fearful subtext

There's nothing remotely surprising about this article, "How to Not Look Fat in a Swimsuit," but the subtext is so hilarious I found it worth noting. It's awful, but the fear in it is so strong it's funny.

The content is amped-up classic stuff such as: wearing dark on the bottom, drawing the eye up, hiding the tummy...wearing Miraclesuits and even Spanx while swimming. Full-figured women should "try a maxi dress, or a semi-sheer cover-up to give 'the illusion of a flawless figure.' " Disguise the bosom, moisturize the legs to hide cellulite, fake a thinner waist with a belt... "Your tummy needs to be long and lean . . . any little height will make you walk better, stand sexier, put a little spring in your step and make you look a little bit taller and leaner." Gah! Gah! Panicking, fumbling, worried...

Don't let anybody see you as you are. Don't let any part of you which departs from a norm show. Don't be fat, but really, don't look fat. You are entirely vulnerable to the judgments of those around you, and should be. What others think is the most important thing in the world. How you look is everything. The agony of being yourself is unending, and only a few people are good enough to be allowed in a swimsuit just as they are.

I guess the subtext isn't really funny, and this is an obvious feminist rant, and for what it's worth I hate shitty fashion too, but it's all just so tortured. It's absurd.

The point of wearing a swimsuit is to SWIM!! Action verb! Not to be viewed. I mean, at base. Right? Right? she bleats.

Some people might argue that this article is giving people tips for actually getting out there, but I don't think so. Not to mention--yea verily, some people just are fat, and how you're not supposed to not look fat in a bathing suit when you are fat is a question that can only be answered by not swimming or wearing a suit or even existing, and that subtext is tired and in fact not really subtext at all.

The honest, sad, terrible, kinda cool truth is that nobody's paying that much attention to you. Yes, people are horrible and dismissive to fat people (and everybody), but one ass-backward benefit of all this bathing suit angst is that if everyone is so tortured and inwardly-focused, then what do you have to lose by heading out?

[Thanks to Aris for link.]

the beauty of lines

Interesting piece in Burmese newspaper the Irrawaddy about painter Sandar Khaing, who paints figures and has a specific interest in fat nudes, through painting her sister as model.
I like what I can see of her work a lot.

"I just want to present lines, the beauty of lines."

[Thanks to Felecia for this link.]

ew

the one thing Sarah Silverman won't joke about

Just puttin this out there. From Silverman's interview with Larry King:

"But I guess if there is anything I wouldn't talk about. . . it's fat jokes about women. That always bums me out because I feel like we live in a country where fat women--at least in white America--don't deserve love. You know? And I--I don't think that's true for men, you know. You see every sitcom star is like a fat guy with some gorgeous wife. But we live in a country that really feels that way. It feels--it's in the ether. And that just makes me sad to make a joke of it or to make light of it."

"Many doctors don't discuss diet with obese patients"

...claims the LA Times, per a the 2009 National Healthcare Disparities Report.

I know I should say something intelligent here, but all I can think about is the stock art the Times chose for their blog entry (left).

Doesn't this fatty plate look like a person? Donut eyes, fried chicken nose, french fry mouth? OM NOM NOM.

a lil squint down the 'no fat chicks' axis

The following lines are from recent CL ads all over the country in different categories--men for women/men, women for women/men.

Now this is some parallelism. The point is not (exactly) that people can't have preferences, it's that it's awfully interesting what BBWs are collected in No lists with. It seems like it should be a song. A chanty, drone-y song. NO fatties no FATties no fatTIES!

• NO FAKES, PHONIES, BBWS OR DRUGGIES
• NO MEN, COUPLES, BBWS
  
• NO MEN, NO BBWS, NO SWINGERS, OR GHETTO CHICS!!
• NO BI'S, NO MEN, NO NEWBIES (1ST TIMERS), NO BBWS
• NO GUYS, BBWS, DRUGGIES, STUCK UP/SELF CENTERED WOMEN
• NO BBWS BE CUTE. ABSOLUTELY NO NO NO MEN. OH NO FLAKES
• NO GUYS OR TS/TG OR ANY OTHER T'S AND NO BBWS PLEASE
• NO BBWS, NO FUCKING FETISHES, NO FUCKING ANIMALS.
• NO BBWS, NO EBONY, NO MEN
• NO BBW, NO OLDER WOMEN EITHER
• NO ALCOHOLISM, BBW, BINGO, CATS, CHLAMYDIA, CHEAP WATCH, CHEWED FINGERNAILS, CLASS RING, COSTUME JEWELRY, DRUGS, FEAR OF FLYING, FREQUENT USE OF PROFANITY, GLAMOR SHOTS, HAIRY LEGS, INFREQUENT BATHING, JUDGMENTAL, JEALOUS & ABUSIVE HUSBAND, LINE DANCING, LIVING IN TOWN WHERE BORN
• NO EGOS, NO BBWS
• NO BBWS, PROS OR IMPLANTS
• NO 3SUMS WITH YOUR MAN, NO STUDS, NO BIG GIRLS, NO TEENS, NO BBWS, NO COUPLES, NO MEN, NO MEN, NO BOYS, NO FAKE PICS
• NO BBWS, NO PILLOW PRINCESSES, NO ATTACHED NO COUPLES!!!!!!
• NO BBWS, COUPLES, MEN, CURIOUS PPL, FLAKES, WEIRDOS
• NO BBWS OR TEDDY BEARS
• NO BBWS, DRUGS, SMOKERS OR WOMEN OVER 40. NO MARRIED WOMEN!
• NO BBWS OR BLACKS
• NO PRUDES, NO BBWS, NO OTHER MEN, NO STUDS, NO RELATIONSHIPS
• NO MEN! NO BBWS. NO BUTCHES.
• NO BBWS OR FREAKS OR FAGS
• NO BBWS, NO SIGNING UP AT WEBSITES!
• NO BBWS, DARK SKINNED GIRLS, OR ANYTHING SLOPPY
• NO BBWS, STUDS, COUPLES, MEN OR UGLY CHICS
• NO BBWS OR WHITE WOMEN
• NO BBWS, NO TS, NO MSM, NO NSA
• NO BBWS, NO FEMALES WITH KIDS, NO CONFUSED CHICKS WITH BOYFRIENDS
• NO BBWS, DRUGGIES OR HEAVY DRINKERS/SMOKERS, GAY OR BI GUYS
• NO BBWS, DRUG USERS, SMOKERS OR "PROFESSIONAL" LADIES, NO SPAMBOTS AND GAYS POSING AS WOMEN.
• NO FULL SWAP AND NO BBWS

The following may be the best "NO BBW" ad ever. I guess I'm a heartless jerk, because it made me laugh, but I'm sure not assuming it's real except in placer's desire to get laid:

ONE LAST TIME - M4W - 22 (END OF THE ROAD)

NOT GOING TO BORE YOU WITH ALL THE SAD DETAILS BUT I'LL JUST GET THE POINT OF IT:

I'M NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD, ITS DAYS WOULD BE BRIGHTER AND NIGHT MORE STUNNING IF I JUST ENDED IT ALL.

FIGURED, I MIGHT AS WELL END IT ON A GOOD NOTE, SO HOW ABOUT IT? [I'm gonna kill myself...let's fuck.]

NO BBWS, ALL RACES ARE BEAUTIFUL, AND KINKY WOULD BE NICE BUT VANILLA IS ALRIGHT IN MY BOOK.

Just to round out this whole no-fat-chicks thing, check out this tattoo below (dude stole the DumpTruck logo). I dunno--when you bother getting an image of a fat chick permanently engraved in your flesh I might argue you don't actually hate them. That is protesting very much too hard indeed.

May Panel Discusison in NYC

Interesting upcoming panel discussion:

Fat Politics and Sexuality in the Face of Hate:
A Forum on Rights You Didn't Know You Needed
May 20th, 7pm
McNally Jackson Booksellers
52 Prince St, NYC

Fat stigma is reaching a boiling point in American society. As Harriet Brown stated in her recent New York Times article: "Public attitudes about fat have never been more judgmental; stigmatizing fat people has become not just acceptable but, in some circles, de rigueur." This evening's panel is a chance to discuss this cultural climate and present recent work by five individuals from diverse segments of fat activism, from academia to the blogosphere. Above all, this forum seeks to provide a nuanced perspective of fat-related issues that departs from the media’s monotone coverage of "the obesity epidemic" and its perceived social pitfalls.

The panelists include:

• Substantia Jones founder and photographer of The Adipositivity Project
• Lesley Kinzel, blogger of fatshionista.com
• Kathleen LeBesco, PhD Professor of Communication Arts and Distinguished Chair, Marymount Manhattan College; contributor to The Fat Studies Reader
• Zoe Meleo-Erwin PhD candidate and NOLOSE board member

in conversation with

• Marilyn Wann author of FAT!SO? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size!

"Is It Okay to Be Fat?"

...is how recent discussions of the topic in the media have gone--Dr. Phil, Nightline.

You can see where the question comes from/where it falls, evolutionarily, in cultural discussions of fat. It represents a crack in the usual discussion about it being completely wrong--it represents some voices being heard. Not just that, I think it arises from inevitable problems with the absolute monolith of unhelpful--whatever your POV--oversimplified thinking about fat. This question was coming one way or another at some point.

It's such a sucky question, though. It's progress, but it's so grim. Surely the one thing that people agree upon about fat, hate it or love it, is that it is. We are. Fat people are.

On some level it boggles my mind that there are people who (as Dorothy L. Sayers would say) maintain their right to disapprove of my existence, because this is what in effect happens when the answer to "Is it okay to be fat?" is "no." It's a very short hop from "no" to you should be smaller to it's not okay to be. That's how that goes, best intentions notwithstanding. The question doesn't hold water philosophically. Look at the responses to the Kevin Smith situation; how many people chimed in with, "They should just stay at home"? To be fat sometimes is to be weirdly invisible, to have people wish you were.

I know there are a lot of ideas to be discussed under the umbrella of this question. But the way it is framed reflects how sure we are that body size is entirely a choice and how it is assumed to always be--need to be--in flux. We are always supposed to be changing, always supposed to be getting smaller, all of us, fat or thin, really. There is a distinct lack of the present tense when talking about body size. There is always an assumption that what you are now you won't be in the future. Semi-measured articles like this in the Observer have bizarro subtitles like: "As obesity becomes a greater social and political issue, campaigners say they have a human right to be fat."

Well, er...yes. I do have a right to be me, I think. In the most calming of possible circumstances for those who hate fat people and see them--us--as walking embodiments of bad behavior--what am I supposed to do? Go home and think about what I've done? Swear I'm changing? Have something to prove my shame, like a passport? Show it when necessary to reassure people I'm not blithely unaware of how wrong I am? I am accountable to others, it feels, for existing as I am.

I keep thinking about Jude Law being dragged up in the helicopter at the end of A.I., saying, "I am. I was." I just am.

We have to ask different questions. This one's wrong. Whatever questions you want to ask next, this is the wrong one to start with.

Lane Bryant kerfuffle

Amanda Hess pretty much nails it about the dumbass Lane Bryant commercial controversy and the smoking hot LB model who's too good-looking and stacked for American to handle.

When I read about it, I immediately flashed on an old Glamour "Fashion Do/Fashion Don't" column that cautioned against wearing the sheer shirt/black bra combo (remember those?) if you were big-busted, because it'd "look slutty."

Outcries like this are about more than not liking fat (that model isn't fat)--they are about how narrow the prison of acceptable looks really is. You can't win.

More from direction of City Island

Very weird to see my world (well, part of it) written about on the pages of Salon: blog piece more or less about BBWs and FAs, from the director of City Island. Dude appears to have discovered some liking for the fatties with feelings about the John Warner-era Liz Taylor. Still haven't seen the movie, still tired at idea of feedery stuff, but--interesting.

meh

Great interview by Kevin Pang with Anthony Bourdain in the Trib's Cheap Eater thingie, but Bourdain stumbles in his comments about Jamie Oliver. Oliver is not doing "the difficult thing" or (as I think Bourdain used to say about Mario Batali and his emphasis on offal) "God's work," he's full of SELF-PROMOTING CHEESE. If Sandra Lee was doing Oliver's show, he'd trash it. Fat prejudice makes people stupid.

I loved Betsy Phillips' post about the Tennessee Obesity Task Force. I thought it put the anger right where it should be. That is some seriously dehumanizing shit there.

Kate Harding's BMI Slideshow

Do you know what "obese" looks like? "Underweight"? Worth a click!

not again

I'm happy there's a movie coming out with a plus-sized character in it (the totally cute Carrie Baker Reynolds in City Island) but why why WHY WHY WHY WHY does she have to be into feederism? Why always with this shitty conflation of topics?

I don't know how the issue is handled in the movie, but between this movie and the recent incredibly widespread coverage of the Donna Simpson story--not to mention adopting it as any central point of cultural reference--I despair. Feederism is one funny little corner of fat sexuality that receives never ending, gushing, disproportionate attention because of how it thumbs its nose at/gains excitement and traction from people's horror with fat. The focus (and the fetish, if you ask me, as with many fetishes, or basically any fetish you don't share yourself) is BORING. Feederism is the reddest red herring that ever herringed. It's just one small area of the world of fat people and sex. That's all.

The really bad part about all this attention is that it creates an enormous hateful cloud of misperception about fat sexuality. Not to mention it confirms--since people cannot separate the fetish from the fat person/fat person-liking population at large--every bad stereotype about fat people and basically guarantee that people see fat folk through a haze of...Food.

All in all, a very frustrating trend. I wish it'd go away.

"Man Goes On Meat Rampage To Save 'Chubby Girls'"

Reposted from The Consumerist:
"The AP says that an Indiana man went on a bizarre rampage in a supermarket, pulling out a hunting knife and attacking packages of hamburger. He then threw dog food onto it...."

Watch the news video on the link if you dare! ("Uh...she was preparing a pot roast or something...") This story is funny, but it's also really scary.

ticker shock

In case you haven't seen it, here is the story about the University of Rochester study that discovered non-obese patients had a 76 percent greater risk of sudden cardiac risk than obese patients. ("When overweight patients were factored out, the researchers were startled to find that underweight and normal-weight patients ran a 99 percent higher risk of sudden cardiac failure than obese patients.")

The line from the author of the survey - "He theorizes that because their bodies are already surviving bad treatment, they are more resistant to heart failure" - brings up something I find interesting, which is that people always seem to assume fat people's hearts are in bad shape because of all the checks they see in the con column without taking into account factors in the pro column as well. Every time a fat person climbs the stairs they are working much harder than the skinny person next to them. Which is good and bad or whatever it is, but it is ultimately a fact. That heart is working hard. Why isn't that ever in the equation?

oh pliz

No way is this story real. It started out all over British papers, not US ones, although it looks like the incident might have occurred in Florida...although you can't tell for sure where the story happened, that's how journalistic it is. I can't find any original reporting, just editorialized wire repeats.

And--it reads like a Fat Moral Tale told by MeMe Roth. The wages of sloth are fat! He built his own prison!

hard copies!

I will figure out a way to write in this blog more. There are barriers! More than the usual attached to procrastination and such.

I am realizing how much of the public discussion of size out there I have absolutely no desire to engage in. At all. What a very helpful skill for keeping a size acceptance blog! First and foremost because I think the way we are feel that what we or anybody else eats is perfectly appropriate fuel for every kind of revelatory, punitive, boundary-less public discussion is off-base.

So I gotta figure that out. Haven't figured that out.

In the meantime: what should I do with all my old copies of Radiance magazine? Getting Radiance in the mail was a really important, really big part of my life and development as a fat chick. Very different than reading things online.

I held it in my paws, and turned things over and over, and absorbed them much better than I do know. So...I don't know. I have many of them and haven't looked at them for years. I don't like them taking up room, but I'm still loathe to let them go. Hmm. We'll see.

yah yah roly!

terrible video quality, but I sure love this song

Lives are at stake!

I was so thoroughly offended by the ads for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, wherein he brings enlightenment to the shores of fat stupid America with his cocky brand of charm, that I had to get up and walk it off. The promos even threw a few Headless Fatties™ shots in there to make their editorial position clear. The combination of Extreme Home Makeover style TV with childhoodobesity sanctimoniousness...I wanted to choke a bitch. I'd link directly to the promo (it's the 30-second one), but the ABC site is fascist. Makes you watch lots of vids to get to a particular one. LIVES ARE AT STAKE! Jamie says.

Gah. Fuck. The weird compensated public torch-passing (kirstiealley 2 valeriebertinelli 2 jasonalexander) is very hard to watch!

whatcha find?

If it didn't mean that people never took me seriously again too late! I think I would start a blog called What Did You Find in Your Bra at the End of the Day? Or maybe Pennies From Heaven. Women could write in after totting up what they find in there: change, food, phones, hankies, whatever. Companies could match the monies found there dollar-for-dollar and donate to favorite charities. It would be an exercise in archeology for generations to come.

oh Kirstie

I haven't watched Kirstie Alley's new show. I don't want to. I didn't want to watch her on Oprah thin, I didn't want to watch her weight-loss commercials (those were harder to avoid), I didn't want to watch Fat Actress. I don't want to watch any of it.

I feel I should know more about her Fatty Oeuvre, as someone interested in issues of size, but I am really uninterested when I'm not actively repelled, to be honest. I don't like feeling complicit in people's emotional battles about eating or about their size. Oprah has a bad habit of encouraging this kind of sticky, mess stuff: with herself, with Wynonna Judd's public self-flagellating.

Not to mention there is a crass, mercenary side to what Alley's doing that turns me off from the start. I can see where it comes from, in a way: why not focus on this stuff, as an actress who's aging, whose looks are something of public property.

But it's all so dead-end. And non-resolvable. And nobody's fucking business. There's no grand redemption--and we should know that. You go up, you go down. You've "solved" your fatness--whoops, now you haven't. It's a marketing dream, in a way--the constant drama. As long as you are in agonies about it, it's okay to be fat. Okay & good business.

Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton died. This poem made a huge impression on me in my twenties as I found my way through things, as I'm sure it did for many people. Opened my mind (that is the right phrase here). And that top thing is for real.

homage to my hips

these hips are big hips

they need space to

move around in.

they don't fit into little

petty places. these hips

are free hips.

they don't like to be held back.

these hips have never been enslaved,

they go where they want to go

they do what they want to do.

these hips are mighty hips.

these hips are magic hips.

i have known them

to put a spell on a man and

spin him like a top!

no way

One of the shittier names I've seen for a diet product (it's showing up on late-night informercial rotation here). Reminds me a little of the days of the AYDS chewable diet candies.