aroraborealis

I was very interested in the responses to the article I linked to last week by a man who is attracted to fat women. Some folks found it fetishizing, which is certainly something that happens, and I'll admit that it's something that I've always found a little disturbing, or, in some cases, a lot disturbing. I suppose that, for me, any time someone's physical attributes gain such (pardon me) mythic proportions in attraction, above and beyond what seems to me the important things, like personality, how someone inhabits his or her body, how we connect on levels other than the visual, it's hard for me to wrap my head around. Obviously, in order to be attracted to someone, the visual is an important part, but for me, the visual encompasses much more than simply someone's size, while the fat fetishist sees that to exclusion of everything else.

So, on the one hand, you have the fat fetishizers, and on the other hand, you have people who have some bizarre idea that fat people are somehow different from thin people. For example, this recent post demonstrates a classic instance of making fun of a fat woman for making schizophrenic food choices: she orders 2 dozen donuts, a couple of savory breakfast items, and then asks for Equal in her coffee. My lord, why bother with the chemical sweetener when you're going to be consuming thousands of calories in breakfast foods?
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My livejournal seems to have sprouted a troll. We all know trolls: those comments, either on a mailing list, newsgroup, or, of course, here in our friendly little blogland, that are geared entirely to entice an angry or upset response. Well, a few weeks back, s/he showed up in this post, leaving me confused as to why someone would bother to troll that post without taking credit for it, but, at the same time, rolling my eyes at the obviousness of it. I track IPs, and this comment came through an anonymizer, so no clues as to who it might be.

On Friday, I posted that I was enjoying having a crush, here, and received a comment from the same troll, which I screened, because I didn't want people reading it to feel uncomfortable. S/he then left another comment, along the same lines, which I also screened. I'm now unscreening them, because it's relevant to my thoughts on the question of size, self-image and self-valuation.

Before I get into that, though, I have to say that I'm surprised to have a 12 year old reading and commenting on my livejournal. I wouldn't think it would have much draw for someone so immature, and I'm disappointed that someone trolling me would be so uncreative as to pull the fat card. First off, I've discussed some of the fat issue here, and I'm over any drama and shame that I might have once felt about being fat. Back in junior high, those comments that were geared toward bringing out that shame were, I'm sorry to say, pretty effective, but on the bright side, it's nice to be able to say I've grown a bit since junior high.

Apparently, not everyone has, which is a pity, but not really my problem. My troll is obviously a (figuratively) small, sad person who, by the way, needs some remedial work on the difference between "your" and "you're". While we're in junior high, however, I'd like to say this to my troll: chicken! I mean, really.

But, actually, the point of this post is more about fat and shame than about my troll. There are a lot of ways that we, as social beings, try to make each other behave in one way or another, and pushing the shame button is typically a pretty effective way to do that, assuming that our target buys the same triggers for shame that we do. In larger (no pun intended) society, weight is a pretty easy trigger, especially with regards to women.

I'm supposed to feel bad about being outside of the socially-approved shape and size, and then I'm supposed to be embarrassed about having the nerve to, say, have a sexual-romantic life, such as having a crush. I shouldn't be inhabiting my body joyfully, with life, verve, or enjoyment, and certainly I should show no hint of sexuality.

Except, I don't buy that, and I don't think anyone should. Bodies are wonderful things, with all their quirks, lumps, protrusions, dips, hollows. Whether they're hairy or smooth, skinny or fat, tall or short, bodies are fascinating and wonderful things, and I'm awfully fond of inhabiting mine, which gives me such opportunities, for movement, for pleasure, for connection with the world and with the people around me.

Mocking a fat woman for being in her body is a cheap shot -- the lowest common denominator of insults and attempted take-downs, and as such, it's neither interesting nor creative. Along the way, it's also not very powerful, at least not with me, which makes it more silly than anything else. I happen to inhabit my fat body with a lot of comfort, both physical and psychological, and I'm awfully glad that's true, though it's taken some real work on my part to get here.

For those of you who caught these trolls and felt angry on my behalf, thanks, but don't sweat it. I have my occasional bad days about self-image, but, then, don't we all? Mine sometimes focus on my weight and sometimes they focus on the fact that my toes are hairy or some equally irrelevant thing. Happily, I haven't had one of those recently, so my troll missed the mark, telling me s/he isn't someone who knows me very well. That's no surprise, of course, since my friends are better than that.

As to my troll... well, whoever you are, you won't be that interesting to me unless you decide to talk to me with your name on your comments.