no boys allowed in the room!!!!

I'm clearly feeling very militant about fat politics today. Sorry if I'm being to IN YOUR FACE about it. I will chill out!

TOO

arg

no i like it! stay in our faces.

my friend stopped drinking a ton of alcohol--her ex is probably a functional alcoholic, so when they broke up, she thought she would lose all this weight, no problem, and it didn't happen for her.

i too, thought i would see some difference once i stopped drinking every gd night, and no discernible physical change, except for the fact that i *felt* healthier

yeah my mum was truly awesome at helping me adopt healthy eating habits and a positive attitude towards food... the "you're too fat" + "you have a creepy eating disorder" + "here's a double helping of the foods you find most revolting" + "you WILL stay at the table until you've eaten everything on your plate, even if that means you literally sit there till 10pm" = AWESOME YAY FOOD YAY BODY IMAGE

like, i never actually had an eating disorder, even though i did become a dumpy teenager at around 13. at 17 i just went through a typical hormonal bump/growth/whatever and i lost 30 lbs over a really short space of time, i didn't consciously do anything to make it happen.

I get really upset about the Terror of Childhood Obesity because of stuff like that. Kids sizes change as they grow. Kids get chubby, then hit growth spurts, or start to develop. Putting a kid on a diet when a kid needs calories and nutrition to grow is damaging physically and mentally. I mean, sure, get out and move (and build safe playgrounds and get kids asthma medication and move shitty factories out of poor neighborhoods) and make sure healthy food choices are readily available and ketchup is not a vegetable and food deserts are terrible. But "oh no kids are FAT and that is the true problem!" is just misguided and awful. Stop stigmatizing fat (and thus fat kids) and focus on actual health.

A lot of this comes from my personal experience, obviously, of being not particularly fat but still being tagged as The Fat Kid and just being emotionally ground down about it so that by the time my mom was like, "Hey, how about a mega fad diet for my fourth grade daughter?" I was not only excited but really good at starving myself because I was a terrible fat person who didn't deserve food.

For me, food restriction and dieting is self harm. As in, I get in a bad place emotionally for whatever reason and something flips my self-loathing switch and I immediately start planning on how hardcore I'm going to diet and how much food I'm going to deny myself.

of being not particularly fat but still being tagged as The Fat Kid

Proud to say I have overcome this to grow into the Fattest Woman in the World, however.

I hardly even knew what diets were when I was a teen. But I did worry about my non-existent belly and srsly didn't wear a bikini until I was 18 and even then only once or twice. Now you can't get me out of a bikini, tummy or no tummy. And yet I sort of mourn not ruling the beach/park/backyard in my teens and early 20s, haha... We are who we are and who we see ourselves to be...

My best/oldest friend is quite fat and has gone through unrelated health problems (hernia due to shitty c-section repair, for one) and the treatment from doctors made me want to punch someone. Interestingly, when we were growing up, she wasn't 'the fat one' and I wasn't 'the thin one' because neither of us identified w that - she called me 'straight-As since birth' and I called her 'hollywood gossip encyclopedia' - lol. I think she's just really good at rolling her eyes and surviving the prejudice. Even her (often superficial, alcoholic) mom couldn't get it through her head when my friend got married 9 years ago that it was real love (and remains so) - made me realize even more so that judgment/prejudice has v little to do with the person being judged and everything to do with the one who's judging (and the culture, multifold as it is, that breeds that).

That bbc BMI thing is awful!! holy eff. I'm below average but I don't even know what that means - they seem to give it so much context but it's all bullshit (and racist/sexist/classist?) context so meaningless. Tho I do think Senegal is a rad country regardless of my personal body fat percentage's association with it.

I get really upset about the Terror of Childhood Obesity because of stuff like that. Kids sizes change as they grow. Kids get chubby, then hit growth spurts, or start to develop. Putting a kid on a diet when a kid needs calories and nutrition to grow is damaging physically and mentally. I mean, sure, get out and move (and build safe playgrounds and get kids asthma medication and move shitty factories out of poor neighborhoods) and make sure healthy food choices are readily available and ketchup is not a vegetable and food deserts are terrible. But "oh no kids are FAT and that is the true problem!" is just misguided and awful. Stop stigmatizing fat (and thus fat kids) and focus on actual health.

― carl agatha, Tuesday, July 17, 2012 5:44 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this is tricky. I work in a research institute and a lot of the research that goes on there revolves around obesity in children and what that means for their future health as adults. I have very mixed feelings about it.

God, I could talk about this shit forever. I won't but I could. I really hate the fact that when I try to lose weight but don't I feel like a complete fucking failure at life. It's how I'm feeling now and it's awful but this shit is instilled so deep in my brain that it's near impossible to overcome ime.

my mom (who i am pretty sure would be Tongan-associated according to the BBC) went through a phase with one of her sisters (who is thin), where her sister would regularly include dieting tips clipped out of magazines and newspapers along with the letters and New Yorker cartoons she'd send my mom in the mail every couple weeks. needless to say, my mother did not appreciate this, and after five or six months of this, retaliated by sending her sister a packet of photos of Ethiopian famine victims cut out of magazines, with an undoubtedly passive-aggressive post-it note attached to them. Soon after, the diet tips stopped arriving.

That is awesome, kudos to your mom.

my aunt just could not understand why my mom would be offended by being sent all those helpful diet tips

i was just re-watching the trailer for LCD Soundsystem: Shut-up and Play the Hits and was thinking, wow, James Murphy is not a super attractive man but i've never thought about that when i think about him, just because i really like his music, he's major, it doesn't matter, i mean, he makes fun of his looks in his songs even. anyway, of course this made me think about women in music - and the arts and everything re: talent really - and the "need" to also be attractive as well talented. :/

i have way more issues about my face than i do about my body, i also realize.

I'm with you on all the rest but I just gised James Murphy and he is totally attractive? So...idgi?

But I only like beat-up looking British Isles types. Preferably heavily and horribly tattooed. I can't understand why I have so much trouble with boyfriends....

Yeah, I've had a thing for James Murphy from the jump.

And the long-time hots for Frank Black if we're going to speak to type here.

However, this - "this made me think about women in music - and the arts and everything re: talent really - and the "need" to also be attractive as well talented" - is a really important point.

I know it happens everywhere but I remember reading a Metafilter (I know, I know) thread about MIA and within like FIVE posts it wasn't about the music but about her looks. And not even about how she is pretty but about whether she is pretty. That happens here sometimes, too, and it drives me nuts bc I like to think that ILX is better than that.

i do not have a thing for james murphy, obv!

nor frank black
shudder

Hello and welcome to my life for the past 20+ years (and if anything it feels like it's got worse since I was young in the 90s, and not better.)

x-post to carl agatha

yeah, and just personally it's just something i'm tired of worrying about - i mean, i love dressing up and putting on make-up and looking good, but i don't the time i've spent in this life worry about if i'm pretty enough not just to date so-and-so or whatevs but to actually do a thing or be a part of something or just put myself and my talents out there more. and that just needs to stop.
xps

truly, i think all people whom i like are beautiful
even james murphy ;) but really, i like his music, i like him, doesn't matter what he looks like, and the same for most people i like or whose talents i admire

it's just hard to shake the sociocultural looks-judgment baggage sometimes

No, it's just the endless men act / women appear dichotomy and how, if a guy is super-talented by not physically perfect, his talent actually makes him seem more attractive. But if a woman is a musician, it is only and ever all about what she looks like and never about her talent, and it doesn't even matter if she is physically perfect, it will become this dissection of how even that is not enough. And it's just dispiriting bullshit.

I don't think James Murphy is attractive, but I don't like his music either.

I like some of his music and I think he' pretty hot tbh.

Carl did you have the hots for Matt Pinfield?

See, it just makes me so annoyed and angry and diverted but it's like I can't even make myself ~just not react~ to it. And every time I swear I won't get involved in these discussions again, up it comes like a bad smell and I scratch, then I get beaten up for bringing it up again because, jesus christ, woman, can't you just STFU and not put your sexism-oar in yet again, but it's like... no, not until people stop doing and saying the endless sexist tropes that keep popping up like a whack-a-mole.

Hate myself for responding. Going to look at Thom Yorke's belly now.

Should really just ban myself from this thread tbh.

Woah, woah, woah! WCC nobody beat you up about anything! You were totally on point. I just googled the other dude and thought he was hot. Also since I'm not a musician I have not experienced this personally and didn't have anything to add.

That was an x-post to myself, sorry you were in the middle of those two posts, ENBB.

well, it's a feeling to feel and to figure out through thinking and talking about it. i don't always feel down about this issue, especially when i realize that my friends and social circle and general loves in life have little to do with mainstream 'appreciations'/judgments of beauty.
xp

lol OK, sorry. I was a little confused!

ultimately, i'm not into "blame society" thinking, though i used to think more like that years ago, but it doesn't help me live my life and love myself; it just distracts me from living

what's going on in how sexism plays out does aggravate and bother me, for sure, obviously since i'm bringing one of the annoyances up itt, but once i talk it out and shake the tentacles of untruth of me, things feel better. constant reminder to do in the face of bombardment though.

WCC you are OTM, and I also feel like it's got worse, but maybe I was just more oblivious. Or maybe back then there was actually a music press, whereas now there are blogs and youtube comments and horrible smug sexist dudes who've bought a domain name and even the printed music press (what little remains) is all Middle-Aged Man Bands For Middle-Aged Men* with barely a woman in sight inside or may as well just be Hello magazine

but even the zines and the local music press and the free-in-guitar-shop rags of the early/mid 90s I don't remember being quite as bad as things which seem to be perfectly standard these days

* sorry to be ageist but you know what I mean, Press Releases About The Forgettable New Albums By Classic Dudes From The Seventies Monthly. I am quite happy to listen to all the middle-aged musicians!

men act / women appear

This is the awesomely succinct crux of it. Starts with pink baby onesies for girls that say "pretty pretty princess" and blue baby onesies for boys that say "little slugger" and just gets shittier from there.

Oh, Matt Pinfield never did it for me. I loved 120 Minutes but I don't think I liked his TV personality?

I've been thinking of challenging myself more to love & appreciate & feel good about "ugly"/"interesting" instead of always pretty PRETTY PREEEEETTTTTY. When I'm not dating anyone right that minute it's a lot easier to be on board with ugly/interesting. When I start to care about being found attractive by someone, though, somehow my brain melts and I start shorting myself of what I deserve.

Also I can no longer hear the word "pretty" without thinking of the Katie Makkai monologue which I would say is the best goddamn thing you could possibly think of.

I feel like a broken record today, but what irritates me most, always, is the one-sidedness of it. That this constant chatter about women's attractiveness to wear them down or dismiss them as not musicians but eye candy. But if you, as a woman, even *mention* that a male musician is attractive, you will instantly get out the "OMG GIRL COOTIES ON OUR BOARD UGH UGH GROUPIES GROUPIES FANGIRLS WE WILL DIE OF THE GIRL COOTIES!" patrol.

As had just literally happened about on another board about 10 minutes before I started ranting on this thread.

I wish I had a button to make this stop irritating me so much, as there just seems to be nothing one can do to make it just not happen.

laurel i think that is a good idea for you

i agree about the vexing nature of this other thing, but i'm going to keep my off switch engaged so i can continue to enjoy things i enjoy
otherwise life becomes kinda joyless for me, and i can't really handle that

I respect people's decisions to stay out of spaces that make them feel horrible without accomplishing anything but it does mean a little more pressure on people who stay. Like I know that Lechera and carl and I'm sure others too just stay off threads that are gonna bug 'em and that they don't feel they need to contribute anything to. I'm sure that decision is doing wonders for their mental health. But the ability to look away might include where you are right now with your fight with the issues, though. If you're feeling like that issue is actively making your life/world worse, of course you want to wade in. It's just...the immediate damage it does to you vs working for an improvement in the world overall? Never sure how that's gonna weight out in any given sitch.

WCC, you got tagged a bit last week-ish with being the person who ALWAYS has something to say about teh wimmens, and I think that was unfair/dumb.

xp Hah!

I have just been thinking about this so much. Because it's all so tied together in a big bag of ugly issues (literally and figuratively.) Like, how damaged I got by this kind of stuff when I was still a jobbing musician. Not just that I thought it hurt my career (I can accept "I just wasn't good enough.") but that it so destroyed my self confidence, sexual confidence, all that kind of stuff. The shit that got said about me, and about my band, for daring to continue to go onstage past my sexual attractiveness date.

It's one thing to accept your body for what it is now, which is kind of a place of peace that I've got to. But that idea that I can no longer even conceive that anyone else could be physically attracted to me, ever again. I'm angry about that right now.

But this is like 10 years worth of issues, not one afternoon. I'm just feeling kinda fragile about this right now.

WCC, you got tagged a bit last week-ish with being the person who ALWAYS has something to say about teh wimmens, and I think that was unfair/dumb.

Yeah, and it just feels really unfair that the person doing that tagging got to rampage around and continue, but it was me that had to STFU and punch myself in the face over it, like I'm the person that has to leave the conversation. Always. As opposed to the people spouting the hurtful shit.

I need to go home and not think about this. Life is really joyless at the moment, for too many reasons, but this is just one of them.

Oh, but I'm not allowed to be ~angry~ because being angry isn't ~ladylike~.

I am pretty much a bottomless pit of anger sometimes. I wish I could be something else.

Well you didn't have to punch yourself in the face over it, I guess is the point I'm not really trying/failing to make. But I think there are a lot of reasons to leave hurtful people alone and not just read it as ceding them the conversation. Like your continued good health so you can live and contribute.

Like I know that Lechera and carl and I'm sure others too just stay off threads that are gonna bug 'em and that they don't feel they need to contribute anything to. I'm sure that decision is doing wonders for their mental health. But the ability to look away might include where you are right now with your fight with the issues, though. If you're feeling like that issue is actively making your life/world worse, of course you want to wade in. It's just...the immediate damage it does to you vs working for an improvement in the world overall? Never sure how that's gonna weight out in any given sitch.

This is probably mean but part of the reason why I don't bother with ~certain threads~ on ILX that go to annoying places is that I don't think the opposition is worth the effort. People (especially a certain kind of male person) on the internet (especially on the internet) are not interested in engaging and discussing. They just want to be right. There's no point in engaging in these discussions because the discussion isn't the point. The point is these dudes typing to hear themselves type and making sure everybody gets to read their super smart words. If somebody was really interested in talking about something and would actually listen to what I have to say, I'm there. But on certain issues here, that just doesn't happen.

Are there people who would like to engage in these conversations? Probably. But it's the folks who are just interested in shouting down opposition (and who have the time to post on the internet all day) who divert the attention. And seriously, fuck them.

In short, I don't the time for it and banging my head against a wall would be more constructive 99% of the time.

But if a woman is a musician, it is only and ever all about what she looks like and never about her talent, and it doesn't even matter if she is physically perfect, it will become this dissection of how even that is not enough

You know, a long time ago the WS threads used to have pictures of fully clothed (I know!) women who were writers or artists or something, and not necessarily "pretty." There might still be the occasional one there, I don't look at the threads, but it was cool when that wasn't a rarity.

For like a minute.

I generally try (try) to not to talk to anyone online I wouldn't genuinely enjoy talking to irl