Fat Sex is Good Sex

Thanks to several fat activists on facebook a study on fat sex has been making the rounds. The small study finds that women who are comfortable with their bodies have better and more satisfying sex lives while women who are uncomfortable with their bodies have less fulfilling sex lives or abstain altogether.  Are you shocked yet? Anything? No? Me neither. Because hating yourself leads to the best sex said no person ever.

Women in the study who said they had begun to embody fat pride reported finally having the confidence to end negative relationships and "retrain" their partners to satisfy them sexually. "As the women experience less body shame and increased confidence, they also seek out or attract partners who treat them better and truly appreciate them,"

Of course, those who seek to keep us down by force feeding hate down our throats might argue that we shouldn't be having sex anyway. Think about that. Think about the quality of life that these people are trying to force on us. You can't be happy until you're thin and since that's not happening for 95% of people you just can't be happy. The women in this study not only had great sex lives but dared to defy the haters by being happy in general.

So my argument is that even if being fat was unhealthy, even if it took ten years off my life or  more, quality matters more than quantity. As The Doctor said, some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. So if I die at 70 then that's 70 years of happiness and a lot of years of really great sex, friends, family, adventures, and living as opposed to 70 years of being a sad and depressed anxiety filled shut away. I'd rather take the fabulous life thank you.

Lighten Up, It's Just a Joke

A great article called, Lighten Up by The Real Katie, has been going around. It's a feminist post about sexism in the programming world. Not just the obvious sexism but the little things that add up to it sucking to be a woman in, well, really any geek circle. As I read it I couldn't help but think about how it also applies to fat people or any oppressed group really. But since this is a fat acceptance blog, we'll talk about it in that context.

People have this misconception that making something into a joke gives it a free pass. People who feel that you can make a joke out of anything and no one has the right to be offended because, hey, lighten up, it's just a joke! Unfortunately for people who are systematically subjugated with routine discrimination, stigma, threats, and even violence, a joke is a little more than just a joke.

So yeah, I'm also tired of being told to "lighten up". Or that I'm being overly sensitive or too PC. When you make a fat joke, you're not talking to the air, you're talking about me and you're spreading stereotypes through humor. Ragen at Dances With Fat calculated that we receive about 386,170 negative messages about our bodies each year. And it's the big things as well as the little things. That's over a thousand negative messages about our bodies every day. How long could you go without getting pissed?  A dozen comments? A hundred? Those negative messages are putting fat people or even people afraid of being fat at a higher risk for eating disorders and even suicide. Since eating disorders are more common in children than diabetes, I think it's time to take a serious look at why telling us to just "lighten up" is such bullshit.

In fact, telling people to lighten up has been used against oppressed groups for a really long time. What? You're angry because people constantly mentally and physically attack you for your body size? Oh lighten up. You're mad because you've been denied health care even with no pre existing conditions? Geeze, lighten up. You're mad because your kid just killed himself due to weight bullying? Why are you being such a hard ass? Lighten up. Really, at what point do you stop lightening up and start getting angry? At what point is it justified to these people? It's not. Not ever. These people wouldn't care if they started marching fat people up to a slaughterhouse, at any hint of anger they'd be told to lighten up.

Well hell no. I'm not going to lighten up. Not about women's rights, not about LGBT rights, not about fat rights (and each group faces it's own unique set of issues- I'm not trying to say they're all exactly the same). I believe strongly in all of these things and just because it kills your buzz at a party doesn't mean I'm going to stop. That I'm going to let that fat joke slide or that comment about how fat people shouldn't be allowed health care, or that the depression is their own fault. I'm going to get mad and I'm not going to apologize for it nor should I. Stand up, get mad, and get something done. It helps to not just start screaming at random people who say something stupid, but don't be bullied into backing down from an honest to goodness issue that needs to be addressed. If someone tells you to lighten up then you tell them if everyone did so when told then there'd be a hell of a lot of people without rights.

From The Real Katie's "Lighten Up"

How long would you put up with it? Do you love anything that much? If your spouse subtly treated you like crap every day, how long would your marriage last? If you saw a friend being treated this way by their boss, wouldn't you tell them to quit? 

Or would you tell them to lighten up?

You, person who told me to lighten up, saw one little thing. It didn't seem like a big deal, did it? One little line! One joke! One comment! But it's not just one thing to me: it's one of thousands that I've had to endure since I was old enough to be told that 'X is for boys!' It's probably not even the first thing I've had to deal with that day, unless you've gotten to me pretty early. 

That's the main problem with subtle discrimination. It leaves those that it affects the most powerless against it, quietly discouraging them. If they speak up, they're treated to eye rolls at the least, and at the worst, are called oppressors themselves. We're accused of not wanting equal rights, but of wanting tyranny. 

I would just like the million little barbs to stop, and I would like to not be told to 'lighten up'.

Review of Bully

I was excited when I saw that Bully was showing at a nearby theater for less than one week only and, luckily, I was free and could go see it.

Right from the beginning I was in tears as a father shared the story of his son who committed suicide at 17 years old as a direct result of abuse from his peers. As the movie went on, however, I became more and more disappointed. Firstly, there was a very obvious lack of diversity. Of the six students portrayed, 5 were white, 4 were boys, and 5 were straight. They had an opportunity to look at the unique types of bullying that girls face such as sexual bullying, which they failed to even mention.

One kid, Kelby, I was happy to see, was gay (although I wasn't too thrilled with her girlfriend's assertion that she used to be straight). Bullying over orientation is the second most common form of bullying in the US. That being said, it should have been covered more and I'd have liked to have seen an lgbt student that was male. What I found really disappointing, however, was that the entire movie, all two and a half hours of it, completely skipped over the number one most common form of bullying in the country. That's right. Weight bullying. Not only was not a single victim fat or even chubby, but weight bullying wasn't even mentioned. In fact, the only time weight was mentioned was when the mother of Ja'Maya tells her that she doesn't want to get too big after commenting that her thighs looked thick like she'd gained some weight.  She was also the only black student who was also the only student who retaliated by pulling a gun on a bus full of kids and was sent to juvy. Do I really need to point out why portraying the only person of color this way is a problem?? I'm positive they could have found a white kid who did this or a black kid who didn't. It may be unintentionally racist, but it comes across that way just the same.

The movie seemed to focus on how school administrators and other authority figures were failing our children, but I found it disturbing to see that the parents weren't doing that great of a job either. There were several scenes where parents blamed the children for not standing up for themselves or for not talking to them about it enough- even after the kids point out that they've tried talking about it to no avail.

I was disappointed enough with this movie that I contacted them to complain about the diversity issues and the other issues such as not covering weight bullying, race bullying, ableism bullying, etc. Please see the movie, tell me your thoughts, and contact them as well if you feel the same. Also, please submit your stories to Collateral Damage; Survivors of The War on Fat if you want people to know what those of us who were weight bullied (read: abused) have gone through. (You can submit anonymously by emailing me or by using the fan mail button).

It's hard to be a little girl when you're bullied

I realize this is the billionth post you all have seen about the Georgia ads which bully fat children. In case you've just happened to have had a prior engagement under a rock and are only now emerging from the gala, here are the ads that the fatosphere has been buzzing about:

The videos on the website show Bobby (above) in black and white sitting across from his (also fat) mom asking, "mom, why am I fat?".

Tamika, the girl in the last photo above is seen in her video fidgeting uncomfortably in front of the camera with her (supposedly) mother saying, "Being thick runs in our family. As her mom, I never noticed Tamika eating any different from the rest of us. She likes junk food, but what kid doesn't? When the doctor said she had type two diabetes, I never thought what we eat made her sick. I just always thought she was thick like her mama.

Tina, the girl on the right in the third photo above says, "I don't like going to school because all the other kids pick on me. It hurts my feelings."

Maritza (not pictured) is a girl of color and says, "My doctor says I have something called hypertension.. I'm really scared"

Lastly, Jaden (also not pictured), a boy of color says, "Playing video games is what I like to do by myself. I don't have to be around the other kids.. cause all they want to do is pick on me"

If this is the first time you've seen these ads, it may take you a moment to take it all in. Other than the fact that fat people can be just as healthy as thin people, some of these are downright absurd. They're not based in fact and they're downright stigmatizing and bullying. These things are why fat children are more at risk for eating disorders and suicide. Let's go through these things one by one.

"Chubby kids may not outlive their parents"
This is a bald faced lie. Firstly, "chubby" is not the same as fat as we already know that those in the "overweight" category live the longest. But when they say chubby they mean fat, right? But according to the same study (as the 'overweight' live longest study) obese people live just as long as normal weight people- the same study says that obese patients are even less likely to die from heart disease and that the healthiest fat people were people who were fat when they were.. *ding ding ding*!... kids! More so, according to the predictions on life expectancy- it's still going up.. no worries.

"Fat kids become fat adults"
Excuse my language but, no shit sherlock. That's because genetics play a pretty big role in weight and there's more than one gene that helps out. This is what makes this kind of fat shaming particularly cruel and useless.

"Big bones didn't make me this way. Big meals did"
Ahem- except that no study has ever shown that fat people eat more than thin people, although a few have shown that fat kids eat less than thin kids. In other words: liar liar, pants on fire.

"He has his father's eyes, his laugh, and maybe even his diabetes"
Considering that diabetes is genetic then yeah, he just might. If the kid was thin (controlling for lifestyle) he'd have the same risk. Did anyone see Captain Obvious sail by?

"75% of parents of overweight kids ignore the problem"
Well this is the first good news I've seen- that means that 75% of parents are (hopefully)  not being assholes and fat shaming their children, instilling in them lifelong body image issues. Of course, we have campaigns like this to do this for them.

"Fat prevention begins at home. And at the buffet line."
I'm sorry, but what...? Because thin people never eat at buffets? Or are we just assuming they have more self control? Wait.. didn't we just say that fat kids eat less than thin kids? Yes.. yes we did.

I'm skipping the next two because I want to talk about them a little more in depth. So the next one is, "My fat may be funny to you, but it's killing me." Excuse me, please show me any evidence that fat directly kills anyone. Lack of exercise, poor food choices, lack of health care, discrimination, bullying, weight cycling, weight loss drugs- those things may be killing you, but fat certainly isn't. How many times do we need to repeat that one can be fat and healthy or thin and unhealthy? The thing is- this is Georgia's poverty rate is at 14.4-  it ranks #5 in states with the highest poverty rate. In fact, if you look at the fattest states and the most impoverished states, there's quite a crossover. Stress, depression, lack of medical care, lack of access to nutritious foods or safe areas for activity are all issues that may contribute, but one thing is for sure; the war on obesity is also a war on woman and a war on the poor.

Okay, let's go back to the two we skipped:
"It's hard to be a little girl if you're not"
and "being fat takes the fun out of being a kid"

These two really caught my attention because I was a fat kid and I have an excellent memory. Being fat never interfered with me being a kid. I wouldn't have even known or cared that I was fat if people didn't point it out to me. To me, I was just a kid, swinging, climbing trees, and playing Star Trek during recess with my best friend. If you take out all of the bullying, the abuse, the attacks, and the nasty "well meaning" comments from adults ( in other words, still bullying), then being fat has absolutely zero impact on my being a kid or a little girl.

What did make it hard to be a little girl and what did take the fun out of being a kid was fat stigma, discrimination, and bullying. In other words, ads like this. This campaign accomplishes the very thing it speaks out again- making kids miserable. A lot of their campaign hinges on how fat kids get bullied and how much that sucks. Yes, it does suck. But let me tell you, fat kids aren't the only ones who get bullied. When the news picked up stories of gay kids killing themselves and homophobic bullying did we see state and nation wide campaigns to cure homosexuality? Did I see any ads that said, "I don't want to go to school. The kids make fun of me for being gay" with "stop the homosexual epidemic now" stamped across the bottom? As a member of the lgbt community I would have been outraged just as I'm outraged now at this kind of fat hate. In any other circumstance we create sensitivity programs, anti bullying campaigns, and massive awareness campaigns to combat the problem. But with fat kids? We blame them, blame their parents, tell adults that it's their job to bully them (and other adults) and all because it's good for them. I can't think of a single form of bullying that is as socially acceptable and even encouraged as the bullying of fat people. I hope the parents of these children realize how detrimental this is and I hope the children themselves can grow up to find the fat acceptance movement and throw off the horrible abuse that Georgia has perpetrated against them.