Two Whole Cakes

Click through to the Flickr version for outfit info.

Why are white/cream tights so universally reviled, at least when worn by anyone over the age of nine? I include myself in this generalization. They’re tough to wear without looking like a six year old girl headed to church. Also, I suspect there’s that nigh-universal style rule that white/cream tights make your legs look enormously fat. Which is not so much a problem for me, since my wonderfully fat legs look fat no matter what color my tights are. I don’t recall purchasing the above tights, but clearly it happened at some point.

Also: I have come to enjoy my pictures that aren’t real complimentary in the face area. It’s kind of a fuck-you gesture: it’s okay to not look perfect all the time in pictures. It’s okay to share pictures that aren’t particularly flattering. Just like beauty isn’t compulsory, neither I nor you nor anyone else owe it to the world to only keep and share the pictures that make us look good. Anyone who’s horrified by my not-perfect picture-face is taking life far too seriously.

Recent posts about inclusivity and line-drawing got me thinking, in a more personal vein.

I like lines in the sand. I also like grey areas. I like the former because it represents a forceful, conscious effort on my part to change the world in which I live. I like the latter because it’s an inevitable, unavoidable, and intoxicating part of life as a socially-functioning human.

But I do like my lines. I do. One of the most powerful (ongoing) emotional experiences of my life has been learning to say no. To take a position – unpopular or otherwise – and hold my ground.

There was a period – from 1986 through 1996 inclusive, with a couple of mail-order (oh yes) backslides between 1996 and 1999 – in which I dieted. All the time. Several times a year. Dieted commercially, via your Jennys and your WWs; dieted medically, via programs at the local hospital and consultations with numerous nutritionists; dieted improvisationally, via my own highly imaginative systems of food ratings and values and punishment and reward. Dieting, not-dieting, and thinking about or planning my next diet ranked highly as primary intellectual pastimes from my childhood through adolescence, until I graduated from high school in 1995 and decided the whole endeavour was ridiculous, and then a year after that, when I discovered fat activism. When that happened, I drew the first of many lines in the sand: I would not diet any more. I would not. Diet. Ever. Again. Nor would I passively sit by and participate in or even listen to people talking about their diets. I would change the subject, or if that failed, quietly remove myself from the company involved. In my (maybe) esteemed opinion, dieting is ridiculous and idiotic, not to mention damaging. I wouldn’t stretch this to call dieters themselves ridiculous and idiotic – that would be unfair to the wholeness of the people involved. But I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t think diets are dreadful. I’ve kept behind this line I’ve drawn, and I’d draw it again.

There was a period, even after I stopped dieting, in which my family would periodically bring up weight loss – that is, the idea that I ought to/might be/could consider losing weight for insert-stock-reason-here. There was a period in which my family would feel enabled to comment, apropos of nothing, on perceived changes in my body size, as though such information were public property. Until, eventually, I drew another line. I said, fucking stop it, y’all. FUCKING STOP! My body is not wide open for commentary and criticism, no matter how well-intentioned it might be. My body is my private business, something I will discuss with people when I choose to make it a subject of conversation. On my terms. Not yours. Now get behind that line, or else get away from me.

There was a period in which I would go to the doctor and panic, heart pounding, head spinning, anticipating the moment when I’d have to get on the scale, an act that brought back years and years of miserable weigh-ins at diet centers and hospitals, standing in terror of what the mechanism would reveal, like spinning a roulette wheel in which the number where the ball fell would determine how much self esteem/self loathing I would carry for the next week. I drew a line here too, and learned – it took YEARS – to say “NO” to doctors and nurses and physician’s assistants who wanted to weigh me Just Because, just because it’s what they do when you come in, when knowing my precise weight at that particular time was not medically necessary for any solid reason. I drew that line and I still struggle there, to be honest – sometimes when I’m asked to get on the scale that old panic flickers up again before I remember how to say no and how to simply stand my ground, hold my body back from following orders that serve no purpose other than to bring back feelings and anxieties I am far better off without.

I was hurt by fatphobia. I was injured by dieting. It’s taken me years – and I am still working on it – to begin to recover; to begin to have a healthy concept of food and eating; to begin to love my body for being mine no matter its size; to learn to see myself reflected in a mirror, or a shop window, or in a photograph, and not cringe; to survive in a culture that stereotypes me as lazy, stupid, disgusting, immoral, out of control, and so forth. I was bent by all this, and am very fortunate I never broke. If I draw lines, it’s because I don’t want anyone else – my friends, my family, even total fucking strangers – to have to go through that shit, to hate themselves for it. I don’t want to get sucked back down into that vortex myself.

The truth is, you can never get away from fatphobia, any more than you can ever get away from racism or classism or homophobia or ableism or any kind of insitutionalized social oppression. Short of being raised in the woods with your culture dictated by bears and wolves, there is no escaping it. Sometimes, I have to stand up for what I believe, even if it alienates other people, even if folks think I’m crazy or deluded or dangerous.* I have to draw lines sometimes, to define the boundaries of what I can live with, what I can accept and still feel like I’m being true to the principles I’ve set for myself. I don’t expect everyone to agree with my boundaries, or even to respect them – but I’m keeping them because they are good for me. Everyone else has to come to an understanding with themselves, with their bodies, on their own – by their own terms and by their own path. I don’t pretend to prescribe a certain kind of Universal Fat Activism^TM for everyone because nothing is totally universal. I respect others’ individual bodily sovereignty and uphold their rights to make the decisionsthat are best for them.

But I do have my own lines, to sustain my health and my sanity. I think everyone draws lines somewhere, and that is part of what makes us – as people, and as fat activists – such a diverse and intersectional bunch. I personally would rather let folks find their way to the fat acceptance that works for them, one they can relate to, one that is as forgiving or as stringent as they need it to be.

I keep my lines not so that I can disrespect those who don’t share them. I keep my lines mostly so I can respect myself.

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*Okay, I admit I actually enjoy being thought of as dangerous.

Jezebel has an excellent post up about fashion writing and the sloppy=fat=poor archetype, which inspired me to run off on a bit of a tangent.

Although the sizism of these kinds of pieces — specifically denied by both writers — is easily parsed from the continual references to “tent-size” shirts, “sloppiness,” and “XXL polo shirts”, what’s also distressing is their classism. While dressing well needn’t be expensive, what these writers seem to be calling for isn’t merely fashion as fun self-expression, it’s fashion as a system of social representation — the idea that one ought to look good, so that one can be recognized by other good-looking people, and feel mutually reassured in one’s tastes. And that kind of dress-as-shibboleth requires the sublimation of most of one’s ideas about clothes into the safe confines of designer labels. Reddy detests chubbiness; I don’t like his clubbiness. Or his condescension.

The concept of the fatty as affront to fashion is not a new one, for sure. High fashion and the arbiters of style have a built-in fat ceiling beyond which no body past a particular size (an 8? a 10? a – gasp – 12?) may pass; fat people, as a group, simply lack any kind of similar access to stylish and well-fitting clothes in any kind of real selection, not simply because those clothes are expensive – although they are – but because they don’t exist. While some heinously overpriced blahwear for up-to-a-size-24 fats can be found at a premium in the darkest dustiest basement-banished corner of the occasional high-end department store (or, at least, on their website) the selection even among the $400 polyester jersey dresses is – to put it delicately – unimpressive.

Thus, I would argue that it is difficult, if not impossible, for even fat people of considerable wealth to ever truly meet the high standards of the fashion elite not because fat people care nothing for what they wear (elastic waists —> cold dead hands, and so forth) but because they are not given the opportunity. Even Beth Ditto – she of the soul-ripping voice, questionable photoshoot politics, and Fat Style Icon to untold numbers of young fats locking horns with The System – even Ditto only gains access to high fashion designers when they specially produce clothing just for her, either for the red carpet, or a magazine spread. I suppose, hypothetically, an extraordinarily wealthy fat nobody-in-particular could commission haute couture from any top-tier designer willing to accept the job – but I have a hard time believing many designers would be interested in doing so for anything less than a Beth Ditto level of personality and exposure.

Thus, I think it’s fair to argue that while the class issue is certainly not something to sneeze at – no debate, more money always means one has more options, in pretty much every scenario – it’s also true that it’s practically impossible even for fat people of means to ever truly meet the standards of said fashion writers. And it’s not, all protestations to the contrary, because fat people are inherently sloppy or unstylish – it’s because they are fat, and fat, no matter how immaculately dressed, is never acceptable within these circles. In the world where fashion writers and editors exist, fat itself is unfashionable, and no garment can overwhelm that. It’s not enough for this automatic antifat Fashion Blockade to exist; fashion writers must also shit upon the people who handily outsize the coveted (and extraordinarily meaningful, in those contexts) fashionable clothes by casting aspersions about their intelligence and their morality and their worth.

The Jezebel piece continues:

What I’d like to see from fashion in ’09 is fewer hectoring “trend” stories about lazy poor fat people and their lazy poor fat people habits. Comfort is not the enemy of style, and fat is not the enemy of fashion. Maybe we could just end the entire idea of fashion as a capital-F top-down regimented enterprise fit only for vetted experts. Then we could get back to wearing what we want, wearing what we think is fun, wearing what makes us feel good, wearing what reminds us of that one really great day when…and not being judged by mean writers for it.

Indeed. Fuck fashion. If you’re fat, it doesn’t speak to you, so why should we speak to it?

For the NYC fatshionistas: the hotly-anticipated answer-to-all-my-fat-vintage-seeking-prayers Re/Dress NYC has opened its doors at 109 Boerum Place in Brooklyn. Re/Dress is being hailed as a fat version Beacon’s Closet/Buffalo Exchange, and has already been honorably-mentioned on Racked’s list of top ten new stores of 2008. Incidentally, coats are 30% off this week. Expect a more thorough personal report from me after my planned pilgrimage down that way later this month.

For the Chicago fatshionistas: The Bridal Salon in the Macys on North State Street is having a Bara Luxe trunk show specifically for plus-sized brides. The trunk show will feature sample gowns in sizes 16W, 20W, 24W and 28W for trying-on, and any gowns ordered during the show will get a 10% discount. The company director as well as one of their designers will be on hand as well. The sale takes place January 23rd & 24th, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Friday, and 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, at The Bridal Salon of Macy’s, 111 North State Street, 4th Floor, Chicago, IL 22314. You can call 312-782-3545 for more info.

The Telegraph has helpfully pointed out some unkind comments about fatties made by Ricky Gervais.

My initial reaction to this is a big ol’ “whatever”: he’s a comedian, he’s trying to be funny. It’s hardly as though he’s the first to spout off a vicious diatribe against fatassery for laughs, and he certainly won’t be the last. I am not, as a rule, opposed to fat jokes, when they are funny. There is much that is funny about being fat, just like there’s much that is funny about many aspects of the human condition, the beautiful and the tragic, in equal measures.

But then he blogged about the Telegraph’s article about him:

I heard someone on the radio once say that they were tired of the prejudice aimed at the overweight. They said something like “you’re not allowed to make fun of gay people, so why are you allowed to make fun of fat people? It’s the same thing.”

It’s not the same thing though, is it? Gay people are born that way. They didn’t work at becoming gay. Fat people became fat because they would rather be that way than stop eating so much. They had to eat and eat to get fat. Then, when they were fat they had to keep up the eating to stay fat. For gayness to be the same as fatness, gay people would have to start off straight but then ween themselves onto cock. Soon they’re noshing all day getting gayer and gayer. They’ve had more than enough cock… they’re full… they’re just sucking for the sake of it. Now they’re overgay, and frowned upon by people who can have the occasional cock but not over indulge.

When a doctor tells me that that’s how you become gay, I’ll stop making jokes about fat people.

Ah, now we have something: an object lesson in why conflating oppressions is not always a bright move.

Here’s my issue, which may very well come as a surprise to Gervais: not everyone agrees that gay people are born “that way.” There’s large numbers of perfectly rational people who do not believe that gayness is intrinsic or 100% nature-based. And I’m not referring to hateful religious assholes here, either (hence the “rational” qualifier), or even to otherwise kind people who believe that gay people are somehow ill or mentally defective. There are intelligent, accepting, normal people, of all sexual orientations, who do not believe that gay people are born “that way.”

This is because sexuality and sexual identity are not static, either/or, black-and-white, carved-in-stone constructs. They’re fluid, and incredibly subjective. In my life, I’ve known people who’ve sworn they knew they were gay as early as three years of age. I’ve also known people who candidly stated that they consciously chose to date members of the same sex. I’ve also known people who just plain don’t jive with the popular dualistic concepts of sexuality and gender in general, and thus who dated folks regardless of their gender identity or presentation.

We’ve yet to discover hard medical proof that all “authentic” gayness is always a part of who we are from birth. This is likely because there isn’t any. Gayness (or queerness) is not something that can be independently authenticated. How do you measure how much gay makes you a Real Gay? To recall the first semifunny thing in Gervais’ bit above: how much cock makes a man gay? Can a man suck the same cock a certain number of times to qualify? Does he have to experience a certain threshold or multitude of cocks in order to be gay, and how many is that? And who decides?

Also, here’s another idea: the concept that all gay folks are born gay is a tremendous relief to many people, since it suggests that it’s impossible for someone to “turn” gay by accident or design. Hence, I would hazard, the reason why the born-that-way model is so popular amongst straight men who like to think of themselves as broadminded – it allows them to accept queerness without acknowledging that they themselves could ever possibly be queer, since they were “born straight.”

Lest I fall into the trap of conflating gayness and fatness myself, I will not draw exact parallels here, but I will suggest that there are certain similarities. While conventional wisdom may agree that fatness is caused exclusively by overeating and lack of exercise, the fact that the majority agrees upon something does not make it true. Not unlike gayness, medical wisdom has yet to offer a clear and indisputable, universalized explanation for why some people are fat and others are not; in fact, the more research that’s done, the less clear the whole issue seems to be. While it’s also true that medicine offers the BMI as a measuring stick for determining fatness (or rather, “obesity” as a medical category), disregarding the BMI for the moment, it’s not unreasonable to argue that casual, man-on-the-street determinations of fatness are enormously subjective. One person’s “fat” is another person’s “average”. Very often, for many of us, indentifying fatness begins with “as fat as, or fatter than, me”. There is no way of determining a fully universal point at which fat becomes a clear visual identifier; it’s different for everyone, both the person being assessed and the beholder, because bodies are different, and standards are different.

Whether or not fatness or gayness is easily measured or authenticated is irrelevant.

Whether or not fatness or gayness is biologically inherent is irrevelant.

What’s important here is the suggestion that certain people are owed humiliation for looking a certain way. It’s played for laughs, sure. But some jokes are just unnecessarily mean-spirited, and perpetuate the already-common idea that treating people of certain characteristics (whether it’s somebody who is fat, or oddly dressed, or super queer) like garbage is totally hilarious. Funny jokes are funny. Harrassment and venom are not. If I feel inclined to deconstruct your joke to this degree, the joke’s not very effective. A good joke distracts me so much with laughter that I don’t care about it being potentially offensive.

One thing I do – sort of – agree with Gervais on:

Gervais, whose star appears to be rising in Hollywood, said in September that he felt ashamed of his weight and added that said overweight people should be branded ‘fatty’ to cut rocketing obesity rates…

“I laugh about being fat, but I should be ashamed. I should walk down the street and have people shouting ‘Fatty!’. That’s what I want, to get me out of it.

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis is familiar with my personal affinity for words like fat, fatty, fatass, death fat, big giant fat fatty fat fat faaaaaaaat, et cetera. Though my intention differs from Gervais – I am okay with not feeling like shit about myself, thank you – I agree that these are words people should be comfortable using, just not as weapons.

After all, they’re just words. Like George Carlin – someone whose fat jokes have always made me laugh – said, it’s all about the context.