Have I Ever Told You . . . .
Wednesday, March 5, 2008

. . . . how much I love Joy Nash (creator of the "Fat Rant" on youtube)?

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:24 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Body Acceptance, Fat, Humor, Video

Nice . . . erm . . . .Boots
Friday, September 28, 2007

A couple of days ago, The Rotund had a little contest, in which she challenged readers to guess her height and weight. The inimitable Kate Harding cross-posted this to Shakesville, and let the games begin.

The entire exercise was, IMO, brilliant, and brought to awareness, for me, some very uncomfortable places I still have within myself vis-a-vis fat-phobia (like how I would be totally fine having someone else guess my weight, but I wasn't comfortable guessing someone else's). Back to fat-acceptance school for me.

I was struck, though, by something as I read through the various guesses -- the number of comments that included: "I love your boots", or "You have beautiful hair."

Maybe it's just me -- I'm not really a fashion maven (OK, I'm probably actually a fashion moron) -- but I found myself reacting just a little tiny bit every time I read one of these comments, because it seemed similar to me to some compliments that I've heard over and over again from people (directed toward me, or toward other fat people) -- compliments like "You have beautiful skin", and "She has such a pretty face". I don't think these compliments are necessarily completely false -- usually when they're doled out, I think they are genuinely well-meant, and are probably truthful (I do have beautiful skin).

But sometimes, I think these might be a version of "Thumper" compliments (as in: "If you can't say something nice... don't say nothing at all.") So, rather than make a compliment that would in any way bring notice to the fact that I'm fat (because they assume I'll be offended by that), they choose something safer.

I notice that I most often receive these types of compliments from some of my friends who haven't really "adjusted" to the fact that I am not the skinny little shit that I used to be (IOW: haven't dealt with their fat-phobia). I think they really want to give me a compliment -- maybe I'm looking particularly radiant at the moment -- but I often find that they will say something that seems to point directly at some aspect of my clothing, a specific feature of mine that doesn't relate to my size, etc. -- my favorite (not) is "You look good. Have you lost weight?" (which was, like, the third thing my mom said to me during our recent visit, even though I doubt if my weight has changed at all since I saw her last).

I notice that if I'm glowing in some undefineable way, my friends who are not fat-phobic usually say something like: "You look great!"

I notice that my mate frequently tells me, as we snuggle into the comforter and she wraps her arms around me and squeezes me tight: "I adore your body."

The irony here is, when I, a fat woman who is actively working on fat-acceptance, was challenged by a woman who is all about fat-acceptance to make a guess about her height/weight, I found myself in a cold sweat. I think part of it is that I don't really pay attention to "lbs. on the scale" and therefore, have no frame of reference from which to make an educated guess (and I do have this thing about being "wrong" -- I can admit it) -- but at least part of it was: That I didn't want to "offend" her by guessing too high, but I didn't want to be shit and guess low in order to "not offend" her.

So this post is a thank you to The (brave and fabulous) Rotund, and Kate Harding, for raising my consciousness (again).

Posted byPortlyDyke at 10:16 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Body Acceptance, Consciousness, Fat

I Do Everything I'm Not S'posed To Do
Monday, August 6, 2007

On purpose, even.

I smoke. I drink. I'm "fat" (from now on, I'm going to be using quotes around that word, because I think it's penultimately subjective, but according to the Holy BMI, I am F.A.T.). I don't "exercise" (likewise, "exercise" will be in quotes hereinafter, because I don't consider gardening, teaching, the ability to lift heavy objects, or sex as "exercise" -- even though these activities, for me, frequently involve heavy lifting, pushing, sweating, panting, pushing, groaning, grinding, thrusting . . . oh, you get the picture).

I curse. I blaspheme. I lose my temper. I whine.

I am a big old homo. I have consumed nearly every illegal drug that exists at one time or another.

I choose not to send birthday and christmas cards to my family of origin.

I let my leg hair and armpit hair grow without harvesting it.

I allowed my kids to watch TV, and play video games when they were growing up. I watch TV and play video games myself to this very day.

Clearly, I must be a menace to society.

I am a statistical anomaly -- according to "conventional wisdom", I should be, at the very least, rampantly unhealthy and unhappy, and at the most, dead -- but I'm none of these.

So much of status quo media and advertising seems to be concentrated on nailing down some formula for "health" (completely subjective), or some bomb-proof prescription for "happiness" (completely subjective), or the demarkation of some standard of "normalcy" (not even subjective -- non-existant -- normal never existed, and never will!) -- that it seems to me that many people that I know spend a great deal of time trying to figure out where they are on some farcical (and ever-shifting) scale of healthy/happy/normal, rather than spending much, if any, time figuring out where they actually are.

I was born in the 50's, an era which had its happy/healthy/normal prescription pretty much sewed up -- all you had to do was a) graduate from high school and possibly college, b) marry someone of the opposite gender, c) squirt out a couple of babies (if you were female) or get a job (if you were a male), d) buy a house, e) sell your soul to your employer for 40 years or so, then f) retire and prepare for your ultimate fate (nursing home, followed by Death).

Easy, right? And Oh-So-Satisfying!

Except it wasn't. Not for anyone that I have ever known, even amongst the biggest dispensers of this prescription -- my parents' generation.

For me, the prescription broke down when I realized that I was queer, and that Step B was going to be a bit tricky for me. Once I figured out that I hadn't, and probably never would attain Step B, and I was still healthy and happy, while my sister, who had followed the prescription to a "T" seemed both unhealthy and unhappy, I really started taking a second look at that prescription. That was back in the 70's.

What is shocking to me is how many smart, educated young people these days seem convinced that the 1950's protocol of School, Mate, Babies/Job, House, Retirement is actually viable. Even though it didn't really work for their parents, or their grand-parents. I'm struck by how many young parents I hear repeating the same old cants of "Well, you don't know how hard it is to stay home with the kids all day!/Well you don't know how hard it is to go out and work all day!" -- I mean, hasn't this been done to death, already?

I'm struck by how many parents who are my age or slightly younger, who snuck out to smoke pot, drop acid, and/or drink alcohol as teenagers are absolutely shocked and outraged when their now-teen-aged children do the same thing. ('Cuz, like, their own parents shock and outrage was such an effective antidote, and kept them from doing these things, right?)

It's just weird to me.

That's why I no longer follow the prescription that Mr. Socio-Cultural Wizard handed me in 1956, and I'm pretty wary any time I see some new prescription that guarantees health, happiness, and normalcy.

In the 1960's, everyone knew that margarine was "healthier" for you than butter. Except now it's not, because trans-fats will KILL you, and everyone knows that. In the 1960's, everyone knew that you needed to eat meat every day to get all your protein needs met. Except now you don't, because meat will KILL you, and everyone knows that. Except the Atkins people, who know that meat will not kill you, but Carbohydrates will KILL you. In the 1960's everyone knew that drinking 3 glasses of milk every day was an important part of the "nutrition pyramid". Except now, it isn't, because milk has fat, which will KILL you. Or maybe it is, because it has calcium, which will help keep you from being KILLED. Or maybe it isn't, because you're allergic to bovine dairy products, and your gut will swell up, which will KILL you.

One of the wonderful things about getting a bit older is this: You get to watch a lot of "science" tell you a lot of things about what will KILL you, and you get to look around for yourself and notice who's actually dead, and who is actually not dead.

Personally, I think the number one thing that will KILL you is being dead while you're still alive -- paying so much attention to crap that doesn't really fucking matter that you have no attention left for the things that do matter, or plastering your consciousness-windows with so much bullshit "science" (which in most cases is funded by food and drug companies with something to sell) that you can no longer see clearly into the world that you inhabit.

Facts: I'm a "fat", healthy, dyke, who enjoys tobacco, alcohol, red meat, video games, and television. I also read voraciously, breathe and get around just fine, thank you, have work that I enjoy and that people are happy to pay me to perform, and most importantly, am vibrantly alive, and "happier" than probably 90% of the people that I know or know of. Like I said, I'm a statistical anomaly.

I credit this to the moment I stopped paying attention to that man behind the curtain -- you know -- the one who was supposed to make everything all better?

That is all.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 1:24 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Fat, Queers, Spirituality, Truth, Very Personal Details

TTDT -- Be Prepared to Speak Your Truth
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

I think we've all had the experience. Someone -- perhaps someone we know, love, or expect something different from -- says something, right in front of us, that we find so offensive, ignorant, discriminatory, and/or demeaning-- that we are absolutely flabbergasted.

Example: My mother (the woman who used to be all liberal and shit -- who taught me that racism was a really bad thing) says to me, during a phone call, of the Somalian refugees who are now living in her small town: "Well, they all look alike you know!"

Example: My co-workers, who work every day with my white boss (who happens to be married to a black man), and seem to love and respect her, wait until she, and every person of color, is out of the room before they exclaim over the picture of her new daughter: "Oh, thank goodness -- she's so light!"

These are only two of many (personally-experienced) examples -- examples of speech that I recognized, in the moment, as absolutely, positively, unvarnished racism-in-action.

When I heard these statements, I didn't wonder in my head (as I often do, when I receive or overhear a fat-phobic or homophobic comment, however overt) -- "Am I just being sensitive because this is 'my' issue?" I knew immediately that these comments were offensive, ignorant, discriminatory and demeaning.

Yet, in both of the examples above, I was utterly flummoxed at the moment. I did not make an immediate response. I did not speak my truth in the moment, and I lived with regret about that afterward, stewing for days and days about what I should have done in the moment, regardless of what action I took later.

In the first example with my mom, at that moment, I remember that I stammered -- my dad, lingering on the extension phone, jumped in for a quick recovery, changed the subject, and ended the phone call within the next 60 seconds.

In the second example with my co-workers, my jaw actually dropped -- I simply stared, speechless, at them over the picture of this beautiful child, and before I could think of what to say, they had already slunk away to their respective work-stations, and left me standing alone in the break-room.

In both of these encounters, and in many others -- like "Joe" (Vs. the Volcano), as he quits his "job" -- I found my mind whirling around this phrase:

"I should say something."

In truth, however, at each of these moments, I had no idea what to say. While I tried to catch my breath, my brain was, no doubt, busy calculating the risks of possible confrontation, the likelihood of effecting change in the situation, and the emotional and energetic cost of engaging with someone who could say "something like that" while I was a) totally pissed off/triggered, b) uncertain whether I ever wanted to talk to them again, and c) totally pissed off/triggered.

Would I/Should I? --

1. Launch into an educational diatribe about the heinous results of racism, whether intentional and practiced, or unconscious and entertained?
2. Simply say, in measured tones: "I can't believe you just said that," and stalk away, clothed in my outrage, hoping that they would understand what had offended me?
3. Raise my voice to match the intensity of my emotional response and emphatically state: "That is a racist comment, and I won't stand for it!" and hope that someone might actually have the guts to meet me in the crucible where my personal activation was swirling with a global human issue?
4. Shout with all my might: "You fucking hypocritical turd(s)!", and refuse to deal with them until they apologized?

I've actually done all of those things, in other situations. I haven't found them to be tremendously successful in effecting the change I want to make in the world.

Here are two of the most effective consciousness-changing actions I've ever taken (the first of which I wouldn't have even thought about if I hadn't answered a QOD at Shakesville the other night):

Action #1: Dark theater, 1995. Showing of "Higher Learning" in a cinema located in a well-known liberal west coast city. Audience of 200 or more, mostly urban, well-educated folk.

The movie is all about oppression, and the audience seems to be following along, getting the gist of it all -- until, HORRORS! -- there's a (minuscule -- like maybe three seconds, tops) lesbian kissing scene-- at which groans, retching noises, and choruses of "oh gross!" break out in the theater. I am stunned for a moment.
I can't believe what I'm hearing.

Then, somehow, without thinking, I say, calmly, in a voice just loud enough to be heard throughout the theater: "I'm a lesbian." The place goes dead fucking silent.

The woman next to me fidgets throughout the rest of the movie, but the woman who is in a seat two rows in front of me sits through the credits, as I do, and when the theater is all but empty, and I am leaving, she touches my arm, and asks: "Was it you who said that?" -- "Yes," I answer (after looking around to see who might be waiting to beat the crap out of me).

"Thank you for saying that," she says.

Action #2: I am leaving my brother's second wedding with my mom and dad. They are taking me to the airport. It's a long drive.

On the way, parental units are ripping my new sister-in-law a new asshole. I have no idea why, really.

I suspect they're really mad at my brother, for ruining the "no-divorce" streak that our branch of the family had maintained for a couple of generations, but they're ripping on the new wife, not my brother. I first engage in an educational manner, trying to appeal to "reason" -- but they're having none of it.

Finally, I said: "You know, when I hear you talk like this, I wonder what you say about me, when I'm not here."

Then there is a long, uncomfortable silence, which does not seem to portend any great shift of consciousness.

A year later, my dad takes me aside, and tells me that he remembered what I said, and has thought (and acted) differently about gossiping or complaining about people in the family, ever since.

The commonality in these two actions, I believe, was my willingness to be vulnerable in the moment.

I usually find it much easier to speak up and out on behalf of others -- to protest and confront racism, trans-phobia, hetero-phobia, religious intolerance for religions that are not my own, etc., etc. -- than it is for me to directly confront fat-phobia, homo-phobia, or misogyny, or any of the "isms" that are focused at me directly.

I think this has to do with the fact that I have a suspicion/understanding that it is actually possible for me to see things and hear things through a very subjective filter that may, or may not, provide me with an accurate view of what has just happened. (Shorter Portly Dyke: I don't trust myself.)

I spent several decades of my life perpetually pissed off -- not without reason, mind you -- but, in retrospect, I believe that there was a period during I was actually addicted to my anger -- I became more loyal to my rage than to my reason, and more attached to my identity as an oppressed person/victim than to my desire or motivation to effect change.

So, now, I keep a sharp eye on my RighteousWrath-O-Meter, especially when responding to issues that strike close to the bone for me.

I don't have judgment about feeling mad -- I think that the energy of this emotion can be (and wants to be) transformed into action very effectively. I believe that feeling "pissed off" is telling me something (but probably nothing that feeling "slightly irritated" wasn't telling me, long before I registered being pissed off).

However, I haven't found pedantic lectures, icey walk-outs, or incendiary spews to be necessarily effective.

The one thing that I have actually found to be effective is: My truth. How I feel in the moment.

I wish now that, when my mom had said that, I had responded immediately with: "Mom. I feel sad and mad when I hear you saying that. It doesn't seem to fit for me with what I've heard you say about judging people by their skin color." (Because that's what I thought when I heard it.)

I wish now, that, when my co-workers said what they did, I had responded immediately with: "I feel very bad, and very sad right now. I have the sense that I've just been included in a 'whites only' conversation, and I don't want to be a part of that. I feel scared to even say this, because I think that if I say it, you'll start treating me like you just treated our boss -- waiting for me to leave the room to say what you really think."

This post was inspired by two things:

1. Thorn's posts at Shapely Prose. Reading her story, with all the "messy" vulnerable feelings included, brought me closer to her experience, and helped me to commit again to speaking up in the moment when I witness or experience oppression.
2. An experience that I had recently, where the power of telling a personal story of my own, and including the emotional content, without trying to look all "cool", shifted a conversation/conflict dramatically.
   

So here's the TTDT:

Be prepared to speak your truth -- not "the" truth, and not some "prepared statement". Your truth, in the moment.

Be smart, witty, whatever you will -- but also -- Remember to tell people how you feel -- describe your emotions and experience -- not just the feeling of being mad/angry/rage-full, but also the sadness, the feeling of being scared to speak up, the fear of being "thrown out" or discounted, or simply the dissonant twang that arises when something has been said and you haven't yet figured out, intellectually, what exactly is bugging you about it.

You may be thinking: "Well, they don't care how I feel -- if they did, they wouldn't say what they said!"

Just try it. Try a bit of vulnerability. Sure, they may go for your throat. But hell, if they're as bad as you are projecting them to be, they're going for your throat anyway.

I'm going to be working with this through the next week.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 10:35 PM 5 comments  

Labels: angst-Loss, Fat, Homophobia, Politics, Progressives, Racism, Truth

Fatty-fying
Monday, July 9, 2007

I read a post over at Petulant Ramblings yesterday, about HP's new "Slimming" technology.

I found this rather (painfully) funny, as just days before, I had gone to some trouble to:

"Fattify" this woman . . . .











Into this woman.


I thought it was pretty hideously hilarious that I spent some significant time in Photoshop HELLp to achieve the above effect, when HP would gladly spend time, resources, and programming hours to help me reverse it with the mere click of a button!

For those of you who have taken the Angst-Loss Challenge -- this is not actually a TTDT -- (It's completely optional, and neglecting/refusing to do this does not constitute a breach of your 30-day challenge) -- but if you've a mind to - contact Hewlett Packard and request a "fattening" feature that is just as easy to use as their "slimming" effect, so that you can help your friends out when they look too anorexic in your photos.

(The really crushing irony is that the woman in the graphic above at left would still be considered "fat" in our society.)

Posted byPortlyDyke at 8:45 AM 5 comments  

Labels: angst-Loss, Body Acceptance, Fat