Tobacco Campus

Durham, NC's Tobacco Campus is a gorgeous setting with lots of steel, brick, and plenty of businesses. Photos by Calvin Spealman. 

Happy 4th!

Throwing Out the Underpants

Ragen Chastain is one of my heros. Let's get that out of the way first and foremost. She's amazing and awesome and I could not be more excited or honored that she even knows I exist. But, since we're all individuals we're going to disagree on some things. And one thing that's always always bothered me is the underpants rule. Well, not all of it. Let me explain. The Underpants Rule basically states that you are The Boss of your Own Underpants. This means that you don't get to tell me what to do and I don't get to tell you what to do. This is particularly used in, you guessed it, fat acceptance circles where Ragen is pretty much a celebrity.

Okay, great, I mostly agree with that rule! Except for when it comes to harmful behavior. And when I mean harmful I mean perpetuating social stigma and bigotry or something serious that may result in very real physical or psychological harm being done. For example, I'm not going to tell you how to dress, but I am certainly going to intervene if you, say, tell me that you're suicidal, or have an eating disorder, or something like that. I'll try my best to talk you out of it. You may be the boss of your own underpants, but that has a huge limit. Most people agree that self harm such as suicidal ideation is a point at which someone should intervene and stop saying "your choice, do what you want".

Well, I've been an activist for a long time, even before I found fat acceptance issues to advocate for, and I've always stood up to someone who is bigoted. In my opinion your underpants stop being your own when you're hurting other people. Which is why I wrote the post that I did about weight loss surgery for example. So while proponents of the underpants rule say "you can choose to lose weight if you want to because they're your underpants", that's past my threshold. I say, you're perpetuating fatphobia and thin privilege and therefore you need to be talked out of it/ stood up to. It's not just fatphobia I apply this rule to. I don't stand for any kind of bigotry, especially from my friends and people that I love.

So I'm sorry, but I"m going to advocate for throwing out the underpants, or burning them, or whatever you choose to do with those underpants that keep you from being the best advocate and activist that you can be. Because while sometimes it's prudent to keep your opinions to yourself, sometimes it's necessary to share them and to get people to change their way of thinking. When I was bragging to a friend about getting my calories under x amount and she introduced me to fat acceptance, it changed my life. If she'd just decided to let me lose weight (which wasn't working anyway) and not say anything, then I'd still be hating myself and perpetuating and defending fatphobia.

Some people empathize with people wanting to lose weight in a way, saying that thinness holds a good deal of privilege and therefore it's understandable that it's desirable and they're right, it does. But I wholeheartedly believe that privilege is a bad thing and wouldn't exist in a truly egalitarian world. We should reject privilege and do our best to educate people against the privileges that we do posses. So yeah, thinness will give you privilege (however temporary), but by specifically trying to attain privilege you're perpetuating bigotry. Privilege only exists because oppression does as well. Ending bigotry should be our number one priority. Sorry underpants.

These are a few of my favorite things

So I decided that there are a few photos that I've taken over the years that are my absolute favorites. And I want to share those with you. Some are nude, some aren't, but they're the ones that make me thankful for being involved in this art.

I'll start with my absolute most favorite from my first nude shoot by Mikel Allen. This shot was done when I had dermographia (something that since has gone away with the use of steroid injections.. what a shame). Dermographia literally translates to skin writing. It's a histamine reaction which causes welting when pressure is applied, hence the ability to write on a person's skin. This one was my idea- I wrote "Basic Kindness" on my arms and, to this day, I believe it's such a beautiful and powerful message that it holds a special place in my heart.

This photo got a lot of attention when I originally posted it and you may be able to see why. The feeling of serenity and weightlessness floating in the middle of a lake is a hard feeling to beat. My belly floats above the surface and looks beautifully round. This photo by Michael Lanning was a fun one to take. It was autumn and Getting in the water made my skin go instantly numb. What's more, when I laid back and my ear drum hit the cold water I became immediately dizzy. Trying to get a look of relaxation in that environment was tough, but the result was beautiful.

This next photo was an exercise in self acceptance. My backside, wonderfully dimpled, was something I didn't spend a lot of time looking at, but Travis McKeithan brought a beauty to it in this black and white photograph that's hard for me to get over. It made me fall in love with every little dip and curve.

Another black and white by Dan Smith displays my body against a backdrop of light. You may have guessed that I'm completely in love with my black tulle skirt as I've used it in several photoshoots. Dan managed to capture a beauty in my curves that I had never seen before. While publishing these photos was indeed difficult, it was also empowering and wonderful.

This next photo by Bryan Regan is yet another nude (I sense a pattern here). The theme was "oil painting" and was done with light painting. The result is a stunning piece of art that is reminiscent of  many classical paintings done with larger women. While the photo is not inherently sexual I feel like there's a deep sensuality to the dips and peaks of my body that make me feel like a masterpiece.

This is another by Travis McKeithan. We played with light and shadows and the result was dramatic and fascinating. This one more made me appreciate the contours of my own face. Fat acceptance has been my main goal but sometimes that includes the face too. Sometimes feeling too round, I've learned to love it as much as my body.

There are many more photos that I love, but these are some that leave me in awe. I hope you enjoyed them as well and my hope, as always, is to inspire others to love and appreciate their own bodies in a world which demonizes them and refuses to acknowledge, let alone represent, larger bodies.

Green with Envy

by Dan Hacker

by Scott Bryant

by Dan Hacker

by Scott Bryant

by Rodrigo Mancilla

Basic Kindness

Let's revisit this image because it's my favorite image that I've ever helped create. Basic Kindness. What does that even mean? It's a philosophy that I try to live by (as with anyone I sometimes fail). Today I want to talk about basic kindness to yourself. Taking care of your own emotional well being. My last blog post stirred up a lot of turmoil from both internet trolls and people genuinely upset that I wasn't pro WLS or even tolerable of it. Most thought I was a horrible friend for protecting my own emotional well being. Like I'm supposed to come last just because I'm in a friendship.

The fact is that friendships end for a variety of reasons, but I think looking out for your own health is a pretty good one. During the internet troll brigade I was threatened, called sexist slurs as well as your basic fatphobic ones, but the big ones were the ones attacking me for having struggled with an eating disorder. I was called weak for doing something dangerous to become thin while my friend getting weight loss surgery was called brave for doing something dangerous to become thin. See the hypocrisy here from the weight loss community? People get defensive when you disagree with their choices. But regardless of how "weak" I was for having an eating disorder it is something that did happen to me and something that's a lifelong on going process to heal from. In short, diet and weight loss culture can be very triggering. Not only did I deal with an ED, I also dealt with self harm. Again, self loathing can be very triggering and can cause a recurrence or even a hospitalization. Bipolar is not fun or easy to deal with. I think it speaks to something about our culture when mental illness is so stigmatized. Weak for being mentally ill? I suppose people are weak for having lymphoma too? No no, that's one of those okay illnesses that we're allowed to sympathize with.

My point is that if someone were around something that could cause a recurrence of cancer and they wanted to distance themselves, no one would bat an eyelash. When you struggle with a mental illness and want to distance yourself from something that could hurt or even kill you? All bets are off. But just because mental illness or even the need to take care of oneself emotionally and mentally is stigmatized doesn't make it right. You have ever right to take care of yourself. You'd defend yourself from someone physically wouldn't you? So why not defend yourself from someone emotionally and mentally? It's okay,  you have the right to walk away. You have the right to be kind to yourself and to put your well being before anyone else. Yes, losing a friend sucks and I'm sorry that my friend has to go through that, but do you know what sucks worse? Ending up almost dead in a hospital room because I couldn't walk away from toxic people. A friendship shouldn't hurt you, it shouldn't drain you, it shouldn't make you worse off than you were to begin with. That goes for any relationship, by the way. If you're around someone who's toxic and bringing you down then have the courage to walk away (it's okay if you don't though, but know that it's an option).

Take care of yourself and your needs. You're important too. You matter. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Casualties

My heart is heavy today and has been since Saturday when my best friend dropped the bomb that she's getting weight loss surgery. The betrayal, hurt, and anger that I've felt since then is mind boggling. Since becoming involved with fat acceptance I've cut body negative people out of my life. I've surrounded myself with people who are positive and work hard for a wide variety of human and animal rights issues. In other words, good people. Positive people. People who make a difference in the world. So my world was rocked when my best friend, after hiding it from me for months, told me that she was getting cosmetic surgery to become thinner.

My  friend is the captain of her own underpants and she can get cosmetic surgery if she wants to, of course, but I'm captain of my own underpants as well and I have the right to cut out people who compromise my mental or physical well being. Having gone through a decade long eating disorder where I was constantly praised for starving myself, over exercising, and abusing diet pills, I can't watch someone I care about put themselves through a medically induced eating disorder.

I look forward to the day when weight loss surgery is banned as medically unnecessary, dangerous, and bigoted. Weight loss cosmetic surgery represents the extremes that our society will go to to eradicate fat people. For all of the horror that a person feels when they see a very thin person with an ED, it doesn't seem to hold true for fat people with ED's. While I have a lot of personal experience with that, this experience seems to hit closer to home Perhaps because my friend was involved in the fat acceptance community. I thought better of her. Not brainwashed by society's standards.

Internalized fatphobia is a horrible thing.

The bottom line is that we applaud fat people for doing dangerous, irresponsible, unethical, things that put our lives on the line in the name of thinness. But how would the world react if the opposite were true? If thin people literally risked their lives to become fat because they thought it looked prettier? I have a feeling I know the answer.

So, I suppose I've finally experienced a personal casualty in the War On Fat. During my own struggles I came close to losing my life, but this somehow feels so much worse.