[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by cold pizza.
Recommended Reading:
Shubhra: [Content Note: Sexual violence; misogyny; culture of abuse; racism] No One's Daughter
NPR: [CN: Anti-feminism] Detained Feminists Highlight China's Crackdown on Dissent
Ragen: [CN: Fat hatred; disordered eating] Willful Suspension of Disbelief
Carla: Google Backs Opps for Latino and Black Entrepreneurs in 3 Cities
Brian: A Clever Way to Tell Which of Your Emails Are Being Tracked
Esther: Human Bodies Glow, Proving That the World Is Weirder Than We Can Imagine
Mia: [CN: Racism; violence; descriptions of violence; spoilers for The Walking Dead] Why Are All the Black Characters Killed So Gruesomely on The Walking Dead?
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN???!!!
Rick Perry's latest hire as a top campaign staffer was embroiled in controversy in 2012 over a private email which suggested children's lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president, according to the Des Moines Register.LOL okay, player. I can't wait to hear the context in which questioning whether "God" wants a women to be president because it might hurt children makes perfect sense.
Jamie Johnson is a longtime Iowa Republican activist who was hired by former Texas governor and likely 2016 presidential candidate Rick Perry on Wednesday to organize conservatives in Iowa and other early primary states. Johnson is a member of the party's state central committee and was a staffer for Rick Santorum's caucus-winning campaign in 2012.
The controversial email, which Johnson sent to a friend in the summer of 2011 and which was then leaked to the Des Moines Register a few months later, included the question, the paper reported: "Is it God's highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will ... to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?"
...In an interview with the Guardian, Johnson emphasized both that it was a private communication and that the email in which he wrote those words was taken out of context.
He said the email was "sent to one person, speaking as a pastor, to someone who is a personal friend of mine". Johnson emphasized this was a "private message" and not intended to be shared publicly.Oh. That context.
*that face*
Daily Dose of Cute
Livs, sitting on a pillow, looking
out the window, and grooming herself.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Police brutality; torture.]
"[T]he City's Conduct was to act like the proverbial ostrich and, though aware of misconduct at Homan Square, allowed the misconduct to occur in such a manner as to permit officers: to seize, transport and secretly detain citizens at Homan Square; to detain citizens for extended periods of time while handcuffed to a bar on a cell wall; to interrogate citizens when they had not been read their Miranda rights; to deny citizens access to attorneys; to attempt to coerce false confessions out of citizens; to deny citizens the ability to tell their families of their whereabouts; to refuse citizens access to a restroom, food, or water; and to threaten citizens that they would be charged with crimes if they did not provide information."—From a lawsuit brought by John Vergara and Jose Garcia against the Chicago police on behalf of Homan Square victims. Homan Square is the detention center which has been described as "the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site."
This is the first lawsuit of its kind so far. There are likely to be others, given the vast constitutional violations which have been perpetrated by police at Homan Square.
This shit is happening in Chicago. In the center of the American heartland. To US citizens.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Class warfare] This is what class warfare actually looks like: "A new Stateline analysis shows that in all 50 states, the percentage of 'middle-class' households—those making between 67 percent and 200 percent of the state's median income—shrunk between 2000 and 2013. The change occurred even as the median income in most states declined, when adjusted for inflation. In most states, the growing percentage of households paying 30 percent (the federal standard for housing affordability) or more of their income on housing illustrates that it is increasingly difficult for many American families to make ends meet."
[CN: Death by hanging; racism; eliminationism] Um. "FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jason Pack said the FBI and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation are on the scene where a man's body was found hanging from a tree by a bed sheet in the woods near Old Rodney Road. It is unclear if the death is a homicide or a suicide, as Coroner J.W. Mallett would not release any details, stating the death is under investigation." I know they have to say that, but the man is believed to be 54-year-old Otis Byrd, a black man who has been missing since March 2. This has all the hallmarks of a lynching.
[CN: Police brutality] Leaving aside the debate about whether body cameras worn by police officers would actually have a meaningful effect on reducing police brutality: "Lawmakers in nearly a third of the states have introduced bills to restrict public access to recordings from police officer-worn body cameras." Of course they have. Which states have introduced legislation and what that legislation looks like is detailed at the link.
[CN: Disablism; racism; carcerality] Abreham Zemedagegehu is a deaf man who is able to communicate only with sign language, and after he was arrested last year, he reports being denied an interpreter during the entire six weeks he was held. Further: "He was administered a tuberculosis shot without his consent, often went hungry because he couldn't hear alerts for mealtime, and was unable to call friends or an attorney because of inadequate technology in the jail." He was "placed in a cell alone and missed many meals because he couldn't hear the alerts for mealtime and no one explained that he had to push a button to open his cell door quickly after the alerts sounded." I feel like there's there's no way, NO WAY, that in a place where every move is scrutinized for excuses for further punishment that no one noticed he wasn't eating. And by that I don't mean that I think Zemedagegehu is lying; I mean I think that the people responsible for his well-being knew but didn't care that he wasn't.
[CN: Racism; White Supremacy; slurs; violence] Tracy Clayton has written a powerful essay on being "one of few black students at a small college in Kentucky in the early 2000s. Every day I was reminded just how unwelcome I was there."
[CN: War on agency] Andrea Grimes on how increasing restrictions on abortion are "Changing the Way People Think About Self-Induced Abortions."
[CN: Christian Supremacy; homophobia] John Wright with more on the garbage "religious freedom" legislation expected to pass in Indiana next week.
[CN: Anti-choice terrorism; war on agency] A year after Susan Cahill's All Families Healthcare clinic was destroyed, the clinic still has not reopened "and its proprietor, Susan Cahill, has been out of work for a year. Patients were shifted to new health care providers, and the Flathead Valley lost its only clinic willing to perform abortions. ...For Cahill, her future is in limbo: Unable as of yet to find a space in the valley willing to rent to her, she says she can't continue her practice as a physician's assistant, even though she has decided to stop performing abortions. 'I promised my family I wasn't going to be a martyr; I've had enough. Which doesn't make me feel particularly happy,' Cahill said."
[CN: Abuse of homeless people; religion] I would say this is unbelievable, but, of course, it isn't: "St Mary's cathedral, home of the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco, has been scrambling to explain itself after local media revealed that it had installed water sprinklers above its doorways that were dousing homeless people seeking shelter in the alcoves there. Officials of the archdiocese hastily began the process of dismantling the sprinklers after the local CBS franchise, KCBS Radio, revealed that homeless people and their belongings were routinely being soaked by the automated system. The anti-homeless technique has been deployed outside commercial properties in several major cities, including San Francisco, but its use by an institution devoted to the tradition of the good Samaritan has proved more contentious." More contentious. Fucking hell. My friend sent this to me with the note: "tax. the. church." Yeah. It's long past time to revisit the church's tax exempt status.
Wow: "18 Amazing Images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope." Stunning.
Johanna Basford's adult coloring book, Secret Garden, "inspired by Scotland's Brodick Castle Gardens, where her grandfather was the head gardener," has sold over a million copies. And I can see why. Extraordinary.
Say hello to my little NOPE! "Universal is moving forward with its Scarface remake." I cannot get on board with this unless the new filmmakers promise to make the new one as PERVASIVELY PINK as the original.
And finally! March is Dolphin Awareness Month, so here are some fun facts about dolphins to celebrate one of the coolest animals in the seas!
"Hello." "Hello." "Follow Me." "Okay."
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is my favorite video game of all time, and Abe one of my favorite all-time characters, so when Iain forwarded me the news this morning that "a ground-up remake of the much-loved original Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee" will launch on Xbox One on March 27, I literally exclaimed aloud with overwhelming joy.
Marking the first outing of an Oddworld game on Xbox since Stranger's Wrath in 2005, New 'n' Tasty is a ground-up remake of the much-loved original Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, developed by Just Add Water (Development) Ltd.I loooooove that this is a remake of the original, because one of the things I adored about the original was the theme of resistance and liberation. I am SO EXCITED to play this! Yayayayayay!
A cinematic platform adventure, New 'n' Tasty tells the tale of Abe, a hapless Mudokon who learns that his fellow meat factory co-workers are to be the main ingredients in the company's next line of tasty treats.
Abe must escape RuptureFarms and beyond, liberating as many of his fellow workers as he can. Along the way, he'll learn the secrets of his civilization and journey across perilous lands filled with dangerous creatures and lethal traps before returning to the sinister meat factory to put right the injustices faced by his long suffering species.
THUMBS UP!
Eclipse!
My cousin-in-law in Scotland has been sending me amazing pix this morning of the solar eclipse which is visible over Europe today. She also sent me the link to this collection of images of the eclipse and eclipse-watchers across Scotland, among which was this extraordinary image captured by Graeme Halkerston in Edinburgh:
So fucking cool! Please feel welcome to share in comments links/pix of the eclipse that you've found remarkable.
Open Thread
Hosted by a bonsai tree.
This week's Open Threads have been brought to you by the letter B.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker masculine_lady: "Besides them telling you, how do you know when someone loves you?"
They don't try to substitute their own needs for mine, but ask me what I need and then do that.
Yes, Please!
This is fucking amazing: Mr. T "has signed on to host a home renovation series called I Pity the Tool for DIY Network." GIVE IT TO ME IN MY FACE! A+!
LOVE.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism.]
"The failure to indict the officer responsible for the death of Eric Garner has left many wondering if black lives even matter. Sadly, today's decision will only leave many asking that same question again."—New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, after New York Supreme Court Justice William E. Garnett ruled to maintain the secrecy of the grand jury testimony in the case of Eric Garner, the black man from Staten Island who was killed by New York City police officers after being detained and put in a chokehold.
A petition from the the New York Civil Liberties Union and others had called for the release of the grand jury transcripts, including testimony by Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer involved in the incident. It was brought by NYCLU; the Legal Aid Society; Letitia James, the city's public advocate; the New York Post; and the NAACP.Accountability schmaccountability.
...Garnett said in the ruling that he did not believe the civil rights lawyers had established a compelling enough reason for warrant a disclosure of the grand jury minutes.
"What would they use the minutes for? The only answer which the court heard was the possibility of effecting legislative change," he wrote. "That proffered need is purely speculative and does not satisfy the requirements of the law."
...The civil liberties attorneys argued that disclosure was in the public interest and would help restore public trust in the criminal justice system, which the secrecy around the case had eroded.
The primary argument in favor of secrecy is protecting "the anonymity prosecutors promise jurors and witnesses who take part in the grand jury processes."
But if black lives are really to matter, protecting privacy in cases of deadly police aggression simply cannot trump protecting the lives of black people.
(And, as a side note, redactions can always be made, and would have been, to protect the privacy of those who were not being investigated. It is the height of mendacity to pretend that protecting anonymity is an all-or-nothing proposition.)
I Write Letters
[Content Note: Fat hatred.]
Dear Story Creators, Everyone Who Tells Stories That Involves the Creation of Characters in Any Medium, Whether Those Characters Are Drawn with Images or Words or Both:
Please stop using "fat" as shorthand to convey to your audience that a character is bad in some way, or many ways.
Fat is not a synonym for "evil."
Fat is not a synonym for "lazy."
Fat is not a synonym for "ugly."
Fat is not a synonym for "manipulative."
Fat is not a synonym for "duplicitous."
Fat is not a synonym for "bumbling."
Fat is not a synonym for "unintelligent."
Fat is not a synonym for "mean."
Fat is not a synonym for "greedy."
Fat is not a synonym for "dangerous."
Et cetera.
Fat is also, for the record, not a synonym for silly or jolly or carefree or simple-minded.
Fat is a neutral descriptor of someone's appearance.
If you are reading this and thinking, "I don't write/draw/create any fat villains!" then good for you. I hope that is not because you are simply not writing any fat characters at all.
Because it's not just important to avoid writing fat villains whose fat is used to lazily communicate their inherent badness. It's also important to write fat heroes.
Love,
Liss
Daily Dose of Cute
This dog, lol. He is the greatest.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Finish This Sentence
[Content Note: Injury.]
The most klutzy/funny way I have ever injured myself is...
...a couple of days ago, I was standing with my left hand on my hip and the tips of my fingers tucked into the waistband of my jeans. Suddenly a sneeze snuck up on me, and, in the manner of sneaky sneezes, it was a powerful one. I lurched forward as I sneezed, and my arm, still held in place by my tucked fingers, bent in a way that was just not natural at all, lol, pulling or twisting something in my elbow.
It's been aching for days, and last night Iain referred to it as my "sneezing injury," which made me laugh foreverrrrrrrrrrr.
I would like to say that's definitely the klutziest way I've ever injured myself, but it probably isn't. It's just the most recent dipshitty thing I've done to myself!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; terrorism; genocide; rape] Fucking hell: "Jihadists from the Islamic State group may have committed genocide and war crimes against the minority Yazidi community in Iraq, the UN says. In a new report, it says IS had 'the intent...to destroy the Yazidi as a group.' ...Among the atrocities it says were perpetrated against the Yazidi community by IS were: the 'brutal and targeted' killing of hundreds of men and boys in Nineveh province, northwest of Baghdad, in August 2014; the rape of girls as young as six; the abduction of women 'as spoils of war'; the forced separation of families, with boys as young as eight taken to be trained as IS fighters. The reports adds: 'In some instances, villages were entirely emptied of their Yazidi population.'" This is what the United States "spreading freedom" to Iraq looks like. We created the chaos from which this grotesquery emerged.
[CN: Rape apologia] This professor gets an A+: "When Jeremiah True wouldn't stop talking about his controversial opinions on sexual assault in his required freshman humanities course, his professor banned him from the discussion segment of the class for the remainder of the semester. The 19-year-old told BuzzFeed News that his professor, Pancho Savery, warned him repeatedly that his views made his classmates uncomfortable before he told him in a March 14 email that he was no longer welcome to participate in the 'conference' section of his Humanities 110 lecture-seminar class. 'Please know that this was a difficult decision for me to make and one that I have never made before; nevertheless, in light of the serious stress you have caused your classmates, I feel that I have no other choice,' Savery wrote in the email, obtained by BuzzFeed News." YES.
[CN: Police brutality; racism; images of injury at link] Democratic Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has called for an investigation after 20-year-old University of Virginia student Martese Johnson, who is black, was arrested outside a pub late Tuesday/early Wednesday and beaten by police who asserted that Johnson "was very agitated and belligerent." However, in an increasingly familiar tale, Bryan Beaubrun, a fellow UVA student who photographed the incident "said police acted with unnecessary force. 'He didn't need to be tackled. He wasn't being aggressive at all,' Mr Beaubrun told the Associated Press." Governor McAuliffe "is concerned by the reports of this incident and has asked the secretary of public safety to initiate an independent Virginia State Police investigation into the use of force." Meanwhile, Johnson addressed a crowd of protesters last night, urging calm as tension rose: "We're all part of one community and we deserve to respect each other, especially at times like this." That so shouldn't be his obligation, in this moment.
People in Europe are worried about the biggest solar eclipse in fifteen years: "On Friday morning, March 20, a solar eclipse will sweep across Europe. This rare aligning of the sun, moon, and Earth will cause the standard delays and hazards as onlookers get distracted by the unusual sky and the darkness it casts. But this time around, there is a new cause for concern: solar power. The eclipse, in which the moon comes between the sun and the Earth, will be most pronounced in Northern Europe, and the bulk of the apprehension is centered on Europe's solar powerhouse: Germany. At the size of Montana and nearly the same latitude, Germany is an unlikely solar leader, but a concerted national effort to go renewable has put it at the forefront of solar power development. Its 1.4 million solar energy systems account for around a quarter of the solar capacity installed on Earth and solar provides about seven percent of the country's power. During 75 minutes in the mid-morning—when the sun's power is normally accelerating—Germany will instead rapidly lose solar generation."
[CN: Racism] This is a terrific illustration by Ronald Wimberly about racism in corporate comics. That last line is amazing.
[CN: Ciscentrism] Dr. Cheryl Chastine: "Cisgender Women Aren't the Only People Who Seek Abortions, and Activists' Language Should Reflect That." Terrific piece.
Oh god lololol: "Rep. Aaron Schock, who resigned from Congress yesterday over allegations that he'd improperly spent taxpayer money, has at least one person in [his] corner. ...'Two years from now he'll be successful, if he's not in jail,' [Schock's father] Dr. Richard Schock told a reporter from Chicago's ABC7 outside his home in Peoria, Illinois."
And finally! Here is an amazing story about a mama dog who buried her puppies to save them from a forest fire—and they were all rescued safely! Yayayayayay!
It's Called Feminism
[Content Note: Misogyny; racism; heterocentrism; classism.]
Conservative columnist Ross Douthat used his New York Times column this past Sunday to explore the causes of the "the social crisis among America's poor and working class—the collapse of the two-parent family, the weakening of communal ties." He wonders whether this alleged crisis is "best understood as a problem of economics or of culture," and notes:
[T]he basic point is this: In a substantially poorer American past with a much thinner safety net, lower-income Americans found a way to cultivate monogamy, fidelity, sobriety and thrift to an extent that they have not in our richer, higher-spending present.He followed that up with a blog post titled "Men, Money and the Marriage Crisis," because of course:
So however much money matters, something else is clearly going on.
The first counterargument is about men: It concedes that there is a modest upward post-'60s trend in household income, rather than a steep decline, but it argues that focusing on the general trend ignores a collapse in earnings for low-skilled men, which — since it takes two to tango, and marry — suffices to explain why it's become harder for working class males to successfully fill the roles of husband and father … especially since, with women entering the workforce, they aren't as economically dependent on men as they once were and don't need to settle for a guy whose wages keep on falling.Note the juxtaposition in these two paragraphs: Women "aren't as economically dependent on men as they once were," and lower-income men look "less 'marriagable' in strictly economic terms."
As I said in the column, a modest version of this argument makes sense to me. Less-educated men haven't seen the same gains as their female peers in recent decades, male-dominated sectors of the economy have declined relative to the female-friendly sectors, and so some lower-income men clearly do look relatively less appealing as partners, less "marriagable" in strictly economic terms than they would have in 1960.
The most basic scrutiny makes these two back-to-back observations look utterly absurd. If women—and let us be honest that the hand-wringing about "the social crisis," especially around marriage, is about straight, white, cis women, except when it's about pathologizing black women—are more financially independent, then men's economic fortunes have less relevance is terms of their "marriagability."
This is a true thing that I see playing out in my own life and the lives of women all around me. If a woman can provide for herself, and doesn't need a man to provide for her, then a man's earning potential becomes vastly less important in terms of evaluating a partner.
Which makes lower-income men more desirable, not less so.
That is, providing those men are offering other things that are valuable to potential partners.
Again, this is a dynamic I see with many of my friends (women of all races, but economic statuses at least working poor or above), but I will speak only to my own experience: When I met Iain, I made significantly more money than he did, and just generally had my professional shit together more than he did—which is for a few reasons, including the fact that I'm two years older.
But his income was of little concern to me, because I made enough money to look after myself and sustain a household. I didn't need a partner to take care of me, because I could take care of myself.
Which means that I could prioritize other things in a partner. I didn't have to compromise on kindness, ethics, intelligence, humor, looks, loyalty, lifestyle, sexual compatibility, or any other quality I value in big or small ways.
What happens when women who want to partner with men have opportunities to provide for themselves is that men can't rely on their earning potential to be enough to be "marriagable." They have to be decent human beings.
If I have the choice between being alone, and being married to some misogyfuck who treats women like shit, that isn't a tough choice.
(All of which is to say nothing about the fact that a lot of this "marriage crisis" bullshit is centered around an increasingly antiquated idea that "marriage" is the only legitimate family structure. It isn't. And there are plenty of different-sex couples living together and parenting together—and looking a hell of a lot like conservatives' much-vaunted "traditional" families—who just don't feel inclined to be legally married.)
Iain and I joke that the only thing for which I need him is to reach things on high shelves, and the only thing for which he needs me is to edge the baseboards when we paint a room. The punchline is not that we need each other for other things; the punchline is that I own a stepladder and he can lean over.
We don't need each other to survive. And that is a good thing. Unless you're a conservative man with retrofuck ideas about needing to contribute nothing to a relationship except a paycheck, in exchange for sex, hot meals, and maid service.
So, yeah, the "social crisis" is, at least among people who are privileged enough to earn a living wage in our garbage economy, in part a "cultural problem." That cultural problem is called feminism, and men who want to be marriagable to women who can take care of ourselves might want to check it out.
Douthat says that economically independent women who want to partner with a man "don't need to settle for a guy whose wages keep on falling." I guess. But, more importantly, we don't need to settle for a guy who's got nothing to offer us besides his wages.
The Worst Idea
[Content Note: Body policing; misogyny; heterocentrism; objectification; evo psych; fat hatred.]
Yesterday, the Telegraph published a gross piece of linkbait [DoNotLink used] titled "'Schoolboys should tell girls their idea of a perfect woman,' says expert." It begins thus:
Teachers should encourage boys to tell girls their idea of a perfect woman in attempt to quell body image issues, a renowned child health expert has said ahead of a teachers conference on Wednesday.There ain't enough fuck you in the entire world for this garbage.
To fight a "neurosis" amongst school girls on body fat, teachers should get boys to tell girls what they find attractive, including other qualities beyond pure looks, said Aric Sigman, author of "The Body Wars: why body dissatisfaction is at epidemic proportions."
He said it was important that teachers picked boys from an older year group because girls look up to them and they are not direct peers so it would be easier to talk about body image issues.
"It would be helpful for them to explain that what they find attractive is not just physical qualities but also qualities like caring, the sound of a girl's voice and her body language."
...More importantly, Dr Sigman said, boys should tell girls "that there are women who appear model-perfect visually but are just not sexy and there are girls who do not seem model material but are very attractive."
Dr Sigman also said the subject of female body dissatisfaction has been exclusively dominated by women so far and that it was time for men fight political correctness and get involved.
David Perry offers a good response to the article, in which he notes that the good doctor's idea "reinforces the patriarchal notion that what girls should be concerned about is to what extent they are or are not attractive to boys. Attractiveness remains the key arbiter of personal worth. Instead, the way to fight body image issues is to de-legitimize the male gaze as the arbiter of what is and is not 'good.'"
Absolutely. And this, with its admonition that men must take charge and insert themselves into body acceptance work, does the precise opposite of de-legitimizing the male gaze. Instead, it seeks to reify the male gaze as the most important arbiter of female body acceptability.
And this heterocentrist, misogynist, objectifying proposal presumes, once again, that there is a universal—or at most a very limited spectrum—of appropriate, attractive, sexy female body types among men.
This is not true, despite the strong cultural disincentives against male attraction to fat female bodies, the harsh judgment and penalties faced by men with fat female partners, and the pathologization of men who attracted to fat women.
Iain and I are currently fascinated by a show airing on FYI called "Marriage at First Sight," in which single (straight) people participate in a social experiment in which they're matched by relationship experts in an arranged marriage. (This show deserves a whole post of its own, at some point.) A new season just started, and lots of potential participants were interviewed, many of whom were accompanied by family members and/or friends, enlisted to project the appropriate amount of scandalized horror at the very prospect.
One thin white man, who was ultimately not picked as one of the to-be spouses, was interviewed with his very thin white mother sitting beside him. He was asked what sort of body type he preferred, and he responded by saying he liked hourglass and pear shapes. "Pear shape?!" his mother exclaimed, horrified. "Do you know what that means?" He replied, looking suddenly apologetic and embarrassed, that he did. "You don't want a pear-shape," his mother instructed him. "A nice slim girl would be perfect for you."
Even the hint that he might be attracted to fat women immediately resulted in auditing of his preferences and shaming.
So, what is the place for a young man with that sort of preference in the good doctor's proposed program, which is explicitly designed to tell girls that they are allowed to have "some fat," but obviously not too much eww gross yuck. What is the place for a fat girl who is found attractive by men whose preferences exist outside of the limited spectrum of acceptability being defined?
Again, attraction should never, ever, be used as the model of a human being's worth in the first place. But in addition to that fuckery, this program also more deeply entrenches the pernicious idea that there is essentially a universal human spectrum of attraction, which underwrites the pathologization of deviant bodies and transgressive attraction to those bodies.
That ain't helping anybody. Even the mere proposal should be treated with utter contempt.
