I Am Living

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

"I would die if I looked like that."

The words floated across the space between where I was sitting and where a group of 20-something women were sitting in the interior of a crowded mall at the holidays. I was waiting for Iain, who was making a purchase inside a small store that didn't need any additional bodies, and I was people-watching happily while I waited.

They were people-watching, too, but for an entirely different reason. We were all unwitting contestants in a pageant they were judging.

I would die if I looked like that. It hadn't been said in that faux-concern for fat people's health way, but in the I would die of embarrassment way. The I would kill myself way.

I assumed they were talking about me, but when I glanced over, I saw that they weren't. They were talking about a woman who might as well have been me.

Some of them caught me looking and registered the expression of contempt that must have been on my face. They had the decency to look slightly ashamed. I greeted their shame with a bright smile, not because I felt like smiling, but because I needed to communicate to them with a single look that I was not dead, and that their hatred wouldn't kill me.

One might reasonably imagine that I had an urge to respond angrily to this open hostility. And I suppose part of me did. But what I know is that people who hate fat often fear it — and those words, I would die if I looked like that, are words of fear as much as hatred.

What I wanted to tell them, and what I will tell any of you reading this who might regard my body as a figure of hatred or a cautionary tale, is that you probably wouldn't die if you looked like this.

I look even fatter sitting down!
People who look like this have varied experiences with looking like this, have all kinds of different relationships with their bodies, have wildly disparate lives, as the human experience prescribes.

So I am not speaking for everyone who looks like this when I tell you that I am not dying, of shame or humiliation or self-loathing.

I am living.

And I am living more contentedly than many people who are certain they would die if they looked like me.

I have a job that fulfills me. I have a spouse who complements me; who loves and likes me. I have pets who make me happy. I have friends with whom I actually have the amount of fun it looks like we're having in our Instagram photos. I have a home in which I feel lucky to live every day. I have some minor talents that I try to put to good use or good fun. I have a big laugh that carries across a room.

And I have a body that has (at this size or bigger) carried me across the sandy shores of the Indiana Dunes and up the slopes of the Scottish Highlands and through the waves of the Caribbean and back and forth in the lanes of a pool for a mile at a time. I have a body that cannot sweat, which makes physical activity difficult and has limited me more than being fat ever has. I have a body that is strong and a body that is disabled. I have a body that holds a mind that thinks complicated thoughts valued by lots of people, and a heart that loves fiercely and loyally.

I am living in this fat body. And I am doing it well.

What I wanted to tell them is that someday they might look like this, and, if they do, they can also live well.

And that they could do a lot better not looking like this, too. Judging others, publicly and loudly, is unkind. But it's also a kind of death — the death of something you can allow yourself to be. It puts up walls, ever more rigid walls, around a life that gets smaller and smaller by what options are set off-limits by judgment. It's a thousand tiny deaths of your own possibilities. And your own self-love.

They were dying in the constrictions of their own judgments.

I know, because I have felt it myself, long ago, long before I knew how to live well.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Dear Doctor: It's Not Me. It's You.

[Content Note: Diet talk, fat hatred, body shame, weight loss, weight gain, disordered eating, fat-related medical malpractice.]

Dear Doctor:

Breaking up is always hard to do. I can't believe it's come to that point. You treated me with such compassion and understanding when my mother died, talking me through the physical effects of grief, and helping me find the right antidepressant medicines for the short term and the longer term. For that I will always be grateful. And yeah, from the beginning, you gave me little suggestions like “eat a weight loss diet” and “how about losing a few pounds,” but you didn’t seem to push it. After all, I was physically active, and jogging on a regular basis, and my numbers (save for my underactive thyroid) looked pretty good.

True, you were ridiculously excited if I came in and my weight was 3 pounds lower than the last time. I didn’t have the heart to tell you that it was the difference between weighing me after my period vs. before. But I never thought it would go so wrong.

I think it goes back to that time I twisted my ankle rather badly. I had to give up running, on a temporary basis at least. Let me take responsibility for my actions: I did a poor job at finding replacement exercise. I felt pretty bad about putting on a swimsuit, for one thing. The long and the short of it is, I didn’t exercise, and my numbers didn’t look so great any more. I had new stress on my life, taking on the directorship of a program at my university. You pushed the diet talk more aggressively. Finally, after months of it, and because I felt I had to be the “good fatty” for you, I agreed to try one of the diet pills you wanted to prescribe.

I’ll never forget how your face lit up, how I so clearly crossed from Bad Fatty to Good Fatty in your eyes. You got misty-eyed and said you were glad I was doing this for myself. I replied something like “Well, no, I’m trying this because of your advice on my health.” But I don’t think you heard me, not really. You definitely did not hear me when I disclosed my history of disordered eating, because the drug you put me on, Contrave (which is a combination of the antidepressant wellbutrin and the anti-addiction drug naltrexone) is specifically not recommended for those with a history of disordered eating. But more on that later.

I actually liked being on Contrave—not for weight loss but for its mental effects. The combination left me more focused than wellbutrin alone, less likely to “dither,” as my mother would have said. It’s too bad it’s a “weight loss drug,” because I bet it could be used for its psychological effects alone, and be very helpful for some people. I felt confident enough put on a bathing suit for the first time in 10 years. I rediscovered swimming, which although I’m not so great at, I do enjoy.

I also tried jogging again, building up from walking, but I discovered something new: a sharp pain and bulging muscle in my right leg after running for about 10 minutes. I went back to you and asked about it, confident that since you are a runner you’d give good advice. You said it was “probably an injury” and recommended I slow down my raining and walk/run on even ground always. You also suggested switching to pool running for some workouts, and I did. And that was okay; pool jogging is fun! I tried this for a few months, then tried regular jogging programs again. Again, I was sidelined by pain in the same area and the same horribly bulging leg muscle.

When I tried to talk to you about it, you said it was probably an old injury. I asked about sports medicine or physical therapy. You shrugged, said it would probably not help, and said I could bicycle or do aerobics instead. Two activities I really don’t enjoy. You also decided that the 6 pounds I had lost on Contrave weren’t enough, and switched me to phentermine. Again, I mentioned having a history of disordered eating. I asked about going off of any antidepressant. You said, “oh, it has a stimulating effect. You won’t need an antidepressant.”

Now, I didn’t have a pharmacological dictionary at that moment, but as soon as I looked up phentermine, I learned that it’s basically speed. My blood pressure had been high, and yet you prescribed this. I had a history of disordered eating, and you prescribed a drug definitely not for those with this problem. Why?

Still, I tried to follow your advice. And you know what? I was a nervous wreck. Sure, I didn’t feel like eating much. But I was jumpy, couldn’t sleep, and my stress levels went through the roof. What the hell was I doing on this drug?

I quit the drug. I tried to walk a few times a week, but my interest in exercise was nil. I was depressed. I felt terrible about myself. And I dreaded going to see you because I knew I’d have to deal with diet talk.

Yes, that’s right. Your fat hatred made me not want to see you, to dread seeing you. Even for problems that had nothing to do with weight, because I knew weight loss would come up.

I finally came in for a physical. I was 10 pounds heavier than when we started. My test results were terrible. There were red flags everywhere. And your answer?

You suggested bariatric surgery.

Now, I am not a medical doctor, but I looked up bariatric surgery on my phone, in your office, and asked if it was really for me. I pointed out that I wasn’t in the weight range for which it’s really recommended. I asked about the considerable risks. You said that I could try something else for a while—maybe eliminate all fat from my diet and see how that worked. I asked about going back on an antidepressant. You never responded to that question.

I’ll never forget that day. Because I also brought up pain while urinating and my suspicion of having a bladder infection. You looked at my test results and confirmed that there were white blood cells in my urine, but…it was probably just from having eaten a fatty meal.

To be clear: I asked you about a bladder infection and you reiterated that I should try a non-fat diet.

That’s when I left your office for the last time.

An urgent care doc confirmed the bladder infection and after antibiotics I felt much better.

I was also doing some thinking.

I hated to leave you. Once upon a time you had been a caring doctor who seemed to listen. But once I stepped on your weight loss train, nothing could make you get off from that track. You didn’t listen. At all.Again, you prescribed a non-fat diet for a bladder infection. You had become one of those doctors that fat people tell horror stories about.

I was trapped in one of those doctor-patient relationships that ultimately kills fat people. It took me a while to realize this, as depressed and unhappy as I was, but I finally recognized our relationship for what it was: deadly.

It was time to go.

I know it’s probably tacky to talk about my new doctor here. (And I recognize how privileged I am to be in a position to be able to GET a new doctor.) After asking friends for recommendations of physicians who weren’t fat-phobic, I’m so far pretty happy with my new doc. He’s not a fan of diet pills, and listened carefully when I talked about a history of disordered eating (and he wrote it down, which I can’t recall you ever doing.). He listened to my discussion of stress and depression and agreed that going back on my old antidepressant would be a good idea. He listened carefully to my description of what had happened to my leg when running, asked about my flexibility, and came to a totally different conclusion: I wasn’t stretching enough. He talked about blood flow and unstretched muscles, and took the time to recommend a stretching program, as well as a local yoga class that specifically focuses on stretching and flexibility. He also looked at my shoes, talked with me about my stride, and recommended a place to get effective consultation on my running shoes. My numbers were terrible, but instead of saying I should give up fat, he suggested I try the exercise modifications, focus on stress management, and come back for a second round of tests in two months.

I’ve started the increased stretching, and man, has it made a difference. The antidepressant is helping me stay focused. I’ve gone back to the pool, am walking almost every day now, and even started a slow walk/ jog program. I got out my old weights and started a little strength training. And I feel so much better, because a key part of managing stress for me is getting lots of exercise. I don’t do it to lose weight, but to take care of myself. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I am worth taking care of.

Here’s the thing, doc. I’m a feminist with lots of knowledge about fat hatred. I spent years overcoming my negative self image, and frankly I’m not all the way yet. And even so, you were able to pressure me into going along with your (futile and counterproductive) weight loss “program,” because I felt like it was necessary to get decent care from you. What's it like for people who aren't conversant with HAES (Health At Every Size)? By almost every measure, my health got worse: my cholesterol and other numbers, my blood pressure, my anxiety, my stress levels, and even ultimately, my weight that you care so much about. Far from getting better care from you, I couldn’t get you to see my health as anything other than completely centered on weight loss.

I know you probably won’t see this. But I’m hoping other people will. Maybe even some of those doctors who think that treating fat people this way is somehow promoting “health.” I would ask them: What would you rather have: a patient who is fat but whose stress is managed, whose blood pressure is good, whose lab results are in the desired range… or, a patient who loses some weight but who reports worsening stress levels and whose blood pressure goes up? When a fat patient discloses a history of disordered eating, do you assume that means they overeat? Or do you understand that fat people could have been anorexic and/or bulimic? When they report a sports injury, do you take it as seriously as you would in a thin person? Or do you assume they probably shouldn’t be doing that activity anyway, because they’re fat?

Anyway, Doc, I’m sorry it had to end this way, because I think you actually do care about your patients. I’ll always be grateful for the care you gave when my mother died. But I just couldn’t go on like this.

It’s really not me. It’s you.

Sincerely,

Aphra

[ETA: Commenting note: I am not soliciting healthcare advice in this post, and would be grateful if comments did not include such. Thanks.]

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

I Write Letters

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

Dear Fellow Fat Person:

You and I both know that fat people can be cruel to each other, sometimes even in ways that thin people aren't cruel to us.

We've spent a lifetime internalizing fat hatred, and some of us get so overwhelmed with directing it at ourselves, that we start directing it at each other, as a futile attempt at self-protection.

You know the things we can do to one another: Playing the Good Fatty, saying things like "at least my fat is proportional," drawing lines between acceptable and unacceptable fatness (thresholds usually drawn just to make sure that we're on the side of "acceptable"), telling each other that "all you need is some confidence," using each other as an excuse to eat something we wouldn't otherwise, cajoing and coercing each other to eat things, not so secretly suspecting that other fat people really eat too much and exercise too little, being not so secretly embarrassed when we see another fat person who fits some fat stereotype, pretending that we are Superior Fatties if we manage to have the financial and emotional wherewithal to locate and purchase the "right" clothes.

And on and on and on.

I just want you know I'm never going to do that to you.

I am never going to look at you and judge you for being fat, or think I know the reason, believing that being fat myself gives me some special insight into other fatties' lives.

I am never going to think my fatness is better than (or worse than) yours.

I am never going to think you should be wearing anything other than what you want to be wearing. And if you are not wearing what you would ideally like to be wearing, I would be happy to go shopping with you! And if shopping is hard, and you need to cry, you can cry with me.

In fact, you can cry with me about anything. I will cry with you and laugh with you and listen to you and share my own stories with you. And I will never, ever, think that you are weak. I know how much strength it takes to be fat in a world that hates us.

I will never hesitate to go anywhere with you, because we're both fat. I will belly right up to a buffet with you, and I will go swimming with you, and I will squeeze into a tight seat on public transportation beside you. I will never be ashamed of your fat, or mine, or ours together in the same place.

I will take up space with you.

I will be your ally, because I want you to live. I don't ever want to make you, or anyone else, feel like they have to make themselves smaller, make their voices quieter, make their lives less than, because they are fat. I want you to live a big fat joyful life, and I want to live one, too.

Not at your expense. Alongside you. There is plenty of room for all of us.

And there is enough fat hatred in this world already without my contributing even more of it.

You, my fellow fat traveler, will never be my target.

And I hope I will never be yours.

With abundance in both body and spirit,
Liss

[Related Reading: Big Fat Love; A Letter About Food and Judgment.]

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

A Letter About Food and Judgment

[Content Note: Food, fat, body, and choice policing; disordered eating; privilege.]

Dear You:

I will not judge you for what you eat.

I won't judge you for the things you choose to eat—or the things you eat because you have no choice—or in what quantity you eat them.

I won't judge you for why you eat the things you do, or how much of them you eat.

I won't judge you negatively—nor will I judge you positively. I won't assess your character on your diet, or where you procure food, or how you procure it. I won't judge you negatively for using food stamps, and I won't judge you positively for buying organic, or artisanal, or farm fresh. These things don't tell me anything about you—besides, perhaps, how many financial resources and access you have or lack. And I won't judge you for that, either.

I might, however, if I'm being totally honest, judge you if you brag incessantly about buying organic, or artisanal, or farm fresh, or "clean," or even "healthy," in a way that is wholly intended to convey that it's superior, that it makes you superior, without even the merest hint of awareness that such bravado is indicative of privilege.

I won't judge you based on what your body looks like, or make conclusions about your eating habits based on your appearance. I won't presume to know anything about your health.

I won't judge your dietary choices, because I don't know a thing about your individual dietary needs. I won't judge you favorably if you are a vegetarian or vegan (although I may judge you unfavorably if you use your own choices to shame and demean people who don't make the same ones), and I won't judge you unfavorably if you are not a vegetarian or vegan, because I know too many people whose bodies can't be sustained that way. Did you know that there are people who can't eat dairy and nuts and cruciferous vegetables? Some of them find it difficult to survive without meat proteins.

I won't judge the amount I see you eating, if I have the pleasure of dining with you, or the groceries in your cart, or your order at a restaurant. I won't judge you if you have dessert. I won't judge you if you pass on dessert, either.

I won't presume that what's best for me and my body is necessarily the best for you and your body, or that what works for me will work for you, because we are different people with different needs, and I respect that you know yourself better than I do. I respect you as an authority on your own life.

I will never offer you unsolicited advice about food, or your health, or your appearance. (Although I would love to trade recipes with you, if you're interested!) I will never comment on your weight—not that it is too much, and not that it is too little, and not that you look like you've gained weight, and not that you look like you've lost weight.

I will never treat weight loss as a reason to compliment you, because I don't know why you've lost weight, or if you even wanted to, or if maybe you're sick. And because you looked great to me before and you look great to me now.

I will not judge you if you are a "good fatty," or even a "good" thin person, who can afford to buy and prepare and eat the foods we mark as healthy (even though there is no universal thing, owing to food allergies and the like) and who is able and has the time and opportunity to exercise. I will not judge you if you're "bad," either.

I will not judge you if you have disordered eating. I will not judge you if you overeat, by your own definition, for emotional reasons. (Nor if you undereat, by your own definition, for emotional reasons.) I will listen if you need someone to talk to about that, and I won't judge you.

I will listen from here to eternity and back again to someone who wants to honestly discuss their emotional realities, but I will not listen to you berate yourself about your eating habits or your appearance, and I will not listen to you talk endlessly about your calorie consumption, and I will not listen to any other manner of "diet talk," and I will not respond when you are fishing for compliments by putting yourself down, and I will not keep quiet when you tell me that you "feel fat," and I will not tell you whether you look fat in those jeans.

And I won't listen to you talk shit about other people's eating habits or bodies. And I won't let you do it to me.

But if you want to talk about your personal insecurities, or the cultural pressures that reinforce those insecurities, or the family dynamics that contributed to those insecurities, or the trauma which is inextricably attached to them, or the bullying you survived, or the totally amazing experience you just had of wearing a bathing suit in public for the first time in years, or the tattoo you're getting to celebrate finishing your first triathlon after being told your whole life that fat people can't can't shouldn't aren't can't, I will talk with you as long as you need, and I will grieve with you and be joyful with you.

And I won't judge you.

This letter is to anyone who reads it, and this letter is to myself—the one person at whom I still levy judgments I would never aim at anyone else.

With warm acceptance,
Liss

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

A Life of Having

[Content Note: Fat hatred; weight loss talk.]

"Fat girls have fucking nothing." This is the first line of Kaye Toal's beautiful essay "How Finding a Fat FA Heroine Changed My Life." And that line—it is a true thing.

Fat girls have fucking nothing, by design. The life of a fat girl is one of being constantly admonished to lose pieces of oneself. To lose weight, certainly. But also to lose one's self-esteem. To lose one's expectations of success, of accomplishment, of contentment, of joy. To lose one's very visibility to the rest of the world.

All of these things are contingent upon getting thin. And if you don't get thin, if you don't lose weight, you instead continue to lose more and more of yourself, under a metric fuckton of hatred and contempt of fat people.

You don't get to define yourself. You don't get the presumption of competence, or intelligence, or wit. You don't get invitations, or promotions, or fashionable clothes that fit you. You don't get to be confident. You don't get to be beautiful, or sexy, or desired. You don't get to date. You don't get to be loved.

And if you have the unmitigated temerity to take those things for yourself, in radical resistance to a culture telling you that you aren't allowed to have them, you get abuse.

Abuse is the one thing fat girls always have, in bountiful abundance.

Lose weight. Stop eating. Deny your sexuality. Hide yourself. Don't take up space. Be small. Be invisible. Be quiet. Don't eat that. Don't move in public. Don't make a scene. Don't wear that. Put down the fork. Lower your expectations. Lower your voice. Keep your thoughts to yourself. Cover your body. Quit making people uncomfortable. Lose weight. Get lost. Lose yourself.

Being a fat girl is a life of deprivation, until you are left with nothing.

Because you either lose weight, or you will lose everything else. Every other thing that can be taken from you, by force or neglect or aggressive cruelty.

You don't have anything, and you don't deserve anything.

What you get is a constant drumbeat of messaging that you will—and should—live a terrible, unfulfilling, limited life because you are fat.

You get a tiny little cage, in which you're meant to stay unless you can change your body and squeeze through the bars.

You get the tools to reinforce the iron frame of your own confinement, but not the tools to break free.

Unless you happen to stumble upon fat acceptance.

Fat acceptance might feel like the first gift you've ever gotten, the first gift designed and selected just for you, and carefully wrapped in shimmering paper of your favorite colors. It feels precious and exotic and invigorating, like fresh air reaching the deepest part of your lungs after too long underwater.

Because fat acceptance might be the first thing that any fat girl experiences that doesn't want to diminish her; doesn't want to take something away from her—but instead wants to give her something.

Wants to give her life.

When I first encountered fat acceptance, and fat advocacy, I didn't have fucking nothing anymore. Suddenly, like the burst of colorful light from an exploding firework shattering the darkness of the night sky, I had something.

I had confirmation of my humanity, and validation of my suspicion that I actually did deserve to have things, to be things, to be.

I had access to people who looked like me and valued themselves and other people like us. I had a map to take me on a journey to having more and more and more. I had a filter through which to look at the life I was already living, and see that it mattered—see that my life "counted," even while I was living it in a fat body.

I had freedom from shame and anxiety and rigidly self-imposed (and externally imposed) boundaries around what I could and couldn't do, who I could and couldn't be.

I had my life. I had my voice. I had myself.

I had a chance, an opportunity, a way to open up the tightly-closed vault sitting in my chest to people who wanted to fill it with good things.

And I had desire for more. Everything that had been taken from me, or that I'd conceded because I felt like I didn't deserve it, or for which I hadn't reached because I felt like I hadn't earned the right since I wasn't thin.

I wanted it all. And I still want it all.

I want it all for me, and I want it all for every other fat girl.

I want none of us to ever live a life of losing. Of being told to lose weight, of trying to lose weight just to deserve, of losing pieces of ourselves in increments as penance for not losing weight.

I want us to live a life of having.

Having what we deserve and what we want, whatever that looks like for us as individual people.

I am not losing and lost anymore.

I have. I have confidence. I have self-worth. I have freedom from the obligation to apologize for my existence with reflexive self-loathing. I have a job that is meaningful to me. I have friends who I love with enough love to fill galaxies, and who love me right back. I have game nights, bad movie nights, make love 'til dawn nights. I have problems, but they are problems of any life, not a life I feel is less than. I have the best cats and dogs. I have a home with a warm red wall. I have clothes that I like and that fit my body. I have tattoos. I have wacky hair. I have a partner who complements me, and who takes my face in his freckled hands and looks at me with gold-flecked green eyes so full of abundant knowing and affection that my heart feels like it will burst right out of my chest. I have safety in that space. I have contentment. I have the gift of having.

I am a fat girl who fucking has.

And the only thing I lose now, because I am fat, is anyone who wants to deny me the right to have what I need to be whole.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

An Observation

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

Fat haters think that fat advocacy is about asking people to like you.

No.

Fat advocacy is about asking people to respect you. And about liking yourself, irrespective of whether anyone else does.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Fatsronauts 101: Choosing to Be Fat Is Okay

[Content Note: Fat hatred; disordered eating.]

Something that comes up a lot in conversations about privilege and marginalization is that marginalized people don't have a choice over their identities, either by virtue of birth or circumstance. This is a crucial step beyond the rhetoric of bootstraps, in which marginalized people are expected to will their way to privilege by hard work and conformity.

But it is also important to move beyond the idea of not having a choice, because it tends to suggest if marginalized people could choose to magically manifest the privileged characteristic, they should or would definitely want to. And also because, in some cases, marginalized people do have a choice, which they are not obliged to make.

This is extremely relevant to discussions of fat people.

It is absolutely a true thing that some fat people have no control over being fat, either because that's how our bodies work, or because of environmental factors, or because of a medicine we take for a medical issue, or whatever.

But I also want to note that fat people don't owe being thin to anyone else.

It has to be okay for people to choose to be fat, even if we do have control over it.

I know it's tremendously difficult for lots of thin people (and even many fat people) to understand, but some fat people want to be fat.

Among the wide spectrum of humanity, there are people who simply prefer the way their bodies look when they are fat. There are women who like being fat because they are left alone by men more. There are actors who aren't handsome enough to play leads and get more work if they're fat. There are all sorts of reasons that some people actively want to be fat.

And there are plenty of fat people who just don't want to be thin. (Which may or may not coexist with actively wanting to be fat.) People for whom losing weight would reactivate disordered eating. People for whom losing weight would disassociate them from an identity very tied to their being fat. People who simply can't afford to buy a whole new goddamn wardrobe if they lose weight.

I have no interest in losing weight at this point in my life. Coming to love my body has been hard fucking won, and I do love it. I don't want to change it. I don't want to even contemplate having to love a whole new body all over again—and, contrary to popular belief, that my body would immediately be lovable to me if it were a thin body is not accurate.

My body would change. I would probably have loose skin and I would l look older and my breasts would change and there are parts of my body I wouldn't even recognize. That would be a whole new body, and it would demand a whole new process of coming to love the things that my culture tells me are imperfect and ugly and wrong.

I have no interest in that, when I am perfectly content as I am.

I have two female friends who have lost a significant amount of weight, and both of them have talked to me about what a mind-fuck it is, to have people be nice to them, who never would have been nice to them before. People who were never nice to them. It makes one see the world differently. I don't have any interest in processing that shit, just to be thin.

I don't want to lose weight, even if I could. And I need for that to be okay. With my doctors and with everyone else.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Fat and Happy

[Content Note: Fat bias.]

"Fat and happy" is an interesting phrase. It's interesting because it's an idiom that means, in its common usage, lazy and content with indecency, or incompetency, or some other sort of insufficiency. It's interesting because it's an idiom deployed with sarcasm, indicating that fat and happy isn't ever a good state in which to find oneself.

If you're "fat and happy," something's wrong with you.

And if you're literally fat and happy, well, you must be lying. So goes the common narrative that any fat person, especially a fat woman, who claims to be happy is projecting a false contentment.

There's no way, assert the people who routinely challenge fat people's claims of happiness in our lives, that any fat person can really be happy.

And, truth be told, it's hard. It's really hard.

Sometimes it's impossible. And no fat person owes anyone else their happiness, any more than they owe anyone else their thinness. This is certainly not a piece suggesting that fat people have to be happy; it's a piece arguing that it's foolish and cruel to suggest that we can't be.

Happiness is hard for many people. Maybe everyone. It's not a fixed state. There are very few people, if any, who can say they are happy all the time.

But what fat people are told, loudly and often, is that it's inconceivable that we can be happy—or achieve any semblance of whatever variation thereof is under debate: contentment, satisfaction, joy, self-esteem—because no one can truly be fat and happy.

Bullshit.

The thing is, it's virtually impossible to persuade someone who insists that a fat person can't be happy. People who try to convince others of their own happiness rarely come off sounding happy in the end, anyway—even if they are.

So I won't insist that I'm happy. I will, however, note that I'm lucky. A very, very fortunate girl—blessed by chance, touched warmly by the fingertips of providence. The fates shine on me.

You see, when people tell me that no one who's fat can be happy, luckily, I don't give a shit.

Luckily, I don't give a shit whether anyone believes I'm happy or not. I don't give a shit whether anyone believes I am happy, I don't give a shit whether anyone thinks I should be happy, and I really don't give a shit whether anyone thinks I would be happier if I looked different than I do.

Luckily, I'm all smiling, contented apathy in response to their furrowed brows, their firm insistence that I couldn't possibly be happy, given my big fat arse and my double chin and my stretch marks and my wobbly upper arms.

Luckily, I'm nothing but a chuckle personified at their sad desperation to prove that I'm secretly unhappy.

Funny thing, though—one of the main reasons I am happy is because I don't give a shit about what they think. That freedom from the oppressive shame they want to impose on people who look like me is itself a happiness.

And—spoiler alert!—it wasn't really just luck at all that I ended up with that freedom, although I am indeed lucky to have found supportive fat community; it was hard work and the will, the undiscouragable determination, to love myself and my body—my big, imperfect, transgressive body—for exactly what it is, whatever that may be.

It shouldn't require hard work and will, but it does—because everything around us is designed to subvert the profoundly rewarding and nourishing act of self-satisfaction. Of happiness.

The psychological freedom of caring about oneself, instead of caring about the happiness auditing of exhausting old shame-mavens, is pure joy.

The arbiters of my emotional life can believe whatever they need to believe to make them happy. Me—I'll be over here, blissfully indifferent and happy-go-lucky. Because that's what I've chosen to be, and I won't be denied the splendor of this freedom by anyone.

Especially not people who seek who dehumanize me by insisting that I do not have access to the full spectrum of human emotions, because of my deviant body.

As I've said many times before: It remains a radical act to be fat and happy. If you're fat, you're not only meant to be unhappy, but deeply ashamed of yourself, projecting at all times an apologetic nature, indicative of your everlasting remorse for having wrought your monstrous self upon the world. You are certainly not meant to be bold, or assertive, or confident—and should you manage to overcome the constant drumbeat of messages that you are ugly and unsexy and have earned equally society's disdain and your own self-hatred, should you forget your place and walk into the world one day with your head held high, you are to be reminded by the cow-calls and contemptuous looks of perfect strangers that you are not supposed to have self-esteem; you don't deserve it. Being publicly fat and happy is hard; being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy is an act of both will and bravery.

I choose to be brave. That makes me happy.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

What Does He See in Her?

[Content Note: Fat bias.]

I have never been body-shamed by a person I was dating.

None of my partners have ever made me feel like I should be ashamed of my body; none of them have suggested I lose weight; none of them have ever shown me the slightest hint of being anything less than content with my body, nor implied that I should be anything less than content myself.

That makes me a very lucky fat woman indeed. A lucky woman, full-stop.

Despite this good fortune, my fatness has still been Cause for Concern in my relationships. Or, rather, outside my relationships.

I have been partnered with men who were nervous to introduce me to their friends—not because they were ashamed of me, but because they were ashamed of their friends, who they had heard fat-shame women for years. Because they were afraid their friends would fat-shame me, would embarrass themselves and hurt me.

I have had to tell them, "You let me worry about that. You can't protect me from a world that hates my body."

I have been partnered with men whose parents expressed concern to them—never to me; never is anyone brave enough to confront me directly—that my fat will reflect poorly on their sons. That my fat is contagious, will make them fat or has made them fat.

I have been partnered with men whose coworkers and bosses make sneering comments about fat people, about fat women. Whose faces burn red as comments about fat women are made feet away from my picture on a desk.

I have been partnered with men who don't know what to do when a car full of young men screams profanity-laced tirades about my fatness out of passing car windows. Or, sometimes, directs their ire at the man by my side.

Iain is keenly aware of the judgments made against me for my body, made against him for being with me. Judgments made by other people. He knows, as well as I do, that the fact my body is not an issue inside our relationship doesn't mean it isn't an issue at all.

It's just not an issue between us.

The truth about being a fat woman partnered with a man is that your partner can be the most loving, supportive, nonjudgmental, enthusiastic partner it is possible to be, but that doesn't stop other people from policing the fuck out of your relationship.

It doesn't stop the stereotypes, the criticisms, the reflexive conclusions about there being something "wrong" with your relationship, especially if your male partner is deemed to be "capable of getting someone better." It doesn't stop the comments, the jokes, the invasive inquiries about how fat people have sex.

It doesn't stop people talking about the things you never feel obliged to talk about yourself.

There never comes a time when anyone and everyone who looks at your relationship sees that it makes sense, because you are well-suited for one another, because you love each other, because you are happy and fulfilled.

I am soon to celebrate my 12th wedding anniversary with Iain, and, still, there are people in our lives, people who know us, who are perplexed by why he is with me. Why he has settled.

For this fat body. Which is all they see.

They don't see that I am accomplished, smart, funny. That there are lots of reasons for him to love me. That he is attracted to me, and I to him. That I love and respect and am proud of him. That we simply enjoy the hell out of each other.

My fat body renders all of that invisible. Irrelevant.

What does he see in her? they wonder. And they will never know, because they can't see past my fat.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

An Observation

[Content Note: Fat shaming.]

I have touched on this previously, but it bears repeating: If you are a person who shames fat people under the auspices of concern for our health, you are not only a bully but a liar. Fat shaming does not improve fat people's physical health, and in fact is extremely likely to have a deleterious effect on our psychological health.

Just stop. Stop.

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Shut Up!

Taking Up Space

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

The great fat activist Marilyn Wann once said: "The only thing that anyone can diagnose, with any certainty, by looking at a fat person, is their own level of stereotype and prejudice toward fat people."

I love that quote. For a lot of reasons.

Once of them is because it has helped me understand as a fat person at whom someone is looking, their discernible prejudice toward fat people is their problem, not mine.

There was a time when I was looked at, when I could sense that palpable prejudice, and I would shrink into myself. And now, I don't. I stand my ground, and I look back.

Recently, a friend of a friend was telling me a terrific (not terrific) story about how gross fat people are. Like most stories of this nature, the anonymous fat strangers that were the source of his ire seemed predominantly guilty of taking up space. In public. Where his delicate eyes were forced to behold them.

He was telling the story in that way of a perfectly rehearsed anecdote; it was a story he had told a lot, so often that it did not occur to him that he was telling it to a fat person, who was looking back, meeting his story with an expression he was not used to seeing.

Sometimes, when this happens, when a thin person realizes that they've just disgorged a bunch of rank fat hatred right into my fat face, they apologize. Often in a way that exacerbates the offense. But mostly, they try to convince me that they're not talking about me. That those other fat people were gross in a way that I'm not.

They attempt to turn me into an Exceptional Fatty, in order to absolve themselves of their own fat hatred.

Often, they try to accomplish this by saying, "I don't mean someone who's your size. I mean way fatter." As if that makes it okay. As if I am not very fat.

The friend of a friend didn't even bother trying to use words to convey this idea. When he caught my level, uncompromising gaze, he simply used a gesture. The International Sign for Fat People: Arms out in front of his belly in a big circle, cheeks puffed out, rocking side-to-side.

From that, that absurd gesture that many children learn in Christmas pageant choreography for songs about Santa Claus, I was meant to understand he meant someone really fat. As if that made it okay. As if I am not really fat.

He went on with his story. I maintained my steady gaze. Eventually, he finished his story.

"That sounds terrible for you," I told him.

I looked back at the person looking at me. And I knew his prejudice toward fat people. Toward me. And I didn't shrink.

I took up space.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

#notyourgoodfatty

[Content Note: Fat bias.]

In fat advocacy, there's something called Playing the Good Fatty, which, first of all, is something even many of the most radical of fat advocates have done themselves before, so there's no need to feel terrible if you think, "Shit, I've done that" or "Shit, I do that." It's essentially the fat equivalent of Playing the Exceptional Woman—exceptionalizing yourself to gain acceptance with the privileged class.

Like the Exceptional Woman, who exists somewhere between a woman who explicitly seeks to uphold the Patriarchy and a fully-fledged feminist, the Good Fatty is someone who exists somewhere between the fat person with desperate desire to be thin and a fully-fledged radical fatty. It's a space many of us tend to occupy on our way to freedom, when we know we want more, but haven't quite jettisoned the self-loathing, or self-doubt, or shame, or willingness to offend in defense of our own humanity, in order to seek community.

Playing the Good Fatty might entail talking about how you totally eat healthy all the time, or totally work out regularly, or totally have "great numbers" (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.), or totally make sure you wear clothes that aren't too revealing.

It's basically saying: I'm not one of THOSE fatties. You know, the ones we're always hearing about, with their eating whole pizzas and destroying the healthcare system and stuff.

The transition from Good Fatty to Radical Fatty is when you decide it doesn't matter why someone is fat. That fat people's rights aren't contingent on anything else but our humanity.

So, last night, Amanda Levitt and mazzie were having a supportive conversation that prompted mazzie to use #notyourgoodfatty in reply to Amanda. And the #notyourgoodfatty hashtag was born.

And it is AMAZING.

(I will note that, as always, there are people trolling the hashtag. Because of course there are. But fuck them.)

Last night, I fired off a few of my own #notyourgoodfatty tweets:

If you troll my body, I'll laugh contemptuously, not apologize, & not give an infinitesimal speck of shit what you think. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

I will not wear sleeves for your comfort. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

I will love my body so much that I decorate it with beautiful tattoos. And then wear clothes that show them off. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

I will never, ever, feel obliged to defend, justify, or itemize what I eat. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

I will never react to "calories in calories out!" with anything but mirthless laughter. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

If you think my fat says something about my character, I'll pretty definitely think you're a dipshit. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

I will laugh loud enough with my fat friends to make you give us dirty looks. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

I will never affect shame of myself to indulge fantasies that happiness is the exclusive province of the not-fat. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

I will be perfectly content with my fatness. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

I will take. up. space. #notyourgoodfatty (link)

* * *

See the entire (and ongoing!) hashtag here. Major fat-fives to mazzie and Amanda. LADIES. ♥

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Shut Up!

I Get Letters

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

One of the most frequently leveled charges against people who do fat advocacy is that we don't care about fat people's health, that encouraging people to love themselves and live their lives and not hate their bodies is tacitly encouraging people to be unhealthy.

(Never mind that fat does not axiomatically equal unhealthy.)

Yesterday, I received this email from a Shaker, who wishes to remain anonymous but who gave me hir consent to share its contents:

Hi Melissa,

I'm a long time lurker/reader on Shakesville and wanted to thank you for all that you and the Shakesville community have done to educate me on my internalized fat-phobia/fat shaming.

Reading Shakesville is what convinced me that my doctors were wrong, that the excruciating pain I felt when I walked was NOT because I was fat. You made me look at myself and say, "Wait, why do I believe that I'm lazy about this when I work 80+ hours a week?" Your writing gave me permission to believe that I deserved to be able to walk without pain, that the stabbing pains I had in my lower leg were not punishment for being fat, but an indication that something was seriously wrong and my body needed help.

I found a solution because of you. Not because of doctors. Not because of medicine. Because you and Shakesville told me I deserved it.

Thank you so much.

[Name Redacted]

I do fat advocacy because I care about fat people's health.

And anyone who purports to be concerned about fat people's health will stop trying to demonize our bodies and shame us for having them, and instead get on board with the idea that there is little incentive to take care of a body you hate, that fat hatred is a barrier to seeking care, that fat hatred kills.

---

My inbox is always open, if you need emotional support in seeking healthcare while navigating fat hatred.

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Shut Up!

I Feel the Breeze

Every year, Batocchio solicits submissions for the Jon Swift Memorial Roundup (The Best Posts of the Year), a tradition started by Jon Swift/Al Weisel, who, before his death, did an annual round-up of the "Best Posts of the Year, Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves." Batocchio says: "Jon/Al left behind some wonderful satire, but was also a nice guy and a strong supporter of small blogs. (Here's Jon/Al's 2007 and 2008 editions and the revivals from 2010, 2011 and 2012.)" I always submit something to what turns out to be an amazing collection of writing. This year, I submitted the below piece, originally published in July. I'm not sure it's strictly the best thing I wrote all year, but it was definitely one of the most meaningful to me.

---

[Content Note: Fat bias; body policing.]

2008. I wear a bathing suit in public for the first time in many years, because Iain surprises me with a holiday for my birthday on which there will be swimming. Which I love. I haven't been swimming in years. I have been to the beach—there is a beautiful beach just minutes from our house. But I have gone to the beach in shorts and a t-shirt, and I have waded in the water, and I have not swam.

I am tired of not swimming.

I put on my new bathing suit, and I walk outdoors, and I feel the breeze on my skin. It is like a memory coming back to me. My skin reacts with goosebumps, although I am not chilled. I stand for a moment, with my face lifted toward the sun, and let my skin reacquaint itself with the breeze crawling around me. My entire body feels like a foot freed from a too-tight sock at the end of a long day.

I walk to the water and I slip into its cool embrace and I float. The wind caresses me, welcomes me back. I feel tears begin to slip down my cheeks, and I quickly wipe them away, so no one will see my private regret that I have denied myself this pleasure, this permission to feel the breeze, for so many years.

2010. I am running errands, and it is the middle of summer, and it is hot. So hot. I am wearing a tank top I love, knit chevrons of turquoise and navy and white and gold, covered by a cropped sweater. I cannot bear the heat, but I don't go out with uncovered arms in public. My arms are too fat.

Suddenly the urge to be less hot overwhelms my self-consciousness about my fat arms. I ditch the sweater and walk across the parking lot with my arms uncovered. A black woman who is almost my exact same size, wearing a tank top under a jean jacket on this hot day, is walking to her car, parked beside mine. We smile at each other. "Cute top!" she says. I tell her thank you so much, and I give her a grateful smile that she understands. I want to hug her. I want to tell her that she can never know what it means that she said that exact thing in that exact moment.

I walk to the front door of the store, swinging my fat arms with the stride of a person who is allowed to take up space in the world. Like a person who is wearing a cute top. I feel the breeze on my bare arms.

2011. I cut off my hair. I tell my hairdresser I am okay with accentuating my round face, and I am okay with my double chin being more prominent, and I am okay with the melasmas on my cheeks and neck, and I want short hair. I advocate for the short haircut I've been told fat women aren't supposed to have.

I walk out of the salon with my fancy $20 haircut, and I feel the breeze on the back of my neck.

2013. I get my first tattoo. And then my second. They are places where they are seen, seen on my fat body, and I have the uncustomary experience of having people look at my fat body with admiration. I didn't expect this, and I'm not prepared for it. I am shy when people touch my arms and tell me that something on my body is beautiful.

A few weeks ago, I go to the doctor, and two of the nurses admire my tattoos. They ask for the tattoo artist's name and information, which I happily share.

I leave the doctor's office and go to the drugstore to fill a prescription, where the pharmacist admires my tattoos. On the way home, I go through a drive-through at a cafe for iced coffee. When I reach out my arm to pay, the young white girl working the window asks if she can see my tattoo, the one with the Virginia Woolf quote. I extend my arm and she leans in to look at it. She takes my hand between hers and holds it, my arm extended from my car window to the drive-through window, and I feel the breeze drifting across my skin as she tells me that my tattoo is beautiful.

She passes me paper and a pen through the window, and I write down the artist's name and number for her.

I drive home with the windows down. The warm air comes through the windows. I feel it on my bare arms, my tattooed arms, and on my face, and on the back of my neck. All of this skin that I hid under hair and clothes, because I was told that I should. Because I believed that I should. Because I was apologizing to people who hate my body, who want to deny me the breeze.

I love the breeze. I missed it so.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

This inspires me to point something out to my more liberal readers. Remember that particularly clueless right-wing acquaintance of yours? The one who believes that anybody in America can become rich, because he thinks about poverty in a completely unscientific, anecdotal way, which allows him to treat the exceptional case as typical? The one who can't seem to understand the simplest structural arguments about the nature of social inequality?

The next time you see some fat people and get disgusted by their failure to "take care of themselves," think about your clueless friend.

—Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth.

This is actually an old quote from a column Campos wrote back when he was writing for the Rocky Mountain News (and the column itself no longer appears to be online), but I like to whip it out from time to time because YES.

Fat bootstraps, friends.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Selfies

I've got fuck-all to say about that garbage selfies @Jezebel article but this: Selfies have been vital to my self-esteem as a fat woman.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 21, 2013

And it's not because I "rely on others to bestow [my] self-worth on [me]," nor because "they're a reflection of the warped way we teach girls to see themselves as decorative." It's because looking at myself through my own eyes is how I came to love myself in spite of overwhelmingly pervasive messaging telling me I shouldn't.

Also, I will note that I grew up having my picture taken all the time without my consent, and/or being cajoled into posing for pictures I didn't want taken. Selfies feel safe to me in a way that most photographs don't. There are no consent issues or breaching of boundaries during the taking of selfies. That's important to me—and, I expect, to a lot of other people, too.

[I am not linking to the article. You can find it easily enough via Google, if you are so inclined.]

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Shut Up!

I Wouldn't Even if I Could

[Content Note: Fat hatred; diet talk; sexual violence.]

"Just ignore it."

This is advice I have been given on countless occasions, regarding the abundant fat hatred that permeates every aspect, every crevice, of our culture. It is offered by people who love me, and don't want me to be hurt by the messages that tell me I am less than, that I am weak and lazy and grotesque and worthless, and it is offered by people who hate me, who want to be able to disgorge their hostility toward people who look like me without evidence of consequence, who seek to oblige me to stop taking all the fun out of their bigotry.

It is offered by people who believe that my having a reaction, any sort of reaction at all, to being demeaned, is evidence of over-sensitivity. Never is it evidence that someone who engages in fat hatred is not sensitive enough.

It is offered by people who tell me that I shouldn't be offended, or don't have a right to be—people who mistake for offense what is actually contempt.

It is offered by people who believe that urging me to ignore fat hatred is a way of protecting me, even though what "ignore" effectively means is "do not publicly react to." Don't acknowledge it. Don't process your feelings about it. Don't say out loud, certainly not out loud, that it's wrong. That would just make everyone uncomfortable.

Better that I alone should be uncomfortable instead.

Reacting only empowers the bullies, say well-meaning people, who I know to be intelligent enough to understand that this is not true. Failing to react, silence, empowers bullies. Letting bullying go unchallenged empowers bullies. A lack of accountability empowers bullies. But my reacting makes everyone squirm, so that is why I am told that reacting would be A Bad Thing.

Reacting is not A Bad Thing. Self-defense is not A Bad Thing. Dignity, humanity, self-esteem are not Bad Things.

Just ignore it.

Just ignore it and trade my dignity, my humanity, my self-esteem for your temporary comfort.

Just ignore it, because we wouldn't want things to get awkward.

For the people who have made me a target.

Embedded in this advice, this recommendation to just ignore it, is the implication—an accusation—that there's something wrong with me if I fail to ignore it. That this is something I should be able to do.

It is a thing said, an accusation made, by people who do not understand what they are suggesting.

Ignore the body shaming and food policing and fat hatred, self-directed or aimed at others, which are routine parts of conversations with family members and friends.

Ignore the adverts—on social media, on news sites, on billboards, on radio, on television, in newspapers, in magazine, on the sides of buses, anywhere and everywhere that an advertisement can be placed—for weight loss drugs and diet plans and workout regimens and body-shaping clothing and bariatric surgeries and liposuction and all the new and shiny ways in which I can (and should!) mutilate my body in order to look more aesthetically pleasing.

Ignore the fat jokes and weight-based bullying that goes on around me all the time. Ignore it when it gets shouted at me from passing cars. Ignore it when it shows up in every single show I watch on television, even the ones that are supposed to be anti-bullying, pro-diversity, centered around some belief in kindness. Ignore it when it's in my Twitter feed. Ignore it when it's in this hilarious new meme that Progressive Celebrity just posted on Facebook. Ignore it in nearly every film I watch. Ignore it in the comments of my own blog. Ignore it in the comments of most blogs. Ignore it on the comments of my YouTube videos, where people can't wait to let me know I'm fat, as if I may not have noticed. Ignore it in my inbox. Ignore the fat jokes and weight-based bullying everywhere I look and listen.

Ignore the dearth of positive images of fat people. Ignore that the most visible images of fat people I see are the "headless fatties" accompanying news reports about the "war on obesity." Ignore that I live in a culture where there is a "war on obesity."

Ignore dehumanizing and eliminationist campaigns against fat people. Ignore the ones that are not overtly eliminationist, but simply ask fat people to make our bodies do things they cannot do so we can turn ourselves into people we are not. And ignore the ones that are explicitly eliminationist—the ones that suggest fat people should be rounded up and dispatched, before we ruin the country.

Ignore fat hatred at my doctor's office. Ignore it when I'm shopping for clothes. Ignore it when I'm eating in public. Ignore it when I'm grocery shopping. Ignore it when I'm getting on an airplane. Ignore it when I'm sitting on a bus. Ignore it when I'm standing in line at the post office, or buying coffee, or doing any one of the dozens of ordinary tasks that any person does which can turn into a gauntlet of glares and stares and sneers and comments just because I am fat.

Ignore the things I am not allowed to do, the places I can't fit, because I am fat. Ignore the things I'm told overtly that fat women "don't" or "can't" or "shouldn't" do, and the things I'm not so subtly discouraged from doing, and the things I can't do, like buy a Halloween costume in a local store that isn't just a giant sack, because I am fat.

Ignore the people who tell me no one would rape me because I am fat. (Whoops.) Ignore the people who tell me I should be raped because I am fat.

Ignore the constant conflations of fatness with evil and stupidity. No better way to show that a character is a villain, or a rube, than to make hir enormously fat.

Ignore the people who send me long and detailed missives about what my sex life with my husband must be like, because I am fat. Ignore the people who send me emails to tell me my husband probably doesn't fuck me at all, because I am fat. Ignore the people who email to me tell me he isn't attracted to me because I am fat. Ignore the people who email me to tell me he is only attracted to me because I am fat.

Ignore the things I know to be true—that fat people have a more difficult time getting hired, that fat people make less money, that fat people are passed over for promotions, that fat people are viewed by bosses and colleagues as lazier and less ambitious than their coworkers; that fat people have a more difficult time accessing healthcare and getting the right diagnoses; that fat people are charged more for products and services when there is no valid justification for it.

Ignore that it's still totally okay for a thin actor to wear a fat suit.

Ignore every time I hear someone wish the worst curse of which they can conceive on another person: "I hope zie gets FAT."

Ignore the cruelty I see directed at other fat people all the time. Ignore when someone exceptionalizes me. I didn't mean you. Ignore that I am constantly obliged to participate in my own marginalization and/or the marginalization of others.

Ignore that many people underestimate me because I'm fat. That they think I am not as smart as I am, or not as strong as I am, or not as hardworking as I am, or not as clean as I am, or not as loved as I am. Ignore that these prejudices influence my life, and my opportunities, in ways I don't even always know, can't even always identify.

Ignore all of these things, and all of the things I haven't put into words.

Tell me, I say to the person urging me to "just ignore it." What would it take for you to 'ignore" what you encounter virtually every moment of your every day?

I can't ignore it. And I wouldn't even if I could.

Who I am, who I want to be, depends on my not ignoring that I am despised. Who I am depends on my greeting that hatred head-on, and pushing back on it with all the strength in my strong, tough, fat body.

I will not behave like a person who isn't full of gumption. I will walk into the world each day with my head held high, and I will react when someone tries to lower my chin and slow my stride.

I will not just ignore it. Don't even ask me to try.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Fatsronauts 101: How Can I Love My Body?

[Content Note: Discussion of fat bias; self-image.]

Shaker M emailed me to ask if I had any suggestions for concrete steps a fat woman who wants very much to love her body can take to start that journey.

(Please note: No one is required to feel any particular way about hir own body. This piece is specifically geared toward people who want to love their bodies as they are. It may also not be particularly helpful to people with body dysmorphic disorders or fear of/lack of access to cameras.)

And I do have suggestions! Or, at least, I can share with you some things that I've done which have been helpful.

First of all, I want to mention two experiences that a lot of fat people have shared with me, both of which are also things I've experienced myself:

1. The experience of seeing old pictures of oneself and thinking, "I looked fine there, and I thought I looked terrible at the time!" And/or: "I wish I could go back and tell myself then that I shouldn't be concerned about how I look."

2. The experience of seeing pictures of other fat people, of the same size as or larger than oneself, and thinking how beautiful they look. Or, at the very least, failing to hold them to the same negative judgments one holds oneself.

Notice that both of these center around images, and judgment of people in images. That's not coincidental. Because seeing ourselves realistically, seeing ourselves as we actually are, is a key tool is loving ourselves. We can't love ourselves as we are if we don't acknowledge what our bodies really look like.

I used to loathe having my photograph taken (for reasons aside from my appearance), but allowing my picture to be taken, taking pictures of myself, and asking for pictures to be taken by people I trust in moments I was feeling confident, and then looking—really looking—at myself in those photos, and also in videos, helped give me a better perspective on what I actually look like, as opposed to what I imagined myself to look like (which was always way worse than the reality).

Me, chilling on the porch, working on my greys.
At first it was hard, because I was judging myself not based on what I was actually feeling about my own body, but about what I was supposed to feel based on the biebillion metric fucktons of fat bias with which I'd been indoctrinated. I wasn't assessing how I looked to myself as much I was how I am perceived by others.

Back to those two aforementioned experiences, then:

1. I realized that this picture, in this moment, would in future look to me the same way I was looking at old pictures of myself. I resolved that I would not wait until the future to tell the present me to love how I look in this moment.

2. I realized that if this picture was of anyone else, I would not judge the person in the photo the way I judge myself. What if this was some other woman? What would you say about her? I resolved that I would not assess my own pictures with negative judgments I would never in a million years wield against another person.

With these resolutions in mind, I saw pictures of myself in a new way. I saw them through gentler eyes. And without the filter of judgment my culture exhorts me to use, using the standards of love and acceptance I would extend to any other person, photos of myself actually looked different to me. Literally different. I saw myself in a way I had never seen myself before. It was a genuine revelation.

I am not the first fat activist to make this suggestion. There are many amazing woman and men who have written about the value of taking pictures of oneself in order to facilitate a realistic (and lovable!) self-image. It is a widely recommended strategy because it tends to be an effective one for a lot of folks. We are taught to be afraid of seeing ourselves as we really are, but it only really looking at ourselves that we see our true selves, and not a self onto which we project narratives of hatred and shame as we quickly look away from a photo, from the mirror.

This is not an easy journey. And I want to say again, because I feel like I can't say it enough: There's nothing wrong with you for not feeling brave every day. There's something wrong with a world that necessitates our having bravery to participate in it.

In those moments where you are feeling brave, though...take a picture.

[Note: I realize that this suggestion is not helpful for people with visual disabilities that make photographs and video useless tools. I welcome and encourage suggestions on applications/variations that would work for Shakers with visual disabilities.]

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

I Feel the Breeze

[Content Note: Fat bias; body policing.]

2008. I wear a bathing suit in public for the first time in many years, because Iain surprises me with a holiday for my birthday on which there will be swimming. Which I love. I haven't been swimming in years. I have been to the beach—there is a beautiful beach just minutes from our house. But I have gone to the beach in shorts and a t-shirt, and I have waded in the water, and I have not swam.

I am tired of not swimming.

I put on my new bathing suit, and I walk outdoors, and I feel the breeze on my skin. It is like a memory coming back to me. My skin reacts with goosebumps, although I am not chilled. I stand for a moment, with my face lifted toward the sun, and let my skin reacquaint itself with the breeze crawling around me. My entire body feels like a foot freed from a too-tight sock at the end of a long day.

I walk to the water and I slip into its cool embrace and I float. The wind caresses me, welcomes me back. I feel tears begin to slip down my cheeks, and I quickly wipe them away, so no one will see my private regret that I have denied myself this pleasure, this permission to feel the breeze, for so many years.

2010. I am running errands, and it is the middle of summer, and it is hot. So hot. I am wearing a tank top I love, knit chevrons of turquoise and navy and white and gold, covered by a cropped sweater. I cannot bear the heat, but I don't go out with uncovered arms in public. My arms are too fat.

Suddenly the urge to be less hot overwhelms my self-consciousness about my fat arms. I ditch the sweater and walk across the parking lot with my arms uncovered. A black woman who is almost my exact same size, wearing a tank top under a jean jacket on this hot day, is walking to her car, parked beside mine. We smile at each other. "Cute top!" she says. I tell her thank you so much, and I give her a grateful smile that she understands. I want to hug her. I want to tell her that she can never know what it means that she said that exact thing in that exact moment.

I walk to the front door of the store, swinging my fat arms with the stride of a person who is allowed to take up space in the world. Like a person who is wearing a cute top. I feel the breeze on my bare arms.

2011. I cut off my hair. I tell my hairdresser I am okay with accentuating my round face, and I am okay with my double chin being more prominent, and I am okay with the melasmas on my cheeks and neck, and I want short hair. I advocate for the short haircut I've been told fat women aren't supposed to have.

I walk out of the salon with my fancy $20 haircut, and I feel the breeze on the back of my neck.

2013. I get my first tattoo. And then my second. They are places where they are seen, seen on my fat body, and I have the uncustomary experience of having people look at my fat body with admiration. I didn't expect this, and I'm not prepared for it. I am shy when people touch my arms and tell me that something on my body is beautiful.

A few weeks ago, I go to the doctor, and two of the nurses admire my tattoos. They ask for the tattoo artist's name and information, which I happily share.

I leave the doctor's office and go to the drugstore to fill a prescription, where the pharmacist admires my tattoos. On the way home, I go through a drive-through at a cafe for iced coffee. When I reach out my arm to pay, the young white girl working the window asks if she can see my tattoo, the one with the Virginia Woolf quote. I extend my arm and she leans in to look at it. She takes my hand between hers and holds it, my arm extended from my car window to the drive-through window, and I feel the breeze drifting across my skin as she tells me that my tattoo is beautiful.

She passes me paper and a pen through the window, and I write down the artist's name and number for her.

I drive home with the windows down. The warm air comes through the windows. I feel it on my bare arms, my tattooed arms, and on my face, and on the back of my neck. All of this skin that I hid under hair and clothes, because I was told that I should. Because I believed that I should. Because I was apologizing to people who hate my body, who want to deny me the breeze.

I love the breeze. I missed it so.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Fatsronauts 101: Fat in Public

[Content Note: Fat bias; body policing.]

Cat's guest post put in mind of an email I received recently from a young woman asking for advice on how to get over the fear of going in public when you are fat, knowing that people are negatively judging you as "worthless and gross." Below is the response I sent to her, which I thought might be of value to other fat people, many of whom struggle with this same fear.

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I have so been in that place where I've got huge anxiety about going in public, especially wearing certain things, because I'm afraid of how people will look at me and judge me. And let me first say that I still feel that way sometimes! One of the most difficult parts of self-acceptance, at least for me, has been giving myself permission to feel anxious sometimes, and recognizing it's not because of some inherent flaw in me—it doesn't make me any less strong or awesome because I have a reaction to pervasive fat hatred and judgment. It is simply an indication that I'm human.

So my first, and maybe most important, piece of advice for you is to go easy on yourself. There's nothing wrong with you for not feeling brave every day. There's something wrong with a world that necessitates our having bravery to participate in it.

The way I've overcome it, to the extent that I have, is to recognize that there are always going to be people who look at me because I'm worthless and gross because I'm fat. And OH WELL, lol. I can't control how other people see me. It doesn't matter what I wear or how I move or where I go or what I say—there are always going to be fat-hating dirtbags who can't see past my fat.

And once I really internalized that feeling—I can't control their bigotry, and I'm not responsible for it—I realized that I don't care what people who are bigots think of me. I don't value their opinion. Let them hate away. It's their problem, not mine.

I am sooooo self-conscious about my upper arms, of all things. Too fat to wear no sleeves—that's what I always thought. And then one day, a couple of summers ago, I was SO HOT, and I took off the little jumper I was wearing over my super cute tanktop and just went sleeveless while I was running errands. And immediately, a woman (another fat woman) passing me in a parking lot said, "What a cute top!"

I almost burst into tears, because I realized that for all the people who might be thinking, "What is she doing wearing no sleeves with arms like that?" there were also people who were thinking, "Cute top!" Or maybe even, "Hell, if she can go sleeveless, so can I!"

So I try to remember not to let the haters dictate my movements and decisions. I remember instead that there are people who don't care. Or will notice my top when it's not half-covered by a sweater in summer. Or will be inspired to love themselves a little bit more. And that gives me fuel.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!