. Thus we get the positively absurd sight of people angrily lashing out to protect the sanctity of adults dressing up as cartoon characters.

The arguments are always incredibly silly. "Character X wasn't fat!" is always a go-to. How much nit-picking do you think Wolverine cosplayers get if they are taller than 5'3"? Or Hulk cosplayers for being too short?

"Fat people just shouldn't wear those costumes. They aren't flattering." Hello, body policing. Who says they aren't flattering? Oh, that's right. The people who think fat bodies are irredeemably ugly. God forbid a small number of fat people decide that maybe they won't live their lives by no-win rules about what they are allowed to wear. That's not even getting into the ways appropriating fashion standards for conventional bodies onto unconventional bodies can expose the absurdity of those standards. Think of the Gender Bent Justice League where cosplayers swapped genders on DC Superheros, but retained the scantily clad costumes on the now male bodies. Seeing a male Huntress or Power Girl is a reminder of how dehumanizing portrayals of women get taken for granted. Fat cosplay can have much the same activist purpose in drawing attention both to the objectification of thin women and the way fat bodies are made invisible. Lest any of the cosplay police complain about getting politics into their fun, they are already doing it themselves. They are taking just as much of an activist position on cosplay as the Gender Bent Justice League is. Difference is, they are activists for the status quo.

"Its just not healthy." I swear, you cannot talk about fat people doing anything in their lives without running into this one. Its the fail-safe for those who want to police fat bodies for not meeting aesthetic standards. If someone challenges aesthetics, just pretend its all about health. Tell me, though, what other health standards are enforced for cosplayers. Do we measure people's blood pressure and cholesterol? If you have cancer, do you not get to cosplay? What about the myriad of diseases more prevalent in thin people? Are they forbidden from any moment of fun? As usual, health is a concern stated because our culture has deemed this an acceptable reason to hate people.

Cosplay is about having fun. Its about self-expression. There should be no "Cosplay Police" at all. People get to make up their own minds on how to express themselves and their fandom. Some people are going to want to dress up as characters they look like. Which is awesome. I get that mentality. Other people are going to be drawn to the characters they like. And that's cool, too. Its bizarre that people think there must be rules about playing make-believe.

That's not what they think, though. They just think there are rules about being fat. It all comes back to privilege. Its obviously absurd to try to codify pretend. Its obviously hypocritical for geeks and nerds to slam people for defying conventional norms. Thin privilege is a bigger problem than that. Its just how privilege acts. Of course you can't try to police make-believe, but you damn well can police fat bodies. Thankfully, I gather most cosplay communities soundly reject that line of thinking. Just another reminder that really has nothing to do with the act of cosplay and everything to do with attacking people for the crime of being publicly fat.

I've never cosplayed myself, but I envy the hell out of people who do so it really upsets me when I see someone's beautiful expression of self demeaned by rank bullies. It just wasn't something I feel like my generation did much to begin with, and even there I never really found myself in a community of geeks where I could really feel comfortable exploring that. It bums me out, though. I'd love a great looking Star Fleet Uniform (from Next Generation, of course). I'd love to use my white jacket to cosplay as the villainous Gideon Graves. I went as Jedi for Halloween once in college and you can't tell me holding a lightsaber in your hands isn't flat out awesome. I also remember how "on display" I felt when I wore my white suit and I can only imagine how amplified that feeling would be when cosplaying. Fat or thin. Doing that is incredible and I am in awe of everyone who does it and utterly disgusted with everyone who tries to belittle it for interfering with their pristine sense of aesthetics.

So, I was on TV again

2011-06-29T00:05:00.002-04:00

The story I posted last week from WBZ-TV in Boston had actually gotten its start as a story intended for CBS-3 in Philadelphia and their version of the story was aired tonight and can be seen on their website. As a news geek, I'm fascinated at how the two stations took the same content and edited it into two very different stories. I'm happy with both, but I feel like the new CBS-3 story is actually more true to what the hashtag was trying to accomplish. Even if you watched the story last week, this one is actually largely new and well worth checking out.

So, I'm on TV and stuff

2011-06-21T23:27:00.002-04:00

So, hello anyone who found this blog from seeing it on WBZ-TV in Boston. For anyone not in Boston, I will post video when its available. Consider this an open-thread of sorts on #ThingsFatPeopleAreTold and remember that trolling is not welcome here.

#thingsfatpeoplearetold Media Inquiry

2011-05-11T19:10:00.000-04:00

This is for any readers in the Philadelphia region. A television producer has contacted me about doing a story on #thingsfatpeoplearetold for a Philadelphia TV News program. They were hoping to speak to someone local about their experiences with fat stigma. If anyone would be willing to be interviewed and leaves in that area, please email me and I can get you in touch with the producer. Thank you!

End male privilege (to advance thin privilege)

2011-04-29T09:59:00.006-04:00

David Sirota has come up with a novel reason to end male privilege. Because it gets in the way of thin privilege.

His recent article gets it precisely backwards on discussing the intersection of fat shaming and gender as he correctly identifies the disparity but then concludes that the solution is to make things worse for. Its really quite perverse. How often does a marginalized group see its injustice recognized only to then see expanded injustice advocated as a response. It would be like seeing the wage gap that exists between men and women and concluding this means men are paid too much.

Fat men do experience privilege. As a fat man, it would be dishonest of me not to recognize this. But Sirota's article is a good reminder that we are still stigmatized. Our fat bodies are the primary consideration for him and what should unify us all in being shamed and stigmatized. The whole article indulges in that peculiar trait of the privileged (left out of my last post) of insisting that the oppressed are the oppressors. He praises weight loss promotion as if it doesn't routinely get praised. He implies forces looking to protect fat men's fatness where none exist. There are a couple fat actors who get work so long as they are defined by their fatness? Why that means fatness is being treated as a virtue! De facto! Fat men play sports? Didn't anyone call them whales? Well, don't worry, David Sirota makes sure to right that wrong with his childish name-calling. Fat men experience privilege, but that doesn't mean we are celebrated. Rather, we are inoculated from some fat shaming to varying degrees. As usual, to the entitled, this just looks like we aren't getting our fair share of abuse. I guess we better vent some frustration while Sirota works to correct that.

In the end, this is just a powerful pundit concern trolling fat people. He's not actually exposing male privilege as much as just imposing thin privilege on people he feels are unjustly spared injustice. He's not out to end privilege. Just to deny it from people deemed unworthy like he's closing some sort of loophole.

You can't win with these people

2011-04-28T22:39:00.004-04:00

A common theme I've touched on here are the ways the culture of fat stigmatization works to engineer the discussion of fat issues to conclude its own rightfulness. I want to focus a little more on this, but I should stress that this isn't about tactics to respond to these points. Rather, its about understanding that we can't.

This doesn't mean we do nothing, mind you. Quite the contrary. We do, however, need to be conscious of how privileged viewpoints structure debates to enshrine their views as inevitable. We must be aware of how fat shaming works to assert the authority to write the rules by which fat is to be discussed and how those rules are crafted to ensure their perspective will reign supreme. We cannot respond because any response is invalid by definition. Its not about working within this system, but staying mindful that this whole system needs to come down.

None of this is unique to the efforts of fat activists. My interest here is to look at the rules of discussing fat, but these techniques are invariably employed by the powerful to marginalize the marginalized and disadvantage the disadvantage. The tools of privilege are widespread, but that never obliges us to acquiesce as they might demand.

The Cost of Admission is Admitting You're Wrong

People in power love setting ground rules. These are the basic, guiding principles that surely we can all agree on. Not so coincidentally, those basics are the fundamentals of their viewpoint. For them to take you seriously, though, they insist that you acknowledge them.

"Surely, we can all agree..." is a common formulation of this. You'll often hear it repeated to you as if it were a mantra. Even after you've clearly disagreed with the thing that surely we can all agree on. Which is actually a good demonstration of the cost of admission. Until you've agreed, you won't listen to you, so of course they didn't hear you disagree. If they do hear, then they might tweak it to "Surely, you can't mean..." to emphasize that you didn't actually just express something they disagree with. Why, don't you realize what the cost of admission is?

For fat activists, this most commonly manifests as a demand to endorse a declaration of poor health for fat people. Surely, we can all agree that fat is bad. Surely we can all agree that fat people shouldn't be fat. Surely, we can all agree that fat children are a scourge on our planet. It has an institutional role, too. When scientists gather to discuss "obesity", the requirements to be recognized as an expert on the topic has nothing to do with scientific understanding about fatness. Rather, you have to be a weight loss researcher. Skeptics in the medical establishment are routinely shut out from discussions because no matter how much they know on the matter, if they aren't in the business of selling fat people on the promise of thinness, then they necessarily can't be an expert on fat people. Actual fat people, of course, are the least valid perspective. The fact that experts on fat people are called "obesity" experts exposes another tactic.

Write the Dictionary

Most of our society thinks "obesity" is a perfectly ordinary word to reference fat people. Likewise "overweight". Indeed, these aren't just appropriate, these are the nice words. What you use to demonstrate your sympathy for fat people. In truth, they are extremely loaded words that are structured to support fat stigmatization. We think "fat" is an insult, but not a word which explicitly defines us by a perceived failing? Or a word which trades of perceptions of authority to mark as diseased?

Controlling the way people talk about things is a way for powerful forces to maintain control. We see this in those who decry "political correctness". How dare people seek to define themselves? How dare people not just accept whatever we want to call them? The privileged seek to craft the vocabulary so that it presumes their privilege. From infantilizing terms for women to otherizing terms for racial minorities. Its about imposing a definition to keep people from defining themselves.

"Obesity" has a particularly apt counterpart in "homosexual", a word also widely accepted to be without malice when its anything but. Both are examples of "scare Latin" where words that seem authoritative are used to dehumanize a group of people. It is about enforcing our outsider status with words that make our lives sound like a disorder or a disease. Obesity isn't even neutral in the Latin. The word a description of the assumption that fat people overconsume. Which is the point of fat stigmatizers. Getting us to use their dictionary is getting us to admit they are right.

Define Neutral

Both of the last two topics are about how the powerful try to define the discussion to their favor. Its not just about defining us, though. Its also about defining the parameters of the discussion. Its not enough to demand we use words that define us as diseased or as moral failures. Its also about insisting that such judgmental words are actually unbiased. It feeds into a larger tactic of defining what is neutral and what is the middle ground. Its all about establishing acceptable viewpoints. If the unbiased viewpoint is, itself, biased, this will only disadvantage the other side.

It carries strong advantages. It allows one to appear magnanimous in offering to compromise for everything they wanted in the first place. The debate about fat often takes this form. One far end of the debate calls fat people evil and calls upon draconian tactics to punish anyone with an unacceptable body. The opposite far side are people who say its okay to accept one's body without self-loathing or apology. Those are NOT two sides of the same coin. But by setting the respective goal posts here, the side of fat stigmatization is profoundly advantaged. Pretty much everything moving away from the "radical" side of fat acceptance is going to be fat stigmatizing to some degree. By making fat acceptance the extreme boundary of the discussion, they ensure our failure. Then people who merely say fat people should be subject to social stigma and workplace coercion seem measured against the people calling for us to be fined by the government and have our children taken from us. Defining moderation to serve your ends is a powerful tactic in the self-affirmation of fat shaming.

The De Facto Factor

Its not just the middle that gets defined, of course. So do our viewpoints. Numerous arguments will be smeared on sight as a de facto attack on thin people. Do fat activists actually attack thin people? No. But we sure do de facto attack them. We don't actually do anything, but promoters of fat stigmatization define much of what we say as thin hating in practice. Mind you, their ACTUAL fat hatred isn't actually hating, but we sure are oppressing thin people a lot for a group with so little power. We actually say a lot of really outrageous things when we aren't actually saying those things.

If you affirm a desire to stop hating your body and you have a fat body, this becomes a dangerous effort to promote obesity in our nation's children! Sure, you didn't say anything like that, but you de facto said it by refusing to hate yourself. Not hating yourself becomes the same thing as force-feeding toddlers crates of Twinkies. Recently, I said that I wouldn't accept that having hypertension meant I was unhealthy. People regarded this as a de factor renunciation of any and all medical treatment for high blood pressure AND an effort to force other people to have high blood pressure as well. I didn't say anything even remotely close to that, but lots of people insisted confusion because of what I de facto said.

Dismissing people based on these kinds of "de facto" definitions is a way of silencing people and it works to further their established parameters of discussion. If we don't cooperate by being as extremist as fat haters, they'll say we did anyway for the sake of symmetry. Its like complaints of "women hating" or "discrimination of whites" as being the practice of feminism or the civil rights arguments. Those also used de factor presumptions to radicalize an opponent who was stubbornly being reasonable. Reasonableness, after all, is the exclusive domain of fat shamers.

Motive Matters
The invocation of reasonableness, anyway. For the privileged, good intentions are the most powerful cleaning agent. Any manner of abuse can be metted out so long as you didn't mean to be abusive. Why, they aren't homophobic! They are just concerned for their souls. You didn't mean to be racist. You were just being opportunistic. As long as you didn't "mean it", you can get away with anything because motive is all that matters.

Fat shamers enjoy little more than flattering their sense of righteousness with their good intentions. Doesn't matter that there is a whole cliché about the folly of good intentions, they stand by it as completely absolving them from any responsibility for their actions. Fat shaming isn't even a thing because they didn't mean to shame us. They just meant for us to know how we are destroying our lives, and the economy, and the planet. How can it be stigmatizing to call us an epidemic? Don't we know they just want to help?

Reliance on the supremacy of "motive" is a means for invalidating much of what we will have to say. By their definition, most of our arguments are necessarily wrong because they aren't how they would define themselves. Sure, they get to define us, but we are obligated to accept their own self-image as infallible or we just don't want to talk seriously about how fat people are what's wrong with the world. Its not like they wanted us to feel bad about that. They just don't really mind if we do. We are what's wrong with the world, after all.

What about ME?
If fat stigmatizers are especially disinterested in engaging with what we have to say, there is a reliable stand-by of false equivalencies to make us answer for the tragedy of thin stigmatization. We talk about fat shaming, and it won't take long before some wails "what about the thin people?!?" and starts derailing the discussion with a litany of slights against thin people.

Of course, thin people can be treated very poorly. But why should every discussion about how fat people are mistreated turn into a discussion about thin people? Its about centering all discussions on the privileged group. Fat people are abused? Well, thin people get treated exactly the same.

They don't. Again, this does not mean that there isn't abuse of thin people that is completely unacceptable. There is and its absolutely worth discussing. That doesn't make it "exactly the same", though. Saying that is a pretty sure way to show you don't really care to listen to what fat people are talking about. We saw that repeatedly in #thingsfatpeoplearetold. We've got story after story of unimaginable indignities but I read some websites where people responded to it by insisting that treatment of thin people was just as bad. It can be bad, but "just as bad" is not really a respectful place for a privileged group to come from when responding to a marginalized group's stories of disrespect, discrimination, and dehumanization. What most of these people were really saying is that their mistreatment really mattered because they didn't deserve it. Unlike the fat people. They didn't want to seriously discuss the dehumanizing treatment of thin people (which, in truth, often comes from the same sources as fat shaming). Like those insisting on a "White History Month" or "Men's History Month", its not about engaging but about derailing discussions they don't approve of.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg, but that's what these all get back to. The status quo doesn't engage with marginalized groups. It dismisses them. You can't win with these people, because they wrote the rules just to make sure you lose. So what do we do?

While we would be helpless to try to constructively engage fat stigmatization, that doesn't mean we can quite ignore it, either. We just shouldn't expect to be constructively engaged and plan accordingly. In many ways, they free us up to not worry about what they have to say by so readily saying the same things and doing the same things and generally not respecting us. We have no motivation to make concessions to fat shaming even on tactical or pragmatic grounds because no such bargaining will be accepted. Sure, the status quo may pretend to bargain, but that's just another tactic to define us away. They'll allow fat people to have ill-defined "glandular problems" so long as its understood that's next to no one and that they only pity them, not respect them.

We have every reason to stand our ground and demand the radical changes that fat sitgmatization's failures demand. I don't think that necessarily means exaulting idealism above all else, mind you. For instance, it shouldn't matter why someone is fat for fat shaming to be wrong. It does, however, matter to the people doing the fat shaming AND what they assert is genuinely wrong. While what we demand is radical change, what we are confronted with is still there and in some ways we must respond to it on its own terms, if just to reveal those terms to be a false foundation. They think fat is absolutely a choice AND that it matters. Neither is true, so both are worth confronting and refuting. There will never be the time fat shaming is willing to bargain to limit fat stigmatization for those who weren't born this way. We saw this demonstrated with gay bashers who've skipped that step and acknowledge that LGBTQ individuals didn't choose their sexuality but insist they must be shamed anyway for their own good.

Radical change is possible. The massive social shifts of the 20th century show us that. There is still a long way to go to advance idealism and equality, but change has taken place. This is not cause for complacency but it must embolden us to keep demanding more. Fat stigmatization enjoys widespread casual support and fat activists lack the financial backing and social support of fat shaming, but this was once true of other marginalized groups who are making change happen. We will, too. We won't win on their terms, but we can win.

Fat acceptance is for all fat people

2011-04-25T12:15:00.000-04:00

Fat acceptance is for all fat people.

I'm hoping most of my readers find that an utterly mundane thing to say but we shouldn't lose sight of how provocative it is. Or how important it is to stress it. Fat acceptance is for ALL fat people. If you think fat acceptance needs to be withheld from anyone, then you are not talking about fat acceptance. If you think fat acceptance is only for the acceptably fat, then you are not talking about fat acceptance.

I recognize that this isn't something that will come easy for many people, but it is important that fat acceptance challenge people to think differently. It is not enough to carve out some sort of narrowly defined exemption to allow yourself to be fat while continuing to fat shame others. I would also question the inverse, where you allow for others to be fat, but not people like you. I get that it may take some time for people to get there, but we need to challenge them to get there. We need to challenge people to think about fat differently.

Fat acceptance is for fat people with health concerns like hypertension, diabetes, PCOS, and the like that are typical a focus of fat shaming. Fat acceptance was not created to champion fat people without these health concerns at the expense of those who do have them. It was created for all of us. Fat people with health needs are often the most vulnerable to our culture of fat stigmatization and we must be committed to fighting for them. For us. I was diagnosed with hypertension about two years ago. I'm not going to be ashamed because of this. I'm not going to apologize. I'm not going to justify myself. What I will demand is weight neutral treatment. Shaming me does no good, not that this will stop people. I know why fat people with diabetes are reluctant to speak out in fat acceptance circles. I know why fat people with sleep apnea may avoid talking about it. We shouldn't. Anyone who tries to withhold fat acceptance from us is wrong. Fat shaming is not a fair response to our health concerns. It is not a productive response. It is no response at all. It is a distraction and we must not be told that we don't deserve respect because we don't meet an external standard of health. We can be healthy. Not by a standard which will deny us health no matter what, but we should not let that standard define us.

Fat acceptance is for fat people with health concerns not typically blamed on fatness. Both because when you are fat, ANYTHING will be blamed on fatness, and because no health concern is a moral failing. No health care need should exempt someone from pursuing a healthy relationship with their body. Not in the stigmatizing way health is defined for us, but in a way which focuses on what we are capable of and not defining us by perceived limitations. I think we have to be even more radical than saying that health is not a moral obligation and question the very definition of "health" which is only used to shame and stigmatize people for being "sick". We can live our lives and pursue our health right now. With diabetes, with hypertension, with whatever. "Health" as a tool for shame has nothing to offer us. This is about something different. About enriching our lives instead of defining us by what we are not.

Fat acceptance is for fat people with mobility issues. It is for fat people who use wheelchairs, canes, and scooters. It is not okay to rationalize that some people "need" to lose weight. That is not productive or helpful. Fat stigmatization does not magically start to work because someone "needs" it. All it has done is fail us. We need to start challenging these attitudes in our culture and in ourselves. Shaming fat people who are differently abled is one of the most perverse and horrendous instances of fat stigmatization. For working with the needs of their bodies they are subject to all manner of scorn and hostility. They deserve our respect. Period. Fat shame never has a time and a place.

Fat acceptance is for fat people who weigh more than 300 lbs. And more than 400lbs, 500lbs, or whatever arbitrary line someone wants to draw. If you want to try to justify walling off fat acceptance for people who are too fat, remember that what we are told is that we are ALL too fat. No matter how much you think it makes sense to stigmatize fat people at whatever point you've decided is "too much", remember that the "common sense" of fat stigmatization makes no such distinctions. We are ALL collectivized by this fat shaming. There is no distinction between someone who is 250lbs and someone who is 500lbs. If you don't think that makes sense for you, why are you so quick to presume it makes sense for someone larger? Your line is arbitrary. There is NO point when fat stigmatization starts showing "results". There is no point where fat shaming "works".

Fat acceptance is also for the person who weighs 200lbs. It is also for the fat person who is currently able bodied. It is for the fat person without immediate health concerns. It is for the fat people who are not so easily categorized (which is to say, all of us). I don't earn fat acceptance when I go hiking through rocky forests. I don't lose fat acceptance when I monitor my blood pressure. It is about sharing all of our experiences to show what a rich and diverse tapestry of potential fat people have. It brings together our collective strength through our unique experiences. All of our experiences are okay. All of our lives deserve respect. None of us deserve shame or moral judgment.

Fat acceptance is for all fat people.

On reclaiming "health"

2011-04-22T12:16:00.004-04:00

Got a couple concern trolly comments on my last post trying to enforce conventional moralizing about health. Which is pretty par for the course. While I feel a lot of "good fatty" fretting amounts to a straw-man argument, there are people who do promote this kind of bargaining. Its just rarely the so-called "good fatty". More commonly, I've seen it coming from people who are far more interested in the prosecution of bad fatties. They magnamonously agree to let a platonic "good fatty" off the hook so long as we all agree the bad fatties are SUPER BAD. I don't agree that any fatties are really falling for this, but it clearly exists and clearly should be resisted.

These are the people who like to shame fat people who are diabetic or who have high blood pressure or PCOS or... well, as you might imagine the list will go on. Rest assured, when all is said and done, they will probably ensure that no "good" fatty even remains, but they'll have flattered their sense of even-handedness by offering their false compromise. There is this notion that fat acceptance can't be "serious" or "realistic" without playing by their rules, and I'm sure some fat people buy into this. In the end, though, every fatty will be a bad one.

Which is what troubles me when my fellow fat persons feel the need to self-identify within their system. Because their system has no room for our health at all. Their system will only ever look at us and think we're ignorant, making excuses, looking for an easy way out. I said that I refuse to be excluded from "health" because I have high blood pressure and the snarky attack is that I'm glorifying high blood pressure. This is why we can't play by their rules. Not just in theoretically self-identifying as "good", but also self-identifying as "bad". In the end, they will always moralizing our lives because we have fat bodies. We have to break this and reclaim health. Not by their rules and standards, but by ones which are free from their shaming and which affirm the right for all fat people to receive health care free of shaming, stigmatization, and judgment.

When I talk about reclaiming "health", I mean the word. Not the concept as those who stigmatize and moralize define it. I don't want that because all that is is an unattainable standard. It has nothing to offer us. It wants us to be ashamed of our health concerns. No. I will not be. Fat acceptance is for all fat people. Those with health concerns, those who differently abled, all of us. We need to move past the shame and stigmatization of good vs. bad, healthy vs. unhealthy. We need to reclaim "health" as something we all have a right to. Not as something withheld if we have a condition to care for. As much as they want to make us out to be looking for excuses, what fat acceptance is really fighting for is for every fat person to have a chance to have their health needs addressed as they desire and without shaming. We are past their rules of healthy and unhealthy. Their rules have failed us and are failing us. When fat acceptance talks about "health", we aren't talking about what our fat shaming culture is talking about. We aren't trying to tweak their rules, we are tearing them down to their very foundation so that we can construct something that will actually serve our needs and wishes.

"Good Fatties" is not a self-definition

2011-04-20T22:38:00.003-04:00

I still don't really get how to respond to something on Tumblr, so I'm just going to do it here. There is a discussion today about the problems with good fatties and something clicked with me reading it.

Good fatties don't define themselves that way. The term was coined to mock the subject, not valorize them. I'm having trouble taking seriously people who employ this sort of stigmatizing language. Has this gotten lost over the years? The sarcasm of it seems pretty evident to me, but does it not translate? To me, using the term in an attack on the supposed subject strikes me as really bad faith.

I've written about these issues before, but I don't think I went far enough. While there could be a theoretical issue of the so-called "good" fatties bargaining with fat stigmatizers, as the term was created and repeated, it actually endorses the definitions of health used to disenfranchise fat people. We need to remember that those definitions don't provide for ANY of us to be "good". There is no bargaining with it. Fat acceptance isn't arguing for accommodations, but for genuinely radical shifts in what we understand "healthy" to mean. "Health at Every Size" is a contradiction under the status quo definition of health. It is functionally incompatible with those ideas of good and bad. If there are any HAES promoters who do practice it as an effort to justify a few fat people, I'd suggest they reconsider the system the are trying to negotiate with. Because that status quo will not and cannot allow for "good fatties". To me, any "good fattie" example is necessarily an example not to glorify but to disprove. Because its their system that is defining good and bad and that system which is shown to be a lie when any fat person defies it.

I'm not a good fattie. I definitely defy conventional expectations in some ways, but not all. I won't define myself as "bad" or "unhealthy" when I fail to meet the status quo's standards. Those standards are what we are all trying to dismantle. There may come a day when the status quo tries to bargain and allow for HAES so long as its health on their terms. We should reject that bargain when it comes, but we also shouldn't forget that the status quo is NOT bargaining with us at all. It is denying us. Well, screw that.

I'm not going to let the medical status quo tell me I can't have "health" because I have high blood pressure. We shouldn't let it tell us we are bad if we have diabetes or PCOS or headaches or anything else. Good and bad are their concepts, not ours. Not fat acceptance's. Any of us who defies their concepts in any way defies it for us all. Its about finding our own health in our own lives, not adhering to any external standards. Those standards have no room for us and it would be folly to try to bargain with them.

It is also, however, folly to see bargaining where what is actually happening is much more radical. We're reclaiming the very definition of health from those who want to use it as a moralizing cudgel to shame and stigmatize. We are taking it back, and no one should be stigmatized for what that means for them. Not those of us with conditions traditionally blamed on our fat bodies, but also not for those who live in their fat bodies in ways traditionally limited for thin people.

Some benefits of being aware of fat stigmatization

2011-04-16T16:44:00.002-04:00

While looking through my blog's stats, I noted a number of links coming from Sociological Images. Specifically, from a post where the author considers the "benefits" of being fat. As you might suspect, this is not actually the conversation the author is having, but rather it is an example of the kind of "this must be why you're so fat" line of thinking that has come up so often in the #thingsfatpeoplearetold. I replied with a comment, but I wanted to include it here as well...

I'm afraid your evidence does not seem to support your conclusion. As the #thingsfatpeoplearetold meme demonstrates, fat people are told all manner of things and given the existing social structure, many fat people feel an obligation to be credulous. The lesbian quoted did not independently think she gained weight to distance herself from male attraction, but rather was told to think that. Even in that context, it is not a suggestion of an active instigation, but rather a psychological explanation. The fact that we feel the need to psychologically explain the existence of fat people, though, is far more telling. It is an effort for privileged persons to rationalize the existence of an underprivileged group. This very act is one not of understanding, but of enforcement of stigmatization. Fat people are told something must be blamed for our presence. This is never an act of respect. It does not matter of blame is laid on ourselves for perceived immoralities, on psychological desires rooted in formalizing our disempowerment, or corporate conspiracies to deprive us of exalted thinness.

The Postsecret post is, at least, in the actual voice of a fat person, but it still doesn't tell us anything about why she came to be fat and it is still a reflection of all too common clichés that fat people are told. The writer has learned to hold herself responsible for her body. She has been told to explain her body, to rationalize it. She presumes that she could be thin because she has been told this is the only allowed presumption a fat person can have. She frames her attempted justification not on why she is fat, but why she is not thin. THIS is what fat people are told to answer for just as much as "why are you so fat". It presumes that weight loss, which fails 95% of the time, is still expected of us and any failure to lose weight is the sole responsibility of the fat person. She is not expressing an answer as to why she was fat in the first place, though. Rather, she is trying to answer for her continued fatness. The truth, though, is that she is not afraid to lose weight. She may be afraid that weight loss won't solve her problems (it won't), but she is not afraid to lose weight. She wants it desperately. She, like so many fat people, has been made to feel personally responsible for the fact that her weight loss efforts have not succeeded. Like many others, she has apologetically concluded "she doesn't want it bad enough".

This isn't about benefits of fatness. These are illustrations of the shame and stigmatization imposed on fat people.

#thingsfatpeoplearetold: Suggested Readings

2011-04-13T00:14:00.002-04:00

I'm pretty sure most of my readers have already seen these other discussions of #thingsfatpeoplearetold, but they are so essential that I wanted to make sure.

Fat Heffalump has been leading the discussion on Twitter from day one and continues to promote it and contribute to it tirelessly. If you haven't read her thoughts on the discussion, you should. She discusses the catharsis she felt unpacking all the bullshit dumped on her as a fat person, why people should have noticed what was happening to fat people before this, and where we go from here. Awesome, action-provoking stuff.

Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville didn't just graciously host my own thoughts on the meme, but gave her own as well. She considers the strength seen in the fat people who put up with #thingsfatpeoplearetold and she's spot on.

Lastly, Maia at Alas, a Blog looks at a few different things to come out of the stores from #thingsfatpeoplearetold. The stories offer recognition and legitmacy to our own experiences, it reveals the systematic forces of fat hatred, and reminds us that we can work to change to change things.

If you have other discussions of the #thingsfatpeoplearetold meme, please share them in the comments. Thank you, as always, to everyone sharing their stories and experiences and to everyone sharing in those stories.

#thingsfatpeoplearetold at Shakesville

2011-04-12T11:08:00.002-04:00

I was invited to write a piece about #thingsfatpeoplearetold for Shakesville. I'm very thankful to Melissa McEwen for the opportunity. Feel free to give it a read.

#thingsfatpeoplearetold: Many Things to Many People

2011-04-11T11:34:00.002-04:00

When I read through all of the #thingsfatpeoplearetold tweets for my recap, I was really struck by just how many different people were speaking up. I started the hashtag for essentially snarky purposes, ironicly expressing fat stigmatization. It was quickly adopted by the always awesome Aussie fat activists, starting with @mymilkspilt, in part to express their outrage over an offensive joke made by an Australian celebrity. Fat Heffalump has more on that angle here.

As people kept sharing their experiences, it quickly became apparent what a universal experience #thingsfatpeoplearetold represented. The posts were really heartbreaking, but also utterly cathartic. People weren't just unburdening themselves of this abuse, but recognizing what a shared experience this is and that they are not alone in having been mistreated, nor in finding the strength to resist the mistreatment.

Some very distinct themes also emerged. I almost wrote my last post in catagories because familiar messages came up again and again in slightly different expressions. "Such a pretty face" might seem like a cliché, but false complements designed to emphasize our failings is a common experience for fat people. Sadly, this is considered the nice way of expressing that sentiment and its darker variations also show up repeatedly. "No one will love you", "No one will want to have sex with you", etc. are all too familiar. The line of logic just keeps going and even when fat people do find love and/or sex it is still denied. "There must be something wrong with anyone who likes you" get mirrored by "you should be lucky to get the attention" or "we can have sex, but I'll keep you a secret".

Beauty and love is just one thread, though. We also see themes of fat people being denied access to jobs, housing, medical procedures, clothing. Each one expressed from multiple people in new variations. Fat people are being things thin people take for granted. Even health. We see multiple people who were denied their good health from medical professionals who refused to believe it. We see people denied help when they are in poor health because fat is the only thing that will be covered. These experiences are not exclusive to the so-called death fats, either. A very wide spectrum of people found the same thing. If their health was good, this was denied. If the had health needs, they were denied. There is a universality here. The experience can be challenging to read, but also inspiring because they remind us of what fat people are capable of enduring. Fat people are strong. Fat people can find love and health and happiness. These are things WE tell fat people. The things we tell ourselves. The things we tell each other.

I hope people keep sharing. I'm thinking of soliciting longer form "Things Fat People are Told" essays to post here and if you have something you'd like to share outside of 140 characters, please email me at red3blog@gmail.com. My continued gratitude to everyone who has shared their stories. This is very powerful.

#thingsfatpeoplearetold: The first 24 hours

2011-04-10T17:29:00.006-04:00

The #thingsfatpeoplearetold hash tag is still tearing it up over at Twitter with over 1,400 tweets and retweets as of this writing. I'm so grateful for the courage its taken so many people to share what are often very raw experiences with entitled fat stigmatization. To be clear, some of this can be trigging given how brutally honest the experiences are, but I want to share some of the Tweets here. I can't stress enough that these are just some of what people are sharing. Follow #thingsfatpeoplearetold to know you really aren't alone or to learn what fat people are really experiencing.

@mymilkspilt: Your body sends a bad message to your children. #thingsfatpeoplearetold @red3blog
Apr 9, 2011 10:20 PM GMT

@TheRotund: @mymilkspilt Your chronic illness would disappear if you lost weight. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 9, 2011 10:31 PM GMT

@MargitteLeah: "no one will ever love you." actual #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 9, 2011 10:34 PM GMT

@BookMD: Fat people are stupid. If they were smart, they wouldn't be fat. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 9, 2011 11:58 PM GMT

@Fatheffalump: Telling anyone that it's ok to be fat makes you personally responsible for their death #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 12:45 AM GMT

@elizabethgallo: You have such a pretty face... #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 12:56 AM GMT

(Brian: This may seem like a cliché, but it came up repeatedly. Fat people really do hear this. A lot.)

@_FatWaitress_: They probably didn't give you a promotion because you might not fast enough to do the job. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 01:06 AM GMT

@katejames: "You're not fat!" (Meaning: I know & like you, you're not like those *other* lazy smelly greedy fat people.) #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 01:16 AM GMT

@Living400lbs: But have you really, really TRIED to lose weight? #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:22 AM GMT

@sweetnfat: Would you even feel my touch through all your fat? #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:30 AM GMT

@princessnowhere: "You should try going on The Pill [to lose weight]" Seriously. I wish I was kidding. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:31 AM GMT

@AmadiTalks: In hospital for serious illness: "You should get weight loss surgery, so long as you're here." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:34 AM GMT

@etamny: We can't show you on TV because that would be endorsing the fact that you exist. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:36 AM GMT

@AmadiTalks: From the window of a passing car: Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:40 AM GMT

(Brian: Another one that was repeated many times was slurs yelled from passing cars.)

@meag26: From my doc, when I explain how healthy my lifestyle is: "well obviously you're doing SOMETHING wrong." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:52 AM GMT

@liveonce_juicy: Unrelenting stomach pain and constant puking? Take two diets and call me when you aren't fat anymore. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:56 AM GMT

@kiddotrue: "He didn't get you candy for Valentine's Day, did he? You don't need it." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 03:05 AM GMT · via Twitter for Android · Reply · View Tweet

@AmadiTalks: Asked for sugar for coffee in a restaurant, got artificial sweetener instead. "Here, you need to use this." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 03:07 AM GMT

@kiddotrue: "you should lose weight and get a boyfriend." #thingsfatpeoplearetold (when they're 12 and at their first gyno visit. in the stirrups.)
Apr 10, 2011 03:09 AM GMT

@MargitteLeah: "I won't treat you until you've lost 50 lbs." #thingsfatpeoplearetold by medical professionals
Apr 10, 2011 03:10 AM GMT

@_FatWaitress_: Are you sure you didn't just imagine them checking you out? #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 03:27 AM GMT

@AmadiTalks: In the back of an ambulance, by a police officer: "Who would rape you?" #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 03:28 AM GMT

@MamaBrownBear: "how did you get pregnant? You are too fat to get knocked up" #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 03:45 AM GMT

@fatlazyceliac: Oh, it's so great you're allergic to gluten - not eating it is supposed to help you lose weight! #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 03:50 AM GMT

@Fatheffalump: "Go away, lose weight, find a boyfriend and come back to me when you want babies." (a Dr to me, aged 19 & in pain) #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:07 AM GMT

@ginamariewade: #thingsfatpeoplearetold - You're too fat to have a baby, and if I'd had anything to do about it, you wouldn't be having this one. from my MD
Apr 10, 2011 04:11 AM GMT

@mskozlowski: We don't carry bras for PEOPLE LIKE YOU. #thingsfatpeoplearetold #Victoria'sSecretemployeesaidthistome
Apr 10, 2011 04:12 AM GMT

@ginamariewade: #thingsfatpeoplearetold If you don't lose weight, your child will never love you. (also from my MD)
Apr 10, 2011 04:15 AM GMT

@redheadedgirl: Why would anyone want to fuck you? #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:18 AM GMT

@ginamariewade: #thingsfatpeoplearetold If I looked like you I'd kill myself.
Apr 10, 2011 04:19 AM GMT

@girlndocs: We know your kidneys are failing and you may die but you can't get on the transplant list until you lose weight. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:19 AM GMT

@etamny: We'll sell you clothes, but we can't have you in our stores. #thingsfatpeoplearetold [Hi, Old Navy! Hi, J. Jill!]
Apr 10, 2011 04:23 AM GMT

@Quiara: Your blood pressure and blood sugar are fine, but if you don't lose weight you'll be diabetic & hypertensive soon. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:24 AM GMT

@TheRotund: You're a symbol of America's overconsumption and the evils of capitalism. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:27 AM GMT

@ravengeary: How do you, you know, have sex? #ThingsFatPeopleAreTold
Apr 10, 2011 04:29 AM GMT

@fatandtheivy: You're diseased #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:33 AM GMT

@mskozlowski: Your boyfriend must be really into your mind (not your body). #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:34 AM GMT

@sarahnbay: Did you not realize they're called "skinny" jeans? #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:37 AM GMT

@AmadiTalks: At an mentorship program for at-risk girls: "You aren't a good fit, our girls need positive role models." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 04:47 AM GMT

@hungrylikewolf: You obviously can't be telling the truth about what you eat. #ThingsFatPeopleAreTold
Apr 10, 2011 04:49 AM GMT

@MuseofIre: Sure it has dangerous side effects, but it's better than being fat. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 05:06 AM GMT

@Dresswhore: Yes it could help w/your period but I can't in good conscience put you on the pill b/c you might gain weight. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 05:18 AM GMT

@shonias: At least the terrible illness you've just had has made you lose weight. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 05:21 AM GMT

@red3blog: "Take this fat out while we are in here" -Surgeon during a C-Section #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 06:22 AM GMT

@hungrylikewolf: Come on, why don't you want to go shopping with me? You can always check out the accessories. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 07:30 AM GMT

@Xhollzy: "I'm not going to show you the room, I need the people I rent to to be healthy."- with one look at me #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 08:50 AM GMT

@annacaronz: If you were thin you wouldn't need to be gay any more #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 09:06 AM GMT

@JonelB: You would stop getting bullied if you just lost weight. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 09:21 AM GMT

@Beezelbubbles: Don't you just hate what you see when you look in the mirror? #thingsfatpeoplearetold #mymomsgreatesthits #yesreally
Apr 10, 2011 09:41 AM GMT

@Beezelbubbles: You twisted your ankle playing tennis? You should really lose some weight and exercise more. #thingsfatpeoplearetold #butiwasexercising
Apr 10, 2011 09:50 AM GMT

@WeightlessOne: If you don't lose weight you'll be dead before you're 30. #thingsfatpeoplearetold (told to a 16 yr old me by a new doc-I'm 38 now)
Apr 10, 2011 01:27 PM GMT

@FatVeganCommie: Yes, you are perfectly heathy. Have you considered bariatric surgery?" #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 02:24 PM GMT

@AbigailNussey: You really need a kidney transplant/knee replacement/other surgery. But you can't get it until you lose 60 lbs. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 03:10 PM GMT

@thepiouswench: I don't think we carry your size. (Sales associate, before I've specified what I'm looking for or given my size). #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 03:44 PM GMT

@Lyrical_Huldra: "I don't know why you bother. You're so fat you look awful no matter what you wear." #thingsfatpeoplearetold #bymymother
Apr 10, 2011 03:51 PM GMT

@RaisingBoychick: "You're too fat to deliver vaginally." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 05:29 PM GMT · via Twitter for iPhone · Reply · View Tweet

@AmadiTalks: "You're too wide/heavy for our equipment so you can't get this important medical procedure." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 05:48 PM GMT

@zaftigvegan: "There's no point in doing any physio on your knees if you're not willing to lose weight." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 05:48 PM GMT

@zaftigvegan: "That can't be right." #thingsfatpeoplearetold (a nurse checking my blood pressure [normal] for the third time)
Apr 10, 2011 05:50 PM GMT

@cinnamaldehyde: #thingsfatpeoplearetold if you'd just lose a little weight, your disabilities would go away.
Apr 10, 2011 05:51 PM GMT

@zaftigvegan: "If you were *really* comfortable in your body, the ignorant things people say about fat wouldn't bother you." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 05:57 PM GMT

@zaftigvegan: "You *can't* be fat, healthy and happy. You're in denial. You're putting other fat ppl at risk by promoting HAES." #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 06:01 PM GMT

@notinseason: All fat patients will lie about their diet and exercise. #thingsfatpeoplearetold #thingsivelearnedinmedschool
Apr 10, 2011 06:01 PM GMT

@FatVeganCommie: We can't date, but we can secretly have sex. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 06:09 PM GMT

@red3blog: We will only learn how to perform anesthesia on you for weight loss surgery. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 06:35 PM GMT

@HiddenTohru: "I imagined that weight as someone who can't even get out of bed." #thingsfatpeoplearetold (by a coworker when I told her I was 380 lbs)
Apr 10, 2011 07:45 PM GMT

@mymilkspilt: You're so selfish. You're going to die and leave your kid without a mother. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 07:48 PM GMT

@no_oneimportant: You must have a really hard time having sex with your belly getting in the way. #thingsfatpeoplearetold also #liespeopletell
Apr 10, 2011 08:08 PM GMT

@MissSuperfluous: #thingsfatpeoplearetold You're not quite this store's demographic.
Apr 10, 2011 10:11 PM GMT

@kawaiimarti: You don't have to pretend to be happy with yourself to me. I know it can't be true. #thingsfatpeoplearetold
Apr 10, 2011 10:17 PM GMT

#thingsfatpeoplearetold

2011-04-10T00:33:00.003-04:00

So, I brought back a Twitter hashtag I've used a couple of times when I want to sarcasticly paraphrase some online anti-fat concern trolling, #thingsfatpeoplearetold. As hash tags are often wont to do, its completely taken off with fat people sharing their experiences with the kind of entitled, everyday trolling fat people experience in their daily lives. And that's honestly what it is. The same kind of obnoxious, privileged trolling we see online is a part of the day to day lives of fat people. Check it out and maybe share your own. I offer my utter and frankly humbled gratitude to everyone who has shared their story. If you want to know what fat activists are fighting, THIS is why. These indignities forced on us with such casual contempt and unearned superiority. THIS is why are fighting for a better world for all of us.

Glorifying obesity

2011-04-09T16:44:00.003-04:00

Hey, did you hear? Fat activists are glorifying obesity. That's what the concern trolls keep saying. You know, like how gay rights activists are glorifying the homosexual lifestyle? I guess we should all just pack it in. They're on to us.

Of course, its a deeply silly accusation. At least, a deeply silly one for fat activists to take seriously. Its just a fancy way of saying "but don't you know fat is bad?" That is ALL it says, only coming from an individual entirely unwilling to take responsibility for their promotion of fat stigmatization and fat shame. They want to believe they aren't that kind of person. Oh, no. They just shame and stigmatize anyone who suggests fat people shouldn't be shamed and stigmatized. Sadly, this has come to represent "moderate" views on fatness. They don't want to be responsible for shaming fat people, but they are all too happy to condemn any fat person who doesn't feel disgraced by their body.

You know what, though? Maybe we are glorifying fatness. We certainly are by their standards. By their standards, "normal" is some state of glory to which fat people are not welcome. Well, screw that. I want to glorify fat people who resist the shame and stigmatization. I want to praise fat people who endure all manner of injustice and keep on fighting. I want to honor the fat people who stand up and demand respect. Fat people are awesome. Fat people kick ass. Fat people deserve glory. We just don't think anyone else needs to be disgraced or shamed for us to be glorified.

So, let's glorify fatness. If that just means we don't apologize for not being ashamed, that's the kind of glory I can absolutely get behind.

The beauty of getting over oneself

2011-03-27T12:58:00.001-04:00

During my first month of college, a friend and I were discussing the recent passage of the Defense of Marriage Act. Both of us were squarely against it and thought it was clearly unconstitutional. At the same time, neither of us were necessarily really eager to have gay marriage thrust into the national political discussion. Budding little pragmatist, we thought it wasn't strategically appropriate. We didn't really disagree with gay marriage, we just thought it'd be much better if the gays would not be asking for it just yet. Why, if they just wait a bit, cultural change is on their side. Its going to happen eventually, so why press?

We were wrong. I was wrong.

The simple fact is, I wasn't ready. I wasn't there yet. So I hid behind strategy as I clung to what I thought marriage was since I was a kid. When I was 18, I had a really weird collection of beliefs. I was an avowed agnostic and eager young progressive, but I still had some oddly traditionalist notions about marriage. I was in no danger of being thought a reactionary or anything, but for some reason I thought it was worthwhile to wait to have sex until marriage. For the record, this was 100% due to a lack of opportunity as I would later quickly learn and which frankly I had already violated anyway. I may have known I didn't want my future wife to take my last name, but I still presumed marriage was the natural conclusion of a romantic relationship. Well, for straight people, anyway. I knew it couldn't be justified to deny gays and lesbians the institution of marriage, but I just wasn't there yet.

I'm not sure when I did. At some point in the coming years, I softened on the strategy and then hardened on recognizing the indefensible injustice. I don't think it took very long and I have no reservations now saying that what I believed then was completely wrong. No matter how pragmatic I thought I was being, strategy can't trump injustice. Wrong is wrong.

I may not know when I turned a corner on this, but I can tell you why I did. Its because I kept listening to gays and lesbians making their point about fighting for gay marriage. Which, to be fair, wasn't a settled issue in the gay community then or now, though I quickly recognized that the resistance from gays was entirely on principle with very little of my strategy bullshit. And I respected the points being made about questioning the institution of marriage altogether, but I found myself firmly believing that if there was marriage, there must be equality. There simply was no reasonable compromise. Marriage inequality was not just and it had to end.

I got there because I listened. I also kept my mouth shut about not being there yet. I didn't expect gay rights activists to have to answer to my equivocation. I don't expect them to change course because I wasn't on board yet. It was my own responsibility to get over myself, not theirs. If I did speak up, though, I'd hope I'd have been challenged. I hope people wouldn't have put up with that bullshit in the name of being nice or catering to potential allies. Social justice isn't practiced like a high-class philanthropic fundraiser where the potential donors and wined and dined in the hopes they open their check books. Its practiced by speaking out and standing for something. Allies are gained by challenging them to think differently, not figuring out what they'll stand for. Social justice isn't about the lowest common denominator.

I've struggled on other issues since and I usually keep my mouth shut when I know I just need to get over myself. More importantly, I try to respect when I'm challenged. There has been a lot of talk recently of the "presumption of bad faith" in feminist circles where allies get written off for mistakes. I share a lot of the apprehension about this and its generally speaking not something I agree with, but I still respect it. Bottom line, there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. Maybe I don't draw the lines in the same places as others, but I believe in the principal of what they are doing. I think most in progressive communities would. Even if I'm not with them now, I'm glad they are pushing for what they believe in. Maybe I'll be there with them in a few years. Maybe not. We NEED people pushing the boundaries, though. No matter how much we want to be a big happy family, progressive change doesn't necessarily happen because all progressives find what little they'll agree with. I feel that more often than not, change has happened because people didn't back down from saying things people didn't want to hear. Even if I don't agree with them, I'm absolutely glad these people are taking a stand. Not in some pandering "but I'll defend your right to belief" way, either. I'm not defending their right to be wrong, I'm defending their right to be RIGHT. If someone is pushing me to be MORE progressive and MORE understanding, that's a good thing. We're not talking about people dressing up the status quo in progressive garb, we're talking about people demanding real, radical change and that's not just something I respect its something I celebrate.

An excess of good faith can be pretty hostile to communities, too. When repeated bad behavior is tolerated in the name of playing nice, it pushes people away that progressive communities need in the name of comforting people who keep lobbing spitballs. For me, I find a balance by being willing to write someone off conditionally. I think this is something fat activists do a lot as I don't feel like our community really gets the privilege to take strong stands against "allies" who attack us. When a fellow progressive I generally respect and admire starts getting into anti-fat acceptance, pro-fat shaming garbage, I have no problem just writing them off on the subject. When an "ally" starts lecturing me about what fat acceptance needs to do to get them on board, I just don't care. I have no problem compartmentalizing someone as a total fucking asshole on fat acceptance, but with pretty good ideas otherwise. I've talked in the past about doing this in pop culture, but I practice the same thing with politics. There are some big-name progressive bloggers who I just groan when I see they've decided to offer some reactionary screed about how awful fat people are while demanding recognition for they totally aren't shaming fat people. There are others I know are perpetually half-way there, saying some really spot-on stuff, and then some real bull-shit. I'm fine with that. I'm fine with calling them out as an asshole about fat issues, but otherwise appreciating what they have to say. I hope one day, they can get over themselves on fat issues. Until then, I'm not going to coddle them just because I agree with them otherwise, but I'm also not going to throw out everything else they have to say. If they fashion themselves as some sort of anti-fat acceptance crusader, well, that'll just mean I'll have more to object to. If they something right every once and a while, it still won't excuse it. And if they are right most of the time, but indulge in fat shaming periodically, I may not have to object much, but I still will.

This is my way of dealing with this, though. I don't think its necessarily right, but its the balance that works for me. Some might label this as being forgiving or being an apologist. Good for them. Seriously. If I want to take a stand for what I believe in, I've got to be on board when others do the same. If for them, it works to just write some off completely, that's great. I respect that. Not as in, "I grudgingly tolerate that" but as in "I genuinely admire their conviction". I may not agree. I'm sure I'll find myself getting called out, too. I have to assume there are issues of privilege I have not educated myself on. That's how privilege works. I try, but there are things where I won't have gotten over myself yet. I hope no one ever feels pressured to give me or anyone else a benefit of the doubt they don't care to give. If you call me out in the name of the status quo, don't expect my respect, but if you push me to be more progressive, you absolutely have it. More importantly, I imagine you won't give a fuck about my "respect" if I need to get over myself. I sure wouldn't feel like giving a fuck if the roles were reversed. Expecting someone to get over themselves isn't a lot to ask. It isn't a lot to expect. No one should ever have to apologize or defend themselves for demanding that other people get over themselves. More often than not, its the least we can ask for.

Fat man running

2011-03-25T22:45:00.003-04:00

I stepped out of my office building tonight and looked over to the street I would cross and saw the Walk light on. As a walker, its the kind of thing I'm always happy to see for about a second until I realize I'm still half a block away from the cross walk and this may be a very ominous sight.

Since starting a new job last year, I've tried to build a walk into my commute home. I've always had decent sized walks in my commutes but the last few years I've been close to the train on both sides. I've felt frustrating not walking as much. Not to lose weight or as a health chore but because its something I enjoy. I've always loved walking. When I was a kid, I would go on long walks around my neighborhood every night when I got back from school. I like it and its rewarding for my body.

As I look at the walk light, I barely get time to consider my options before it switches off. No time to think now. I'm a half-block away from the street and if I have any chance of getting across before the change, I must decide now and I must run.

I feel in a lot of ways, I have a good sense of what my body is capable of. I think this is an important thing to try to cultivate. Its' valuable to know your body, to respect what it cannot do and to celebrate the possibilities of your body. In that split second, I had to know what my body could do. I knew I could do it.

I have a more mixed relationship with running than I do walking. When I was a thin kid, I knew I liked running, but I also knew it wasn't something I was very capable of. I could build up a quick burst of speed, but running exhausted me very quickly leaving me struggling to breathe. Fine for a sport like baseball, where bursts of speed are needed, but a sport like basketball I struggled with.

But I loved those bursts of speed. When I was in 8th grade, my school had a 1 mile competitive run all of the boys were required to do. I knew I wasn't going to do well. I was aware that I was a gangly, unathletic child. Everyone was. I just wanted to try to make the most of it. So I burst out as the 4-lap race started and after the first lap, me and another kid were way out in front. I knew no one expected this of me. I could only imagine the feeling of the budding jocks looking at this gawky nerd speeding ahead of them. I knew it wouldn't last, but I still loved it. By the end of the race, I had tired out and struggled in the back of the pack. Most would think it a failure, but I still was happy with what I was able to accomplish in my body.

As most 30 year olds, I don't have much cause for running any more. There aren't many good excuses for an adult to just run flat out for a short period. Pretty much just catching trains and making walk lights. I'm also much larger than I was at 14. I know most don't expect fat bodies to be capable of running, and indeed some might not be. That's okay. Every body should be defined by what it can do, not what it can't. This was something I could do. No matter what the sight of a 250lb man darting through the night, I could do this. I wanted to do this. I wanted to push myself instead of being pushed around. I wanted to feel the cold air rush past my face. I wanted to fly.

I took off. I was up to full speed well before I got to the street. This felt good. This felt just like what it felt like to run when I was thin. I owned my body. Maybe I was running slower than others, but all I focused on was how it made me feel. It didn't matter what other people expected of me. It didn't matter what standards others might have. This was my body and it felt right.

I launched off the curb and the traffic light in my direction was still green. I was doing it but I had no room for error. I had to keep going full out straight across the street. It was night so there wasn't much traffic anyone, but that wasn't the point. The point was moving in my body, enjoying what it was capable of. I had to keep moving to make this, but I could make this. The light turned yellow as I was half-way across. It wouldn't change to red until I was 5 feet past the other side. I made it with time to spare. I flew.

I pulled up when I was across the street. It wasn't a long run. Maybe 60 yards. But that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what someone else's standards are. It invigorated me and that was what was important. It was my body. Not anyone else's. Moving my body was not a chore, not was it an obligation. It does not make me a good person to run or walk. It does not make me a bad person if my subsequent 1 mile walk wasn't enough for some. It was just me being aware of my body and what it could do and what I wanted to do. My fat body flew through the night, and that's good just for itself.

The fantasy of oppressive fat activists

2011-03-24T17:40:00.002-04:00

No one is telling anyone they are too fat to be in fat acceptance.

I keep feeling like I've talked about these issues before, because, well, I have. Oh, sure, the context then was dieting, but its still a pretty similar dynamic. People with privilege insist they are being discriminated against because they aren't accommodated in the way they are accustomed to. This dynamic was actually just discussed rather eloquently by a video game designer responding to complaints that a game ignored heterosexual men.

And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might be met with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as "political correctness" if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don't see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what's everyone's fuss all about? That's the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.
-David Gaider, BioWare

I know little of the game, but that discussion of privilege is spot on. I think the dynamic is seen in many instances when a privileged group is not being catered to. No one is being told they are too fat for fat acceptance, but they are being told about how thin privilege operates on a spectrum. About how there are unique issues facing larger individuals. About how "exactly like" constructions can erase the experiences of those already disenfranchised. About how there can be spaces for different people to talk about the unique issues they face with others who face those issues. About a need to be mindful of their own privilege when they feel they haven't been constructively responded to by larger people.

Am I saying every fat activist has always been perfectly constructive in dealing with issues with the spectrum of thin privilege? Of course not. Not every feminist has been perfectly constructive in dealing with issues of male privilege. That does not justify someone accusing feminists of being anti-men. As I discussed in that post, I feel it is fair to expect a level of patience and understanding from the privileged. I say that as a person who experiences a lot of privilege. That's not too much to ask and it is not exclusionary. If a fatter person complains that you don't get what they are experiencing, you should always reflect on the fact that on some level, you really don't. If you are a thinner person, you can and should empathize, but you can't know from experience. It may or may not have been constructive to point that out, but instead of defensively taking offense, realize that there is truth in it anyway.

Because there is absolutely nothing constructive about coming from a place of privilege and accusing a disenfranchised group of discriminating against you. No matter how hurt you feel, that is not helpful or valid. Even if an individual did respond unconstructively to you, responding just as unconstructively will only seem to validate their reaction. No one is telling you that you aren't fat enough for fat acceptance. People may perceive that, but the perception is not fair or justified.

I keep saying this, but it really bares repeating. Most people get all of this. Most people who are trying to engage with fat acceptance are understanding about these issues and forge constructive relationships from that understanding. It may not be noticed, but that doesn't mean its too much to expect. Its happening all of the time.

Safe for me, not for thee

2011-03-23T10:34:00.005-04:00

I gather that recently an individual has been attacking fat positive spaces for trying to maintaing a safe space for fat people. The argument goes that this is discriminatory against thin people. Which is just plain unfair. I talked about this a little last month when I explored privilege as operating on a spectrum. I believe there is something just inherently wrong about people with privilege accusing those without of discrimination. That's not a license for the stigmatized to abuse the privileged, but that we need to view such disputes with a respect for what it means to have privilege and what it means to be disenfranchised. The fact of the matter is that most people are capable of this respect just fine. Most people don't rush to make things about them when they feel "put upon" by an oppressed group. Most people can find ways to object to genuinely troubling things with a respect and understanding that is warranted and not unwarranted cries of being victimized by the oppressed. Most people can respect safe spaces.

So, what of those who don't? In this case, the person in question has a long history of, well, exactly this. I don't really get the surprise here. Before he insisted that spaces for fat people must be accommodating to thin people, he insisted that fat acceptance spaces didn't have a right to be fat acceptance spaces. I can tell you that after I made that post, he harassed me repeatedly for a couple months. Aggressively emailing me over and over while I made no response. Writing multiple blog posts to attack me for not engaging him in his attempts to start a feud. It was strikingly similar to attacks I got late last year from a Men's Rights Activist who objected to me writing about rape culture. Its actually a pattern that's pretty common among people who object to safe spaces as being "discriminatory" to privileged, dominant views.

I have begun to recognize that for all their insisted opposition to safe spaces, what they actually want is to enforce the "safe space" of privilege. Privilege affords you a "safe space" of everywhere and that is something many privileged people seek to protect. They insist they represent inclusiveness, but this is nothing more than craven appropriation of progressive language. Appropriation of our language is something fat acceptance should be quite sensitive being in a culture where "diets are mean" is a slogan for a diet company. Their brand of inclusion, though, is all about excluding marginalized view points. Ensuring they remain crowded out by their privileged positions. They believe in having a space which is safe to express their views. They just believe that space is everywhere. Safe for me, not for thee.

We can't put up for this. The fact is, there are a lot of people who read fat acceptance blogs who aren't there yet, but they don't think to demand that fat acceptance adapt to them. There are a lot of people who feel shame for their body but recognize that the experience of fat people is not "exactly the same" as what they are seeing. Most people don't feel excluding because some spaces are maybe not all about them. They don't make much noise about being respectful of our spaces because that is how you are respectful of other people's spaces. We should remember that these people are there. We shouldn't expend much concern on the few who can't just respect our views and our communities, but demand we respect them. We shouldn't take seriously those who want to create safety for privilege. Respect isn't too much to ask. Fact is, lots of people are already offering it.

A radical idea

2011-03-17T22:26:00.002-04:00

Maybe its, like, okay that some children are fat.

I know that seems like an outrageous suggestion, even to some proported Fat Acceptance allies who still wring their hands at all these little fat kids they hear about, but maybe we can try just being okay with that. Maybe we can all try to give that a shot, because flipping out over fat children hasn't exactly been a very productive strategy. So maybe we can "think of the children" and stop creating a culture that teaches them shame and self-loathing at earlier and earlier ages.

When someone protests that they are fine with fat adults, but fat children are a natural nightmare, I have to suspect that they aren't really fine with fat adults. They've just decided they'll tolerate our fatness through gritted teeth. Gee, thanks. But fat children? Oh, gosh no. We have to stop them while we still have time or else!

Or else, what, exactly?

Maybe we can stop regarding fat children as victims of their bodies. Maybe we can stop teaching that to those children and to the children around them. Maybe we stop having campaigns with militaristic language that send the message that their bodies are wrong and must be changed. Maybe we stop instructing them on shame and encouraging other children to enforce that shame.

Maybe we stop absolving ourselves from these outcomes by medicalizing those childrens' bodies. Maybe we stop flattering ourselves for our good intentions while we subject kids to scorn and resentment, from their families, their peers, and themselves. Maybe we recognize that telling children to stop being so fat will stigmatize fat bodies. Maybe we realize that those bodies are likely to remain fat, so that message will be powerfully destructive.

Maybe we start teaching all children to love their bodies as they are. Maybe we start teaching them that its okay to be fat or thin, short or tall, average or not. Maybe childrens' programming can start reflecting body diversity in their child actors without an intention to scold those with transgressive bodies.

Maybe we encourage children to develop relationships with eating that are unburdened with shame and self-doubt. Maybe we teach children that its okay to eat. Maybe we encourage them to think of all food as being okay. Maybe we don't make broccoli a chore, but let them enjoy it. Maybe we don't make candy something forbidden and wrong, but something that will invigorate their body and spirit in moderation.

Maybe we let all children discover the possibilities of their own bodies instead of defining them all by rigid standards. Maybe they can be guided to find the play and movement that will sustain them for years. Maybe we can teach them that if they can't do something, that its not their fault and it doesn't have to limit them, but rather point the way to new opportunities to have a positive relationship with their bodies.

Maybe we can impart these lessons without telling children the goal is to have thin bodies. Maybe we can develop these behaviors and judge success by positive and healthy attitudes towards their bodies, towards food, towards movement and play. Maybe we can turn away judging progress by having a body that is smaller and more conventionally expected.

Maybe we can seriously respond to bullying and fat shaming both from other children and from adults. Maybe we can renounce rhetoric that blames fat children for economic woes, for the federal budget deficit, for the the state of our national security, and for environmental damage. Maybe we can stop blaming fat children at all and maybe we can stop trying to find things to blame for fat children.

Maybe if a child is fat, that can be okay.

But maybe that's too radical of an idea.

Yeah, but fat is bad.

2011-03-17T13:24:00.003-04:00

One of the biggest challenges in trying to talk about fat acceptance is that it is so radical of a suggestion that most people just refuse to believe we're making it. They refuse to think we are actually disagreeing them, that we are actually challenging fat stigmatization. Indeed, many backers of fat shaming are so busy flattering their "good intentions", that they just cannot process someone disturbing this moral superiority.

I got this vibe very distinctly from Lindsay Beyerstein's article at Tapped responding to Paul Campos speaking out on the fat shaming in Michele Obama's anti-fat children campaign. Campos made the analogy to challenge some people to consider a different perspective on fatness, and Beyerstein's response seems to be "Yeah, but fat is bad, so that doesn't make sense".

That's kind of the point, though. Its not supposed to make sense if you think fat is bad. We're suggesting you stop thinking that. The analogy that Beyerstein counters with about short people misses the point Campos was making that you cannot divorce "obesity" shaming from shaming fat people any more than you can divorce "homosexuality" shaming from the shaming of gays and lesbians. Fat stigmatizers, like gay stigmatizers, want to think there is a difference. That they hate the sin, but not the sinner. For the "sinner", the effect is little different. Its still shaming them. That construction doesn't change the outcome for the target of the shame, it just makes the person shaming feel better about themselves and avoid responsibility for what they are doing.

Beyerstein is aggressively unaware of what fat stigmatization does and I feel this is a product of thin privilege. Her counter analogy about short people just reveals a lack of comprehension of how fat people are treated and how fat people are targeted in "anti-obesity" campaigns. Short people are stigmatized in a lot of the pointless ways fat people are, actually, so there could be a good analogy here. The one Beyerstein makes, though, seems to miss entirely how fat stigmatization operates and the standards it sets for success.

I wouldn't have a problem with a program to encourage good nutrition and moderate activity. Fat shaming apologists always like to think that's all they are defending. Its not. That's what we are trying to tell them. The problem with any "anti-obesity" campaign is precisely that it is an ANTI-"obesity" campaign. Even if does encourage good nutrition and moderate activity, those are not its goals and THAT is the problem. Instead, the goal is the elimination of fat people. A goal which OBVIOUSLY stigmatizes and shames fat people. Also a goal I will not support because it will achieve none of the gains supposedly desired and is unattainable anyway. That last bit is actually very crucial since it means an anti-fat people campaign that isn't destructive in its structure can actually be more harmful by creating a disincentive for good nutrition and moderate activity. If it doesn't make you thin, after all, what's the point? If there was an anti-short people campaign, I'd vigorously oppose that as well as it'd be just as wrong in focus and goal as anti-fat people campaigns are.

We need to move past shame and stigmatization if we really want to improve the health and well-being of fat people and fat children. The health needs of fat people aren't going to be met as long as policy is intended to eliminate or prevent fat people. Those are policies which are ineffective and completely ignore our health needs. I get that people want to think being well intentioned absolves them for responsibility for these failures, but the culture of "well intentioned" fat stigmatization has been hugely harmful for the physical and mental well-being of fat people and it needs to end. We have to get over the knee-jerk, "Yeah, but fat is bad". Its just not the case. Fat is. Trying to eliminate fatness and prevent fatness has a record of consistent abject failure. There is no moral high ground there. We need a change.

Massive

2011-03-14T14:44:00.003-04:00

Sometimes you see a phrase you've seen a million times and suddenly have a new perspective on it. That happened to me a few days ago. I was looking at my Blogger stats and saw one of the search term referrals:

"massively overweight"

While not quite the go-to as some of the usual scare modifiers used to stigmatize fat people, its hardly rare, either. Its one of those terms people use thinking its somehow scientific and quantified when actually its essentially gibberish. It occurred to me, though, that massive has a couple different meanings. "Forming or consisting of a large mass" is certainly the leading contender, but you actually often hear "massive" used with more positive connotations. Merriam-Webster suggests "imposing in excellence or grandeur," which is certainly a different way of looking at it.

On an elemental level, though, the word can just reference "having mass". In some uses, massive is just something that takes up space. Which really upsets people about fat bodies. So many of the daily slights fat people endure are just related to taking up space. Space others feel entitled to. Space others feel our fat bodies are not entitled to. So much of the common hostility fat people are subject to is because our mass offends people. They imagine our mass as imposing on them, infringing on them. In truth, they often manufacture an imposition in order to justify their offense, but it doesn't matter. Every body has a right to the space it occupies. Every body has a right to mass. We are not an imposition. We are not an inconvenience. Some want mass to be a right of the privileged. They want to scold those with transgressive bodies for occupying space they don't "deserve". Massive isn't just a childish "omgz HUUUUGE!" taunt, its the heart of complaint about fat people. I guess its what we deserve for imposing our excellence and grandeur at them.

A culture of death threats

2011-03-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

One of the most effective tools of fat stigmatization are the casual death threats so commonly used to dehumanize and demonize fat people. One of the most effective defenses of fat stigmatization is the way its gotten so many people to accept these tactics as ordinary and even respectful discourse. I'm sure many readers now accept them so implicitly, they are bothered by me calling them death threats. Its part of the way the powerful have framed discussions of fat people to routinely legitimize fat hatred and disenfranchise fat people.

To be sure, direct threats of violence are an insidious part of our cultural discourse for many groups. I know from personal experience that fat activists can be subjected to to this. This is different from the kinds of death threats that are so routine for fat people. Just, its not as different as we may like to think. Its not about a threat of immediate violence to enforce the threat, but its still telling people they will die if they do not do as the powerful wish them to. That is a part of life for many fat people. We are told we will die if we do not lose weight. We are blamed for our own prospective deaths for not doing as we had been told.

It is an empty threat. The science most deferential to the interests of fat hatred finds a difference of only a couple years in the mortality of fat people as opposed to thin people. Studies which "control" for any thin people who die early and which don't consider factors like fitness or dieting history, still only reduces life expectancy by 3 years for most fat people and only 10 years for the fattest. I'm in no way accepting the validity of these numbers, but this is the most generous reading one can make for the kind of death threats fat people are subjected to and it just doesn't add up. Fat people are not threatened with a death in their mid-60's to early 70's. Inevitably, its always a threat coinciding with the next milestone birthday. A fat child is told they will die before 21 if they don't do as they are told. A fat 20 year old is told they will die before they are 30. Then 40.

And who makes these threats matters as well. They are not just made the vitriolic bigots we may accept this from, but by doctors. By parents. Death threats are precisely a tool of those in authority and it is an abuse of that authority. An abuse of that trust. The point of death threats is the perception that they will be followed up on. Whether they are or not is immaterial to their value as a tool of oppression. It is about enforcing authority through fear and that is precisely what happens to fat men and women. To fat boys and girls. They believe they will die if they don't do as they are told. Those in authority have told them so. They have told them they won't live past a couple years unless they do as they are told. It is a threat which fuels a culture of mutilation of healthy bodies in the name of "healing". A threat which supports a multi-billion industry happy to sell self-loathing with a heavy price tag. That it is empty doesn't matter. Indeed, this is very much like many direct death threats when used in political discourse. Its not about the enforcement, its about creating the fear.

A terrible price is paid for this fear. The price is paid in the many who DO die while doing as they are told. In the loss of quality of life for countless others. It is paid by the feelings of hopelessness and despair when you tell someone they will die if they don't so something that is impossible for so many to do. They live their lives expecting death and often make decisions to fulfill that prophecy. Imagine the experience of these people who are desperate to lose weight, certain that they won't live to start their lives. Certain they won't live to see a child grow up. Certain they won't live if they don't do as they are told. Now think of those who have tried to do as they are told but like the vast majority finding these efforts to be in vain. What is done to these people is cruel and inhuman and it must end.

We must reject this violent rhetoric and the false pretense of good intentions which serves as a rampart for those who question it. That those who oppress fat people think they are in the right is immaterial. Oppressors always do. Their death threats are lies. Lies which have harmed the lives of far too many and we must say enough. We must stand the line. The rhetoric of fat stigmatization is about far more that making people feel a little less pretty, as those who demean the purpose of fat acceptance might suggest. This about a life of fear and hopelessness that is imposed upon millions and millions of fat people. Fat acceptance isn't just about reclaiming our beauty, it is about reclaiming our lives from the looming specter of destruction that is considered so ordinary that few even think to question it. Fat acceptance is about a lot of things. Fighting the death threats used to oppress fat people is absolutely one of them.

Satisfactioning Ourselves

2011-03-01T23:06:00.002-05:00

As I was walking home from work today, I had something of an "a ha!" moment. No, I didn't find something transitioning from pencil drawing to live videos to to strains of new romantic synthpop. Instead, I made a connection between some fat activism issues I've been ruminating on lately.

After writing my infamous Dialogue, I starting thinking about the profound challenges fat acceptance faces in communicating its message. I gather some were eager to dismiss the dialogue as a straw-man attack, but as those who it resonated with can certainly attest, its actually pretty frighteningly real. This is the way FA is confronted time and again by hostile outsiders. And given the social marginalization of fat activism, there are a LOT of hostile outsiders, even among communities that really should be strong allies of fat acceptance. I was very tapped out on these fights a LONG time ago so I generally focus on in-the-community rebel-rousing, but seeing the reactions to the Savage reminded me of how daunting a task we are facing. As a movement, we need to speak outside ourselves, but what can we say to voices who treat us with such disdain or to the voices who may not do that, but still demand we treat disdainful voices with respect and deference. It often seems like a Catch-22. We can't talk to these people, but we also have to talk to them.

I recognized, though, that this actually relates to a post I made a couple months ago about how Fat Acceptance needs to foster a new conversation about health. The Rotund made a similar point more succinctly but noting that we want a new paradigm, not a shift in the existing one. We cannot have a productive discussion about the issues facing fat people within the current system, because it is a system which predetermines our failure. It is a system constructed with rules which presume us to not only be wrong to be without any valid recourse to suggest otherwise. It is a system built from the ground up in service of fat hate trolling. When we see a troll scolding us, that is the inevitable result of a refusal to process the fact that we are not playing by the rules they want us to play by. We are not engaging in the conversation they are insisting upon and in many ways that just does not compute.

In my post about the new conversation we are trying to have, I tried to see a way through to engaging with people who cannot understand what we are talking about. This is why I'm not against discussing the so-called "good fatties" on a basic level. Because while we fret that this is just shifting paradigms, we need to realize that these are paradigms not designed for movement. The foundations of fat stigmatization are not earthquake proof. They will not bend and sway with new information. There is no room for it. "Good fatties" are a contradiction in terms. We point out inconvenient realities not to plead for a shift in fat stigmatization to allow dispensations for fat people who prove worthy. We do it to show that the paradigm is a lie.

The thing is, this is a very different conversation than what we have when we talk about what will take the place of the systems used to stigmatize fat persons. Refuting the current rules is necessary, but they have no baring on what takes its place. We refute not as an example of the new conversation, but as a response to the old conversation. Refutation is not an end, but rather a means of engaging a paradigm that has no place for our voices. This is a system where the needs and concerns of fat people are only talked about by those who feel fat people must not be and that we must achieve this by any means necessary. A system where the official debate often is between those who feel fat people should have healthy organs amputated, and those who feel fat people should simply have healthy organs strangled permanently. There is no place of us in this debate. As it exists, we have no seat at the table. As it exists, we cannot engage with it. As it exists, our only option is silence and that cannot stand.

What I realized today is that much of the trolling we see is actually an informative example. This is how a paradigm of fat stigmatization processes our nascent conversation. With a lot more aggravation and very little satisfactioning. In its own odd way, its why we need to keep building a new conversation among ourselves while we try to break down the systems outside of ourselves. The cognitive dissonance fat hate trolls experience when trying to process what we are talking emphasizes the need for a two pronged approach. The need to refute their terms in the hopes of finding an opening so we can create the new conversation and one day the action needed to better the lives of all people, fat and thin. That some people don't get it really isn't a problem. Ultimately, that's why we are doing what we are doing. Because within a culture of fat stigmatization, you shouldn't get what we are saying. When we eschew binary constructions of fat vs. thin, people shouldn't know how to respond to us. Because this isn't about those who think fat=bad. Its about getting to a place where no one feels fat is bad. Which isn't a place where everyone feels fat is good. Its a place past that. Where fat just is.

Dialogue with a Troll

2011-02-15T17:42:00.003-05:00

A play in one act.

Cast: Fat Activist (FA) and Fat Hate Troll (TR)

Scene: Somewhere on the internets

FA: Fat stigmatization is unacceptable.

TR: I'm not stigmatizing fat. I'm just saying fat is bad.

FA: That's fat stigmatization.

TR: No, no. That's not it at all. I'm just saying its bad to be fat and you should do something about it.

FA: Which is stigmatization and unacceptable.

TR: Do I need to speak slowly? I'm not stigmatizing you. I'm just saying you are obviously unhealthy, a strain upon society, and need to be pressured into doing something about it. Also, you are ugly.

FA: I understand that you are saying that. That's why I'm objecting to it.

TR: Do you have comprehension issues? I'm just saying you're body is disgusting and maybe you should go kill yourself and spare society the immoral burden of yourself. I'm not prejudiced against you.

FA: What you just said was prejudiced.

TR: I never said I was prejudiced. You're putting words in my mouth.

FA: I know you never said that specifically. WHAT you said was prejudiced.

TR: But I said I wasn't prejudiced.

FA: What you said WAS prejudiced and stigmatizing and I won't accept that.

TR: I didn't say anything wrong. Now you're just being a vindictive liar.

FA: What you said. About fat being disgusting and unhealthy and ugly. All of that. That's what I'm objecting to.

TR: But you are disgusting, unhealthy, and ugly.

FA: I'm contesting that.

TR: But you are.

FA: No.

TR: Look, I'm not the enemy here. You should be mad at the corporations who made you fat. Lives are at stake, you know.

FA: As long as you are telling me that I'm unhealthy, ugly, disgusting, etc., then kind of are the "enemy" in so far as you are espousing viewpoints I strongly reject.

TR: You obviously are self-loathing if this bothers you so much.

FA: That does not remotely make sense.

TR: So you admit you have comprehension issues!

FA: Look, as long as you promote hate, bigotry, and stigmatization I will keep objecting to it. Fat people should not be stigmatized as immoral, unhealthy, or disgusting. Its not helpful and its not true.

TR: I never stigmatized you! I just said you were immoral, unhealthy, or disgusting. What don't you get about that?

FA: A lot, it would seem.

END SCENE

Because I SAID SO

2011-02-14T23:57:00.002-05:00

Dan Savage has now actually responded to Lindy West after it was presumably pointed out that his assholery was showing when he Ctrl-V'd his last one. Not that he does much better here.

You see, Dan Savage isn't fat bigot. Its just that all the bigoted things he says about fat people are true. Case closed.

Its the all too common "because I SAID SO" retort fat people get when they try to stand up for themselves. Fat acceptance is wrong, because it is wrong. Such rotund logic is never questioned or scrutinized. Fat people are all unhealthy because everyone knows fat people are unhealthy. Fat people choose to be fat because everyone knows fat people choose to be fat. Its not bullying to stigmatize fat people. Its just the truth. And helpful. Or both. Its certainly not bad, though, because everyone knows its right. It creates a vigorous feedback loop of concern trolling on display in pretty much all of the SLOG posts about this. Lots of people insisting that its not an insult because its true. One person even called on fat people to kill themselves and turned around and insisted they weren't against fat people.

The dangerous thing is they believe this. They are utterly oblivious to the fact that all bigots feel entitled to their prejudice. All bigots use the same exact defenses. Its not hate, because its true. It not bad, because I'm right. All they are really doing is reminding us that progressives are in no way immune from self-righteous bigotry. A chore, frankly, we could do with less of.

Dan says that he's not the enemy. That's just more delusion. What he means is that he feels a level of entitlement which affords him no remorse for his action. He tells us he is not the enemy because he doesn't feel like the enemy. He just feels right. He says he is not the enemy not to extend an olive branch, but to slap us into our place. Its not an expression of humility, but a command. He is not the enemy because HE SAID SO. He is demonstrating his disinterest in listening to us and opting instead to just assert.

The irony of this is that this dust-up started because Dan made fat people into the enemy. He defended gay marriage by acting like fat people were the opposition. He made us the enemy, but is outraged that the same might happen to him with far more justification. He is right and fat activists are just a bunch of dishonest liars for not agreeing with him. And vindictive. And codependent. But none of that is mean spirited. Its just right. Because HE SAID SO.

Its too easy to satirize this by pointing out how much he sounds like the homophobic bigot he rails against. All the same techniques he uses to demean and defame fat people should be REALLY familiar to him. It won't work, though. Not, at least, if we define working as getting Dan Savage to see the error in his ways. He'll no sooner do that that vicious anti-gay bigots who hate him. Here is the real big secret that Dan Savage will never be able to recognize even as its right in front of his face.

This isn't about him.

Oh, I'm sure a few people harbor some hope that he'll come around, but none of us who've dealt with his reflexive bigotry for years allows ourselves such misguided motivation. No, DAN, this isn't about you. Oh, sure, you've gotten us to say your name a lot. DAN. You should know better than that. You mock the morality police not to sway them, but to shame them. To make them fools before us all. Guess what, Dan. Its your turn.

We speak out against your vicious hatred for ourselves. We speak out against you to speak up for ourselves. To show others that we don't have to accept "Because I SAID SO" as a reason to keep quiet. To show that you will not and can not shut us up. We speak out for the same reasons so many stigmatized people have spoken out. To claim our voice from those who want to deny it from us. We speak out for the same reason you do, Dan. Its a shame you won't see that because you are too busy flattering your sense of moral righteousness. Its a shame you can't see the irony of your moralizing crusade. Its a shame, but its still not about you.

Because I said so. Because I get to decide my voice. Because I get to determine my own beliefs. Because this is the one time that retort makes sense.

Dan Savage. Arbiter of Fatness.

2011-02-14T12:16:00.002-05:00

For someone who hates fatties so much, its kind of odd that Dan Savage was appointed the Official Arbiter of Acceptable Fatness. I mean, I guess he was. He thinks he was. That's the only thing to conclude from his response to people objecting to his use of fat bigotry to argue for marriage equality.

Of course, he couldn't be bothered with ACTUALLY responding to Lindy West, so he actually just copied and pasted a response to Kate Harding from 3 years ago, so this nothing new except to remind us where he still is with dealing with the fatties. Kate Harding might be okay, but Dan Savage wants us all to know that he does draw the line. And that line is 400 POUNDS! (Bingo!) He magnanimously agrees to allow that people who are really fat shouldn't be harassed so long as they admit that they are horribly awful people who will die any second. Until then, harass away, presumably. Its a fool's bargain. He'll agree to let us have our self-confidence if we agree to be stigmatized. Such a generous compromise. And no comments.

Here's the thing, DAN. You don't get to be the decider of who gets to be fat. People who stigmatize fatness don't get to write the limits of what is okay fat and what is not okay fat. Oh, you'll think you get to, but I am under no obligation to care. Same as Dan Savage doesn't have to care when a homophobe tries to write the rules of acceptable gayness. Plenty of anti-gay bigots like appoint themselves arbiter of acceptable gayness, separating the deathgays from the tolerablegays. They do so to enforce their bigotry. The subjects of that bigotry shouldn't accept that.

I don't accept Dan Savage's attempts to dictate the rules of fatness on me or anyone else. He doesn't get to do that. I understand that he thinks fat people are obviously wrong. So do a lot of people. Its why I speak out. Its why Fat Acceptance exists. People like Dan Savage think they are proving us wrong by just saying we are wrong. All they prove is why we need to speak out. Someone disagreeing with Fat Acceptance is not a proof that it shouldn't exist.

Dan Savage. Again.

2011-02-12T23:58:00.003-05:00

Ooooooooh. That explains all my stat hits relating to Dan Savage hating fat people.

Dan Savage has called for a ban on fat people marrying. Satirically, I guess, but he betrays a deep misunderstanding of what satire is. Some days I wonder if the world would be a better place without Jonathan Swift if only because there would be fewer assholes emboldened by an incomprehensible misreading of "A Modest Proposal". Swift's famed satire about eating Irish children made sense because Swift was, in fact, Irish. Had his writing career been instead made up of regular bouts of Irish baiting and anti-Irish demagoguery, the work would take on a different tone. Something would-be satirists like Savage often miss. Using your established hate to make a satirical point doesn't actually make said satirical point. It just reminds people of your established hate.

If the point is advancing the cause of gay marriage, why try to do on the backs of fat people? How does one have anything to do with another? You don't make a point about why gay marriage bans are bad by bashing fat people. You just end up bashing fat people.

I fully support marriage equality. It is a tragedy that we deny such basic rights to people because of their sexual orientation. I am proud to live in a state which has recognized this. I am proud to have friends and colleagues who were legally able to celebrate their love with marriage. My straight marriage benefited from gay marriage in a purely utilitarian manner due to an utterly fantastic wedding planner who started her business to meet the needs of gays and lesbians when they won marriage equality here. She was able to help my wife and I put together a wedding that represented our values and our wishes in a way I cannot imagine a planner accustomed to traditional ceremonies could have. Not only do many of us fat people support marriage equality, there is a dirty little secret Dan Savage wants to ignore.

Many fat people want to GET gay married. I know some. Fat people are not the enemy of gay marriage. They are beneficiaries. Fat people who get inadequate medical care because they can't go on their loved one's insurance. Fat people who become at the mercy of other people's desires for their health because their partner's aren't allowed to represent them to doctors. Fat people who want to be mothers and fathers but face extra hurdles in adoption.

Dan Savage, as usual, thinks he's being witty and daring by going after fat people. That by perpetuating hatred for fat people, he avenges hatred for gay people. Really, he's just acting as enforcer for the status quo. The same cultural status quo that demands gays and lesbians be denied their basic rights also denies fat people their humanity. The same culture which demeans him for being gay, stigmatizes me for being fat. Shame on anyone who trades off this culture of hate and bigotry. Doing so to fight a culture of hate bigotry doesn't make it okay. It just makes it a joke.

Here is a great piece by Lindy West at Dan Savage's home publication taking him to task. Living 400lbs has done a great job, too.

Fictional Fat Admiration

2011-02-10T00:58:00.002-05:00

So, I've watched the Glee episode that saw one of its main characters find himself pondering fat attraction to a fat character. Its always tough to judge a TV show by a single episode, but at least thus far I find myself pretty apprehensive about how this is being developed. It can still go in a lot of different directions, and while it didn't go anywhere really bad, it was also steering very clearly of anywhere really good, too.

My concern is I felt like the arc of the episode had the man in question consider the possibility that he was attracted to a fat woman, try this one for size, and conclude that nope, he's not attracted to the fat women physically, just emotionally. Everytime we hear him pondering his feelings, he is weighing being physically attracted or emotionally attracted, as if this were sort of binary decision. And the turning point for him comes when he stops weighing the two options and commits to being attracted emotionally. This kind of concerns me as a message.

Mind you, the idea that fat attraction is bad is, at most, subtext, so things could have gone much worse. And genuine romantic interest in a fat partner is a pretty radical thing for TV regardless of physical attraction. Still, I think its fair to be sensitive to how attraction to fat partners gets portrayed. While subtext, I got a strong sense that the character was being chided for expressing physical desire for a fat person. Every time he tried to convey that, he gets slapped down. Granted, his expressions were pretty uniformly artless, but its not like the resolution was to express the desire better. It was to not express the desire at all. So, we only every see expression of fat admiration as something clumsy, blunt, and more than a little objectifying. Except, this has a powerfully stigmatizing effect by implying that there is something necessarily wrong about being attracted to a fat person.

There is a real problem in how our culture tends to depict fat attraction. Fat characters are often left with a binary choice. Be objectified by someone who desires you or enjoy the righteous tolerance of someone who'll love you "in spite of" your body. Which, to me, sounds like two shitty choices but always plays out as good vs. bad. And guess which side gets to be good. Fat attraction is a deviation. Something othered. This doesn't just impact fat admirers, though. Indeed, the brunt of this kind of perspective is felt by the fat people since it their body being othered. Their body that is stigmatized as deviant. The admirer is shamed for how they relate to fat bodies. The fat body is the point of difference.

The truth, I'd suggest, leaves both of those binary choices as being really lousy. Better options would be someone whose physical desire was just a part of what drew them to a specific fat partner, or a person who doesn't identify with any specific physical desire who can still incorporate physical attraction into their relationship with a fat partner. Those two scenarios are the cause of happy endings. Not the partner only interested in one's fat body or the one who tries to disassociate one's physical presence with their emotional engagement.

While Glee definitely had a subtext of showing the fat attraction to be foolish, it still wasn't the text of the show and there is nothing to contradict either non-binary scenario. I'd hope that he can recognize that he does desire fat partners, but that he's looking for more than a body, mostly because fictional fat admiration is pretty rare and it'd be great to see better examples of it.

Which got me thinking about other examples. One showed up tonight on the new Matthew Perry sitcom Mr. Sunshine. A young, conventionally attractive female references an as yet unseen character as "gorgeous" in a fairly breathless delivery. When the character is revealed as the identifiably fat Nate Torrence, its obviously played as a gag of misplaced expectations. THIS is gorgeous? Doesn't help that she's already been established as possibly mentally unstable, meaning her attraction might not be meant as a quirk but as a "symptom".

The quirk aspect reminded me of Dr. (Jo) Mahoney, the late addition to the cast of Scrubs. She's established as being interested in fat men, but this attraction is immediately regarded as necessarily suspect. It's "explained" as enjoying their insecurity and desire to please her. This actually worries me about Glee, too, as it often seemed to be trying to justify the attraction to a fat woman. Though with a more positive justification ("She's confident!"), I don't like the idea that wanting to be with fat partners always needs to be justified. Frankly, a lot of fat admirers themselves do this, deluding themselves into thinking fat women are just better people and not just fatter people. At any rate, she also had a totally meaningless fat attraction since she never really acted on it and entered a relationship with a thin male as soon as the plot demanded it.

Something also seen on "American Dad" where the CIA chief voiced by Patrick Stewart declares an interest in fat women to establish him as being a deviant, and then quickly forgotten about it. Less quickly forgotten was Debbie, the fat girlfriend written for Steve, the son on the show. Oh, it got forgotten about, but briefly it was actually a pretty decent way to show a character who isn't specifically interested in fat partners going beyond "in spite of" in their attraction. Steve is fully attracted to Debbie even if her body was not relevant to that. He wasn't shown as martyring himself and his interest was actually treated very respectfully. When they broke up several episodes later, her size was a total non-issue. Shame it was introduced and dispensed with so quickly.

Most of the time on TV, fat characters are only allowed love "in spite of" being fat and this is routinely seen as a good thing. Having someone "look past" one's body is a display of extreme nobility in this world. I remember several shows when I was a kid introducing a fat girl for a male lead to learn to woo in order to be a better person. And they never even had to do anything about it after the episode, either, so win-win. It was a textbook example of the lionization of "despite". If someone actually was into fat partners, they were always a deviant and more than a couple times portrayed as necessarily a feederist with the implication that desire for fat partners and feederist interests were one and the same. This is a backdrop that gives me a lot of room for caution with Glee's still being written treatment of the subject. I could see them going in several different directions here. Some good, some bad. I'm hoping to go for something really radical and let a main character be genuinely attracted to fat partners, but I'm apprehensive that he'll be another person just learning a lesson by dating fat partners.

A Spectrum of Privilege

2011-02-04T16:27:00.003-05:00

My fat body is privileged. Not by by virtue of being fat, of course. But by a lot of other things that interact with fat prejudice and impact the way I am treated.

I experience privilege as a white fat person. I experience privilege as a fat male. I experience privilege being fat and straight. And in what is a tricky thing for Fat Acceptance to respond to, I experience privilege because I am thin.

Except, I'm not thin. Still, while I am not privileged by virtue of being fat, I am privileged by the comparative level of fat I am. As the male equivalent of a mid-size fatty, I experience a number of advantages over my fatter brethren. The chances of being of being publicly harassed are sharply reduced, I can buy clothes at many mainstream retailers, I can fit into most airline seats. I didn't ask to be privileged in these ways, but I am. This is what our culture has done and I cannot pretend that doesn't exist

Which doesn't mean I don't face challenges. I have been publicly harassed because of my size. While I can shop at many mainstream clothing stores, I can only just barely and even then only online for many. Fitting in an airline seat actually doesn't provide me much protection from being forced to pay for a second seat given that I am visibly fat. So, of course, there is a reason to speak out about the ways my fat body is stigmatized, but I still need to be mindful of the ways I am privileged compared to others, such as those who experience harsher fat stigmatization.

I feel like there is often an eagerness in FA to accept the false equivalency that a fat person saying something like "Skinny people are evil" is the same thing as the stigmatization that fat people experience. I always see haughty declarations about how this is about accepting all people. While that sort of declaration is profoundly nonconstructive and entirely unacceptable, we do a disservice to reality by treating it as two sides of a body hating coin. They aren't. To say that they are same thing is actually feeding into a culture of fat stigmatization by minimizing how fat bigotry enforces itself in our culture. Its akin to those who act like "reverse racism" or "man hating" are somehow equal evils to the subjugation of non-whites and of women.

I feel it is imperative that we follow the lead of other social justice movements and strive to respond to these kinds of resentments from the underprivileged without endorsing false equivalencies about them. That we find ways to express our dissatisfaction with these examples of resentment while still acknowledging that they are not a cause of what we are fighting, but a product of it. Especially when we are, ourselves, the subjects of this resentment because of where we might be on the spectrum of thin privilege.

As long as I've seen FA, I've seen smaller fat people complaining about how they don't feel welcome. As a bonafide smaller fat person, I don't buy this. I don't deny that some resentment is real and sometimes gets expressed in counterproductive outbursts. Still, I feel there needs to be some responsibility on the part of those of us who experience privilege to not make these resentments all about us. The privileged cannot put the burden on the stigmatized to make us comfortable. That is a very common dynamic but one which always serves to enforce stigmatization. This is easier to see when, say, straight people insist that the gay rights movement be more "comfortable" for straight people. It feels odd when you suffer stigmatization to realize that you can also be a beneficiary of the same example of privilege that stigmatizes you. This is the reality, though.

Its a challenge to find the right balance to respond to resentments that are ultimately counterproductive but still come from a very honest situation. It is a challenge we must take up, though. We cannot just lump in these forms of resentment from the underprivileged with the stigmatization from the privileged. They are not the same thing and cannot be responded to in the same way. I can get the allure of taking such a position, but it is not actually reasonable. Without the power dynamic seen with the privileged, this resentment simply doesn't mean the same thing. We do need to push past these resentments because they manifest in outbursts that are not fair or constructive, but we still must acknowledge the truths that produced them and recognize that they are a product of what we are fighting, not what we are fighting.

A choice between nothing or nothing.

2011-01-22T16:48:00.004-05:00

You may recall a story about Whole Foods a year ago where they bragged about a new program that would discriminate against fat employees. Basically, they set up a program that tied one's weight to their employee discount. Thin employees could get up to 10% extra off in-store purchases. For a single individual, that can easily be hundreds of dollars each year. If you're shopping for a family, it could easily be more than $1,000 annually.

Its pretty obnoxious stuff, but also old news. Still, I referenced it in a tweet a couple days ago because I was frustrated to see Whole Foods being lauded for being so good to their employees while they have an official policy discriminating against fat employees. This got their attention and I got a response from their official Twitter feed tersely telling me I was "incorrect". So, I elaborated by specifically referencing their discount program as the evidence that I was actually quite correct. They responded with:

"Sorry you feel that way but our Team Member incentive program does not discriminate against anyone....everyone can participate"

Frankly, I'm dumb-founded at how insulting a response this is. Looking at the comments of the f-word article, it also seems like they've been this insulting for a while. Because the extra benefits being given thin employees are optional, its not discrimination. That is deeply twisted logic. Fat people have no option for the extra 10% off their purchases. It is functionally invalid to claim this does not discriminate against fat people. The ability to participate in a system which will give them nothing is not a choice. It means they have a choice to get nothing or alternatively nothing. Its like they respect fat people so little that they don't even need to bother making sense when spitting on us.

So, while it may be old news, its still very actively discriminatory. I can't say I boycotted Whole Foods over this (though, I did stop going for several months). I respect the choice to do so, but I tend to feel like fat stigmatization is so taken for granted that its hard to penalize just those who are known to do it. Still, I find their justification for discrimination insulting enough that I am reconsidering. They are hardly alone in thinking fat people don't deserve the same things as thin people, but its pretty audacious to do that and then tell fat people that this isn't even harming us. The whole point is to harm us. Don't insult me and tell me this is nothing. If you can't stand by your policy of fat discrimination, maybe you should reconsider it.

White Knights

2011-01-01T19:48:00.004-05:00

If you've been on the internets for more than a day, you may well have come across mention of "White Knights" or "White Knight Syndrome". Its an actual thing, but it gets widely overused online for a very specific purpose. In principal, its meant to describe men who impulsively come to the "rescue" of women. When it is actually happening, "White Knights" are generally a prelude for "Nice Guys™" where they resent that their constant rescuing doesn't produce fawning women. As an actual problem, its not about respecting women so much as belittling them.

Is this a reason male voices should never come out in support of feminist causes and in opposition to misogyny? Of course not. Usually when you see people start to chide others for being "White Knights", though, that is what they are actually talking about. Its not about shaming men for infantilizing women but silencing men who resist hostility towards women.

I've seen this phenomenon a lot where awful behavior is defended by simply labeling opposition to it as "White Knighting". Its an extremely common tactic in fat sexuality forums where treating fat women with respect is regarded as necessarily suspect by far too many. Not surprisingly, it is also common in discussions of feminism where supportive male voices are simply disappeared by dismissing them as "White Knights". Male allies rarely get engaged when they speak out against rape culture or Men's Rights Activists. We, after all, are not the point. The point is putting women in "their place" and confronting other men would just be a distraction. So there will be a quick mention of us as "White Knights" with the implication that this invalidates what we have to say to people can get back hurling threats at insults at women.

Whatever real problems "White Knight Syndrome" might create pale in comparison to the damage it serves as a tool for silencing male voices who speak out against rape culture, sexism, misogyny, and male privilege. Most male feminists aren't speaking out to "rescue" women or curry sexual favor. Most of us speak out because we recognize that men have a stake in this, too. It would be easier for men to retreat to our privilege and let this be someone else's problems but I think its important that we step up and try to be a part of the solution. Misogyny should offend men. Rape culture should horrify men. We have a responsibility to bring our voices into the discussion. Not because women need us, but because it is the right thing to do. "White Knight" accusations are always about protecting male privilege, but this isn't something men are obligated to do. There is NO necessity that we defend male privilege or fall silent in the face of violence and hatred against women. I believe male privilege is unsupportable. Aside from issues of fairness, I would still fight sexism for purely self-interested reasons. Other men treating women poorly damages ALL men and men suffer from the damage a misogynistic culture does to gender relations and our own identities. It limits us and limits our possibilities as men. That it is wrong should always be enough, but I firmly believe it does serve my interests to combat male privilege.

Speaking out doesn't make me feel like a hero. For true "White Knights", this is the problem. They do these things and expect praise. I don't deserve praise for doing what is obvious. Saying that consent should be the cornerstone of my sexual life is a low bar to have cleared. That this may ever feel significant doesn't make me feel pride. It makes me feel the need to keep speaking out. It makes me feel like we should be able to expect more of ourselves. I've gotten used to people calling me a "White Knight" to silence me, but I'm not shutting up. Fact is, this sort of cursory dismissal is far less reprisal than what women face for speaking out. It does cow some men into silence, though, and that's a shame. Men who want to speak out face so few obstacles, but often than minimal impact is enough to convince some men to just retreat to the sidelines. To any man intimidated by "White Knight" accusations into being silent in the face of hatred, I urge you to take inspiration from the women who are speaking out. Male privilege affords us the unwanted benefit of facing far less hostility when we raise our voices against those systems of privilege. Its not fair to let what little we do face keep us from take responsibility for our own lives and our voice.

Rape apologists and the need to speak out

2010-12-16T23:50:00.008-05:00

If you've seen my Twitter feed today, you've no doubt seen me tweeting about the #Mooreandme issue. While I normally focus on fat issues, I felt it was important to weigh in on rape culture. I think this is a serious concern in our culture and frankly men don't do enough to speak out against rape. Myself included. I was really moved by the eloquence of so many of the people who have spoken out against the rape apologies that are coming from progressives in the wake of Julian Assange's arrest. I didn't want to just keep letting other people speak so I joined in. The defensiveness people are having over Assange is really troubling. None of the critics are saying he doesn't need to have his day in court, but I feel like a lot of Assange's defenders ARE saying he shouldn't have his day in court and that the charges should just be disregarded. This is wrong. Period.

The justifications are really unhinged, too. Some say that the charges are obviously politically motivated, and therefore false. Well, one doesn't follow the other. Yeah, they are politically motivated, but that doesn't say anything about their veracity. Its easy to make up excuses why THIS TIME its okay to dismiss rape allegations, but what they fail to get is that this is the dynamic that ALWAYS happens with rape apologies. There is always a reason when these rape charges aren't worth taking seriously. The whole mindset is unsustainable. This only seems to happen with rape with this kind of regularity. No other criminal accusation is so routinely dismissed. So even if you think that this time its okay, you need to really question yourself. Because all those other times, someone else made that same judgement and this pattern is a problem.

I'm really bothered by those who say these rape charges should be ignored because most rape charges get ignored so it'd be insulting to those victims to care now. Important, serious people have made this argument. Which I would characterize as "You guys NEVER care about rape. Why you gotta start now?" Yes, the way rape isn't taken seriously is a problem. No one thinks this is a signal that rape is being taken seriously, either. Its obviously just politically expedient to do so. But thinking its politically expedient to keep ignoring rape is even worse.

Anyway, I hope no one minds getting off Fat Acceptance for a bit. For further reading on this issue, please check out the following...

At Tiger Beatdown...

#MooreandMe: On Progressives, Rape Apologism, and the Little Guy

Day One of #MooreandMe: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Being Blocked by Keith Olbermann on Twitter

From Bitch Magazine

From Kate Harding

And probably lots of others. Thank you.

Fat Admirer or Fat Fetishist

2010-12-15T16:23:00.002-05:00

I was listening to the latest episode of the Two Whole Cakes Fatcast and Marianne and Lesley were discussing fat admirers and fat fetishists. Its a discussion that comes up a lot when discussing fat sexuality and specifically fat admirers. It struck me, though, that this common distinction is one I'm not convinced there is a justification for.

I know I didn't always think so. Indeed, fat admirers commonly talk about fat fetishists. Thing is, that's always something someone else is. The distinction is usually drawn as one group being good and the other bad. Now, to be fair, the Fatcast rejected that understanding, but I still think that's how most people view it. Fat admirers are fine, but fat fetishists are a problem. I know I've endorsed that idea in the past, though I've never been totally comfortable with it.

The problem is, I don't know what would usefully differentiate these two groups. Having been exposed to a lot of communities focused around attraction to fat partners, I just don't see any real camps of "admirers" and "fetishists". As to how both might respond to fatness, I don't think there is a meaningful distinction. I may not always feel comfortable with what they do with their feelings, but I can't say that what I feel seems any different from what other men like me feel. I think it'd be easy for me to say that I'm different or better, but I can't do that in all honesty. What I feel for fat is what they feel for fat, so I'm not comfortable singling some people out as fetishists. Not because fetishes are wrong, but because I just don't think its the right word for what this is and I'm not convinced there is something else it would describe. A point made on the Fatcast is that we never talk about having a fetish for penises. This is my sexuality.

Which is not to say that different men (and women) don't do different things with this. I have a post I've been wanting to write for a while called "The problem with Fat Admirers" because while I know I've been a bit of an apologist for Fat Admirers lately, I am actually acutely aware of how earned a lot of the perception issues are for my sexuality. I don't tend to last long in Fat Admirer communities because I invariably spend my time telling them to be better and being told to shut up for my troubles. But I can't divorce my sexual identity with their sexual identity. On a very basic level, the physical attraction we feel strikes me as essentially identical.

I also think this division is born out of trying to accommodate fat stigmatization rather than confront it. Outside fat communities, we're ALL fat fetishists. And this is not for any nuance of behavior but for the essential desire for a fat partner that we share. I feel like the dichotomy was born (quite some time ago) from an effort to flatter this conventional ignorance. Oh, sure, there is fat fetishism but that's not me. Well, I'm not prepared to make such allowances. I think many of the distinctions raised about the differences often have less to do with this sexuality as it does with male heterosexual identity in general.

I'm going to keep writing about this because its way to large to get into one post and I really do want to get into the problems in fat admirer behavior and how that links to male sexuality in general but also how the problems relate to the stigmatization of fat attraction. But I'm not going to try to draw very hard lines to credit myself over other men. On a very essential level, I think sexual attraction is a wonderful thing. Sexual desire is a wonderful thing. There shouldn't be shame about that. It is okay to sexually desire a fat body and in our culture that really needs to be said straight on and without reservation. My reservations absolutely will come, but I want to push that as far away from the essential act of sexual desire for a fat partner as possible. That should not be stigmatized in the least and I feel on that level there is no dividing line between so-called "fat fetishists" and so-called "fat admirers". On a fundamental level, we are the same thing.

A new conversation: fat and health

2010-12-13T00:57:00.002-05:00

In my last couple of posts I've been looking at the backlash Fat Acceptance often faces. A common "stray fattie" charge is that fat activists are in denial about health concerns. Basically, they are so certain in their righteous that we don't merely disagree but are in denial. The fairly broad "nuance" of what Fat Activists actually are saying is irrelevant to them. We disagree with their assertions so they declare we are claiming the exact opposite of what they are. That fat is the paradigm of good health just as they claim thinness is.

They aren't interested in discourse, but rather enforcing the rules the powerful have set for our social conversation about health. We will never win playing within their rules, because their rules already dictate the outcome. That's why they want us to play by their conventions and dictates. Their conversation about fatness only allows one outcome and this enables them to distort our claims as they try to force them into their guidelines.

What Fat Acceptance must do is forge a new conversation. I think we see a relation to this in fretting about "good fatties" and "bad fatties". That moral dichotomy is informed entirely by the rules of fat hatred. They've decided we are bad. We will never be able to prove our "goodness" within their rules, but likewise we will never be able to excuse our "badness" either. I honestly haven't seen a fat activist suggest the former, that being "good" fat people was a solution but I have seen the later where activists bristle at discussions about so-called "good fatties" preferring to argue that health is not a moral imperative. Neither, though, would be effective although both speak to a truth that I think could be our key. We need to tear down the conventions which confine us in order to start a new conversation about fat health. We can't play by their rules, but we can't deny them, either. We need to confront them to dismiss them so we can move forward.

In the comments of this article, Silentbeep made a very astute observation about why we talk about so-called "good fatties". The point is not to exault them but to demonstrate "health variance when it comes to fatness". The current rules to discuss fat and health deny this. There is one outcome. One option. We need to show that this is a sham, that how they are defining health is functionally flawed. "Good fatties" aren't playing by the rules, they are invalidating them.

But this isn't an end. We need to move past this lest we be offered defensive indulgences where we are "allowed" to be fat so long as do all the "right" things. Its not about winning acceptance on their terms but completely revolutionizing what we understand to be right. And that means refusing to promote health as a moral imperative.

Fat activists don't deny that fat can impact health. We deny the conclusions drawn about that. Both about individual health and about personal morality or responsibility. Fat people have unique health concerns that need to be addressed. The issue is that our current system doesn't do that. It fails the health needs of fat people by insisting on stigmatizing fat and promoting failed treatments that do nothing to address one's health. They say that fat activists don't care about the health of fat people, but I say that's 100% false. We DO care about the health of fat people and that's why we demand better than futile weight loss dieting. They've had decades to enforce their views and its done nothing. We need to stop this and start finding ways to serve fat people's health needs with respect for their body. Not with an insistence that the body change before you start caring. That's not the conversation they want to happen, but its what must happen.

It isn't wrong to be fat and have diabetes. It isn't wrong to be fat and have high blood pressure. It isn't wrong. It just is. And we need to demand treatments that address what is an issue instead of trying to change our body into something else. Not only does this ignore what's actually going on, it doesn't work. We need to say that and demand better. We need to demand a new conversation.

Shame isn't a very useful tool in improving health to begin with and its utterly perverse that we shame people into treatments that will fail them. A dieter who regains the weight lost is not a failure. Those results ARE typical and is our cultural dictates on fat and health that are failing them. It needs to be okay to talk about how we are "good fatties" as well as how we are "bad fatties". Because this isn't about good vs. bad. This is about something different, something new. That is the conversation we need to have.

What Fat Acceptance actually threatens

2010-12-12T11:40:00.003-05:00

So, in my last post I was grousing about the straw fattie attacks we so often see. These people accuse fat activists of threatening dieter's rights. We threaten body autonomy. We threaten the health of fat people. We threaten our national security. We seem to threaten a lot for a loose assemblage of unfunded political activists. Of course, none of these charges are remotely true and we should recognize them as such. But we should remember why we are subject to these accusations. Because we actually are threatening something many people hold very dear. Privilege.

What are really fighting and really threatening is thin privilege. Diet privilege. And that's what scares people. In my last post I pointed out how other marginalized groups face the same attacks of threatening their oppresses. The same dynamic is at work their. Gay marriage doesn't remotely threaten straight marriage but it sure threatens straight privilege. Feminism doesn't really imperil men, but male privilege is absolutely at risk.

All of these fights are about disadvantaging the dominant group but only in relation to their unearned advantages through cultural privilege. If women get a fair shake in the workforce, that is a loss for men in the workforce because right now men benefit from the unfairness. As FA grows, it does endanger the privileged position of the dieting culture.

Many people have placed a great deal of their self-worth on the privilege of dieting culture, though, so they take it personally when we attack the culture. That is what fuels the straw fattie arguments that we are trying to hurt people by presenting an alternative to fat hatred. That is what internally justifies the wild accusations. These people are consciously lying. They don't think they are inventing attacks. They sincerely believe them because they take things we say even about our own lives as a slight against them. But they are still mistaken and we cannot allow this to dissuade us from speaking truth to power.

I've said this before, but on some level FA needs to be about making dieters uncomfortable. Not with personal attacks, but by upsetting the privileged position of fat oppression. We need to present and advocate for alternatives, and those deeply embedded in the culture that harms fat people are going to be upset by this but we need to keep pushing. Marginalization doesn't reverse because you accommodate those who want you marginalized. Fat acceptance is a threat. Its a threat to fat stigmatization. Its a threat to diet culture. Its a threat to those who profit off destroying our lives. This is a feature, not a bug.

They are talking about you

2010-12-11T22:28:00.003-05:00

I was reminded lately something that I don't think most people in Fat Acceptance always realize. A lot of people make complaints about horrible fat activists who were so hostile to their dieting. I gather a few activists are inclined to take these complaints seriously and concur that such behavior is just plain wrong. What I'd like to tell those activists is that the complaints are about YOU.

It might be confusing because these complaints are almost always made without attribution. And, to be fair, they usually are transparently about straw fatties. The ones who say fat people are perfectly healthy and who spend their days screaming at dieters. The ones that don't exist. Which might make it easy to think that they are referring to other people. But they aren't. They really do mean you.

The few times I've seen any specifically called out as one of these mean fatties, its invariably someone I consider much more moderate about FA than me. People like me aren't on these people's radar screens, much less any of the activists who are actually radical who frankly don't participate online much to begin with. The FA activists they've encountered are usually the tip of the iceberg about FA thought and discussion and even that is completely intolerable to them.

I hope we can dispense with treating these kinds of straw fattie arguments, but I imagine that's not coming any time soon. We are disenfranchised and yet will constantly be called on to explain how we aren't using our total lack of power against anyone. Our marginalization should be the argument against criticism of our supposed oppressiveness but perversely it works in favor of those intent on enforcing our marginalization. They count on us not having the means to fight back. Because we can deny the absurd charges all we like, but more people will hear them than hear us. Because our culture is set up to define us as wrong, people will accept it just the way men honestly believe that women are oppressing males, just as whites feel discriminated against, just as heterosexuals feel threatened by a gay agenda.

While we struggle to get our message out, I wish we could spend less time denying those kinds of charges because its really about holding us back. About defining as tight a sphere for us to advocate for our beliefs as possible to make us pointless. Feminism didn't successfully refute to charge that it was oppressing men. It just moved past it. The charge still exists but its recognized as being as laughable as it is. Those who try to make FA about the rights of dieters should be dismissed with as much ease. Because it is laughable.

Its okay to be attracted to fat people

2010-11-30T21:00:00.002-05:00

It occurred to me when writing my post last month affirming that fat acceptance is not about forced attraction to fatties (and how such a false fear is used to justify dismissing change), that there is a flip-side to giving people permission to not be attracted to fat people. That's giving those who want to be attracted to fat people the permission to do that. They are both problems stemming from one source. See, some people feel SO entitled to not be attracted to fat people that they want to enforce that lack of attraction. They turn a lack of attraction into a moral failing. Its not like those people needed my permission to not find fat people attracted. What I was doing was telling them to stop thinking it mattered. That's privilege in practice. They feel so privileged to what they do find attraction that anything outside of that is treated as an offense. But what about the people who ARE attracted to fat people?

Sadly, I've found very often that these people struggle with the notion that this is okay. Where the opposite choice gets so privileged, many act like they don't have permission to really be who they are. Being a fat admirer myself, I'm always frustrated by the lack of self-respect from many Fat Admirers. Even ones who are open about it seem to believe on a basic level that they don't actually have a right to their sexuality. That fat is fundamentally wrong. They may get to a place where they want to act on their sexuality, but they have no pride in themselves and provide no support to the political needs of the people they are attracted to.

I don't really know what to do about that because it feels so foreign to me. That political empathy developed in me almost immediately upon recognizing the physical attraction. As a kid, I didn't exactly have access to fat porn or the myriad of substitutes thin admirers take for granted, but what I did have access to was literature about fat acceptance and I read it voraciously. Politics and sexuality always went hand in hand for me, so in a lot of ways I don't know how to relate to fat admirers who act like they don't have a right to their sexuality. Like giving up their sexual desires is an inevitability.

Its okay to be attracted to fat people. Sadly, that can be a very important message, too. You don't have an obligation to consent to fat hatred. I get feeling like that's your only option, but its not. Its not shallow to be attracted to fat people. That's such a bizarre sentiment yet I see it so often from apologetic fat admirers. They'll date thin people as some sort of hairshirt to prove their virtue but its just such nonsense. Its accommodating thin privilege instead of challenging it. Its ignoring the ways fat people are denied attraction and instead creating a new instance of such.

Like I said, I don't have any easy answer to this, but I want to implore my fellow fat admirers to be proud of who they are and to know they have options beyond having their sexuality steamrolled by fat negativity.

Shakesville on Fat Shaming

2010-10-28T11:28:00.003-04:00

Two very worthwhile discussions going on at Shakesville that I wanted to recommend checking out. One with people sharing stories of being fat shamed, and one with people sharing stories of having fat shamed others. I'm not the only one with stories of both and reading both threads has been very enlightening.

My fat shaming experience is something I'm still ashamed of and it was very powerful to see how others really had that same instant guilt I felt. I knew better when I did it. Though I was still too young to be fat acceptance aware, I knew I thought fat girls were cute. I even rationalized what I did as sticking up for a fat girl who was being insulted for her size by a fat boy. Obviously, now I know he was just engaging in his own defense mechanism not unlike a lot of the stories being shared in the thread. I thought it would be just to turn his fat hate back on him, but its not. Fat hate is never okay and as soon as I did it I felt sick about it. I knew better and I did it anyway. That so many of us who did feel sick over fat shaming others still did it says a lot about powerful fat stigmatization is in our culture.

In my experience being fat shamed, reading other people's stories had a reaction in me I wasn't expect. I know I'm not all that fat and I know that being a man limits the abuse I receive. I wasn't even fat as a child, which is perhaps the greatest "at risk" time for fat shaming. I thought I had experienced very little fat shaming, and just from strangers. I figured reading other stories would only reinforce how lucky I was. And while it did and I'm still very aware of my privilege in this regard, I also realized all the ways I was fat shamed and just didn't process it as such. I gained a lot of weight very quickly, and this hardly went by without comment. While most of my friends were not assholes, it wasn't a big issue but I knew people were talking about me behind my back because it would get back to me. I forgot how happy people were when I got sick and lost 40lbs in a month. How is that something to ever be happy about?

I definitely encourage you to read both discussions and hopefully contribute as well. There is much to be gained by sharing our stories like this.

Um, no. I will not be a paid diet spokesperson.

2010-10-28T10:45:00.003-04:00

I ocassionally get emails from the blog from people looking to get me to promote something. They are almost always clearly people who just culled my email address and have no awareness of what I am writing about. They are just emailing a massive number of people in the hopes someone will bite. Today, though, I got something that did show some awareness of what I right about, but absolutely no comprehension.

I'm really not sure if this is a fake. The from email address is so unprofessional that it strains credulity. Still, its not worthy trolling at the least, so I'll still share it with you. I figure I'm not the only FA blogger who got this, so feel free to chime in if you were also propositioned.

Hello, Brian.

For reasons that will become quickly apparent, I can't identify myself or the company I work with immediately.

I'm a lawyer, and one of my firm's clients is a national weight loss company. We have a marketing initiative where we find prominent writers on weight issues and pay them to try out our client's program. The pay can be substantial, starting at 1,000 dollars a week, and goes up from there, depending on a few factors, including the amount of time the writer stays with the program. We have people making six figures a year.

Two things about the initiative:

1. It doesn't matter whether or not you lose weight, as long as you stick with the program and write about it.
2. Obviously, you can't talk about the fact that you're being paid to try the program. You'll be asked to sign a non disclosure form.

If you're interested in getting started, let me know and I'll give you more details. If you're not interested, thank you for your time.

Karen Jones

It really reads like the random scam spam you always get with the whole "I can't identify myself" bit. I mean, it makes sense, though, since what is being proposed is actually against the law. Paid bloggers are required to disclose paid endorsements. I suppose the claim would be that this isn't an "endorsement", but I doubt the FTC would appreciate that distinction. The real expectation is that no one would ever know or care. Still, I wouldn't exactly praise the weight loss industry for their ethical behavior, so that hardly is a proof that its fake.

So, what do you think? A troll with too much time on his hands trying an elaborate ruse or unethical diet company trying to drum up a secret shill? Of course, either way, they don't really read this blog if they think I'd do this. Its frankly insulting to me and to you, as well. Anyone else been similarly propositioned?

"It" not being gotten

2010-10-27T17:32:00.002-04:00

When the Marie Claire debacle broke yesterday, I felt little need to respond directly the article as others had done such a good job. Thus, my pre-reaction to the kind of backlash those sentiments tend to engender from people fretting about us wanting to force our fatness upon them. While FA voices have acquitted themselves quite well, others... well, not so much.

For starters, there is the original author herself who posted an "apologetic" postscript to the original article. Its a total non-apology, but it actually seems even worse than that, to me. It was bad enough that she was all "in my defense, the people I'm disgusted by are REALLY fat", but I realized she actually only expresses regret to people who are trying to lose weight. Either the author thinks dieters are the only kind of fat people, or the only kind who matter. She's torn up if she offended someone who agrees with her that fat is a horrible problem, but that's not really addressing what was so offensive to people who don't concur that fat people are blighting the planet.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post offered its own "not getting" reaction to the reaction wondering if we need to ban the word fat. As if that was the problem that people were up in arms over. It makes a feeble connection to some Canadian article about a politician that called him fat a lot. Look, there is nothing wrong about fat. If people paid attention to the backlash from fat people, they'd notice we use the word a lot. The problem is the attitude. If someone uses fat as a slur, its that they think our bodies are wrong that is the issue. Not anything rude about the word itself. I don't care if someone calls me fat when they are expounding about how disgusted they are at having to glimpse my body. I care that they are disgusted by my body.

Marie Claire (who don't forget commissioned the article in the first place) has also acquitted themselves poorly. Or, at least their social media team did. When they did a good thing by inviting Lesley Kinzel to write a response for their blog, they promoted it on Facebook. Lots of people declined to be terribly moved by this manner of reaction. Marie Claire then pushed back by insisting that the offending attitude was just an "opinion" and acted like they were just engaged in an exchange of ideas. Hate may be an opinion, but its not "just an opinion". No one is saying the author should be thrown in jail for her fat hatred, but they are saying its offensive and unacceptable. The level of bitterness and hatred the author displayed was openly and intentionally hurtful (well, maybe not if you loathe being fat). There is no civil debate between "your body is disgusting and should kept out of sight" and "um, no". Making it like it is just deepens the wound caused by the hateful attitudes. This isn't some sort of "point/counterpoint" situation. The disenfranchised don't have an obligation to endorse their stigmatization as a valid opinion.

Well, guess what. An increasing number of fat people don't care to know their place while other people check off Fat Hate Bingo squares. That's a very good thing.

Its okay to not be attracted to fat people

2010-10-27T08:09:00.003-04:00

As luck would have it, the latest fatosphere topic of discussion dovetails nicely with the next thing I wanted to talk about relating to fat sexuality. A Marie Claire blogger (really, there is such a thing) wrote a post complaining about the overrepresentation of fat people in our entertainment mediums. No, really. Its all about how she feels uncomfortable with seeing fat people on TV because she's so disgusted by them. But she's only grossed out at us for our health, you see. Like everyone else who stigmatizes and bullies fat people.

Of course, that's not true. She clearly isn't concerned for our health when what she's talking about is a show about self-loathing fat people who regard weight loss as the ultimate goal. She's "aesthetically displeased" and she wants to rationalize that. So, to this writer and anyone else who is wondering, let me say this: Its okay to not be sexually attracted to fat people.

The purpose of fat acceptance is not making people be attracted to fat people. Actually, I think people in fat acceptance get this pretty readily, but ocassionally you'll see a post bemoaning the superficialism of people who only date thin partners. More likely, it'll come from people who aren't really fat accepting at all, but who think they are helping by regarding attraction to thin people as necessarily suspect. Its not. Its totally okay to not be aesthetically pleased by fat people.

I say that as someone who very much IS aesthetically pleased by fat people. Indeed, that's why I say it. My sexual attraction to fat people is not charity work. Its not because I'm enlightened in any way and am willing to date fat people in spite of their physical appearance. Its not because being fat myself, I feel it is the proper thing to do. Its not because I can't do any better. Well, actually it is. I just mean it in the other way. This is what I want. This is what my sexuality is.

I've really started seeing this through the prism of sexuality and its been making a lot of sense to me. As I started to have sexual feelings, an attraction to fat was one of the things I was immediately aware of. It reminds me a lot of stories I've heard of gays and lesbians coming to recognize their sexual orientation. This was something I felt very strongly, very innately. I simply wasn't sexually interested in thin partners. Fat is at the core of my sexual aesthetic and even calling it a preference doesn't feel like it does it justice to me. This is part of who I am and I'm prepared to demand respect for it.

And offer that respect to others. I would no sooner want anyone telling me I couldn't be attracted to fat people than I want anyone telling people oriented to attraction to thin people that they shouldn't feel that way. Both "orientations" deserve respect. And we should all recognize that this isn't something that acts as a binary. People don't all come in only fat admiring and thin admiring flavors.

I think if we had some sort of fat acceptance utopia, we'd find that a certain part of the population was specifically attracted to fat partners, a certain part of the population was specifically attracted to thin partners, and there would be a lot of people in the middle without a strong leaning towards one or the other. I don't think we see that much now because those people in the middle are strongly conditioned to believe that attraction to thin partners is appropriate and they decide to try to "pass" for thin admiring. Because its not very hard to pass. There are definitely still people who don't get caught up in this. I think a lot of fat people do have partners that come from this middle group which is awesome. But there are probably a lot more people who could potentially be in this group who instead do what they are told is expected of them.

Problem is, of course, that we can't really tell the difference. There is no way to know who is thin admiring because they are genuinely oriented that way, and who is just going along with what they think they are supposed to. So we have to just respect it all. Which also means not lionizing those who buck the system too much. Its great, and all, but no one is noble for dating fat people. Either because they want to or because they are willing to do. I think that kind of construction actually just endorses fat stigmatization by making too much out of resisting it. I mean, yeah, it means something but lets not act like it makes any of us better people. It doesn't matter in that way.

Which brings me back to the Marie Claire writer who decided to write an article consisting exclusively of things Google suggested be searched about fat people. Her problem is not that she's not attracted to fat people. Its that she thinks that matters. Its that she regards lack of meeting her sexual aesthetic is a moral failure worthy of condemnation. I'm not attracted to thin people, but I'm not disgusted by them. For pretty much the same reason I'm not disgusted by gay people. Because I'm not an asshole. Because I'm not offended by anything which doesn't turn me on. The privilege of thin attraction, though, allows this and it clearly fuels a great deal of fat stigmatization. They are allowed to elevate their sexual attraction to something that matters beyond their choice of sexual partners. There is a world of difference between not being aesthetically pleased by something and taking the time to be aesthetically displeased. But its a difference thin admiring people rarely feel the need to see.

It creates a false notion of a backlash against fat acceptance for the perception of trying to make them be attracted to fat people. While a few people do seem to advance this, I want to be clear that I utterly reject it and I think most fat accepting people would agree. We no more have a fat agenda to force ourselves on people sexually than gays are trying to turn straight people homosexual. No one is trying to take away their sexual attractions. We're just trying to get THEM to stop forcing theirs on us by elevating their sexual aesthetic to something objectively "right". You don't need to be disgusted by fat people to not be sexually interested in us. You don't need to be disgusted by fat people at all. Its just privileging your sexual interests as something more important than they are. Its okay to not be attracted to fat people. Its not okay to think that means anything more than that.

Let's reference Salt-n-Pepa, bay-bee.

2010-10-20T20:42:00.004-04:00

I've been wanting to talk about fat and sexuality for a while now. The Rotund beat me to it and forced my hand to finally comment on the issue. Its a pretty broad topic (pun intended), so this might just be the start of a series. Be warned.

Its an important topic, though, because sex and the fat body is a vital subject not explored nearly enough while its one of the things we very explicitly deny fat people in our culture. Obviously its okay for a fat person to not be interested in sex for their own reasons. But our society denies fat people the choice. The idea of fat people as sexual beings is treated as an absurdity. The tricky thing is that its a lot easier to recognize that this is bullshit than it is to fully reclaim what gets lost.

Which isn't to say that its easy to reclaim one's sexuality as a fat person. Getting to the point of being comfortable with one's body and with another person's desire for your body is already a huge step in our culture. But the structural denial of fat sexuality means many of us lack a lot of basic vocabulary about understanding our bodies in a sexual context. I think our culture romanticizes the idea of sex as a discovery or revelation that we take for granted just how much assumed knowledge there is about the sexual experience. But all that knowledge presumes two thin bodies and that knowledge just doesn't reliably transfer to fat bodies.

Some does. For some fat people, actually a lot might. But for others there will be extremely little relevance. The truth that fat sexuality reveals is that bodies can be different and this can make a difference. I know this may seem obvious, but think of how most people relate to sex through pornography where the physical deviations are generally extraordinarily small. In the real world, though, bodies are wonderfully unique and varied.

This becomes a real problem because of the way our culture stigmatizes deviations from the "norm". Its not just about fat, of course. Anything outside of an arbitrary "normal" tends to be defined by its limitations. I think the conversation about fat sexuality needs to be about moving past this and into the possibilities of our bodies. A fat body can be very different from a thin body, especially in a sexual context. Not every position will "work". That can even be true for the same person with the same body depending on their partners. But these things shouldn't be seen as limitations, I think. Body diversity makes sexuality more genuinely a discovery because so much focus needs to be on what our bodies can do. But that requires us to start a new conversation instead of defining us by old standards of what we can't do.

This isn't easy. It requires a lot of trust and communication which aren't always well associated with sex for many people. But opening up the conversation allows us to explore our sexuality in a lot of the ways thin people take it for granted. Learning our sexual vocabulary is very much an act of empowerment and a response to oppression.

So, what does this mean? Well, a lot of is just talking about the basic mechanics. Sexual positions are a rich area of discussion because I think fat people need to draw from a rich palette to find out what works with any two bodies. Weight, height, shape, size, these all make each sexual partnership fundamentally different and unique. Positions that worked with one person, might not with another. I'll cop to have a go-to favorite, but I don't take it for granted, either. You need to explore what works for the unique scenario of any given pair of bodies.

Another thing is what does sexual desire mean to us and for us. This is something I've wanted to get into for a while from the perspective of a "Fat Admirer". I really feel like this isn't just a preference but very much a part of my sexual identity. What does that mean for my sexuality? What does it mean for the fat people I find attractive? What does it mean for myself as a fat person? What does it mean for how I perceive others with like interests? What does it mean growing up feeling this way and having it shape my sexuality? Its a pretty huge topic but I hope to get into some aspects of it moving forward as I think there really is a lot to talk about there and I think its something that doesn't get talked about enough. At least not in a serious and considered manner.

So, that's probably enough talking about sex for one night. Please dive in with your thoughts and follow the discussion over at The Rotund.

The Google Proof

2010-10-20T09:45:00.004-04:00

Very powerful post on Tumblr looking at the suggested search results when someone tries to search for information about fat people. You will probably not be surprised to learn that the results are almost exclusively fat hostile. Its a very stark demonstration of thin privilege.

I took the author's suggestion and tried repeating these searches for thin people and was alarmed that the results there were also advancing fat hostility. About half of the results of the "thin people" search were things thin people aren't supposed to get. Like diabetes, high blood pressure, PCOS. Of course thin people have these health concerns, too, but the search suggestions were a reminder of all of the health problems thin people don't have blamed on their bodies. Its the natural result of the fat associating results for the "fat people" search.

More alarming, though, was the "thin people are" search. The results are exclusively fixated on fat stigmatization. The most important thing that thin people are, it seems, is not fat people.

I tried searches for "thin people should" and "thin people can" but it turned up no results. I'm taking that someone philisophically as an example that thin people's possibilities are unbounded. They are not limited by their body. While the "fat people should" search was most disgusting of all, thin people, it seems, can do anything. That's privilege.

Hating fat people is not "edgy"

2010-10-01T10:55:00.002-04:00

Dr. Samantha Thomas points out a rather obnoxious ad created as a demo for some Australian ad agency. In the ad, we see a woman presented as if she is preparing drugs to give her child, only she gives him a burger and fries. The ad isn't for anyone. The ad agency itself took it upon itself to do this service announcement. Basically, they are advertising themselves as the makers of such an "edgy" and "controversial" take on condemning fat people.

Which is idiotic. This isn't an auteur art project. Its an ad agency trying to drum up work. They are doing this precisely because piling on fatties isn't really edgy at all. They are doing this BECAUSE fat people are disenfranchised. Its like people who think saying racist or homophobic jokes makes them a politically incorrect rebel instead, ya know, a fucking racist or a homophobe.

What this really is is the flattery of privilege. I feel like I saw this a lot defending fat acceptance on other sites recently. There is no shortage of people looking to congratulate themselves for hating fat people. They want to flatter their ego with the notion that they are courageous to verbally beat up on fat people. Except, of course, that they are just standing up for the status quo, defending the privileges of fat hatred. That's pretty much the opposite of "edgy", but people in power have a way of convincing themselves that THEY are the ones who are being put upon.

You see it in the "Men's Rights Activists" who rush feminists sites to complain about how much men are abused in our society. You see it in the people who send race baiting emails about President Obama. You see it in those who complain about the "assault" on Christianity in an oppressively Christian society. Its not just that they are standing up for disenfranchisement to preserve unjust power. Its that they convince themselves THEY are the ones being oppressed. They manufacture these absurd notions of an oppressed majority just to impress themselves. They think of themselves as brave as they pile on a group with little power. They think they are being edgy and contraversial but they do so purely within the confines of a shared delusion. They aren't taking any real risks. They know full well they are presenting dominant views and people will flock to congratulate them on their courage. This isn't speaking truth to power. Its smug self-satisfaction.

This ad is actually quite deft in its way. It pushes buttons of two very different threads of fat hatred and would find haughty support from both camps. For the liberals, it presents the notion of fighting an evil corporate threat with the imagery of fast good. For the conservatives, the text suggests issues of personal responsibility through the drug metaphor. It walks the line between both takes leaving just enough for either group to feel vindicated in their privileged hate.

The message, of course, is foolish. It advances the notion that fatness is something done to people, particularly children. I know progressives tend to like telling themselves that this is kinder, gentler fat hate but its still hate. Blaming anything for my body is still about defining it as transgressive. Doesn't matter if you blame McDonald's or my mother. Its still about stigmatizing me and disenfranchising me. The ad is so lazy in its cliche's, but it knows they are cliches people cling to. Fatties eating burgers is second only to donuts as a go-to insult for someone prejudiced against fat people. I could see PETA running this ad in a second to advance their increasingly untethered message of "Meat isn't murder but it is making you occasionally have to glimpse fat people and that's much worse".

Eating isn't like doing drugs. I know a lot of fat haters think they are brilliant for coming up with that silly rationalization for their prejudice, but its just plain dumb. I could not sooner give up eating than breathing. Eating gives us strength and energy. Eating brings us life. Stigmatizing eating only creates patterns of disordering eating and a frightening amount of social acceptance for disordered eating.

So, in conclusion, eating is fine. Fat people eat more than burgers and donuts. (Some of us are even vegetarians!) Hating fat people is positively ordinary and fat shamers deserve none of the flattery they lavish on themselves because there is nothing brave about standing up for the status quo.

So, I guess "Mike & Molly" is starting

2010-09-20T12:09:00.002-04:00

Among the two fat-themed shows debuting this year, I was always a bit more curious about "Mike & Molly". I'm something of a sitcom afficianado to begin with and I recently got into "The Big Bang Theory" which shares a producer with "Mike & Molly". Chuck Lorre is something of a sitcom dynamo, too, and his involvement suggested reason to think the show might be a hit and all the positives and negatives that would incur.

Lorre, also, has a track record of nuanced portrayals of fat people on shows. He actually got his start as a writer and co-producer on Roseanne relatively early in the show's run, so his background with fat characters in love is about as good as it gets in Hollywood, albeit largely by default. He went on to create a number of interesting if somewhat disposable sitcoms until creating the juggernaut that is "Two and a Half Men". I don't watch the show or get its appeal, but I have noticed Conchata Ferrell in the cast. She's long been one of Hollywood's go-to fat women for character work and she always does an exceptional job, even earning an Emmy nomination for a one year stint on LA Law. From what I can gather, her character on "Two and a Half Men" is not particularly defined by her size, which is refreshing if true.

"The Big Bang Theory" has also dipped its toes on the topic with relatively good results. I can think of a couple of sight gags over the show's run with a fat woman as the punch-line, but even then there was a little nuance. One scene is shot for shock value with a character waking up next to a fat woman he met at a bar the night before. It teases the notion that this is a bad situation but the character himself actually happily embraces it. Its nothing I'd give an award for, but I've seen that gag plenty of times without the switch so it was largely playing on expectations. More substantively, though, the show featured a short-sting by pre-diet spokesperson Sara Rue in a role which made utterly no distinction of her size and indeed treated her as obviously sexual and an obviously desirable partner. She dated one of the show's leads for several episodes (actually starting out being chased by two characters) and at no point did the show suggest this was anything but a happy situation for him. He wasn't settling or unhappy. While not exceptionally fat, she was still unmistakably not skinny and most shows would have at least commented on it. This time, it was trusted that the audience would accept her as a potential and entirely welcome mate for a lead character. Sure, the lead was a "nerd", but the lack of commentary is still there. Or not there to be accurate.

So, I have some reason to be hopeful of "Mike & Molly". However, like "Huge", the premise is setting off huge warning signals. The titular characters meet at an Overeater's Anonymous meeting. As with "Huge", I get that this is sort of realistic but it still concerns me. You worry that its going to be a show mocking fat people at worst and about diet buddies at best and suffice to say I'm not sure we need that. Still, these are actors we're dealing with here, not sequestered reality show contestants. They can't make them lose weight to serve the story. The Molly of the duo, Melissa McCarthy, has already dieted in the public eye AND regained the weight. At the time, she was on "Gilmore Girls", which I recall steadfastly refusing to acknowledge any of that in the text of the show. Roseanne, if I recall, also did little to draw attention to the actors when they regained weight loss in high-profile cross-marketing campaigns. Other shows haven't been as good and with it being the purpose of this show, I'd worry about its sensitivity if one or both of the actors did lose weight only to gain it back later in the show's run. There is little precedent for how to handle that.

The AV Club reviews the pilot and both reinforces my fears and hopes. They describe a show that is literally one half sweet romantic comedy that just happens to feature two fat people and one half cascade of fat jokes. The show is going to need to find its balance. Over the summer, Chuck Lorre made a remark that stressed that the show will need to move past commentary on the character's weight pretty quickly. I don't expect them to be there in the pilot, but if there could be a show with a minimum of fat hostility that treated fat characters as humans capable of love (shocking, I know), that'd be a good thing. "Mike & Molly" has a much better chance of success than its peer fat shows (toss "Drop Dead Diva" into the pile) but in a lot of ways that makes it the biggest risk. If its a hit, the marketing departments of Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and Nutrisystem will be out in force trying to capitalize and that alone would be a major blow.

Let Them Die

2010-09-16T17:26:00.002-04:00

I hardly know how to respond to this.

Glenn Beck thinks fat people should be denied medical care and simply left to die. That is his reaction to the Michele Obama anti-obesity program. I always hate it when I see people arguing about best to hate fat bodies.

Beck, obviously, doesn't even care about fat people. This is just the next thing on the list to flip out about from the Obama administration. He even self-servingly defines an exception for his kind of fatness. Oh not him. Just those other fat people.

What's unnerving, though, is that fat acceptance makes a very nuanced response to the "Let's Move!" program addressing how even good measures can be undermined by a flawed purpose and I feel like a lot of FA critics just stare back blankly and decide we're just saying we should let fat people die. But we here we have someone outright saying it. Probably going to be cheered for it, too. I'm sure folks on that side were just staring at FA blankly and deciding we were just saying the opposite. I don't like feeling the only acceptable positions on fatness are "Let 'em die!" and "Thintervention!" When we try to argue from something truly balanced, both extremes just label US as extremists and keep on gravely shouting about what to do about all the fat people.

On dieting and the illusions of common cause

2010-09-14T20:25:00.004-04:00

As the debate over Fat Acceptance continues to roil at Feministe and less Sanity Watchers friendly destinations, I've been really troubled by what strikes me as concern trolling from a lot of quarters about how fat acceptance is too intolerant of dieters. There is always an example of some dieter who was attacked by fat acceptance. I've blogged about this form of self-made martyrdom in the past and its distressing to be reminded of how they are using the privileges of the status quo to make an absurd point and being taken seriously. What they are out to do is push the buttons of people unsure of what to think about fat acceptance. They craft a false "backlash" narrative to fits into people's expectations of fat activists so few question it. Of course we're attacking dieters. I mean, we aren't celebrating them, right? So we must be meanly attacking people for just discovering that they shouldn't be fat. The credulous never stop to realize that this backlash is already being described from the moment the diet martyr speaks out on the matter. That when criticism does come, its for the attacks the dieter makes on fat acceptance, not for their personal choice.

I think people are free to make common-cause with Fat Acceptance on the issues they agree with while reserving the right to disagree on other issues, but over the years the people who have this split view on fat acceptance have often spent far more time attacking FA over what they don't agree with than allying with it on what they do. I feel like many just give lip service to opposing fat discrimination while their only expressed interest is in demanding Fat Activists celebrate dieting. Its like they want to propose to agree to disagree but then only care about the disagreement. I've often seen this as proposing Fat Acceptance become a movement of the lowest common denominator. Anything too challenging shouldn't be expressed because it will upset the sensibilities of those who disagree with us.

Isn't that what we want, though? I'm not saying tone isn't a valid concern, but at the end of the day, challenging the status quo has to be a core part of our purpose. I'm reminded of gay activists who pressed on issues of gay marriage while many people would express "concern" that this wasn't prudent and they should limit their advocacy to smaller goals. I was one of those people 15 years ago. Today, I feel I was utterly wrong and am extremely grateful that the gay rights movement didn't listen to those voices. That instead, they challenged people to think differently.

If FA abandoned its stance on dieting, it would no doubt win many converts but if we aren't challenging them to go further what progress can we win? I think the reason FA focuses so much on personal acceptance over political acceptance is that one must come before the other. By the time the gay rights movement was focusing confronting social and legal boundaries, there was already a significant threshold of personal acceptance within that community. Especially among those politically motivated. I'm just not at all convinced that fat acceptance can get to that place without advocating for acceptance on the individual level. Its nice to say in theory that discrimination is wrong no matter what and I certainly agree, but we aren't the architects of the prejudice against us. On some level, we must confront the internal justification of the stigmatization of fat people. I'm happy to find common cause with groups that think that anti-discrimination efforts need not be joined with self-acceptance and even those who outright oppose self-acceptance. I still think it is important, though, for the common cause not to be the only cause. I don't expect the common causers to agree with me, but I don't think its wrong to expect them to respect that I will disagree. Otherwise, I have to question if they seeking common cause or just trying to be reductive towards my beliefs.

The idea that fat activists are marginalizing anyone is a tough for more to respond to because it strikes me as a bizarre inversion of the power structure in our society. I think its a reminder of how far we still have to go but also of how important it is to maintain our struggle. We may be powerless, yet others still feel the need to fear us. In a way, I almost find that encouraging. No matter how stigmatized and marginalized we are, the status quo remains ill at ease with us. We'd be doing something wrong if the status quo didn't find reason to keep pushing back against us. We just have to keep pushing right back against them.

Push Back

2010-09-02T11:51:00.003-04:00

I find myself in complete agreement with Maia at Alas concerning the kerfuffle that erupted at Feministe over a guest blogger. (And seriously, how often has that phrased been uttered this summer?) The guest made a post positively coated in fat shaming. It largely comes from the "Yeah, but you don't really mean that" school of responding to fat acceptance. The author is simply dismissive of the notion that someone could believe that. OBVIOUSLY fat people are unhealthy and OBVIOUSLY we should pressure them to lose weight because OBVIOUSLY they are eating too many donuts.

Yes, the author really "went there" bringing up donuts.

Its all very scoldy, bringing nothing new to the discussion beyond telling people they are OBVIOUSLY wrong. But like Maia, what I see as progress is the reaction which is darn near universal in calling out the author on her sizist attitudes. That really isn't something you see even on progressive websites filled with people who ought to be our allies. Fat shaming enjoys such privilege that few people ever examine it and instead knee-jerk defend it. That so many people are pushing back so unapologetically is very encouraging to see. Even on fat accepting sites not very long ago, commentators harping about people eating too many cheeseburgers could be excused for their concern trolling and pushing back against them discouraged.

But we need to push back. When people adopt the attitude of "You can't really mean that" we must be there to say, yes. We do mean that.

Obvious advice is obvious

2010-08-17T16:23:00.002-04:00

I had this revelation about a month ago and even I quickly recognized it was so stunningly obvious that it didn't really merit much mention. And yet, I just saw it used as a reason to go on a Weight Watchers, so maybe it does bare some discussion.

It feels better to wear clothes that fit.

I've put on a little weight over the last year and its put me in an awkward position between sizes. I'm wearing the same size pants, but different cuts yield very different results. Initially I wasn't really doing anything to accommodate this which meant much of the time I was wearing pants that didn't really fit comfortably anymore. I could get them on, but they felt tight and uncomfortable all day. Which wasn't making me feel good about my body. One day, I got tired of this and culled anything from closet that didn't currently fit a way I was comfortable with. I spent a little money to get some new things. Male privilege admittedly made that a pretty easy endeavor.

Since then, I've felt much better about my body. Surprise, surprise. I haven't lost weight. I checked just to be sure. Wearing uncomfortable clothes was causing me to fixate on my body in a negatively reinforced manner. Which sucks. Not having that feels better. All stunningly obvious.

Yet it took me a while to do it. I was partly waylaid by changed sizing from some retailers I frequented. The same sizes from just a year ago still fit fine, it was just the new stuff that was troublesome. That was part of why I kept wearing them because I struggled to acknowledge that this wasn't right. There is a strong impulse, I think, as a fat person in this culture to accept indignities big and small. Even among the fat accepting, some times. I should have just returned the stuff that didn't fit and gotten pissed off that I couldn't reliably buy clothes from that store. But I refused to admit that and I let myself feel bad about my body.

Which was stupid. But maybe not uncommon. I caught the Sara Rue commercial for Weight Watchers recently and one of her reasons for needing to lose weight was not having pants she could feel comfortable. And I totally know how demoralizing that can feel. But there is a solution. Get pants that feel comfortable.

Yeah, I know this can be an investment but it can be done incrementally. And honestly, its just worth it. A comfortable pair of pants is also a much more reliable way to have clothing that fits comfortably than spending time, money, and energy trying to make your body comfortable for the pants.

Again, I know this is much easier to act on as a man. But in most cases, we're not talking about replacing a closet in one fell swoop. Just making a point to get betting fitting clothes when you buy new things. Maybe get a couple cheaper outfits that fit to tide you over. I'm not saying I love all the new stuff I got, but it fits and I feel better as a result and that's absolutely been worth it.

That's entertainment

2010-08-11T22:56:00.002-04:00

I figure its worth making something clear about my feelings about Huge. My frustration with the show being leveraged to sell fat stigmatization (and an exceptionally class-ist form of fat stigmatization at that) doesn't mean I'm telling you not to enjoy the show. I don't watch the program, so I can't judge its quality, but my understanding is that on a purely textual level it hasn't made the sorts of easy conclusions its handlers have. Getting in bed with an onerous promoter of fat hatred is disappointing, but it doesn't mean you can't like the show still.

It'd be nice to think that we can have purely fat positive, body affirming entertainment, but we can't. And we don't. I don't, anyway. If you are trying to, believe me, all power to you. But I can't even begin to try policing for this because I'm always reminded that I'm just punishing the people who open their mouths. Because we live in a society where fat hatred has been enshrined as common sense. One entertainer may have said something, but the overwhelming majority will find nothing wrong about that. Fat hatred is systematic in our culture. Most people, even most fat people, accept most of it without every really considering it. For myself, I don't think its fair to have high standards on this issue when making my entertainment choices. Its a luxury I don't think I can enjoy.

If an entertainer DOES find something wrong with fat hatred, awesome. If they are committed to oppose that, awesome. I'm by no means discouraging seeking out the entertainment venues that do try to offer something consciously free of fat stigmatization. Do not mistake me here, we need that and we should applaud it. But when someone fails, its okay to make a personal decision to keep being a fan. Just remember, its okay to be a fan AND feel disappointed and frustrated.

It pisses me off to know end when a show I love hauls out a fat suit for an episode. But I can still like the show in spite of the miscue. I really enjoy Ben Folds' music but there is one song I will not listen to because of the way it demonizes fat people through a hostile metaphor. I still listen to the rest of his ouvre because I still like him as a performer/songwriter. I kept enjoying Al Franken as a humorist after I stopped rationalizing his fat hatred as a parody and recognized that he meant it, too. I still watch Pixar movies even if I found Wall-E very troubling. Heck, I still watch Wall-E. I rewatched it a couple months ago and felt my concerns with it stand, even as I find other elements of the movie profoundly beautiful. You can enjoy an artist and still be frustrated with elements of their work or the manner in which their work is marketed.

Again, this is not to say that its not valid to make the choice to opt-out, too. Believe me, there are a lot of things I would not be forgiving about, even though they are not as personal an issue to me as fat acceptance. On this issue, though, I personally feel that banishment isn't a viable option in all cases, or frankly even most cases. Its a valid choice, too. Just know that you can balance your appreciation and disappointment. You don't need to reject your disappointment in order to appreciate them.

Cynicism still a winning bet

2010-08-11T02:14:00.003-04:00

I've been watching the Huge blogging from afar wanting to think it was justifying the optimism that its been inspiring among fat positive viewers. While the setting always struck me as mine-field with no up-side, the notion of fat people just being on TV is incredibly radical and of course I wanted that to be a good thing. Withoutscene over at BFB, however, spots a pretty good sign of where the show really lies with an essay contest for a fat-stigmatization program scholarship.

Damnit.

I mean, this just pisses me off. I may be inclined to be cynical about shows like this, but it doesn't mean I want to be. It doesn't mean I don't sit around eager to proven wrong. Which, I guess, isn't really cynicism for reals, so much as a defensive mechanism.

Just... damnit.

See, here is my worst fear about Huge. That it would talk like it was body positive for a long while before pulling the switch. Only, it would take this inversion of body positivity and insist that it is actually the true end-result of body-positivity. In that, it would cut Fat Acceptance down in the same its been done before. By taking everything we say and repeating it only changing the ending to be one which serves fat stigmatization. And people have gotten away with this BS before, no matter how implausible. Soon we'll hear self-righteously about how wanting to lose weight is the obvious end result of loving yourself at any size. Doesn't matter that it makes no sense. It'll take hold and fat acceptance will be further marginalized while the only people who get to debate fatness are those with differing opinions on how to stigmatize us.

Damnit.

This is not a good sign, but I hesitate to say it betrays the show that a lot of people have felt positively about up until now. The people behind the show, after all, know how it turns out already. Is this a mis-guided effort at cross-marketing or have they betrayed the show's intent? We'll have to wait to see, but some people know. And I wouldn't be the least bit shocked to see them through Fat Acceptance under the bus.

Its perverse, really. What is Fat Acceptance? Its a very loose community of individual activists using their own time, money, and resources to advocate for a better life for themselves and for others by ending fat stigmatization. We're incredibly marginalized, underfunded, and disadvantaged. Yet there seems to be no end of people who want to self-righteously lump us in with those who make billions off selling fat hatred to all corners of our society. People who hate fat, but want to pretend that they are somehow more moral about it than the Me!Me!'s of the world by pulling this "a pox on both their houses" bullshit. They grandstand to soothe their ego, but at the end of the day what they call for and what the lunatic fringe of fat stigmatization call for isn't very different. Both of them want to make it unsafe to question fat stigmatization. Both of them want to disenfranchise fat activists. I'm sick of it. Whether intended by its producers or not, this product synergy with Huge will ensure no shortage of others happy to pull this act on us.

We're going to be self-righteously told to keep in our place. Don't we know fat is wrong? Don't we know we are wrong? They'll just keep asserting again and again and again how implausible and how unthinkable it is for us to think this way. We'll be disregarded into irrelevance. Any gains we might have seen from Huge would have just set up a more thorough burying.

Well, I'm sick and tired of this. If Huge is about something different, it should repudiate this contest. If it really is just an elaborate and poisonous infomercial for weight-loss camps, then it should be straight about it. Because I'm sick and tired of people using me and my beliefs to prop up their fat hatred. If you think body positivity leads to body hatred, you're insulting us.

UPDATE: Huge Co-Creator Shannon Dooley commented about this at Fatshionista. I certainly suggest you check that out, but the jist is that she is denying that there is any commercial tie-in planned between fat-stigmatization programs and the show and takes a few swipes at program at issue. This is good news, but it doesn't mean this is all about nothing, either. Whether it indicated the creator's intent or not, the show has been leveraged to promote fat hatred and this is troubling for many reasons outside of the concern that this would be reflected in the text of the program.

Oh noes! Ur bein fattened!

2010-08-05T23:39:00.003-04:00

Its like CNN is basing stories around the fevered conspiracy theories of undernourished, 14 year old Weight Watchers wash-outs.

Shakesville called it "the worst thing you're going to read all day" and pretty much gets it right. CNN, by way of Oprah.com, is warning us of how our loved ones are making us fat! Because emotions are like the flu. Or athlete's foot. You can catch them after they linger a month in your shower.

Wait, what?!?

The whole story is alarmingly bullshitty. It keeps asserting things in the way some utterly convinced teenager would when the pieced together unrelated trivia and think they've figured out stuff. I would have rejected this story in my high school newspaper as poorly written and even more poorly sourced. It gets published because its author is an "expert". In what you ask?

She's a psychic. Oh, I'm sorry. An "intuitive". Wikipedia says she prefers that. She's gotten a few celebrities to buy into her nonsense, so she gets an even bigger platform with which to offer her delusional rants to the world. Honestly, it makes me want to scream sometimes the way utterly unqualified people get huge audiences to pontificate about fat, a subject they have no professional or personal experience with.

Its bad enough when people presume fat people are all "self-medicating" with food because they are so depressed, no its that OTHERS are making them depressed so they are, I guess, proxy self-medicating. She sort of seems to blame FAs for fat partners by using fat/thin couplings as "proof" of her point. Just by pointing it out, of course. It doesn't actual prove anything, she just says it did. No word on what fat/fat couples are doing wrong. I guess we have other thin friends forcing their fatness into us. I am an empathic sort. That must be why I'm fat! Oh noes!

Honestly, I'm just sitting her stunned that this incoherent nonsense was published. I'm just mentioning it as a reminder of the frighteningly low bar people need to clear in order to blather on about teh fatness in major media venues. I almost want to be relieved its not another stupid article about catching teh fatness from your fat friends. This time its your thin friends psychically projecting their potential plumpness onto you. The press just loves finding new things to blame for fat people. Themselves! Other fat people! TV! Thin people! Birds! Corporations!

I don't want anything blamed for fatness. I don't want my fatness treated as a source of blame at all. I don't care if you're making excuses for me to "let me off the hook" for my fatness. This garbage stigmatizes my body and I have no tolerance for that. Stop looking for someone to hold responsible for my belly and just accept it.

Where fat shaming and sex shaming meet

2010-08-03T10:33:00.004-04:00

My friend Jaclyn Friedman (NAME DROP!) recently wrote a great article for Feministe called "My Sluthood, Myself". Its a great article that's about her experiences reclaiming her sexuality and learning that it was okay for her to have sex outside of a relationship and while this isn't for everyone, it is for some people and its important to be supportive of these sexual choices.

You will not be surprised to learn that this outrages some people. They are terribly upset that she isn't properly ashamed of herself and she's gotten several hyperbolic reactions bemoaning how she's going to destroy the world with her sluttiness or something. Part of their condemnation surrounds how Jacyln is not willing to give up searching for love while enjoying her sexuality. People can't seem to get that you can do both at once are are launching into her for her naivete, I guess. Doesn't she know she'll never get a man that way? Doesn't she know she'll only be horribly sad? Why isn't she crying? Hasn't anyone told her to be ashamed?

The attitude actually started feeling very familiar to me. This is what fat people get, too. "Why don't you feel ashamed?" Often, we get attacked by people who just can't process that we aren't ashamed. Or worse yet, think the problem is that no one told us to be ashamed. In spite of the fact that Jaclyn clearly talks about confronting this specifically in her article, people still act incredulous and insist she must not be aware of how sad she is and they ought to tell her so she knows to cry. They think if they just shout louder, we'll learn the error of our ways. And at the least, no one else who hears the shouting will make our mistake.

They want to redefine us for their benefit. Jaclyn talks about her positive experiences, so they just keep insisting that she's really horribly sad. Its pathological, but they naturally feel entitled to do this. Indeed, they feel smug about it. Like they've obviously proven her wrong simply by saying she is actually sad and ashamed. Fat people get that, too. If trolls bother to recognize what we are saying, they just insist its all a lie. We secretly know they are right and are horribly depressed over our lives. This is an especially insidious line of attack because it preys on our self-doubt. That is their key to introduce self-loathing. Because we are putting ourselves out there and making ourselves vulnerable. This manner of trolling seeks to take advantage of that. Having feelings of vulnerability are normal, though. Being brave is tough work and Jaclyn is pretty damn brave. I know from my own experience that self-doubt is normal. Healthy, really. I think a lack of it would strike me as somewhat pathological. Confidence doesn't mean not having those nagging questions. That is something our attackers will try to exploit, though. They want to use those normal anxieties to infiltrate our psyche and expand those anxieties. Multiply those doubts. Its a supreme act of disrespect .

Another similar attack are the death threats. No, not in the form of "I'm going to kill you". But they are still saying that if you disagree with them, you will die. Having casual sex? Don't you know that will kill you!?!? Fat? Don't you know that will kill you?!?! They use these impersonal threats as a form of intimidation. Again, as much to us as anyone else listening. They invent these extreme stakes that aren't really true as a means of scaring people into going along with them.

So, I keep babbling about what I'm learning as a fat activist in seeing how people are attacking Jaclyn for her own outspokenness, but that's not actually why I wanted to post about it. Sadly, I don't just need to draw parallels between slut shaming and fat shaming. The people attacking Jaclyn have shown that the two often go hand in hand. This is all about her attackers expressing ownership over her body, and they are just as judgmental about how that body looks as how she chooses to use it. They shame her for having sex and then turn around and shame her for not being someone they want to have sex with. While the lead condemners aren't making these fat shaming remarks, its illuminating to me that they aren't shunning them either, even as they get horribly infantile. The name-calling is disgustingly petty and immature, but because people think fat people deserve to be called names, supposedly civil people rarely find much offense with off-topic fat shaming. They might tut-tut it at most, but rarely even that. They don't seem to have much of a problem with it at all.

Fat acceptance is about more than fat. Fat shaming is a tool in the toolbox for many different kinds of oppression. It may not be something lead shamers will get their hands dirty with, but they sure don't care much when others do. Mocking someone for being fat is never okay. That includes the more limited times progressives do it, too, but the predictability of this coming up in reactionary assaults on feminism, civil rights, gay rights, etc is alarming. These kinds of oppression always get interconnected. We aren't just fighting for ourselves, but we're fighting to blunt a favorite attack against women, gays, African-Americans and others who stand up for themselves. Hate is rarely confined to one thing at a time.

I know I didn't really stay on track there, so for supportive articles that stay on topic, check out Not a Dirty Word and Pandagon.

UPDATE: More people supporting Jaclyn more eloquently and directly than I did. Jessica Valenti offers a devastating take on how the aggressively personal nature of the attacks is self-serving and self-promotional by the attackers. Particular "damn right" going to:

I also think it’s incredibly important that we not forget the personal and professional downfalls of being an unabashed feminist online. When we’re called whores, attacked and mocked online – those posts follow us forever. We take the hit so others don’t have to.

Damn right. (Emphasis hers, btw) Much love to Jaclyn and all others who expose themselves to speak out. Its not easy and you have my complete respect.

The perils of test marketing plus-size clothes

2010-07-30T12:30:00.002-04:00

Jezebel is reporting on plans to introduce a plus-size line at the flagship store of Saks Fifth Avenue. Now, before you get super-excited, the expansion is only to size 14 across the board, though some lines will extend to size 20. But this does involve a lot of high-end labels that have a long tradition of avoiding even the lightest of the fatties like Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, and others.

This naturally sparked some questions from Jezebel on the specifics of this plan. Saks doesn't seem eager for attention, though, and only offered a boilerplate statement. Surely, someone somewhere is taking their bland endorsement as cause for the next great fat panic, but I'm a little more concerned about the reticence to promote this.

See, what's going on here is a bit of product testing. This is only being launched in one location. They see how it goes, and then decide how to expand. Its like Old Navy a few years ago when they expanded plus-sizes in their stores. Anyone remember how that turned out?

There is a fundamental flaw in the test marketing of plus-size clothes by retailers who've never offered them. See, if McDonald's wants to test market a new sandwich, they can rely on the fact that the people coming into the store are looking to buy a meal. Maybe they didn't know that the McNewwich was on the menu, but they are still there to get something to eat.

That isn't the dynamic here. It would be more like Victoria's Secret introducing a line of jeans for fat men. I might be the target audience, but at no time in my life do I find myself walking into a Victoria's Secret so it won't much matter. I'm never going to happen upon their awesome jeans, because I had no reason to be in their store. This can be combatted with a marketing campaign, but product testing often has little money for that. Word might leak out virally like this, but let's face facts. Most people aren't aware of what's being talked about on a few websites. That's what doomed Old Navy, I think. Without promotion, why would a size 24 woman have been in Old Navy to discover their plus-sizes? A few will hear about it online. Some might be shopping for others. But most of their potential customers just won't know about it and nothing can doom a product faster than ignorance in the marketplace. No matter how awesome your offering is, if no one knows about it, so what?

So, while its awesome that Saks will offer clothing in larger sizes, I worry that the intended clientele will never be stepping foot into Saks to discover this. And really, why should they?

So then the question because why these sorts of product launches are so consistently botched in this way. Is it simple incompetence or something more nefarious? I doubt anyone is trying to doom these lines to fail, but I also doubt anyone cares too much if they fail. A craven reluctance to be associated with fat people isn't an unthinkable motive. It may not be why they do it, but its an attitude which may still inform their approach.

Speaking of silly outrage about clothing

2010-07-29T17:47:00.003-04:00

I went to tweet about my last post (oh, yeah, I'm trying out Twitter; @red3blog) and realized some sort of brohaha had erupted around Lane Bryant snarking about this t-shirt by definatalie.

@lanebryant: Is this really necessary? We say NO! Share your thoughts! http://ow.ly/2fILH #lanebryant

Seriously? Part of me is most baffled that THAT is the message Lane Bryant considers beyond the pale. I mean, its so ordinary. I'd hardly call that confrontational, yet we are reminded the very low bar some feel to be confronted by fat people not apologizing. Why on Earth is that where Lane Bryant wants to draw the line. Aside from how silly it is for a corporation to be picking fights with a CafePress site, its silly to be doing it over such a simple message. Especially with the scare capitals of NO! I don't want to seem like I'm ragging on the shirt. Its just, I really don't see what Lane Bryant's fuss was all about.

Naturally people took Lane Bryant up on their suggest to share their thoughts. Want to guess how that went?

Really, I find it bizarre that Lane Bryant would pretend to have ANY credibility to talk about what is necessary to promote acceptance of fat people. Like Lesley from Fatshionista, I don't expect Lane Bryant to be fat positive, but that's precisely why I also don't expect to appoint themselves the arbiters of appropriateness in fat positivity. Their track record on such issues is awful. And self-defeating, too.

One of Fat Acceptance's greatest challenges is that an industry exists to make money selling fat shame. Lane Bryant is a company that stands to make money from the opposite, yet they have never really seen that potential. People who have a loving relationship with their body will be more interested in buying clothing than someone who is mired in self-shame. This isn't rocket science. Lane Bryant has spent decades leaving an untold amount of money on the table by not getting this. By being content to being a destination of necessity rather than desire. Its baffling from a financial stand-point and speaks to just how ingrained fat stigmatization is in our culture. Even capitalism can't fight it. Whatever baby-steps they are taking now, their place is hardly to scold people for being ahead of their very curve.

Its like they want us to be naked

2010-07-29T16:00:00.002-04:00

Oh noes! Fat students can buy school uniforms! Teh horror!

I think this may qualify as old news, but its too silly of a moral panic not to comment on.

"We want to make sure our schoolwear range is accessible for children of all shapes and sizes.” -Marks and Spencer spokesperson

Won't someone please think of the children? Oh, wait, I guess that IS what they are doing. Thinking about affording fat children the same opportunities to buy stuff as thin children. What should be a boring press release has been mutated into an excuse to fat shame. As if they really needed the excuse.

It should be alarming that an article about something so mundane would be a platform for outrage, but this is what we are up against. Even the most utterly boring victory for fat people is cause for epic hand-wringing. Its not even like this hasn't happened before. I've seen some especially unhinged fat bigots compare plus-size clothing stores with crack houses. No matter how reasonable our demands are, we'll still have some who act like we are murdering kittens with our bare hands.

What on Earth do they think we should do about the clothing needs of fat children? Send them out naked? Wrap them in burlap sacks lest they forget to feel ashamed? Fat stigmatization dominates our culture and society and yet its promotes genuinely feel like we aren't doing nearly enough to make fat people hate themselves. And lets not let the media off the hook, either. BBC News felt this was an appropriate angle to report on without the slightest counterpoint. And no, the retailer doesn't count as a counterpoint.

Fat children should be able to get clothes for school. That should not be a controversial statement. That fat stigmatizers treat it like it is is just a way of trying to control the debate in their favor. So our response must be two-fold.

Fat children should be able to get clothes for school and you're an idiot if you think otherwise. Maybe that's not inclusive, but screw that.

Pre-Accepting of Fat?

2010-07-27T16:49:00.003-04:00

So, the other day I happened to note that I had a unique journey to being a fat accepting fat man in that I was fat accepting before I was fat. Some commentators were quick to note I'm maybe not as unique as I thought, so I'm curious to here more from others who believed in fat acceptance before becoming a fat person and applying those principles to their own lives.

For me, my first awareness of Fat Acceptance was as another kind of FA, a Fat Admirer. This is something I was aware of and open about at an earlier age. I'm thankful that at the time I didn't settle for just understanding this as a passive sexuality, but rather I wanted to learn about the experience of fat people. This intellectual curiosity led me time and again to Fat Acceptance and I found it all very persuasive. This is really a whole 'nother post I need to make (or several) but I've long be disappointed with how Fat Admirers weren't really political engaged by Fat Acceptance and how easily many FAs were about to disassociate themselves from the political struggles of the people they were sexually attracted to. I very much saw this as my fight and learned early on that I couldn't think I could just tell a fat woman that I thought she was pretty and have that undo the systematic culture stigmatization fat people endure. I wasn't just looking at this as what I found attractive. I was reading magazine articles on the movement, scouring libraries for books like Shadow on a Tightrope to learn more about the ideology and philosophy of Fat Acceptance.

So, I was, shall we say, more than aware of Fat Acceptance. One of the first things I did in college was join NAAFA (again, whole 'nother post). The second thing I did was gain weight. Not intentionally. It just, well, happened. I don't think I even realized it until I had put on almost 20lbs. I ended up gaining about 40lbs my Freshman year. I was not really happy about this. I think I had a misplaced sense of superiority as a thin fat admirer. Really, I just understood that being thin lended me a privilege of credibility with some I'd lose if I was also fat. I was frustrated with my body and disbelieving. I'd always been thin, after all. Maybe it'd be okay for me to lose weight since I wasn't "supposed" to be fat. Of course, I soon recognized that this was a genetic pattern in my family. The men grow up very thin and gain weight as adults for the most part.

For all my frustration, though, I still knew deep down that hating my body wasn't going to be productive. I felt fat acceptance was right. By then I was taking in all this fantastic online writing by people like Marilyn Wann and members of the Fat Underground. I may have hated by fat body, but I knew that hate wasn't going to be productive. I wanted to do something about that.

The summer after my first year in University, I got sick and lost all of the weight I gained only to put it on and then some the following year. While I internally was happy with the initial loss, I also found myself upset when I was complemented for it. I really tried to be introspective about these feelings. I worked to expand my sexual attraction to fat women to a more general aesthetic appreciation for fat in men and women alike and then tried to transfer that to myself. This didn't happen over night and in some real ways, its still happening but I am deeply grateful for the "head start" I got because I already knew of and genuinely believed in Fat Acceptance.

Please share your own stories in the comments. I'm fascinated at how other people might have had a similar journey or how it might have been different. And others, certainly, please feel free to reflect on these themes even if it doesn't quite describe your path to fat acceptance.

Other posts about my Fat Admirer experience:
Eventually not about Britney Spears
Sexual Aesthetic

"Disruptive trolling is essentially anti-freedom of speech"

2010-07-27T15:18:00.003-04:00

Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon had a post last week articulating her opposition to censorship and how this fits with banning disruptive trolls from her blog.

Indeed, I would say disruptive trolling is essentially anti-freedom of speech, in that the troll wants to shut down certain conversations that he thinks shouldn’t exist here or anywhere. He’s denying the right of us to run a blog that communicates what we want to communicate. We have a right here to conduct conversations on our grounds, not just hand it over to some guy who has managed to hone his skills at shouting others down and making intelligent discussion impossible.

Emphasis mine.

I simply cannot agree with this more and I think it captures the dynamic seen in Fat Acceptance spaces extremely well. FA spaces should not be afraid to conduct our discussions on our standards, not the standards of anyone who waltzes in and starts throwing a tantrum at us. Concern trolling about "censorship" when its their behavior that is target the expression of people they don't agree with. They are trying to appropriate the platform and audiences others have built and use it to to attack the principles advocated by those communities.

This is what FA has seen time and time again with weight loss supporters and their abuse of fat acceptance communities and its something we should forcfully resist. No one has to agree with any of what we have to say, but that doesn't give them the right to redefine our beliefs to their liking. It doesn't give them the right to drown out our expression. Those kinds of things are forms of intimidation and they are not unique to Fat Acceptance. They are practically cliche. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone abusively disrespect a progressive community all the while patting themselves on the back for their "bravery". There is nothing brave about disruptive trolling, nor is there anything cowardly by showing no toleration for that nonsense.

In the last 14 years I have seen so many fat acceptance communities destroyed by relentless disruptive trolling. Some have come from hardcore trolls who simply hate fat people. Others from concern trolling from dieters who cannot deal with the fact that not everyone supports weight loss dieting. Others still from foolish self-promoters who pick fights to "raise their profile". What they all share is a sense of entitlement and privilege to disrupt us and silence us all why insisting THEY are the victims. We cannot tolerate this. We need to move past it. Fat Acceptance has been unusually vulnerable to concern trolling, but we need to push back.

So, consider this my call to my community to not put up with people who want to shout us down. When they shout, shut them down. If you it is your space, just don't allow it. We could drown in this kind of petty snipping and lame feud baiting and we need to move past their efforts to define us and dictate the rules of debate to us. We don't allow such indulgences. We can't get lost sniping back, but if we cannot remove them we should still stand clear in our refusal to condone the disrespect and disruption. This really is about free speech, but not in the way they'd like us think.

The enemies of the good

2010-07-24T22:55:00.003-04:00

I didn't want to seem like I was bagging on withoutscene over at BFB in my last post. The frustration is very much not with the content of the post, but rather those who keep insisting that Fat Acceptance stop to grovel at the feet of those who disagree with us over their imagined slights. Everything withoutscene said in the post was right, and not surprisingly she also made a very good observation in the comment section there which I'd like to quote...

I do think that people encounter people like me and somehow get the impression that I'll look down on them if they have body shame. Like, they find it hard to understand that despite the fact that I celebrate my body and I'm a fat activist, I still struggle. As if I become hard to relate to when I'm not wallowing in body shame or something.

This is actually something I think about a lot. I imagine people look at me and think I am an extremely fat accepting individual. And I am. I had a unique journey to FA in that I was exposed to FA and very strongly believed in before I was fat myself. I very unintentionally found myself in position to be a testing ground for my own adopted ideals. I'm extremely grateful for all this as I think it saved me from a lot of the body shame most people experience in our society. Which is all to say that I, myself, consider myself to be unusually fat accepting sometimes.

I still struggle with body shame every day of my life.

In the past I have seen people justify abandoning fat acceptance because they have those feelings of shame. The truth is all of us do. That is why having a community is so important because we really do need to share our strength. Every last one of us. I don't think I'd be speaking of turn to suggest that ever fat activist you see blogging or organizing is someone who very much needs the community of FA on a personal level. The most gung-ho of us still struggle. What we are talking about is not perfection. We cannot afford to make perfect the enemy of the good. No one in FA will scorn someone for having doubts or for dealing with self-loathing because all of us deal with the same things. What we can do is share our strength in responding to internalized body shame.

The way I've always looked at it is, "Accept that you will feel the shame, but do not accept the shame." We can't fault ourselves for not being perfect, but that's not an excuse to not keep striving for it. We recognize our limitations without letting the limits define us. We choose to be defined instead by what is possible in our lives. The body shame will be there, but it will not defeat us. We may never do away with that nagging doubt, that lingering shame, but what we can do is control what we do about those feelings. We can control what we become because of them. Do we resign ourselves and let the shame win? No. That is what we can do. We meet this challenge and we push on and I believe that this is something we can all do.

So, can you be in fat acceptance and still feel body shame? Absolutely. I'm not sure there is anyone who doesn't at some moment in their lives. What defines you is how you choose to act on that shame. FA is about how we act in the face of the shame. Its not defined by some perfect ideal of living free of shame, but our choice to not let that shame win. In time, things can get better. We can all be on different places on the journey, but so long as we share a destination we are striving for, we have the bonds of community. We are are all moving in that direction, and THAT is what defines us. No one is keeping score on where we are on that journey and in a lot of ways it doesn't matter because the pitfalls and risks we face as individuals are the same as we all face. There is just no meaningful hierarchy for that. Whoever you think is super-fat-accepting is far more like you than you think, but let that say something about YOUR potential rather than their limitations.

Opt out

2010-07-22T22:02:00.006-04:00

I started writing a comment at Big Fat Blog that was getting WAY too long for a comment, so its becoming a blog post. BFB has a post up explaining that Fat Activists don't hate dieters. All of it is completely true and I completely feel the same way but the post still kind of frustrates me. Not that BFB made it but that there are those who made it necessary. Its not that I feel any hatred towards dieters, but I do feel some anger over the way Fat Activists constantly have to explain that.

We obviously aren't demonizing dieters. I've never seen any legitimate Fat Acceptance voice do anything that could fairly be even perceived that way, much less characterized as such. That it is an attack that gets made so frequently isn't a reason to question ourselves because its not really about us at all, but rather the limited tolerance others have for Fat Acceptance. Its a way, conscious or otherwise, for others to try to disenfranchise us by making our discussion about THEM rather than US. And frankly, THAT is something for us to actually get upset about.

We should hate that we are constantly made to feel like we need to explain that we don't hate dieters. That we are constantly being pushed to wish them good luck. Its a way of trying to enforce a discussion on their terms and that is something that should bother us. Its about not letting us move forward to make our case. I'm not upset when someone wants to lose weight. Well, not at them personally anyway. It upsets me on a cultural level, but I feel utterly no hatred or anger towards the person who feels what is the natural way to feel for most people in our society. My anger about these issues is towards the larger cultural forces and frankly I have a right to that anger and I have a right to feel like the way fat people are made to feel is an injustice.

I do hate the culture of dieting, but I feel no animosity towards individual dieters. Point of fact, I feel terribly sorry for them. Hearing someone is on a diet doesn't anger me, it saddens me. These people aren't who I am fighting, they are who I am fighting for. There isn't a "who" I am fighting at all, really. Its an attitude the justifies fat hate, internalized or externalized. It is a culture which promotes and endorses fat stigmatization. If there are individuals I am fighting, it would be those who promote and often profit off this status quo. Not the people I perceive to be victimized by it.

And frankly, that should be clear. The only dieters I've ever called out are those who promote it to others. And its not their internalized fat hatred I am troubled by but that they have taken steps to promote and exploit internalized fat hatred in others. The issue we see is that the culture of fat stigmatization encourages people to so completely internalize fat hatred that they see any threat to that attitude as a threat to them personally. While I can I understand that dynamic, I cannot compromise to it because to do so would be to deprive and limit my right to feel differently.

What this is really about is our right to opt out. To opt out of a cultural structure that stigmatizes our bodies and to find a new path to serve of physical and mental well-being. That right is what is threatened when people try to bring diet talk into fat acceptance spaces. Oh, I have seen dieters who like to portray themselves as the victims of big bad fat acceptance, but nothing could be further from the truth and that is why I don't think we can respond to such distortions with platitudes and protestations. We need to call it out as an attack on OUR autonomy. Their autonomy is not remotely imperiled by someone finding their own space to express their own views and find support for their choices. We shouldn't have to even explain that. This is OUR space. OUR community.

Maybe there will be a day when the power of fat acceptance threatens the autonomy of those who disagree with us, but that day is absurdly far off that even entertaining the notion of it is farcical. The truth is, I don't go to diet support sites to tell them they are wrong. I'm not aware of anyone in FA who does that. I don't post scolding lectures on the walls of dieting Facebook friends. In spite of what you see on TV, fat activists don't protest weight loss meetings. We do nothing that would make it fair for people to accuse us of hating dieters. But the people who often make those charges ARE the people acting that way. They are disrespecting us by trying to destroy our spaces, our communities by insisting we offer them "inclusion" to disagree with us and demean us. We show our respect for their autonomy, but there are many who won't show us that same respect who want to silence us.

I don't wish dieters ill. I don't hope their diets go poorly. I also won't hope they go well or wish them good luck. What I want is the right to wish them nothing. I cannot in good conscious wish someone well doing something I feel is a horrible mistake. Our options aren't limited to two, however. Its not wish them ill or well. We can simply opt out. I do not condemn individual dieters and I should have the right to also not congratulate them.

When someone hates their body, wants to lose weight, stigmatizes their fat, I feel sympathy and frankly some sorrow. I don't feel hate and anyone who perceives that is just making that up in their head and I can't be held to that. I don't hate them for those feelings. I'm not angry at them. But for my own conscious and well-being, I cannot feel happy about those feelings either. I can accept that people will feel differently. I can tolerate that difference of opinion. Obviously I'm already doing that. But that doesn't mean I have to like that opinion. Agreeing to disagree means still disagreeing. It means respecting that disagreement. Nothing FA does shows disrespect to those we disagree with. For some on the other side, that's just not the case. They shouldn't set the terms and limits of our own discussion, though. I have utterly no desire to hate a dieter, but I also have no desire to wish them all the best with their internalized fat stigmatization. That is NOT too much for us to ask for.

Fat Man Wearing White

2010-07-22T15:15:00.011-04:00

So, this is going to be a bit of fatshionista post from a fat male perspective. I doubt most people who know me realize how much attention I give to clothes. I actually spend a lot of time trying to look good, though because my style is generally casual and I lack some basic styling skills/instincts, it probably doesn't come off as much. One thing I do know how to wear, though, is a suit jacket. I absolutely love how I look in a jacket and have recently decided to start dabbling in sports jackets.

One look I've been dying to try for years is an all white style with white slacks paired with a white sports jacket. I've always thought the look was very cool but its been tough to find white slacks in my size. I recently got some from The Gap, though, and have paired it with a new white sports coat from Men's Wearhouse. This past weekend I wore the ensemble with an orange linen shirt to a cocktail party before a wedding and I'd like to think I pulled it off.

The sleeves are still too long as I didn't have time to get it tailored and it was close enough to wear. The pics are all taken with a timer, so they aren't the best, but I thought they were worth sharing.

Wearing white like this definitely made me feel very on display. I wonder if the reason fat people aren't supposed to wear white is less that its "not slimming" and more because it just stands out and fat people aren't supposed to do that. Black, thus, is slimming more for letting us blend in than for its actual properties which I always felt overstated. I took some pictures of me in a dark suit that I wore for the actual wedding and I feel like I look much bigger in it than wearing white.

But for all of the apprehension I was feeling, I got over it quickly. I was noticed, but at least the comments were good. At a wedding a week earlier I also ventured to wear the white ensemble (albeit with a blue shirt/tie combo that frankly looked WAY better, I just didn't get many pictures), my wife and I were referenced as "that fashionable couple" by a friend of the bride's and frankly we were. Perhaps my wife more than I, but I still regarded the experiment in white as a success.

So, fat people can look white and look kick ass doing so. Now I'm all set to cos-play as a fat Gideon Graves from Scott Pilgrim. But fat cosplay is a WHOLE 'nother topic I'm entirely ill equipped to cover.

Resurrecting the dead (blog post)

2010-07-02T02:52:00.002-04:00

So, I went back and completed my draft that I referenced in yesterday's post about the New York Times' silly reference to feederist blogs being an offshoot of fat acceptance. Not sure my initial instincts weren't right, but if you want to read an even rantier rant ranted about in an already ranty rant, head back and check it out.

Feederism is not fat acceptance

2010-06-30T19:04:00.005-04:00

I missed blogging last month for the first time ever. I was getting married, so I excused myself. Was going to skip this month, too, actually. I was writing a blog post in May. Got pretty far in drafting it before I abandoned it. I was ranting about feederism and basically why it has nothing at all to do with fat acceptance, fat pride, fat politics, etc. I decided I was getting worked up about something that is so "Inside Politics" that most fat-o-sphere denizens don't even know a thing about it. At the time, there were some dust-ups around some media-hogging feederists getting attention and fat blogs wrestling with what to do with it. My point, in general, was going to counsel staying the fuck out of it. Its been a dead-weight on fat acceptance in the past and we'd do well to not even bother condemning it and just generally pretending it doesn't exist. In the end I decided to take my own advice for once, and shut up.

Naturally, I was wrong.

See, I guess all that media attention really did confuse people about what's fat acceptance and what's feederism. Given that the New York Times, of all people, couldn't get it right when talking about something which frankly doesn't have much to do with either: the new show Huge dealing with a weight loss camp. Yeah, I know some people are getting their hopes up about Huge, and while I'd be thrilled to have my cynicism prove wrong, I can't help but find it all suspect. Bottom line, being cynical about Hollywood's portrayal of fat people is rarely a losing proposition and when the premise of a show invites a character arc of converting to fat stigmatization, I'm just not optimistic. Frankly, just that it gives equal time to fat stigmatization strikes me as problematic. I don't see Biggest Loser giving reality equal time in its fat hate fantasy creation. Fat acceptance is NEVER given equal time, so I'm getting sick of the cost of admission for our views getting any airing being contradicting them immediately. Its going to be so easy to sketch out a storyline where the character standing up to fat stigmatization comes upon a horribly false "compromise" that will be portrayed as really moderate and even handed while being nothing of the sort. Its precisely the sort of compromise offer always offered fat activists. If we agree to hate our bodies, they agree to stop telling us to hate our bodies. Yes, that's glib, but I still think its fair. Its "moderation" that concedes one side entirely in substance and merely moderates tone from the opposing side. That's not meeting half-way. But we'll get to that in a bit.

ANYWAY, so while A character on the show, I guess, questions fat stigmatization to some degree, I don't believe it actually has squat to do with feederists, people who pursue (or more likely pressure others into pursuing) fatness for sexual gratification. So why on Earth was the NYT even drifting into a discussion of gainer blogs, much less conflating them with fat acceptance? Even comparing the weight gain fetish with diet culture as opposites doesn't work. In theory, feederists are sexually aroused by their efforts to manipulate their weight. That's a pretty sharp departure from the moralizing and conforming pressures of the diet industry. Its not even a good comparison with Pro-Anorexia/Bulimia movements, either, since they aren't about sexual gratification in any way like feederism is.

It really just exposes the shallow nature in which fat is considered in our culture. No one is really listening to anything fat acceptance has to say before dismissing it. Sure, feederism must be like fat acceptance. Both are about fat people, right? They want to reduce this to a simple black and white issue. The diet industry wants people to lose weight, so fat acceptance must want them to gain weight, right? This, in turn, justifies their notion of kinder, gentler weight loss being a compromise. If they actually considered feederism as the opposite end of the spectrum from fat stigmatization, they might be forced to admit that fat acceptance itself was already occupying a middle ground. This is easy to do when they ignore feederism. When they don't, they just act like there is no distinction between feederism and fat acceptance.

They don't care about knowing what we are saying. If Huge actually stays genuine in having someone express fat acceptance, that can definitely be a boon because some people will find themselves listening. Maybe they can learn that fat acceptance is not about stuffing ourselves. Its not about excuses. Its not about laziness or gluttony. Its about living our lives and owning our lives. Its about believe our bodies aren't mistakes. They aren't wrong. They don't need to be fixed. We can live our lives as we see fit and be respected for who we are. Be it fat or thin, athletic or not, hungry or full. THAT is what fat acceptance is. Being what we are, not what we think we should be instead. This shouldn't be too hard to understand. That it is so often misunderstood says more about the unwillingness for others to listen than anything about what we are saying.

On Feederism

2010-05-16T11:56:00.004-04:00

So, after referencing it in my last post, I'm resurrected my draft from May on feederism and trying to complete it just to get my thoughts out there on the subject now that it has renewed relevance. As usual, its disorganized, and probably has a lot of typos. Enjoy. Or not.

I've not been paying enough attention to the fat-o-sphere for the last month or so, but I gather another dust-up has arisen concerning feederism as the continued media. These always frustrate me because any time paid on feederists by fat acceptance is not only a waste of time, its genuinely counterproductive. Its bad enough that we have to deal with a media that will fall all over themselves to give attention to this. We don't need to be contributing.

Feederism is a red herring. It doesn't exist in any meaningful way. I've been tuned into the fat admirer community, which has been seriously warped and damaged by feederist interests, to know this very well. Its a pointless thing to waste any time or energy on because it is so close to fictional, it gets fictional's mail sometimes by accident and walks over to give it back. We are wasting our time on a fantasy with only slightly more of a foot-hold in reality than furries.

And I hate to be all "a pox on both your houses" but both sides of the debacle are making a mistake caring about it. The condemners for mistaking this for something that matters, and the apologists for mistaking feederism for having anything to do with fat acceptance. Or even fat most of the time. Oh, I get how you are confused. Feederists want that confusion and promote it. But its bullshit. There are exceptions, but feederists on average are as fat hostile and fat stigmatizing as the rest of the world. Even those who celebrate fat on some level are very unlikely to actually respect it. The knee-jerk endorsement of fat-hatred mentality with regards to fat is especially widespread among feederists. Of course fat is unhealthy. The "feeders" (those who want others to gain weight) almost always accept this en masse. For some, this is why they actually will abandon their fetish at the slightest hurdle. For others, belief in this is why they want people to gain weight to begin with. For them, its about degradation and destruction. Fat stigmatization is either something the accept as justified or a useful tool to control their targets. Yeah, a couple feederists might buck this trend, and to be fair far more "feedees" (those who want to gain weight) are sympathetic to FA. By in large, though, this is a community as hostile if not more hostile to fat acceptance than everyone else.

Which gives way to the real problem. The feederists who do profess to endorse FA often have an ulterior motive and one which the media readily invents anyway. Its the exact same as dieters who want to use fat acceptance to promote dieting. Its not about supporting FA. Its about subverting it. Its about promoting their fetish as the ultimate expression of FA. Something which completely misses the point in almost a mirror image of dieters who insist the purpose of "Size Acceptance" is accepting the size you think you should be. The wild thing is that while both want to remake FA on the extremes of what it ISN'T, both serve up a lovely narrative to the media about how extreme actual fucking fat acceptance is. Either through contrast or association, both want to actual fat acceptance to be drowned out. Worst of all, neither of them have the honesty with themselves to see that. They'll insist on their self-righteousness that the consequences of their attacks become utterly meaningless and unacknowledged.

But that's all about what forces within the feederist community want to do. As we're seeing again, the media is just eager to lump feederism and fat acceptance into one great big bag they can look at scornfully. The distinctions are meaningless when you are really just interested in rendering people with broad slashes that don't remotely resemble reality. For the "mainstream", feederists just validate everything they tell themselves about what fat acceptance is. It doesn't matter that they are wrong. They just need to look at feederists for them to feel right enough.

This, in turn, fuels the "kinder, gentler fat stigmatization" compromise that often falsely presented as a middle ground. Some even go as far as to label this "polite" fat hatred as being the essence of fat acceptance in what is really a grotesque misreading of the issue as flawed as the feederists who do the inverse. Fat acceptance isn't about forcing your body to be the size someone thinks it ought to be. Even in the instances when that someone is yourself. Its about learning to love your body for what it is and develop a peaceful cohabitation with your body. Not an adversarial relationship, no matter how soothing you may want to render your body stigmatization. The truth is, we can't remake our bodies in our image of what they ought to be. The big secret of the feederists is that weight gain actually is extremely hard for most people and effectively out of reach for quite a few of the limited number of aspirants. Much like weight loss efforts fail at extraordinarily high rates, so does weight gain for far more people than you might think if you listen to the casual denunciations of fat people in our society. People who actually are trying to eat themselves fat tend to have a very hard time of it.

See, for most people, wishing, hoping, and praying doesn't mean much in the end. Insisting that you need to lose weight is of little consequence. Demanding that you want to gain weight likewise quite often. Weight manipulation doesn't become an achievable goal just by wanting it bad enough. The notion that this is what fat acceptance is actually about it terribly misses what fat acceptance really IS about and what it has always been about it. Feederists and dieters alike choose not to get that when they try to co-opt fat acceptance for their own purposes, but none of that is respectful to FA and deserves no respect in return. We don't need a civil rights movement to promote people wanting to have whatever body they think they were supposed to have. We need this to fight for respect and dignity for the bodies we have. Whoever wants to encroach on that should think long and hard before they trample over this fight to flatter themselves.

Saving us from ourselves

2010-04-02T02:02:00.002-04:00

Seriously?

If this wasn't listed as being posted on March 28, I'd figure it was an April Fool's Day gag. Some idiot destroyed a bunch of packages of meat in an Indiana supermarket on a quest to save chubby girls from themselves. Seems he's a vegetarian with a great sense of moral righteousness over it for all of the wrong reasons. Now, I happen to be a vegetarian myself, though purely as an issue of personal taste. I'm sympathetic to the ethical concerns, but I can't say they are a driving force for me and I certainly eat products ethical vegetarians would justifiably balk at. Like Skittles. But Coffman comes from the new PETA inspired school of vegetarian ethics where its not that killing animals is wrong. Its that eating them will make women you could otherwise sexually objectify into fat women.

Look, I get that this guy is a nut job and will be rightly laughed at for his little escapade. He even tosses out an extremely narcissistic "God told me to do it" for good measure. But lets not forget that a lot of people out there are preaching pretty much the same thing as him. They just aren't actually going into a grocery store with a knife. But they harbor just as much self-righteousness over the notion that we fatties need to be saved from ourselves. They might find more socially acceptable means of expressing their belittlement of us like suggesting tax penalties for being fat, mandated "fitness" programs for employment, or government mandated surcharges on whatever they feel is subjecting them to our fat bodies. In private they might even muse about forced amputations of our digestive systems and other such extreme actions. There isn't really that much that separates their inanity from this screwball except his knife. We should remember, though, that we live in a society which sanctions looking down on fat people as moral and intellectual inferiors by virtue of our body mass. I'm shocked more people don't take this as a licenses to abuse us, but the real truth is plenty do just that but in far more subtle and insidious ways than slashing packages of beef.

The ignored potential of fat consumers

2010-03-24T01:02:00.004-04:00

Our culture promotes fat stigmatization at almost every turn. Fat people are continually berated, lectured to, and condemned in virtually every form of media in addition to by countless people in their daily lives. From family, to friends, doctors, co-workers, and many, many strangers, we cannot escape this message. Even those of us who are working to resist these messages experience this so it is certainly part of the life experience of the far more fat people who not only hear it, but take the criticisms very much to heart. Most fat people are in a constant state of hostility with their own bodies. Looking at our culture, this can sadly be no surprise. So, when a study demonstrates this, I am not surprised. I am, however, disappointed at the spin its getting which is predictably in service of the stigmatizing attitudes that produce it.

A study is being released concludes that fat models shouldn't be used to sell clothing to fat people, because fat people respond negatively to them. Which strikes me as completely missing the point. Its using the results of stigmatization to justify stigmatization. First off, NO ONE actually uses fat models, so I presume the study considered "plus size models". While recognizably not size 0, lets not forget for a moment that size 8-12 models are routinely used to sell clothing to women size 16-28. And women larger than size 12 get little work in the industry and women larger than size 16 get no work at all. I just feel this needs to get remembered when discussing these kinds of things. A size 8 being used to represent a size 24 woman is no great victory, yet we hear even that is too much to ask for.

But really, what did the researchers find? They found that people programmed to feel negatively about fat people, feel negatively about fat people. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. People have these attitudes in part because of the way fat people (and fat women, especially) are completely unrepresented in most popular culture. Its such an extreme rarity, that I'm not even comfortable calling it underrepresented. Fat women are invisible in our society. They are only given form as "before" pictures. Not surprisingly, the study finds THOSE images of fat people to be quite useful to sell fat hatred. Its just selling anything that is a challenge.

The issue, of course, is that this is how our culture frames our perception of fat people. Even among fat people. The study doesn't really show that images of fat people are unmarketable so much as that the marketing against fat people has just been overwhelmingly successful. And studies like this will just continue to justify people doing the wrong thing in the name of marketing. This isn't even a chicken/egg question. We know what came first. The fat stigmatization. The negative attitudes clearly follow. You can't do a study on the results of this, find that the stigmatization has worked, and then point to that as justifying stigmatization.

But sadly, things like this will continue to justify craven business policies which ignore the buying power of fat consumers. Even on their purely marketing level, there is a fortunate to be made off fighting these attitudes. Think about how much thin people must be spending on clothing, for instance. I know studies have suggested fat women spend less on clothing than thin women. How much of that is because of having far fewer options? Or because of culturally mandated low-self esteem? Think of the untapped market available if fat women felt good about their bodies and appearance and were excited about such products. The fat-fashion blogs are good enough testament that it is not that fat women are incapable of enjoying clothing. But studies like this will continue to make it all too easy for businesses to make the culturally acceptable choices instead of the potentially profitable yet culturally transgressive ones.

Lets call Meme Roth what she really is...

2010-02-26T23:39:00.002-05:00

No, not a crazy person. Far from it. Not an anorexic, though I would suggest her commandments about eating represent the casual disorder that our society expects of women. No, the truth about Roth is far simplier and is indeed the truth about most self-annoited crusaders against fat people.

She's a craven opportunist and self-promoter. She is a manipulator of the media. No, seriously. That was her profession. She was a publicist. This is what she's trained to do. She's doing what virtually all anti-fat talking heads do. None are ever qualified in any functional way. They know that the media doesn't really care about that. They just want the talking head to say the extreme nonsense. Oh, I don't doubt that Roth hates fat people. The best illusions are grounded in the truth. But this persona is a creation for the benefit of marketing herself. She's building a profile to then monitize in book deals, speaking engagements, etc. She's no lunatic. She knows quite precisely what she's doing and is getting away with it very neatly.

She's helped by the real forces behind fat stigmatization. What she accomplishes is an old political trick. Stake out an extreme position so you can appear to settle for what you wanted all along. Roth becomes an effective tool for oppressing fat people precisely by her outrageousness. Its pushing the debate into such a place that ordinary fat stigmatization seems moderate in the face her viciousness, in turn making the extremely mild requests of that fat activists seem more extreme. See, we tend to compromise for ourselves. We tone down the message in the hopes of reaching more people. But fat stigmatization just doubles down with people like Meme Roth saying even more extreme things. While we move to the center, they move further out so the extreme position they've had all along now seems like the center. Roth and the talking heads like her work to make ordinary fat hatred seem like a sensible proposition. They work to comfort and soothe people who believe in fat stigmatization but don't like thinking about the consequences of it. They can always soothe their sense of morality by reminding themselves that they aren't like Roth and her ilk. They don't respect fat people, but its not like they point at them and heckle. They just quietly judge or self-righteously lecture. Why, its the moderate thing to do. Some even delude themselves into thinking because they oppose people like Roth, that they are fat accepting. Just not like the nutcase fat activists. They all have eating disorders.

Roth, and virtually all of the talking heads on this matter, are ultimately just stalking horses of a kind. Setting out to advance fat stigmatization, but doing so in a fashion which allow the true powers-that-be ample cover. Because the difference is ultimately in demeanor more than purpose, it essentially allows fat stigmatiation to consolidate influence over one extreme and the center of the argument. The next step is getting a fat-stigmatizing brand of "moderate fat acceptance" to represent the other extreme and you'll get just what they want. An argument where everyone agrees that its not okay to be a fat person and they just quibble on how to enforce the one acceptable belief and true change is shunted even further to the outskirts. Don't let the outlandishness of Roth, fool you. Its not doing more harm than good to her position. Its doing exactly what its supposed to.

"Moderately" Fat

2010-02-17T22:41:00.003-05:00

I want to show how "moderate" I am about fat issues. Because the in-between position is always best and shows how even-handed I am for finding balance between the extremes of fad dieting and those stupid-heads in fat acceptance.

Moderate views about means agreeing with the substance of everything fat haters say, but trying to phrase it more nicely. See, that's balanced because you have the illusion of the respect that fat acceptance asks for, but you don't actually need to listen to anything they have to say and can dismiss them out of hand.

Having moderate views about fat means never really challenging fat hatred. Maybe a word of lip service against its most crass promoters, but you need to realize their heart is in the right place. They mean will. They are only thinking of your well being. Instead, you'll spend all of your time talking about fat attacking and belittling fat acceptance for being so stupid and disagreeing with what everyone has decided is right. And, of course, repeatedly reminding them that you're calling for a kinder gentler fat acceptance. You only need to insist that you disagree with the MeMe's and Fumento's. You only need to speak out against fat activists.

Moderate views about fat means always come up with a straw man attack of "fad diets" to prove that you stand up to both sides. Fad diets, of course, are defined by the diets other people go on. Probably stupid fat people who don't know how to lose weight and spend all of their time stuffing their faces and sitting around. Which you'll point out in the most polite fashion. Fad diets are always something someone else is doing. They are always ineffective and wrong. But you've got a whole new way of eating that is totally different. The diet company told you so. You'll also criticize starvation diets, but fail to ever define that. Again, its just what other, stupider people do. You'll pretend to agree with fat acceptance's attacks against dieting as long as the definition is limited to an undefined set of diets that won't impact any of the weight loss diets you care to advocate.

Being a fat issues moderate means being against fat discrimination, but not being for doing anything about it. Giving lip service to its badness while concurring with all of the motivations for fat discrimination is just moderate thinking. You'll only need to mention it when trying to shut up some fat activist by proving your balanced views. It won't require any more effort than that, though.

Having moderate views on fat means only blaming fat people secondarily and acting like this is a great service to them. You'll make a point of find some other force or entity to blame primarily, whether it be culture, corporations or a combination of the two. See, this is being polite. As long as everyone agrees fat is bad, of course. Its just polite to pretend to blame something else while doing little to ameliorate the social consequences for actual fat people. Its not their fault they are fat. Its just their fault they are still fat. See, that's moderation. Fat's always a bad thing, but you'll briefly assign blame away from the fatty.

Having moderate views about fat acceptance is like having your cake and eating it to. (Except that's something fat people would do. Aren't they gross! Shhh, don't tell them to their faces.) You get to enjoy the righteous unquestioning certainty of fat hatred with the righteous moral superiority of thinking you've found some actual balance. Of course, be sure to preserve that sense of the moral high ground by ripping any person asking for anything outside your approved views of fat to be a radical and extremist while also claiming how they are oppressing your balanced views. After all, fat haters will never really take issue with you since you aren't disagreeing with them in any substantive way. I mean, if there is no difference between the moderate view and one extreme, there just must really be something wrong with people on the other side of you.

If you're willing to part with the moderate label, considering positioning your attitudes as the "other side" of the debate to further emphasize the extremeness of fat acceptance. You represent the acceptable face of fat acceptance. The one that agrees with fat stigmatization.

I mean, its only moderate.

Won't someone think of the fat children?!?

2010-02-11T01:26:00.003-05:00

I feel like I've used this post title before but I don't care to check.

I'm feeling pretty worked up about Michele Obama's anti-fat children proposals. Or more specifically the self-righteous support its garnering from people who otherwise present them as fat acceptance allies. Its not new, mind you, but its still frustrating to see their support as being so disingenuous. I'm sorry, but you don't get to preserve fat stigmatization just for fat children. Fat isn't sex, (though the conflation of the two could be a whole 'nother post) so you don't get to say "Oh, but not the children" without also smacking the adults in the face. Fat acceptance isn't really gaining support when the ally's underlying attitude is "Well, you're old enough to be stupid about this".

The theme seems to be that kinder, gentler fat stigmatization makes this proposal utterly fantastic. And sure, the basics are sound enough. It seems to avoid some of the dumber ways of stigmatizing fat children by singling them out for "intervention" and instead focuses on healthy eating and moderate activity. Which is fine, except that's not what the plan is about. Its about ridding us of the plague of fat children. Purpose can undermine actions. In a vacuum, the actions proposed may be fine. Good, even. But, we can't separate the action with the intent. The intent is to "solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation". If that's the measure of success of the actions, if that is what is framing this all, then this will just further stigmatize fat people. Specifically fat children. I don't think its okay to shame and stigmatize fat children.

Kate Harding has already done a very good job laying this all out, so I'll just leave you with that. This is very much fear-mongering, and the simple fact is that this is an approach which has never made fat people healthier, happier, or even weigh less. Its not suddenly magic. At its heart, its just more of the same.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and skip the comments on the article. Really mind-numbingly frustrating nonsense that is so cliché, I can assure you that you've heard it all about 100 times before.

Taboo: A Long and Rambling Recap

2010-01-25T00:31:00.005-05:00

I finally got around to watching the National Geographic series Taboo's feature on fat. I was getting increasingly concerned that it would be exceedingly sensationalized and my fears seem to be have been well-founded. This is not a balanced study of a controversial issue. It just dwelled in extremes and fear mongering. Here is my long and rambling recap of the special.

They had several "experts" to raise extreme fears and lay blame firmly on fat people being lazy gluttons. It pretended to be blaming "the culture" at times, but even then they took care to let the experts bring it back to blaming fat people. The fear mongering was at its silliest. We're told fat people are falling part in every conceivable way. One of the talking heads goes so far as to threaten fat people with dementia. I checked the background on that it and it was predictably overblown.

The special spends most of its start with an extremely fat WLS patient. He's used to frame all of the extremist set-up with it being frequently implied that all fat peopled are doomed to be 750lbs. Its briefly noted that he's a serial dieter, but that's quickly dismissed as a personal failure. You got a distinct vibe that he responded to the repeated failure with a degree of despair, but the documentary frames it as an issue of moral irresponsibility. His gluttony is always his fault and the fact that he spent his entire adult life not wanting to be fat is not something to even consider. Throughout the segment, they keep making up scary words to make fatness even scarier. We here about "globesity" and "obesigenic" environments as if those aren't just imaginary words. At one point his clothes are removed for the expressed intent of disgusting the audience. He is a side show and little more. On display because he is appropriately apologetic and self-blaming and fits the narrative about fatness to a T.

The truth is very few people are his size and its rarely so easy as blaming the fat person for being a gluttonous sloth. Even here, we have someone who claims to have been on countless diets. Why do we never consider the impact of perpetual dieting on fat people? On their bodies and their minds. The fact that diets always fail is always blamed on the dieter. Why? If something fails 95% of the time, when do you start blaming the goal? When do you start questioning if this makes sense at all? For many fat people, going through diet after diet, they lose hope. Because they aren't being told to eat well and be active for its own sake, when they see this activity not resulting in weight loss, they despair. This is what the dieting culture leaves us with. In many ways, it trains fat people to be exactly what they are told they are by repeatedly offering them one path to betterment which is constantly out of reach. If we tell fat people all that matters is losing weight, what incentive are they given to do the things that will improve their well-being regardless of weight? Why should they do anything but what is expected of them when failure is their only option? This is precisely what is so dangerous about the culture of dieting. As it pushes people's weight higher and higher, the cycle of failure itself seems to argue against the kind of things that can improve any person's health. Because we tie weight and health together so tightly, its inconceivable for most fat people to be fit and fat. When healthy actions don't yield weight loss, what is the point? When weight loss is always the point, it serves as a barrier to improving the health and well-being of fat people.

I'm not talking about "Good fatties" vs. "bad fatties" here, either. I think that whole debate is largely a reflection of the cultural health goals dictated by a culture in opposition to fat people. I don't buy their standard of good because I've seen how much harm it does. What we need is to move past it and move past their failed "solutions" to find real answers that can improve all of our lives. Fat hatred has done nothing.

Of course, sensationalizing the dangers of fat isn't the only place the show wants to go. After almost a half-hour spent scaring us about one fat person, the "other side" gets a chance to shine. Now, I wasn't expecting the world here, but the special got off on an especially disrespectful foot by starting this in Mauritania. If you aren't familiar, this is a nation in Africa where some villages have a reversed standard of beauty with Western Culture. Its a place that is often brought up in the kind of "How backwards are these people" sort of way. Not that I find much to like about the society, which enforces its beauty standard in ways as horrifying as our own. Only, the "foreign-ness" of their society makes it seem easy to condemn what is unquestioned in ours.

You see, girls are force-fed to fatten up here. Reprehensible behavior, of course, but frankly we have little right to feel morally superior in a society where girls just as young are put on restrictive diets. Indeed, the reality is that this behavior is actually outlawed in this country. (The special gets this wrong, by the way) So, strictly speaking, I think they might have cause to be judgmental towards US. I don't see anyone suggesting we outlaw forcing 4-year old girls to diet. The only people threatened in our supposedly enlightened society are parents who don't make their children diet. Or more accurately, don't have children who successfully diet.

So, like I said, this didn't strike me as a good start. Mauritania is brought up to demonize and there was little effort to pretend to treat the culture with respect. Again, I disagree with it, but this series is pitched as an attempt to humanize taboo subjects, and they aren't trying here. It draws parallels with Western society, but only in terms of the beauty ideal. Not the pursuit of it. The treatment of the girls is explicitly called torture. Fairly, might I add. But, what of the parallel in our culture? Fat children are treated in a horrifying way right here. Even more alarmingly, that treatment extends to children who aren't even especially fat. Often a quite normal weight. The special actually seems to explicitly pronounce our own beauty standards as superior because of "health". A rather thin argument if you excuse the pun.

We come back to the US with a super-fat American web model. This is the closest the special comes to a fair study of the "otherside" of fat stigmatization. Of course, it doesn't get there until the final third of the special, so that kind of undermines the fairness from the start. We do, at least, here from a NAAFA spokesperson, but they don't have her saying anything exceptionally revolutionary. While the cons of fatness was all about health, the counterpoint is restricted only on the beauty ideal side of things.

Even here the point is undercut. The show introduces the concept of men of who desire fat women, but the man it has represent this is quick to insist he dates women of all sizes. Which is fine, and all, but not really representative of the men and women who actively prefer fat partners. While the model talks about fat admirers, even the man featured doesn't really say anything about liking fat bodies in particular.

Well, not until we get to a fat social gathering where we finally hear from an actual FA. I was somehow not surprised to see a long-time Size Acceptance talking head was tapped for the job. Always the usual suspects. He, though, comes the closes to really questioning society's stigmatization of fat, but even a mildly defiant comment is quickly met with an unseen "some would say" rebuke. Not even the most cliché acts of revolution go unremarked in this special. Funny, I don't recall any "some would say" counterpoints for the first half-hour as we kept hearing about how all fatties are going to diet. But one activists says that what we eat isn't anyone's business, and the special takes care to offer an unsourced counter-argument. The bias is coming on strong now. We've still seen nothing to counterbalance the fear mongering of the first half. At most, we're just told some people find fat people sexy.

The web model does get to introduce the concept of people dieting resulting in weight gain. Finally. I can't help but notice the soundtrack, though. It sounds rather "wacky" in comparison to the start of the special. My fear proves well founded, as the narrator again rebukes the subject for being okay with being fat. Here, though, one of the anti-fat talking heads steps in to SPECIFICALLY condemn the subject of the documentary. BY NAME. I swear, I'm not making that up. He specifically belittles her attitude and threatens her for thinking differently. My mouth was literally agape at hearing that. Did the NAAFA spokesperson get time in the first half? Nope. But they get one woman to say she's at peace with her body, and they have to single her out to call her a fool. It wasn't even enough for the talking head to speak generally dismissively of the perspective. He has to call the woman out by name to threaten her personally with "consequences" for disagreeing with him. Wow. The soundtrack has shifted here, of course, with ominous tones replace the wackiness that underscored the model's own self-affirming statements. The narrator justifies all of this as we segue to a second anti-fat talking head (the dementia guy, by the way) who ALSO calls her by name, though now using her as the scary future of America. He, by name, suggests the possibility where all Americans are her size. The ominous soundtrack continues. Subtlty is clearly not on the docket.

With that, we leave the fat model willing to stand up for herself and move onto the far more non-threatening faire of a plus-size beauty pagent in Lousiana. This segment does give some consideration to fat stigmatization's impact from a purely discrimination perspective. I had to note that some of the discriminatory attitudes were ones very heavily promoted in the opening of the special. The empowerment was limited to feeling beautiful and not asking for too much respect. I get the sense a lot of this was done with editing, though some contestants probably aren't very interested in challenging the basis of fat bigotry so much as objecting to its results. Oh, and for the record, we had 3 anti-fat expert talking heads compared to one NAAFA spokesperson.

As the special closes, the "experts" get a final say in saying that fat acceptance shouldn't really be tolerated. As long as fat acceptance is not encouraging fat people to lose weight, it cannot be allowed to have its own voice. Gee, where have I heard that before? It does note that fat stigmatiation is not productive, but in the weakest manner possible. The real problem with fat stigmatization is just that doesn't provoke weight loss and the experts complain that fat bigotry hampers their efforts to more fatness illegal. Okay, I'm paraphrasing there, but not by much. An expert laments that fat bigotry prevents action on public policy. Clearly, he has some legal means in mind to combat fatness. Remember, though, its dieter's rights that are at risk. The special than comes back to its threat of everyone becoming teh fat if we don't do something. Which isn't going to happen, but is pretty par for the course in this special.

Stupid idea is stupid all over again

2010-01-18T12:02:00.003-05:00

I'm sure some people are going to start crying about how I'm hurting the feelings of the poor people advocating for increased shaming and stigmatization of fat children, but this is an incredibly stupid idea. It was stupid the last few times some idiot decided we didn't have enough avenues of picking on fat children, and its stupid now. The notion that we're just not telling fat people that they are fat often enough is perverse and out of touch.

Yeah, yeah. Its not our place to question the GOOD INTENTIONS of people who just want to help our sick diseased bodies. This is probably just their own fat acceptance. Shame on me for not keeping in my place. Better slap my wrist for not taking the abuse like an apologetic little fatty.

The Martyrs for the Status Quo

2010-01-17T02:04:00.003-05:00

I usually don't repost my comments on other blogs, but this rant felt appropriate. These are my comments to here, (sorry, the actual post was lost when Bri's blog crashed last year) but in truth are more in response to the phenomenon on display than this particular instance. It is the all too common sight of people opposed to fat acceptance who act very righteously offended at being denied a seat at fat acceptance's table. This has been happening for years and for much of that time, I have been sorely disappointed with the way fat acceptance leaders have opted to act with far too much deference to those who disagree with fat acceptance. There is a difference, however, between resepecting an opposing opinion and advantaging it. All to often, those who oppose fat acceptance demand we advantage their opinion. An act which in itself is disrespectful to ours.

Now, this is not a unique problem to fat acceptance. Feminist sites regularly have to deal with anti-feminists who feign outrage that their oppositional beliefs aren't given safe haven. The ex-gay movement is no stranger to trying to masquerade as a gay rights body. What I have seen from other communities though is a sharp lack of tolerance for this and I have often found it inspiring. I'm pleased that the tide has turned in fat acceptance as well, so let this be my call to action to keep up that fight. We have a right to our beliefs and to a space to learn from each other. Fat acceptance spaces need not be battlegrounds where we must constantly justify ourselves to everyone who decides they just don't agree with us. Here is what I have to say:

Ugh. A new round of people feeling they are being edgy and innovative by talking about weight loss. Yeah, dieters are so put upon in our society. What meanies Fat Activists are by oppressing the dieters! Lets all rebel and do exactly as we’re told! Fight the system! The completely powerless and marginalized “system” in the name of the overwhelming status quo.

I swear, its the back-patting over this that drives me nuts. Every time someone decides to agree with practically everyone in the world, they act like they are Martin Luther nailing a note onto the Cathedral. You aren’t martyrs. You’re the majority. You don’t agree with fat acceptance? Fine. LOTS of support out there for you. Just spare me the self-righteous nonsense about how this is “your” fat acceptance. No its not. Fat acceptance is what it is. Respect it enough to just disagree with it. Don’t pretend you can redefine it just because you’ve decided to side with the majority that doesn’t think we have a right to our opinions. And that’s precisely what you do when you think you can fashion a “your” fat acceptance. Fat acceptance has a right to exist and to have its own spaces for expression. Everything in the world doesn’t need to be promoting weight loss.

Really, do they all honestly think they are the first person to ever "stand up" to fat acceptance? Every time we have to endure these wanna-be martyrs they all act this same way. Like they had a revelation they just had to share. No wonder they can't seem to get the fact that we've heard this all before. People have been attacking fat acceptance for decades. How can one seriously think they are the first to pipe up with "Yeah, but what about the fact that you're all so FAT!" and think they are really bringing something new to the discussion? They all prove very practices are playing victim of course, but its a joke.

Seriously, fat acceptance is not oppressing dieting. If you think that, your perception of the world is so severely impaired that I worry for you. Your certaintude of your rightness has warped your mind into seeing things which do not exist. The plain reality is that fat acceptance is severely marginalized. You have a right to disagree with fat acceptance, but acting like martyrs at its hand is just a perversion of truth and I'm fed up with it.

Any perspective has a right to its own space. A right to a space where its ideas can incubate and its activists to converge. It is especially vital for a movement still so powerless in the face of enormous opposition. The notion these wanna-be martyrs have is that fat acceptance doesn't deserve such a space. That they are righteous in making our house a battleground for their opposing views. And that we are overbearing for resisting their calls for us to be in a constant state of justification.

It is sick. It is sad. And at this point, it is positively boring because its happened again and again and again. Fat acceptance is not respected by these people. That's what it all comes down to. Not some joker semantics. Its about respect. And their lack of respect for us. They seem to have these fantasies that we're all so insulated from their point of view. They are being heroes by bringing the fight to us! As if the fight wasn't brought to us every day. By newspapers, TV, magazines, and yes even the part of ourselves that still repeats the mantras of fat bigotry. They seem to think we have isolated ourselves from that. With what? An RSS feed? Are you that insane?

We deal with fat stigmatization almost every moment of our lives. We deal with friends, co-workers, family who have no respect for our beliefs. We are told we are wrong day in and day out. You aren't being unique by telling us you are wrong. You are being positively ordinary. We need to claim a space to express ourselves and to learn about ourselves. We need to try to form the bonds of community that are so scarce in our day to day lives. We need a bulwark against hatred and stigmatization where we can try to forge a different path in pursuit of our health and happiness. We need a place to say NO.

Shame on anyone with such little respect for us to say we don't deserve that because they don't like us saying no.

Fat Acceptance is KILLING US!

2010-01-06T15:35:00.002-05:00

CNN Health asks "Is the fat acceptance movement bad for our health?"

No.

Oh, I'm sorry, they kept going. I thought it was odd that they'd have a one word article.

Look, here is the essential folly of such articles. Fat acceptance is profoundly marginalized. I'd love for the movement to be at a place where that was a question that could at least meet the basic requirements of plausability with fat acceptance having some kind of significant influence on our society, but that's not remotely the truth. Until then, this strikes me as just as meaningless a question as the dieters who whine about how fat acceptance is infringing on their "right" to diet. I'd LOVE for us to have the kind of power and influence necessary to justify such fears, but we aren't there. Not even close.

Which makes this kind of "concern mongering" something very different. Its not about what fat acceptance actually does but rather the fever dreams of the most ardent fat bashers. They see fat people who've failed to respond to the constant yelling at and they are in search of answers. While some conclude they simply must not have yelled loud enough, others are convinced of vast support for fat acceptance warping the minds of vulnerable fatties telling them its okay to give up on being healthy.

Here in the real world, its a concern that can't really be taken seriously. Yet read the CNN article closely. The author repeatedly employs hypothetical critics. Only at the very end does she quote someone very directly fretting about fat acceptance's dangerous influence. And to be fair, even that person doesn't actually call out fat acceptance so much as a fantasy of about a culture that just happens to be more accepting of fat people. Again, please let me know when that exists, but that's also not really an attack on fat acceptance.

Is it because no one would come out and demagogue against fat acceptance? Please. I'm sure there is no shortage of people eager to do so. Our so-called allies at Yale do it all of the time, for one. So, why didn't the author back up these hypothetical critics with actual ones?

Because in our society, that's just not necessary. Criticizing fat people is just accepted. Why waste words on what everyone "knows", right? Define fat acceptance and people will just implicitly believe it to be foolish and dangerous. But its these kinds of short cuts in the media that simply ordain this view point and insulate it from genuine criticism. Note that the article concludes with fat bashing. Can you imagine an article on dieting that gave the last word to a fat liberation activist? Of course not. But suggesting fat acceptance is menace? Heck, the author can just do that themselves and still pretend to be unbiased. The deck is stacked against at every turn and yet the media can still seriously entertain the question of whether our influence is TOO great.

XFAT seems too obvious

2009-12-31T18:53:00.003-05:00

News came out a couple weeks ago that Microsoft was trying to get in on the fat shaming video game business than Nintendo has occupied with WiiFit. They recently filed a patent for a system to allow avatars to reflect real-world health data about the gamer.

Its not really clear what they want to do with it just yet. The patent talks about gathering other third-party data as well to help gamers connect with similar individuals. In the case of fatties, you can bet that means dieters. The numbers game sadly would suggest little else. The big attention is the way their system would mimic WiiFit's mechanism of making a person's Mii gain weight to reflect their actual weight. If you are fat, so is your avatar.

Now, I am fat and so is my avatar. At least, as fat as it'd let me make it. That kind of puzzles me about these sorts of systems. They are trading off the real world disgust with fat people but most video game character creators already reflect this by prohibiting creations that are undesirably fat. My XBox Avatar is at least a fairly round, but this is as big as it gets. In the scheme of things, there are plenty of fat people bigger than me. Are they going to adjust the system to allow those people to be reflected?

I've been meaning to write a post about virtual representations of fat. Its interesting to me how often our bodies are shut out of virtual spaces just as we are real ones. My XBox Avatar can be maybe 250lbs, but don't ask it to be 300. Mii's can be round, but only so far. (and the WiiFit balance board is NOT rated for many fat people). Sims 3 has suddenly embraced fat Sims after previously allowing barely there bellies. Still, its something and impacts both genders.

A lot of games reflect gender inequality in their virtual creations. Wrestling games have been radically reducing the opportunities for fat characters in the last decade, but most severely for women. Guitar Hero: World Tour allows a stocky male character but the female equivalent is considerably slimmer. Rock Band is curious to me in that its almost the opposite. While no really fat people appear in the game, the highest weight female character seems more recognizably fat to me than with males.

I'll try to review at least some fat character creations in video games in an upcoming post. Its sad, though not entirely surprising, that often the times our bodies are deemed appropriate for virtual representation is for the purpose of shaming us and not actually representing us.

Fat? No diploma for you.

2009-11-24T22:30:00.002-05:00

Seriously?!?

Seems the new "trend" in higher education is denying diplomas to fat students. At least that's what Lincoln University is doing. Students who matriculate with a BMI of 30 aren't allowed to graduate without losing weight or taking a semester in fat shaming 101. Oh, I'm sorry. "Fitness for Life".

What am I supposed to say to this? Honestly, this is just scary. SO much is wrong with this that I hardly know where to begin.

How does denying a fat person a diploma do ANYTHING constructive? Even if you have "good intentions" just what the fuck is this supposed to accomplish? Its bad enough to insist on the illusion of doing something with the insane "Hate your body" course, but the penalty is absurd. Unless, of course, you think fat is such a moral failure that the person doesn't deserve to graduate. Which is surely what people in the college administration think. I don't expect a press release to that effect, but their attitudes are clearly steeped in irrational hatred that justifies a fundamentally unjust act.

And since when is it the professional obligation of my school to tell me I'm fat? What does my body size have to do with my ability to learn?

Ah, but there we get to heart of the problem. Those who tout fat stigmatization really have no respect for us. Because ultimately, they DO think we're stupid. That's all I can deduce from the attitude of the man running the program who says:

No student should ever be able to leave Lincoln and not know the risks of obesity. They could never say, "I wish I knew this was going to happen to me, I wish someone would have told me."

Here again we see the maddening notion that the problem with fat people, is that no one has bothered to tell us not to be fat. Or we've been too stupid to learn, thus forfeiting our right to a diploma. For what I'm sure will not be the last time, let me say to all fat stigmatizers:

FAT PEOPLE KNOW THEY ARE FAT. FAT PEOPLE KNOW THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO LOSE WEIGHT.

I'm so sick and tired of this absurd "eureka" moments everyone has to justify denying rights, respect, and dignity to fat people. All these geniuses who declare one day, "I got it! Lets just tell them they are fat!" They wrap their hatred in good intention, but their message and approach is no different than a grade school bully.

We get told we're fat. Like every day. We get told to lose weight. Multiple times each day. Instead of continuing to blame us, maybe you could stop and wonder why a country that hates itself for being fat and which pours billions into chasing weight loss hasn't actually lost weight. Golly, maybe constant berating and discrimination don't work because the underlying "treatment" doesn't work. Because for all your hatred of fat people, there is no reliable, safe, or sane way to make a fat person into a not fat person. And even in the rare cases that it does, no proof it makes them healthier.

They always defend bigotry by professing to care too much about our health and well-being. Well, if our health is that important, why does no one seem to care to pursue approaches that can improve the health of fat people without weight loss? Weight loss isn't working and what fat people need is for the medical establishment to stop telling us to lose weight and start treating us. If this really was about health, why hasn't that happened yet?

Behold the amplitude of Beth Ditto

2009-10-14T23:18:00.005-04:00

Look, its not like I think every article about Beth Ditto needs to be all-fat, all-of-the-time. Heck, I don't even trust the notion of a fat accepting celebrity role model given how many have abandoned size acceptance in the past. But it still seems to me that an interview with an unapologetic fat icon should still treat her size with more respect that to reduce it to some weird indirect parenthetical: "Ditto's fabulous amplitude (in every sense)".

Hey, I'm all for coming up with fun and irreverent ways to reference our fat, its just this seems less like a smirking reclamation than dancing around Ditto's size instead of actually talking about it. Its not the first time I've seen a writer pull this trick when talking about Ditto, introducing her weight with some sort of very "kind" way of pointing it out without actually saying anything. I'm so over these kind of decoder-ring-on-the-cheap method of saying "(get it? cuz she's fat)".

She's fat. She uses the word. So can you. Crafting some "clever" method of obliquely pointing it out frankly strikes me as disrespectful given how "out" she is about her body. I'd have hoped a writer focusing on her unapologetically out stance on her sexuality might have figured that out.

Check out "Round is a Shape"

2009-09-09T01:17:00.002-04:00

At the risk of seeming like a fan boy, I've got another link from the fabulous Jaclyn Friedman to share. Over at Amplify, she shares her story as a 9 year old on a diet. As I've come to expect from Ms. Friedman it is bracingly and fearlessly earnest and I highly recommend checking it out.

Cook Food at Salon

2009-08-31T10:39:00.002-04:00

Jaclyn Friedman offers an interesting interview with Lisa Jervis over at Salon. Jervis is the co-founder of Bitch Magazine and author of "Cook Food". Its a sort-of "how-to" guide for being a part of the local food movement. Its an interesting an article and especially worth a note to fat activists in that Jervis calls on the pro-food movement to show more skepticism for anti-fat claims from the medical industry.

"What really saddens me about the state of the pro-food discourse about obesity right now is that when Monsanto says genetically modified soybeans are not an environmental problem or a health problem, the pro-food movement is extremely skeptical, and they call that out as total bullshit. Whereas when the medical industry says "fat kills," they're not like: Actually, no, diabetes may kill, but the cause and effect relationship between the two is not as uncomplicated as you'd have us believe."

You will not be surprised that these couple of sentences in a long article are generating disproportionate push-back in the letters section, so feel free to push-back some yourselves.

Straw Fatties

2009-08-18T10:50:00.003-04:00

The Philadelphia Daily News brings us the inspiring and unique story of a woman who is trying to lose weight because her husband told her she was too fat. Except, of course, that's not inspiring. Nor is it remotely unique. Men are pressuring their spouses to lose weight all across America right now. Its sad and wrong and something I hope fat acceptance can change.

In this story, though, fat acceptance is the villain because the woman meeting her husband's demands happens to be a celebrity who was fat accepting for pay. So the story makes a lot of fuss over how fat acceptance activists are all flustered.

Give me a break.

Sorry, but sometime around Camryn Manheim's diet I stopped thinking fat celebrities would ever be fat accepting role models. The pressures in our culture already makes fat acceptance an extraordinarily unlikely event. In the entertainment industry its just much worse. Its too easy for people to fall into bland fat stigmatization feelings. And most fat activists I know feel pretty much the same way. Where are these people "angrily abuzz" that the article mentions? I've tried to search for Fat-o-sphere articles that bring it up and I'm finding nothing.

The truth is, the author of the love letter to sexist fat stigmatization is just making this up because she wants to make a point of denying fat acceptance a right to exist. Kimberly Garrison is a professional fat stigmatizer, after all, as a trainer and "fitness journalist". Its all about the enforcement of thin privilege. Or in this case, the privilege of fat hatred. All this hand-wringing and bafflement that fat acceptance has something against fat stigmatization! Don't we know we're not supposed to be fat? Its all well and good that we're for fat acceptance, but surely we can't actually be suggesting that its acceptable to be fat.

Straw fatties are created to try to keep us in our place. To distort our positions so as to lay out the boundaries of acceptable beliefs so we're excluded. I am genuinely saddened at people trying to lose weight. I don't hate them. I just find myself deeply distraught when I hear of what any person is doing to themselves because they think fat is intolerable. I'd love for my first reaction to be anger. Not at the dieters, but at the system. Sometimes I even wish it was ambivalence, but its not. Its sadness. Because I'm not interesting in "knowing my place". I'm fat accepting, but not accepting of fat hatred, too. People like Kimberly Garrison don't expect us to mean what they say. To them, its inconceivable that we ACTUALLY are demanding respect for our bodies and for the bodies of our fellow fat men and women. When confronted with a reminder of that, they sputter and fume. We're not being realistic! We're not being honest! Don't we know the "tramau" we're putting our bodies through? They'll only tolerate the notion that we want fat acceptance for ourselves. They can write us off individually as lost causes. But when they are reminded that we actually want this for other people too, out comes the "but don't you know fat is bad". It shows they were never really listening or caring in the first place. Not that most of us were fooled.

I'm not angry at Mo'Nique for dieting at the behest of her husband. I'm sad about it, just as I am for everyone woman made to feel like this true lost cause is something they must spend their whole life chasing. I'll spare my anger for people like Kimberly Garrison who profit off the promotion of fat hatred.

Fat Hate on Fox News

2009-07-21T18:44:00.002-04:00

WTF?

I don't even know what to say about this. FoxNews has decided to explore the meme about how Obama's Surgeon General nominee is too fat for the job. How? By giving national TV time to a professional fat hater who comes on wearing a "No Chubbies" T-shirt.

Seriously.

Cavuto is relatively incredulous, but why is this Karolchyk idiot even being given this kind of platform in the first place? He claims to be the head of the "Anti-Gym", but his gym was closed in January because he owes nearly $200,000 in back taxes. He then got dinged for leaving personal records from his failed gym in an unsecured dumpster. Supposedly, he's now being groomed for a reality TV gig. Inspite of his massive personal failures, he's lately been a regular guest with Neal Cavuto on FoxNews. Hence the chummy attitude from Cavuto even while scolding Karolchyk. This dates back to at least last year, before his IRS troubles, when Cavuto had him on to attack Santa Claus. Actually, google suggests Karolchyk's been a popular guest on Fox, showing up regularly and always saying about the same thing.

He's a clown. And he knows it. He plays up his fat hatred to cartoonish degrees to attract attention. He plays "edgy" for the sake of cameras and dollars. He stages fake fat acceptance protest to use as a foil. He's the kind of guy who trolls FA sites. I frankly would be shoked if he hasn't. He isn't worth caring about. To pretend anything he has to say is worth caring about would be a grave mistake.

So why the hell does FoxNews do just that? He's the news version of comic relief, but his clowning is in support of bigotry and hatred. He isn't standing up for prejudice under some guise of respectability. Heck, he makes Me!Me! look positively reserved. And make no mistake, while this guy is FoxNews' clown, this is a problem throughout the mainstream media. Any of those who are the objects of such hatred are right to look at the news outlets lavishing him with attention and demand answers. The clown is meaningless compared to the person shining a spotlight on them.