Now that that bit of merriment is out of the way, let's get to today's subject.
Oh yeah, Fierce Fatties. Do you feel that shiver down your spine? That is anticipation.
Oh, you know, we're just a bunch of bitches from hell and we speak our mind. Think we're ugly? Well you're just not strong enough to handle beautiful curves.
We won't censor you because we're freethinking, liberal ladies. Unless you disagree with us, then expect your post to be deleted.
Classy, ladies.
Hey guys… as many of you may or may not know, I am practically married to an amazing man who has changed my life forever. When he found out it was my week to write he asked if he could do it, he had a post knocking around in his head and had to share. So, without further ado here is my beloved BeOhBe with his rant on fat men and employment.
I WAS PROMISED A BLOG ABOUT FAT WOMEN AND THE VERY SECOND ENTRY (after the one whining about 4chan that I omitted) IS A POST BY A MAN.
I don’t blame that job loss on my being heavy. I don’t have any reason, really, to believe that to be the case, but it really started me thinking about the jobs that are and aren’t available for a guy my size. I spent ten years in a Fortune 50 company, mostly in technical roles, and, apparently, IT is full of guys like me.
So there you have it. Job loss is minutia in relation to being fat.
Are we just looking for an excuse to be butthurt (yes)?
Am I the only person who doesn't look for an excuse to whine?
It’s up to you to avoid those comedians who cross your line and sully topics you hold sacred, including fat jokes.
Patton Oswalt has an awesome bit about fat people.
Just thought I'd share.
I don’t believe in censorship (unless you’re an unrepentant asshole, in which case, I have no problem) because there is no end to the amount of offense people are capable of experiencing.
>I don't believe in censorship
>UNLESS--
God that is the best word in the English language. It's like magic. You can say you believe in something when in fact you're in the exact opposite camp because you qualified it a little bit.
You know what I believe should be censored?
NOTHING.
That's how actual proponents of no censorship think. There can be no exceptions. If you personally disagree with something then you, too, are free to voice your disagreement and evolution will take over. The strong message will endure and the weak will fade into obscurity.
Of course, I’m all for putting pressure on artists and entertainers who “cross the line,” but I am against any particular group or groups drawing that line and saying, “This far and no further.”
Cross the line according to who? You? The government? Which government? Outside of the people agreeing to let the government dictate these things, what authority is the government?
Since I was in third grade, I’ve wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. Teacher, at the time, seemed like an easy profession, but as I got older, I realized how complicated my career of choice was going to be.
BUREAUCRACY MAKES WHAT SHOULD BE A SIMPLE TASK A DAILY HERCULEAN EFFORT.
Especially when it comes to body positivity and what society calls “health.”
>Body positivity
So I'm starting to fall into the Iron Hands camp of "body positivity": their motto is "THE FLESH IS WEAK."
Soon, I will be mentoring “at risk” kindergarten and first grade students. I had to fill out a questionnaire which asked a number of questions about my skills. One question was “Are you able to mentor children on the subject of personal health? (Hygiene, nutrition, weight management, etc.)” and I thought about this for a long while. Honestly? No. I am not able to mentor children on the subject of health. Why? Because I’m not going to say what they want me to say. I’m going to suggest what I think is healthiest.
And now we enter this same issue I've been pressing. What do you know? "Suggest what you think is healthiest"? How do you know you're right?
I’m going to share my own experience (in a way a child can understand, of course).I’m worried, though. How do I help instill body positivity in a young child? How do I teach it in a classroom? I guess it’s a learning process for me, too.
Any suggestions?
Yeah, I have a suggestion: teach them to read before they get to 9th grade and I have to deal with them, please.
Our comment policy isn’t posted or anything, but we do have one. It’s called the Asshole Rule and it’s fairly simple. If five people tag your comment as you being asshole, then I delete it. If this happens to three of your comments, then you’re banned from commenting entirely.
:3
Is this automatic? If so I could easily form a pretty powerful inquisitorial council where we just agree to burn the witch and report until they're banned. For someone so against censorship you sure do resort to some pretty byzantine measures to see only your message endures.
As fat activists, we have our work cut out for us. We literally have to fight for every advance we make. We have to fight for the right to be seen in public without being abused, to have clothing and medical equipment that accomodate us, and for countless other perks that some of our thinner counterparts take for granted.
>clothing that accommodates us
I can't find pants that fit me because I'm too skinny now and everyone is an out-of-control pig. Please, do continue.
Usually, when we think of fighting, we think of concrete actions such as protesting, writing letters, or shopping ethically.
Actually when I think of fighting I pretty much specifically think of this.
I work in a predominantly female office environment, so as you can imagine, the diet talk is nonstop.
Ha, ha, bet not much gets done there, am I right guys?
Whenever a group of people gang up on you to lecture you or ask if you’re really going to eat that, be blunt. Say yes and eat. Don’t hide.
Punch them in the face like Bruce Lee.
Fat acceptance has many facets. There’s Fatshion, HAES, conferences, studies, books…all sorts of ways to inform and educate yourself.
Hagen Daas is another form of fat activism.
Tthere are tons of super-articulate, amazing bloggers fighting the good fight out there, putting up with the trolls and the neigh-sayers, being “out” as fat, as it were.
>being "out" as fat
It's not like being gay. You can tell a fat person when you see them. That'd be like being "out" as a black person. You can kind of tell.
I know I really enjoyed blogging over at Fat-n-Sassy…until the trolls came and started arguing with me.
Giving me future targets, pretty much. This blog is an ally.
I watch a lot of A&E, (take from that what you will) so I got an eyeful of previews for their new show called “Heavy.”
It's about a class of tanks.
Maybe you have heard of it, but in case you haven’t, it follows two extreme deathfats through a weight loss program.
It follows an M4 Sherman and a Type 97 Shinhoto Chi-Ha. Bold move to follow the oft-unmentioned Japanese tanks.
Personally I'm rooting for the M4 Sherman but I am a bit biased when it comes to WW2.
The cons, however, outweigh the pros, which is to be expected in a program like this.
The fatal flaw of this, and most other programs similar in nature, is the reliance on cliches. The most extreme examples of obesity, health impairment, and limited mobility are paraded around to represent obesity as experienced by the typical American.
Oh right, the blog. Enough of my fictional television shows.
I have been stuck behind a huge pig in Target many times. Mobility is a problem for fat people, yes.
Serious trigger warning: The following post is about anorexia, thinspiration and suicide.
k
I've reviewed quite a few anorexic blogs and fat blogs so I'm very happy I'm getting this cross coverage.
How many times have you read, heard or been told that Fat Acceptance is enabling fatties to make horrible health choices?
You're free to eat whatever the fuck you want. Who the shit cares what you stuff into your fat, ugly face? You'll never be a DBG or DYG so you might as well live it up. I think you've made a critical mistake in assuming people care. Just don't complain to me when you have to buy five seats on a plane because your ass is 50 feet wide.
Take up more space, expect to pay more for services. Welcome. Welcome to humanity.
And yet, we never hear about how the wider culture, the popular culture, is doing a much, MUCH better job at encouraging reckless lifestyle choices and hastening our deaths.
People need more shame in their lives.
It's what keeps you normal.
Sometimes it’s really interesting to see the different ways that ideas are conveyed and how ironically a spin-off can vary from the original. Take Marilyn Wann’s Yay! Scale: it’s a product that, instead of giving you a number when you step on it, compliments you instead. It’s a great idea and I wish I had one.
Oh God, really?
The hugbox has really been invented.
Obviously there’s a big problem here. First of all, this is, of course, focused on women. Our only job in this world is to be thin and beautiful. If you’re not doing that, there’s something WRONG WITH YOU.
Lose all the weight you want, it'll never fix the unfortunate arrangement of your facial features.
Secondly, the big emotional rewards that come from losing weight are things like compliments from friends and family who now — what? — love you more because you’re thin? Being eyed-up by strangers at the bar/on the bus/walking down the street/at work/at school because you’re more fuckable?
WHOAAA, SOMEONE'S JEALOUS.
Personally, I think anything that gets women out of the “lose weight, feel great!” mentality is a GOOD THING.
GOOD THING.
CAPS FOR EMPHASIS.
I’m hoping I made a difference. However, the thing that kept coming up was the idea that losing weight would improve people’s health.
Well there are still legions of DBG and DYG out there.
Looks like the ol' American woman (MAMA LET ME BE) is a lost cause.
I have a serious issue with food policing because there is a shitload to hate about it: self-righteous lectures, healthist boasting, unwelcome interventions, guru obsession.
>Healthist
and other invented words.
I keep seeing references to fat women that are meant to be positive, calling us “real women”: plus-sized clothing stores who advertise that their clothes are for “real women”; calling thin women “anorexic” or “twigs” and suggesting that they “need to eat a sandwich”; shirts that say “real women have curves”; men who find fat women attractive saying that they like a woman who “looks like a woman.”
Yeah, those people slay me.
"IF I WANTED TO FUCK A 9 YEAR OLD BOY I'D FUCK A 9 YEAR OLD BOY."
I don't know what kind of women you idiots have been looking at but you can have less than massive deposits of fat in your gross, sweaty floppy tits and still be built like a woman, I mean Christ all mighty.
I would love to have more fat positive t-shirts, but they all seem to be saying something nasty about thin women.
Proving your entire "movement" stems on jealousy so you try to establish yourself as somehow equal to thin women as if this is some sort of binary comparison to make.
Or the phrase “curves in all the right places,” which seems to mean fat is cool if you mean a small waist and huge boobs and ass.
"Curves in the right place" do not exist. You either look attractive or you do not.
There is a range of acceptable deviation but once your SD starts to approach a certain number your odds aren't looking good.
I personally know a woman who was ridiculed in a belly dance class by a plus-sized instructor who told her, “Dearie, this class is belly dance for women, so if you look like a boy and you don’t have a belly, this probably isn’t the class for you.”
Haah waaw
I love the old line “You’re just choosing/making excuses to be fat!”
Oh, which excuse will she deploy to counter this? Metabolism? "I'VE ALWAYS BEEN ON THE HEAVY SIDE"?
Frankly, who in their right mind would choose to be fat in our culture?
:|
self-control is hard, eating McDonald's 3 meals a day is so tasty-- not much of a choice to make for most people.
To me, making excuses is about placing the blame on someone else for your own faults, or at least minimizing your culpability. But fatness isn’t a fault, we really AREN’T culpable, and we aren’t blaming anyone for anything.
It can also be dodging blame like you're doing now.
You made a choice, just own up to it. I'm not saying you're wrong for making the choice but you are for being COWARDLY about it.
Furthermore, why aren’t people ever accused of making excuses to be anti-fat? After all, they just don’t want to accept that they labored for nothing/
>staying skinny
>labor
Really it's continually making right choices than actual work but you wouldn't know that having just eaten your way through an entire Arby's.
Ahem, allow me to get my geek on here a bit. For Christmas we were unexpectedly gifted with a Wii. We promptly borrowed Mario Kart from my brother-in-law and have been having a hoot with it ever since. Normally I’m not a big Mario fan (though I am a HUGE Nintendo freak
How can you not be a huge Mario fan?
Whatever--
my main love being Samus Aran from the Metroid series),
That's kind of funny considering she's ridiculously attractive, athletic and blonde. She was also created by a man, so isn't that PERPETUATING STEREOTYPES OF WOMEN THAT YOU SHOULDN'T BE STANDING FOR?
She's also a ruthless bounty hunter who commits genocide at least twice that I know of. She'd make Space Marines proud, despite being raised by FILTHY XENOS.
My first game system was the SNES and it came with Super Mario World. It didn’t seem odd to me in the slightest that the protagonist was a short, fat man.
You do realize they made him portly so he'd appear as a more solid target on the screen?
The only reason he has a mustache is to establish the fact he has a face?
I'm serious when I say character design decisions back then were made out of necessity more than anything and often anything complex we now take for granted simply was not technologically feasible at the time.
His fat is never an issue: Peach never asks him to lose weight, Luigi never pokes fun at him.
Someone never played Mario RPG or Paper Mario.
Anyway I think this post has dragged on long enough and I didn't even get to the posts I wanted to talk about, good grief.
TIME FOR A TWO-PARTER OH NO~
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