I’ve been poking through the Times fall fashion supplement, because, I mean, really, why not. All sorts of neat pictures, sometimes interesting articles…fashion intrigues me, primarily in an abstract way, and I like to see how fashions change over time. I love looking at preposterous runway collections and ugly, clunky jewelry that rich women will spend a lot of money on, purely because they are told to. And sometimes, I find the coverage of fashion positively fascinating, or revealing.

And then, I noticed an article titled “Big Hips Are In,” so I clicked on it, and found therein this choice line:

“…Reubens nudes are beautiful too, and who wants to resemble them?”

This popped up on the second page of the article, and it only got better from there. I’m not exactly sure what point this journalist was trying to make, but the article was so appallingly bigoted and ultimately pointless that I actually physically stepped back for a moment after finishing it, repulsed. I’m accustomed to the idea that many people think that the fat female body is disgusting, but something about this article in particular made me deeply unhappy, to think that this self-described fat phobic would look at my body and compare it with a classical figure, but not in a flattering way. To think that I would care about what she thought in her casual assessment of my body.

Every now and then, I am reminded of the fact that much of society finds my body unacceptable, and it plunges me into a dark, gloomy depression. I see an article which I think might, perhaps, be about the return of veneration of curves, and instead it’s a steamy pile of bigoted bile, written by someone so wrapped up in her own food and body issues that she doesn’t even seem to realize how hateful she is, as she belittles larger women and a history of fashion which embraces fuller bodies.

Imagine if every news article about people who looked like you was about how disgusting you were, and how you were a burden on society. If, every time you opened a newspaper, you stumbled upon an article which informed you that your body was repulsive, and not worthy of respect. How do you think you would feel?

The work of Reubens is beautiful, and so are his women. I get that you can think that something/someone is beautiful and still not aspire to that (for example, I find some Olympic athletes quite beautiful, but I am not interested in molding my body to look like theirs), but why be so hateful about it? How can you acknowledge something as beautiful while simultaneously being disgusted by it?

Reubens has been praised for centuries for his portrayal of soft, sensual, beautiful women (who actually come in a variety of sizes, if you actually bother to look at his body of work). But apparently we live in a one size fits all society today, kids, because to aspire to be Venus at the Mirror or Eve in The Fall of Man is to be “improbable.” To have a body which deviates from the socially-dictated norm is to be forever marginalized, and apparently the “straight-up-and-down” gym-maintained author has never had to deal with that fact.

Bah on you, Caroline Weber. And bah on the Times for publishing your bigoted, pointless, trivializing tripe. Finally, bah on me for reading it.

Fortunately, Jezebel has an awesome collection of features on the Olympics, including a celebration of various body types and a discussion of the discussion about Olympic bodies in the media, and that cheered me up immensely.

Numerous people have sent me links to the Chozick article in the Wall Street Journal which claims that Mr. Obama is not fat enough to be elected, and while I was just going to ignore the article for the pile of steaming tripe that it was, I have seen it picked up in multiple places, so I feel obliged to respond. When the New York Times is reprinting bad journalism in incoherent op-eds, kids, it’s time to step back, take a deep breath, and examine the situation a little more carefully.

Basically, the Wall Street Journal article posits that Mr. Obama is too “fit” to run for President, and that fat or overweight Americans won’t vote for him. To bolster this argument, the “journalist” quotes a random Clinton supporter who says she won’t vote for “a beanpole.” Only, as it turns out, that comment didn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, it came from a message board which Chozick deliberately baited. Now that’s what I call journalism.

Not only that, but Chozick basically lifted part of the article straight from the McCain campaign.

So, there are a number of problems with this article, and I’m going to pick a few of them apart for you.

Let’s start with the issue of journalistic integrity. This article was essentially a combination of a Republican attack ad and carefully structured, baited sound bites. Which makes it kind of less valid actual reporting than articles which involve more balanced sources, such as honest interviews in which the participants are not baited into making inflammatory statements. The fact that material was lifted without attribution from the McCain campaign is also pretty amazing.

I realize that superficial, nonsensical articles are kind of the norm during a political campaign, but I really feel like this article was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Mr. Obama may not be my candidate, but I don’t see the need to attack him for his fitness level, or for what he eats, because these issues are not relevant to my decisions as a voter.

Which brings me to another important issue: will fat Americans refuse to vote for Obama? Well, I’m a fat American, and I’m not voting for him, but my decision has nothing to do with his weight, and everything to do with his policies and failure to stand by his stated beliefs. And I think that most fat Americans who choose not to vote for Obama are using similar reasoning; I really doubt that weight is that big a factor. Maybe I’m wrong, which would be really depressing. Americans are rather superficial, it’s true. It would be interesting to see the results of an actual survey on the matter.

For the fat acceptance movement, there’s nothing wrong with electing a fit, slender President. There’s also nothing wrong with electing a fit, fat President. Or even a fat, unfit President. Or a slender, unhealthy President. And so forth. Because weight and fitness level should not be deciding factors in elections. It’s about the fitness, so to speak, to lead the United States, the ability to stand behind stated beliefs, the ability to support social policies which I believe in. The sound bites Chozick used came from people like angry Clinton supporters who wouldn’t be voting for Obama anyway, or from people who are lacking common ground with Obama. It’s not just weight that they don’t have in common, it’s a whole host of issues.

To be honest, I haven’t paid any attention to Mr. Obama’s weight. I know that he rides a bike now and then, and that he’s stated a fondness for roast beef. That’s really about it. And while I would prefer to elect a President who shares my love for food, in the hopes that he or she would promote food safety and better regulation of the food industry, again, weight has nothing to do with it. For all I know, Mr. Obama loves food every bit as much as I do; I can’t make a judgment on the basis of how someone looks, and neither should anyone else.

“The Obama campaign declined to comment on this article,” notes the “journalist,” although the McCain campaign was happy to submit some sound bites. I’m not surprised that the Obama campaign decided not to dignify this garbage with a response, or that the McCain campaign seized it as yet another opportunity to trash the opponent.

I’m far more concerned about the fact that Mr. Obama smokes (ugh) than his weight and fitness level, and I can think of issues a lot more important than weight which are being ignored by people like Chozick.

Recently, the MTV movies blog posted an open call for questions for Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight books. The idea is that she is going to read through all the questions, pick a few out, and then answer them at her book launch. A lot of the questions are pretty basic, and usually accompanied with effusive professions of adoration for Meyer and her characters. I was actually pretty impressed that it took so long for the questions to devolve, but they inevitably did.

At first, the questions were just dumb, and then they started crossing the line into offensive. And, almost immediately, questions about her weight started popping up. “Why don’t you lose weight, out of respect for Bella,” one bizarre comment said.

This, of course, led me to go look up a picture of Stephenie Meyer, since I didn’t remember anything remarkable about her weight. And, lo and behold, I found a picture of an attractive, healthy woman, with soft curls and nice eyes. She’s definitely undergone a bit of a makeover since her early book releases, and she has a much more polished look today, but I think she’s rather pretty. And, yeah, not a size two.

But I don’t see how her size is at all relevant to her abilities as an author. I think it’s a bit unfortunate that her books are about impossibly beautiful people, but her supporting cast of colors could probably come in an assortment of sizes; she’s kind of deliberately left her descriptions vague, allowing readers to fill in the blanks. But again, I don’t see how her size is relevant, and I don’t see how its any of our business, anyway. Stephenie Meyer can be any size she wants, and it’s still not relevant to our existence.

I think Meyer is lucky, in that she has a huge, very supportive fandom, and her books have kind of been flying under the radar. Now that Twilight is turning into a big movie, however, I think that Meyer is about to encounter the ugly side of fame, and I think that’s a great pity. She strikes me as a fairly self-possessed, very together woman, and I think it’s going to take serious effort to find a chink in her armor, but that chink will eventually be found, because such is the nature of fame, especially in the age of the Internet, where deliberate efforts to be as malicious as possible seem to abound.

Size hatred never seems to get old, judging from the comments on the MTV post, and everyone’s a target. I would almost like to see her answering one of the fat hatred questions, just to take a chance to expose sizism for the hateful, nasty, foul thing that it is. I think it would send a great messasge to the young women who read her books, and a pointed message to the world.

You do know that photographs in fashion mags are heavily altered before publication, right? I always assume that this is common knowledge, but I wasn’t aware of how heavily modified some images are until I checked out some before and after comparisons (click on ‘portfolio’). Looking at those images was quite eye opening, as I suddenly realized that all of the porcelain dolls I see on magazine covers have skin that’s actually a lot like mine, with small blemishes and natural imperfections. And that even “perfect” actresses and models are altered before being placed in the public eye.

I find that pretty depressing, myself. We constantly rail on about the unrealistic beauty standard promoted by the fashion industry, but it’s kind of a shock to be actually confronted with it. Of course, I knew that image manipulation happens, but I don’t think I realized the extent of such manipulation. It certainly didn’t occur to me that even for the perfect, there is no perfection, thanks to this crazy society we live in.

Yesterday, this article was published in the Telegraph, and the fatosphere started responding, along with feminist bloggers. For those of you who don’t feel inclined to read the article, the short version is that many fashion magazines are starting to alter images of models and actresses to make them seem less thin. And I stress “less thin,” although the Telegraph opted for “fatter,” because these women aren’t fat, they are still thin. Very, very thin.

My response to the article was mixed. On the one hand, I thought it was interesting that magazines are actually altering images to make their subjects look larger, although still nowhere close to real women. On the other hand, it depressed me to think that these magazines have chosen to cover up the real consequences of dangerous thinness, probably in response to rising public outcry about the issue, and to make them seem more attractive.

As Ann says in the post at Feministing, if you want pictures of healthy models, hire healthy models, rather than modifying photographs of unhealthy models to make them look healthier. This seems pretty straightforward to me. She also made a very good point when she discussed the fact that extremely thin women don’t actually look that attractive, what with tiny breasts and bottoms, and jutting bones, so altering their images encourages people to pursue a thin look without revealing the physical cost.

Image manipulation of this type is simply a clear, blatant, lie. It conceals an important reality: the fact that anoretics have sallow, nasty skin, ashy hair, jutting bones, and a variety of other grotesque symptoms. The reality is that if you want to be as thin as the people in magazines, you’re going to look awful, but you might not realize that, since the truth is concealed from you.

The fashion industry is brutal for people on the inside, and pretty awful for those of us on the outside who are still influenced by it. I’m not sure what kind of message photoshopping to add flesh might be sending, but I don’t think it’s good, and I would love to see even one fashion magazine use honest, unaltered images straight from the camera. Just for once, it would be nice to see the truth, rather than an elaborately constructed fiction.

There seems to be growing awareness that maybe being extremely thin is dangerous, and some action is even being taken, like banning anorexic fashion models from fashion shows. Yet, at the same time, I see casual references to the “obesity epidemic” everywhere I look. I wonder if anyone’s left in the middle anymore, when a size eight is fat, all the models are all under size zero, and even they aren’t perfect enough for the exacting standards of the fashion industry.

Sometimes, my posts about irritation with modern society just write themselves, and this was definitely the case when I encountered this Newsweek article about a children’s book explaining plastic surgery. It’s called “My Beautiful Mommy,” and it kind of makes me want to vomit.

Ostensibly, the book is designed to be marketed to mothers who are considering plastic surgery and want to be able to explain what’s happening to their young children. I get that. I can imagine it would be weird when your parents undergo medical procedures and don’t explain it, and it can be scary, so being able to talk about it would probably be really beneficial for young children, taking the fear of the unknown out of the equation.

But has plastic surgery for mothers become so commonplace that we need a children’s book to explain it? The outrageometer says yes, because obviously mothers have gross, disgusting, nasty sagging tummies and breasts, and no one will ever love them unless they resort to dangerous invasive surgical procedures to make them smooth, firm, and tight again.

I’ve noticed that mothers seem to be in for it more and more these days. First, they’re expected to lose their baby weight post haste, because baby weight makes you FAT and no one wants to look at fat people, even if they did just grow a human being. And now, apparently, mothers are supposed to surgically correct the somewhat inevitable results of pregnancy, thereby even further disguising the evidence that they gave birth to children.

Now, I don’t have children, so maybe I’m missing something here, but I feel like parenthood is a source of pride and personal identity for many people. So why would you want to conceal the fact that you are a parent? And why would you want a partner who erases all evidence of having born children, despite the fact that the children are (presumably) still in your lives?

A friend of mine once told me that he always thinks that women who haven’t had children look incomplete or unfinished somehow. He didn’t mean it in an insulting way (really), and he made a valid point; hormonal changes during pregnancy do change your body in certain ways, and some of those changes endure. From an evolutionary standpoint, it would make sense to be attracted to women who exhibit characteristics associated with pregnancy, because it means that they are fertile, which makes it kind of doubly sad that mothers now apparently feel like they need to cover up the evidence when they have children.

I’m opposed to plastic surgery in general, except in the case of reconstructive surgery after serious injuries or accidents, or in the case of surgery to correct congenital birth defects which cause pain or extreme embarrassment, or hinder someone’s ability to live. By all means, fix cleft palates and give burn victims new skin, but why hack the bodies of healthy people to satisfy some insane beauty standard?

Not having been pregnant, I don’t know what it’s like to experience the physical and hormonal changes associated with pregnancy and its aftermath. And I can definitely understand a sense of frustration or unhappiness with one’s body after pregnancy, because it has undergone some major changes. But I feel like it’s something that people should ride out, rather than correcting surgically. I know lots of mothers with washboard abs and firm, high breasts who came by them naturally, illustrating that it is, in fact, possible to tone your body back into shape after pregnancy, if that’s what you want to do.

It makes me incredibly sad that our solution to the complex emotions which women experience after surgery is to sweep them under the rug, to hack their bodies apart so they look “normal again.” What kind of society do we live in?

There was a great article up yesterday on Jezebel, talking about the new trend of equating baby weight with fat. The article itself is delightfully witty and derisive, and a lot of the comments are pretty excellent too. I really like the person who said “I’m not fat, my fetus is!”

At the same time, the article made me really sad.

One of the things about not really following pop culture is that I tend to catch up cultural trends long after they are passed, and I wasn’t aware that the baby weight issue had gotten so, uhm, big. Basically, the article and the comments were discussing the celebrity trend of losing weight as quickly as possible after giving birth, to get back to pre-baby weight. Celebrities appear totally thin and “normal” within days of birth, thanks to pressure to be all skinny, all the time.

Because obviously your health is less important than your dress size.

I was really horrified to read this, because I had been under the impression that pregnancy was the last get of jail free card when it came to being fat or overweight, since most people understand that when you are incubating another human being, you are going to put on at least a little bit of weight. And sure, I hear some of my pregnant friends complaining about how much weight they are gaining, and stressing out about losing it, but most of them haven’t turned to anorexia as soon as the little blighter pops out to bring their weight down; instead they breastfeed, jog with their infants, and eat healthy diet, and the weight tends to go away naturally. And it’s not their major concern, it’s more one of the many overwhelming and intense things about pregnancy, when your body feels like it is slipping out of your control.

I’ve also noticed that celebrities tend to remain frighteningly thin when they are pregnant. In a Times article a few weeks about about the “baby bump” being the new “hot accessory” (and don’t get me started there), all the pictures were of fairly pregnant celebrities who were still rail thin. They looked…grotesque, honestly. Like those pictures of starving African children with hugely distended bellies and stick-like arms and legs. I remember thinking how sad it was that women feel the pressure to be thin even when they are pregnant, and that women are willing to risk their health and the health of the baby to cater to the idea that women should be thin all the time.

It’s also a major bummer, because celebrities have the power to turn public opinion around. I would love to see curvy, fat, happy, pregnant celebrities flaunting their stretch marks, because it would send a more realistic image to women. The fact of the matter is that when you are pregnant, you gain weight. Straight up. That’s how it works. And I think that you have more important things to worry about while pregnant than how big you’ve gotten. If celebrities weren’t afraid to be fat while pregnant, maybe pregnant women wouldn’t be beating themselves up for their temporary weight gain.

It’s rude to ask how much weight someone has gained at any point, and that includes pregnancy. It’s also rude to ask “when are you due” when you’re talking to someone you don’t know. And it’s just plain ludicrous to glorify thin pregnant women and to force newly post-partum women to drop those pounds, quickly quickly, you don’t want to slip out of the public eye so pass the baby to the nanny and lose that weight! Go! Go!

On Sunday night, I found myself loosely following Oscar results, not out of any major interest in which films/people won but because I was a bit bored. When Tilda Swinton won for her work on Michael Clayton, I stumbled across an interview with Tilda Swinton, which I was going to link to, but the content “mysteriously changed” between Sunday and now. I’ve really got to start taking screen captures.

The main thrust of the interview was discussing the fact that she gained weight for the Michael Clayton role, complete with a witty headline like “Swinton eats her way to glory” or some such crap. She of course expressed delight with being able to eat whatever she wanted (have you heard of intuitive eating, Tilda? It’s pretty awesome, mainly because you can…eat whatever you want), and she went into some of her reasons for gaining weight for the role.

I was most struck by a statement that she wanted the character to “look uncomfortable in her own skin.” Because, you know, obviously fat people are uncomfortable in their own skin. Because being fat is so awful and miserable, how could you not feel uncomfortable in your own skin? And she went on to say “I wanted her to have this sort of itchy feeling about her body so her clothes were always either too tight or her underwear was too tight but her clothes actually don’t fit.” Because we fatties are known for wearing clothing that doesn’t fit.

Maybe it’s hard to explain why her statements irritated me if you aren’t fat. But can you see how they might be kind of…off putting, at the very least? Perhaps she didn’t mean it to come across this way, but I was left with a very distinctive impression: fat people are uncomfortable in their own skin, and they wear ill-fitting clothing. Maybe Swinton didn’t say it, but the implication seemed to be that fat people don’t care about themselves, let themselves go…and perhaps even expect to be loathed by society.

The article emphasized scenes where the character exercises,  “striving for something she can’t have,” because of course the sight of a fat person exercising is pathetic and laughable. Which explains why when I’m out on my bike, other cyclists avert their gazes and laugh when I pass by. Oh, wait, they don’t, they nod and smile, recognizing a fellow human being. And fat people never get anywhere when they exercise, no matter what they might think. Nope, I can exercise every day and I’ll still be fat and unhealthy and gross, because of course being fat is, you know, totally awful. As for the morbidly obese, instead of the just fat, why, they shouldn’t even bother leaving the house, let alone exercising.

Every time an actress gains weight for a role, I feel obligated to go look at the before and after pictures, since the media makes such a big fuss of it.  Take Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones, looking in my opinion perfectly normal, although a bit puffy around the edges, like someone who gained weight too rapidly and in a dangerous way. After that film? Frighteningly thin. The publicity photos I could track down of Swinton in the film didn’t appear fat; in fact, she looked a bit thin to me.

Swinton may be “ferociously intellectual,” as one review said, but it sounds to me like she’s just as bigoted as the rest of the Hollywood community. Bummer.

“She looks just like a big slab of bacon,” one of them was saying as I took out the garbage on my way into town to pay the rent, and a gale of deep throated male laughter arose, the kind of laughter that makes me nervous. I nodded genially as I dropped the recycling in, and the Neighbor With the Chainsaw nodded back, a bit sheepishly, as I took out the garbage. I hope he hasn’t been reading my blog, I thought, wondering what the expression was about and then shrugging my shoulders and heading off down the alley.

I had bigger fish to fry, like my rage over Saturday’s mail, and I was a fair way down the alley when I heard the next comment in the conversation, pitched specifically for my ears, I’m sure.

“You oughta go hoggin‘,” one of them says, and a gale of ugly laughter rose up as I realized that they were talking about me. The jokes, the ugly laughter, were about the passive aggressive neighbor who nods genially when she takes out the garbage and writes blog entries about chainsaw usage. Only they don’t know that I write passive aggressive entries about chainsaw usage, all they know is that I’m a little weird but generally friendly. Oh, and I’m fat. I did the only rational thing I could do in the circumstances, which was to square my shoulders and keep walking as if I hadn’t heard.

They must eat some moldy-ass bacon, I thought, looking down at my fuzzy green zip-up hoodie.

I’ve been thinking about my place in the fat activist world lately. I was actually going to write an entry today about how I am hesitant to classify myself as a fat activist because of the implied baggage which comes with that, and that I prefer to think of myself as advocating for health at any size, and then as I was walking down the street thinking about how someone had just compared me to a piece of bacon, I realized that this is unacceptable. I cannot keep walking as if I haven’t heard, and I can’t say I advocate for health at any size (although I do), when I really advocate for acceptance, and for treating people like human beings. To restrict myself to a health at any size view is to say that some fat people shouldn’t be treated like people, to suggest that it’s ok to go be mean to those other unhealthy fat people.

I wonder why they chose bacon. I think of bacon as a delicious, flavorful animal product which is filled with goodness. To paraphrase Mark Twain, to compare me to a pig is a credit to me and an insult to the pig. But I think really that guy was just saying I’m a pig as in fatty. Lardo. Porky. A big ole fat slab of bacon ripe for abuse.

And no one should be treated like that, healthy or not. We don’t shout at lepers anymore, so why the fuck is it acceptable to call someone walking down the street a slab of bacon? The only appropriate response to that situation is anger, whether or not the person is healthy. And that is why I am a fat activist, because you don’t need to think that fat is beautiful (I don’t always think so), and you don’t need to think that fat is right (it’s not, for everyone), and you don’t even need to think that fat is healthy (although it is, for some), but you do need to think that fat people are human beings. And fat people have emotions and feelings, and our weight is not a good excuse to insult is, to belittle us, to refuse to hire us, to deny health insurance to us, to treat us like second class citizens.

I personally think that protruding tumors are gross, but you don’t see me heckling stage IV cancer patients. I’m also not a big fan of dreadlocks on white people, but I don’t harass hippies when they walk down the street. Because these people are human beings. Because what they do with their bodies is not my business. Because I don’t know what they might be struggling with, the complex emotions and permutations that have gone into their physical presentations. I listened to an interview with several fat activists yesterday in which the interviewer kept saying “you’re saying you think fat people deserve acceptance,” in this horribly skeptical and horrified way, like the activist was saying “I think we should kill all old people,” and the activist just kept saying, simply, “yes. I do.”

On the way home, I stopped by Purity and picked up a Cappuccino It’s-It. I drew out my consumption of my favourite ice cream treat until I was walking down the alley on my way home, and I happened to hit the last bite right as I passed the now shrunken group. As I delicately picked it up and bit down, I looked right into their eyes and smiled.

“Those spics,” one of them was saying, “they need to come into the country like anyone else.” As he was talking, he turned, and realized I was passing, and there was a moment of awkward silence.

Chinga tu madre, cabron, I thought. Chinga tu madre. And I dropped the It’s-It wrapper on top of the garbage and went inside to make myself some coconut lemongrass soup with brown rice.

So, the big news of the day yesterday was that the fatosphere made it into the New York Times. Not only that, but the article linked to a bunch of awesome fat acceptance blogs, so they all got deluged promptly with traffic (and trolls, of course). At any rate, the article is well worth reading, because I happen to think that it marks a pretty landmark moment in the fat acceptance movement. Or maybe not. In this easy come easy go world of news, maybe everyone will have forgotten the message by Thursday.

Fat people. In the Times. Happy fat people. As in, people who are fat, and like their bodies. Not an article about weight loss surgery, or anorexia, or misery with being fat. A positive article all about fat. It’s pretty much the coolest thing since sliced bread. Well, maybe not since sliced bread, but you get the picture.

It has been really interesting to read the reaction among fat bloggers (as in bloggers who focus specially on size, rather than intermittently, like I do. Although they may be physically fat as well.) I think that a lot of people are incredibly excited, as well they should be, although most of the linked sites were forced to put up posts explaining their comments policy and the health at every size movement, because the trolls moved in quickly. Oh, how they moved in. In fact, the comments from the trolls and the responses are pretty amusing to read.

I loved that the article talked about some of the complex science going on around health and weight. I also loved the fact that the article was remarkably positive, including a lot of well structured quotes and having a generally upbeat message about fat blogging. Given that the Times is a pretty widely read paper, I would like to think that some fatties picked up the paper yesterday and saw a light at the end of the tunnel of hatred and rabid rhetoric, and that is pretty damn cool. Fat blogging has definitely exploded in the last year or so, and I think that fact that it’s in the Times is very telling, because it indicates that fat acceptance is starting to go mainstream.

I would like to live in a world where people are judged on the basis of who they are, rather than how they look, but I’m not sure how realistic that longing is. Until then, I’m glad to see that the fat acceptance movement is starting to hit the eyeballs of the rest of society, albeit with a lot of resistance, because it suggests that our thinking about fat, as a society, may be slowly changing. It may take awhile, and we may never quite there, but this is a big, fat step for mankind.

The Times even linked to an RSS feed of major fat acceptance blogs, which they regrettably called “obesity blogs.”  Getting link love from the Times is pretty much my wet dream, personally, so I extend hearty congratulations to all of the bloggers mentioned in the article, and I encourage you to go check out their sites (most of which I read on a regular basis), because they are excellent, informative, and perhaps…eye opening for those of you who aren’t quite ready to embrace fat acceptance in all its curvy glory.

One of the things that intrigues me about the way that people interact with fat people is the constant refrain of “oh, you’re not fat.” Not only is it patronizing, it’s an outright lie. And it’s idiotic, because fat people know that they are fat. Most fat people are not in denial; they are well aware of their weight, and pretending that they aren’t fat is actually really offensive. For fat people who embrace their weight and are confident in their bodies, hearing “oh, you’re not fat” is really just a slap in the face, and a denial of that person’s identity.

I’m not quite sure why it’s acceptable to say that fat people aren’t fat. My African American friends would be pretty pissed if I said “oh, you’re not black.” Especially when the same people who say “oh, you’re not fat” to your face are quite happy to talk about how fat you are behind your back. Or when they point to someone they see and say “man, that person is fat,” and you look at that person and think about how he or she weighs significantly less than you do.

My irritation with the passion for size denial demonstrated by otherwise intelligent people was recently piqued when I was on a search for a particular article of clothing. As I have stated elsewhere, I really try to support local businesses whenever possible, which is especially challenging when I need clothes because most stores here don’t carry stuff which fits me. I also really don’t like to interact with clerks since I am pathologically shy, so I kind of hide and skulk around the edges of stores unless I am forced to deal with a clerk.

At any rate, I went into a local store and one of the clerks immediately pounced on me to ask if I needed help. I said that I was looking for such and such a thing, and she immediately started parading me around the store to show me things.

I noticed two things:

1. Everything she was showing me was really overpriced, and way more than I wanted to pay.

2. Everything she was showing me was way too small.

Eventually I reluctantly picked a few things in the larger sizes off the rack for her to put in the dressing room, and then I wandered around the store on my own to see if I could find anything I liked. My shyness prevented me from just leaving and saying that nothing there was quite what I wanted, so I already felt guilty for wasting the clerk’s time as I quested in vain for something which would fit me and not empty my bank account. I happened to wander into the woeful plus sizes area of the store, and she immediately shouted:

“Oh, honey*, you don’t want to be in there, that’s the plus size clothing, it’s all way too big for you.”

“Actually,” I said, fixing her with an icy stare, “I hate to break it to you, but I’m fat. This is the section of the store that I should be in.” Yes, perhaps I was a little abrupt with her, but, damnit, she was being rude.

She glared back, huffed, and started talking with the other clerk while I picked out a few things and went into the dressing room.

Where I found that she had swapped the larger sizes I picked out with smaller sizes.

Do I need to explain why I find this offensive? And humiliating? And…stupid?

I tried on the plus sizes I had found, and discovered that they fit and looked good, although they were way too expensive. I also gamely attempted to try on one of the pieces which the clerk had swapped, and it very obviously didn’t fit, and since she was hovering outside, I said:

“Oh, I must have grabbed the medium by accident, could you please get an extra large, if there is one?”

And she came back…with a small.

So I left. I’ve had a history of problems with the staff of this store, and every time I try again to shop there, I am insulted. (Incidentally, Haddock, I have complained to the manager and store owners about the problem, to no avail.) Somehow, after that experience, I don’t think I’ll be coming back.

There’s a discussion on Shapely Prose about Marilyn’s Law, which states that “As an online discussion about fat women grows longer, the probability of a mention of Marilyn Monroe’s dress size approaches one.” Fat denial is ugly, my gentle readers, and it is also stupid, offensive, and just plain crazy. As an advocate for fat rights and a member of the Healthy At Any Size movement, interactions like the one above are easy for me to deal with, although irritating; fat people who are still struggling with their weight probably find them soul crushing.

Fatties aren’t sailing down the Nile, kids. We know we’re fat, and you all can stop pretending that we aren’t. Don’t tell your fat friends that they aren’t fat, since it makes you look stupid and blind. Not only that, but it implies that you don’t want to be associated with fat people, so you want to rationalize your fat friends out of a few sizes. If you don’t want to be friends with fat people, you’re a fucking idiot, and don’t try to rationalize your fat hatred.

*Don’t. Call. Me. Honey. Or sweetheart, sweetie, or any other derivative. It is a 100% guaranteed way to make me extraordinarily angry.