Two Whole Cakes

I’ve added several new shops to the shop reviews section of this here website. Many of these were suggested weeks ago, and I apologize for the delay, but I think I’m caught up now. As always, if there’s a shop you love missing from the list, please do drop me a line and let me know.

Also, I’ve got two pieces of news for two underserved fatty-fashion populations.

Item the first: A month ago (I’ve been really behind on email, sorry y’all) I got an email from the folks at Lil’ Mama, alerting me to their existence. Lil’ Mama is a new higher-end Australian plus size line; they’ve got an online shop, but I’m not sure if they’re available in stores as well. Being as I have no way of checking out these clothes, I’d love to hear from Australian readers with their thoughts or experiences.

Item the second: Junonia, long known by me as a fabulous resource for activewear and swimsuits, has opened Junoesque, a new online boutique specializing in casual apparel for sizes 4X to 6X. The line is quite basic – lots of tees and pull-on pants, but there are also a couple of dresses and a few dressier tops. It’s also pretty affordable, and Junonia’s quality is always excellent. When I first discovered Junonia many many years ago, I was flabbergasted: Fat people have use for ACTIVE WEAR? But fat people don’t EXERCISE! Ha. Fortunately I’ve come to realize that Junonia supplies a huge void in the plus-size market – that of comfortable workout gear – and they’re continuing this trend with Junoesque.

Well.

To set the scene: I am fortunate enough to live, with my dear husband, in a condo on a fairly popular beach. I won’t go into which beach, and where, because that’s not really pertinent to the story.

During the summer, I go out to the beach quite often – even after work, on weekdays, since this time of year sunlight persists past 8pm at my latitude. Some days I go with company, some days by myself. I don’t so much go for tanning purposes (I’m heartily committed to SPF-A-MILLION sunblock), but because I enjoy the beach, and the sunshine, and the ocean, and find my time there entirely relaxing and restorative.

Today, while waiting to cross the street to actually get on the beach, I got catcalled. By a slender white girl (teenaged, I would guess) riding in a big white SUV with an unknown number of other teenaged slender white girls. The car slowed down, and the sneering girl in the passenger seat yelled out the window at me, “Hey baby, can I hit that?”

In the hundredth of a second I had to respond, I did what came naturally, as if it were a remark leveled by a teasing friend. I smiled salaciously and called back with an exaggerated “Yeeeaaaah.” And then I laughed. This elicited astonished looks and peals of nervous, brittle laughter from the occupants of the car, which then quickly sped away.

I knew, as I always know, that this couldn’t have been intended as anything other than a sarcastic and just plain mean attack. It’s been years – years! – since I’ve been catcalled like that, with unabashed malice as the motive behind it, so I was a little taken aback. I made my way onto the beach, down to where the quiet surf was beating the sand; I laid down on my towel and folded my arms under my head and thought.

It was gnawing at me.

I get angry when this shit gnaws at me.

I began my initial engagement with fat activism over ten years ago. Why the fuck can these experiences still gnaw at me? Why is it still possible for this to get under my skin, to unnerve me, to distract me from a beautiful afternoon on a beautiful beach? Who the hell do those people think they are, to feel entitled to fuck with my happiness, my choice to be out in public, to go about my life without being made to feel like a lesser being, like something that does not deserve these things? What do they gain by trying to ruin my day?

And then I thought: This is the wages of visibility.

This is what I get for being visible, for daring to go out, alone, dressed for the beach. This is what I get for refusing to hide, for refusing to apologize, for having the audacity to leave my house and live as though I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. To a casual observer, it makes me a target. It makes me a fool. It makes me a pushover, an easy mark, a laugh. People will always want to remind me: You’ve got no right to be so happy with yourself. Fatty.

Catcalling sucks, no matter the circumstances. If it’s sarcastic, it implies that no one could ever possibly find you attractive. If it’s genuine, it implies that your body (and by extension, your sexuality) is public property and simply being outside is an open invitation for commentary. Either way, it’s depersonalizing, and objectifying, and it sucks. I tend to think the long absence of the sarcastic catcall from my own life is likely rooted in my carriage and self-confidence; it’s difficult to effectively tear down somebody who’s obviously not feeling badly about herself, and I expect that my unhesitating reaction to the catcaller today was the reason for the astonished looks as the car drove away. I also think my built-in catcall-avoidance is at least partly a result of my age; women who aren’t so young (I’m only in my 30s, but still) are seen, culturally-speaking, as less sexual, less objectifiable, and thus their fatness is less an affront. For example, I doubt the girls in that car would have catcalled a woman their mother’s age. Given that ultimately, catcalling is always a commentary on a person’s attractiveness, either positive or negative, it tends to take place within a certain set of parameters. Though I was hardly thinking this deeply at the time, my reaction to the catcalling teenagers may have inadvertently addressed both their assumptions of my apparent sexual unattractiveness (vis-à-vis my fatness) AND of my perceived straightness, by my instant response in the affirmative to a sexual advance made by a female, in spite of that advance’s obvious insincerity.

There are so many people – people my size and far smaller – who wouldn’t even consider going to the beach, or wearing a swimsuit in public, for this very reason – the fear that someone will look, someone will say something, that someone will make them an example, that they will be humiliated, that they will be made to feel like they’ve got no right to leave the house wearing anything less than a tent, looking the way they look. And that makes me angry, that we can let people dictate to us what we can do, and where we can go, out of fear of instant humiliation that could come at any time, humiliation that the perpetrator will likely forget within the hour, but which the embarrassed person may carry with her for days, or for months, or for the rest of her life.

Given the choice between restricting my movements and being assured of never being catcalled again, versus going out shamelessly and risking (or demanding!) attention – I will gladly take the latter. I like being visible. Even when I become a bull’s-eye upon which the insecurities and savagery of others are exorcised. Even when I lose time processing and remembering the emotional risks I take just by being myself, time I would have otherwise spent relaxing in the sunshine. When I first began my self-acceptance process, I decided first off that I never wanted to feel afraid of what those people – those who would mercilessly catcall me from a moving car, for example – might think or say about my body again. I never wanted to avoid life out of fear. And I’m still there, still fighting to be fearless.

So I say fuck those people. I’ll be on that beach tomorrow, and this weekend, and for months to come, and if they don’t like it, good, I’m glad to displease them.

They cannot stop me.

For the past several years I’ve had the unenviable experience of being a crazy-obsessive shopper and clotheshorse, while also being a size right on the cusp between Levels of Fatness. Not the inbetween-misses-and-plus size that folks wearing a 14 or 16 or 18 struggle with; I haven’t been there for any appreciable length of time since seventh grade. No, I refer to the size between plus and, um, plus-plus, as defined by the apparel world.

See, these days a great many more designers and manufacturers are producing plus sizes, and for this I am certainly grateful, as well as pleased to have more options for places to spend my money. But it seems a surprising number of them have chosen to stop at a 24. I can wear some 24s, in some items, but generally speaking me and 24 are but passing acquaintances: you know, that like guy who lives in your building that you see in the elevator all the time, and you know he told you his name at some point, like a year ago, but you don’t remember it, and now you’ve been exchanging friendly-but-terse hellos in the hall and by the mailboxes for so long that asking him to refresh your memory would just be unbearably awkward, so you just say “Hi” and leave a pause in there where his name would go if you remembered it, before quickly moving on to discuss the weather or his dog’s intestinal disorder or… whatever.

Me and 24 are exactly like that.

I know where 24 lives, I can recognize 24 from a distance, and yes, I can even wear a 24 now and then, depending on the item, but 24 and I ain’t tight by any definition. (Well, except literally.) These days, when this size-24 cutoff and I meet face to face – most often, it seems, with department store brands, or higher-end designers – I am angry. Really, really angry. “BUT I WANT A PONY!” irrational-type angry. Before I inspire a million exasperated sighs, I’m well aware that manufacturers can’t make every size in the world. I am also aware that I am not a precious and unique snowflake. I’m still angry, because I really wanted that dress/sweater/pair-of-tights/wide-tricked-out-belt/ruffley-pirate-shirt, etc., and I am only thwarted by said designer/manufacturer’s failure to make it in a size I can wear.

I used to get angry about this as a teenager too, but the anger then wasn’t directed at the offending party – it was directed at myself, my body. It was my stupid body’s fault for not fitting whatever size happened to be on the rack. Stupid body! You should fit those random-size pants! You disgust and embarrass me, body!

All of this brings me back to the popular “motivational tactic” that inspired the above ruminations in the first place: the practice of purposely buying things too small with the intention of dieting one’s way into them. This is a variation on the proverbial tiny pantsscenario – these are garments not simply too-tight or uncomfortable, but garments intentionally purchased in a size too small to even get oneself into. I’ve known several people over my lifetime (all women in my case, though I’m sure this is a habit indulged in by folks of all genders) who’ve bought things – usually dresses – and kept them as Magical Talismans to drive them to weight loss, fitting that size as much a measurable goal as a certain number on the scale. A friend in high school had such a dress that hung, at all times, on her closet door. So she got to look at it every day; it was the first thing she saw when she woke up in the morning, and the last thing she saw before falling asleep. It became this fetishistic little totem – the day that dress finally fit was the day Her Life Would Begin.

Is that the most depressing dress-related thing ever, or what?

I can almost understand this behavior, at least from the position that yes, often I’ve wanted to wear a certain garment and been thwarted by the garment’s not being available in my size. It’s frustrating and infuriating for sure. But it’s not my body’s responsibility to fit some frilly container, arbitrarily shaped by someone who doesn’t even know me. It’s not my body’s fault a size 20 won’t fit, it’s the size 20’s fault; let’s think about that, shall we?

And let’s think about how totally counterproductive and just plain weird it is to purchase something you can’t even wear, for the purposes of driving yourself to fit what Insert-Retailer-Name-Here requires. Isn’t that downright abusive of the body you’ve got, the body that likely got you to the mall in the first place, that moves you through the world? Is it kind or loving to parade some unfitting Dream Dress before that body, reinforcing its failure to be some randomly-chosen size? Isn’t that kind of hateful and unhealthy? Doesn’t that body deserve better?

Part of this stems from my own selfish belief that nobody should put off looking fabulous. Buying a dress too small for the purposes of motivating (or guilting) oneself into smallening one’s body enough to fit it is putting off fabulousness in a most heinous sense, as it assumes that your fatter body is not worth the attention that wearing something beautiful that fits, and that you love. Because showing off implies self-acceptance and confidence, two things that, culturally, fat folks aren’t supposed to have.

Fabulous is not size-dependent, it’s confidence-dependent, and if you ain’t confident in yourself at a size 26, it’s unlikely that you’ll be any more confident at a size 16. I’d argue that the confidence gained at a size 16 (or whatever your “confidence size” may be) is relying on an external factor which is ultimately changeable, and thus not real, lasting self-confidence – which comes from feeling secure in the person you are, not the person you look like – at all.

In the early 1970s, a small group of fat people in California formed a feminist collective and called it The Fat Underground. I personally credit this group – far more radical for its time than the then-nascent NAAFA was, or is – with birthing fat acceptance as I deploy and practice it today.

Today I discovered an outstanding archive of Fat Underground materials online, hosted by largesse.net. Some of this stuff is a little dated, but overall it’s frankly shocking how well these articles have aged.

From a FU retrospective article published in Radiance ten years ago:

Judy Freespirit: “In the beginning, people giggled when we talked about Fat Liberation. Now . . . there are hundreds of thousands of fat activists and allies all over the world.”
Ariana: “We learned to reshape our minds and lives, not our bodies, in the face of tremendous pressure to do just the opposite.”
Sheri Fram: “We created a crack in the monolithic diet and weight-loss industry, and started a slowly growing revolution.”
Gudrun Fonfa: “By refuting the dogma of the diet industry and rejecting the aesthetics of the patriarchal culture, [we made] activists out of each individual fat woman who liberated herself from a lifetime of humiliation.”
Lynn Mabel-Lois: “We were audacious enough to understand what a failure rate means, and to criticize the medical profession. We expressed our rage and fought back.”

There are many reasons why I no longer call myself a feminist; having said that, I must acknowledge that without feminism, my fat activism wouldn’t exist. Props to The Fat Underground for being willing to take the first stand, I don’t know where I’d be now without them.

Joy Nash probably doesn’t know that she’s my secret internet girlfriend, but OH MY GOD SHE TOTALLY IS.

Here’s her Fat Rant 3. Enjoy.

Also check out Fat Rant 1 and Fat Rant 2, if you haven’t already.

Carnie Wilson is annoyed that other folks are overly concerned with her body (specifically, her recent weight gain). She says it hurts to have everything she puts in her mouth scrutinized. To have her exercise routines chronicled and, ostensibly, mocked. Privacy, y’all!

This here is my open letter to Carnie Wilson.

Dear Carnie Wilson,

I really didn’t want to see your internal organs.

I feel like that implies a level of intimacy that you and I simply don’t share. Though I admit a passing curiosity to see my own innards (heaven knows that when I had my gallbladder removed, I asked if there would be a recording of the laparoscopy that I could, y’know, watch after the fact – and yes, my surgeon DID look at me with unrestrained horror when I asked), I can’t say that yours were next on my list. Hell, I don’t think anyone’s digestive tract was next on my list. Call me prudish, but I prefer other people’s intestines to remain a dim mystery to me; on some level, I know they’re in that person’s body, but I really avoid thinking about them all that much.

Now, I can’t say for certain what your reasoning was. Maybe, possibly, you’d had numerous people coming up to you, saying, “Please, please Carnie, have abdominal surgery and broadcast it live on the internet! We want to see your upper gastrointestinal tract! Pleeeeeease!” I mean, it could have happened.

I doubt it, though.

You made your choices. You got typecast primarily as a fat girl who got thin, and you chose to embrace all the trappings of the Weight Loss Success Story, up to and including the almost-inevitable nude spread in Playboy, the cultural equivalent of screaming “MY BODY IS MUNDANE AND ACCEPTABLE AND WORTHY OF EXTENSIVE AIRBRUSHING!” (and which, frankly, would have been way more interesting if you’d done it while Still Fat – the thought of allll the heads that would have exploded at that centerfold, it makes me chuckle with glee).

I’m not saying you asked for it. I don’t mind telling you that it’s tempting, but I am resisting the powerful urge to go there. I’m trying not to be an asshole about this.

I am also resisting the urge to say that you can’t make your body and your weight everybody’s business when it’s working out as you planned, and then get all righteous complaining about same when the attention being paid is not to your impressive slenderness but to your apparent weight gain. I am resisting saying that you can’t hold yourself up – or allow yourself to be held up – as the literal WLS “poster child” and then cry foul when the media sinks their teeth into you for getting fat again.

No.

What I am really saying is that no, really, your body and your weight is really nobody’s business. It’s really nobody’s fucking business. Stop sharing. Damn. Your choices to be so visible about your weight loss efforts have – no argument, no debate! – had consequences that have been far-reaching, touching on not only how the media covers all the other famous people who’ve had WLS, but ultimately having a profound and negative cultural effect on what Being Fat is like for the rest of us. (Not unlike how that interview you did with Radiance magazine back in 1996 had a profound and positive cultural effect on me, back in the day.) Intentionally or not, your actions made the fat bodies and/or digestive rearrangements of a zillion people into public property. Just. Stop.

Certainly, you owe me nothing. You don’t owe anybody any explanation for any of your choices. And I don’t really expect that. I do, however, get to speak up about this shit when it pisses me off. I expect you’re a bright lady, probably, but – although this is likely as much the fault of the media as it is yours – I’m sick to death of only knowing you these days insofar as how much weight you’ve gained/lost.

And finally? You really do look better fat.

See, there’s the last nail in the coffin holding my lost objectivity on this little matter.

Sincerely,
Lesley