You Sound Fat: Fat Embodiment Online
Monday, September 13th, 2010
Hello! I am going to start cross posting my fat related posts from definatalie.com to axisoffat.com, because as you might have noticed, I’ve been a bit quiet here! Bri from Fat Lot of Good totally revved me about this (in a good way!) and said I should cross post because definatalie.com isn’t on the Notes from the Fat-o-sphere feed and some of my posts should really end up on it! So here goes. This is the paper I presented at the Fat Studies conference in Sydney over the weekend. Enjoy! (Original post)
Fat Studies: A Critical Dialogue was INCREDIBLE. I truly can’t put into words how wonderful it was but I’m going to attempt to at a later stage. There were so many fabulous people to meet and ideas to action and a buttload of fun and friendship. In the interim please accept a video of my presentation, and the paper it’s based on. I was very nervous but it seemed to go ok!
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
My name is Natalie and I’m fat, I like the internet and I should preface this by telling you that I’m so unacademic I had to ask Google how to write an abstract for a paper when I was encouraged to submit something for this presentation! Gratefully, I also had the support of Australian Fat Studies academics as well as complete strangers on the internet, and I want to tell you a story about how I’ve come to be here, loving and accepting myself with the help of the World Wide Web.
Chubby teen finds the internet
I started using the internet in 1995 as a 14 year old at a private girls school. While my friends were swapping X-files fanfic and accidentally swearing at our headmistress via PM over our Novel network, I was helping other students circumvent the ban on chatrooms by using Telnet talkers. I’ve always been interested in communication and community on the internet, rather than downloading porn or music and other stuff. I sought people I could connect with because most folks just didn’t get me; I had crazy ideas that human beings should be treated equitably and I was an introvert who communicated much more comfortably via the written word.
Despite running the gamut of teenagehood and being exposed to conflicting messages about what my female body was supposed to look like, I never wanted to be skinny and I never really was. At a size 14 I felt kind of trapped between being properly skinny and properly fat. I remember many times thinking that if I was going to be chubby I ought to be properly chubby with the benefit of soft flesh and rounded bits. I was attracted to chunkier people and while I felt my thoughts went against the grain I never questioned or repressed them.
Properly fat
At 17, I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and found I had to change my whole life. Suddenly I had to inject insulin four times a day and monitor my blood sugar levels in relation to what I put in my mouth. My regular meals had to be balanced, planned, measured and predictable. I had hypos in the middle of the night, and woke disoriented and pouring with sweat; the only way it could be fixed was by eating food to bring my blood sugar back up again. I put on weight even after I lost a lot of weight pre-diagnosis, even after establishing really healthful and doctor-approved, diabetic-friendly eating habits. My body became properly fat and I felt a sense of relief to belong to a group – even if it was a feared and harassed group. I started to get really curious about fat bodies. I tried to talk about fatness with friends and family but the conversations never went very far. People, mostly female, felt genuinely panicked when I brought up the topic.
My Mother was concerned about the weight gain and accompanied me to Weight Watchers meetings. I went along to a few and ate the diet, but it never felt right to me. As a diabetic, my food intake was already policed (by myself and by other people) so submitting myself to more policing and having to pay for it felt wrong and unhealthy. I never felt as if I had disordered eating, nor as if what I ate contributed to my weight gain. My General Practitioners and every Endocrinologist up until my current one would treat me as if I were some kind of terrorist, waging war against my body by intentionally putting on weight. My current Endocrinologist actually says something new: I could have Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome symptoms. Back when I was doing Weight Watchers I knew that my weight gain couldn’t be explained by my food habits and it didn’t make sense for me to further damage my relationship with food by doing a diet that reduced nutrition to numbers so I dropped out. My Mum was baffled but dropped the issue with me, while continuing to pursue various diets herself, yet always remaining the same, familiar and lovely Mum-shape. I broke up with dieting because it seemed like a crock.
(more…)
Nicholosophy: A man in the Fat-o-Sphere
Monday, September 13th, 2010
This was originally posted at Nicholosophy, where I blog about much more than just fat acceptance.
I had the honour to speak at the Fat Studies: A Critical Dialogue conference held in Sydney on 10 and 11th September. This was unexpected and therefore my talk was an impromptu discussion about a man’s perspective of the Fat-o-Sphere. I don’t have a transcript or paper to post, so the best I can do is to show you what I had to say. Please forgive me if you can’t watch the video. Transcribing this would take half a day and I just don’t have that time spare. Next time I will put together a paper first so that I can post that online instead.
It was titled “Nicholosophy: A man in the Fat-o-Sphere”. Big thanks to Natalie for her video editing skills.
So, without further ado…
Get the Flash Player to see this video.
If you do have any questions, drop me a comment and I’m happy to discuss further.
Calling it out: casual anti-fat bigotry sucks.
Sunday, September 12th, 2010
I’ve been away from the fat-o-sphere for a few months – I’ve still been reading, but I haven’t been blogging, or being terribly activist-y at all. But I’m back now, and I hope be blogging regularly for you all at AoF!
It’s been an interesting time for me – lots of changes and decisions, lots of stress. But lots of good times too, especially with my friends.
I do everything I can to make my life a safe space. I cultivate friendships (both online and off) with people who hold similar beliefs to my own, who are anti-bigotry in all its insidious forms. I try to call people in my life out on their problematic usage of language and stereotypes. It’s not always easy.
About six weeks ago I started a new job in a state government department. The people I work with are universally lovely – helpful and friendly, and very welcoming to new staff members. I was having a bit of a chat with my co-worker and another girl who works with our department but on another floor one afternoon, when the conversation segued into a discussion about public transportation, and its limitations.
Now, I’m a huge (heh) advocate of public transport. I’m 24 years old, and don’t have a driver’s licence – not even a learner’s permit. At some point I will do it, but it’s fairly low on my list of priorities; I live very close a major busway stop, in an inner-city suburb. Technically I’m within reasonable walking distance of my workplace, though I catch the bus most mornings. I’m also only a fifteen minute walk from a train station.
So, I love public transport. We talked a little bit about the issues with it – rising fare costs and the like – when one of the girls leaned forward conspiratorially and said (paraphrased slightly): “You what I hate though? When I’m sitting down, and an obese – you know, morbidly obese – person gets on and I’ve got a free seat next to me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What’s the problem?” I asked.
She looked a little flustered. “Well, you know, if they sit next to me, they’re going to touch me. I hate that!”
I remember resisting the urge to tear strips off her, and said mildly, “Well, R___, I’m morbidly obese, so I hope it wouldn’t offend you if I sat next to you.”
I nearly gave up on the conversation when she responded with, “Oh, but you’re not like that – I mean people that literally hang over the edge of the seat.”
“It’s fortunate that you aren’t actually paying for a seat on a bus, then – we pay to get from point A to point B, there’s no guarantee it’ll be comfortable,” I said, and went back to my desk, gritting my teeth.
The seats on Brisbane buses aren’t large. I carry most of my weight in my belly, so my hips aren’t super wide, but I do hang over the edge of the seat a little. I’m a size 22. How could I not? Seating is not made to accommodate fat people. It’s this kind of casual bigotry – ew yuck I don’t want fatties touching me – that makes me incredibly annoyed, and I try to speak up against it whenever I can.
Interestingly, there haven’t been any negative repercussions. I still get on well with this co-worker, we chat about mundane stuff, our work and the like. But she hasn’t brought up the subject again. I doubt I’ve converted her – we all know how difficult an idea size/fat acceptance is in our thin-privileged culture – but if I can sow the seeds, start the thought process towards someone beginning not to hate themselves and other fat people, then it’s a conversation that’s well worth having.
I went to Sydney for a few days in July. I’ve not had trouble with airline seats so far – they’re occasionally a tight fit, but I can get my seatbelt done up without an extender. No trouble this time either, though the seatbelt on the return trip seemed shorter, and no one was rude to me when they sat down next to me either.
But I’m flying to New York City (OMG OMG) in early November, and I’m a little nervous about that. It’ll be the longest flight I’ve ever done (13 hours BNE-LAX, and 5 hours LAX-NYC, the same coming back) – the closest I’ve done to that is the nine hour flight to Japan. Hopefully QANTAS’ seats will be comfortable; I’ve never flown with them before so it will certainly be an experience.
I’m ridiculously excited about this trip, NYC has been a dream destination for me for years. Any suggestions on things to do? I’m going to go see lots of shows, and of course I’ll be hitting up Re/Dress – can’t wait to finally see it for real!
Bonus photo: It was the lovely Sonya’s birthday party last night, and being very mature women, we decided that a riff on this meme would be hilarious:
HURRRGGHHHHH
We totally challenged the dominant paradigm. Also we are fancy! Sonya is wearing an Asos dress, I am wearing a Monroe (Myer) dress, and we are wearing the same black oxfords from Betts. In fact, we bought them at the same time! Fatty shopping bonding. <3
Not-crying and the art of self-awareness
Sunday, September 12th, 2010
This was originally posted at Nicholosophy, where I blog about much more than just fat acceptance.
I am always on a journey of self-development. It’s only been in the last few years that I have become more self-aware. I am learning to listen to my body and to heed it when it tells me that I need to rest, or that I’m feeling flat. I am aware now that when I’m feeling blue that it is a state of mind and something that I can work though. Well, sometimes I am aware of this. Sometimes I fall into a heap and not-cry.
I don’t know if it is special to me, but I am a very good not-crier. Not-crying is when I am feeling so emotionally raw and on edge that I want to cry, and yet I can’t. My mind goes blank and I just stare, looking at nothing in particular in a state of despair and sadness. No tears well in my eyes, no sobbing or anything like that. Yet my brain switches to this off mode that is like nothing else I ever experience. So I figure it is something significant, and call it not-crying.
I’ve often felt weird about my brain. I was diagnosed as being hyperactive when I was a child, and I realised when I was studying Primary Education at Uni (thank goodness I didn’t stick with that!) that I probably had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Oh Shiny! More completely unrelated stuff – makes sense, no? (by
What I find is that I am one who bores quickly of things when I’ve mastered them, or at least mastered them in my own brain. I also feel like my brain never switches off. Some conscious thought is going through my brain, trying to make its way out. This occurs regardless of whether I’m trying to chill out or get other things done. It’s only when I’m having a not-cry that I feel this void of thought.
So it’s no surprise then to learn that since I have these thoughts running through my brain all the time, that I often find myself falling into the trap of negative self-talk and putting myself down when I’m feeling crap. I am not perfect and yet being someone who writes about fat acceptance, I think people expect me to be. Or more correctly, I expect me to be.
I sometimes feel bad about the things I eat, even though I know I shouldn’t put a good or bad emotion on food. I sometimes berate myself for not being able to fit into my clothes, even though I know that my body will move between my natural weight range. There are days when I’d happily give up and just allow myself to be brainwashed yet again into thinking I’m defective and evil for being fat.
I’ve learned enough though to know that I can’t go back there. I was miserable there. I had no idea who I was as a person. In fact I think I was trying to pretend that I was someone I wasn’t. I was pretending to be ok with being fat, and clearly I wasn’t. I read all the books and had all the recipes on how to lose weight. I’d regularly think about joining Weight Watchers, which I think I last did in 2005 or 2006. Man I was such a sad person back then, and yet I thought I was happy.
Now I know I am happy, at least a lot of the time. The times I feel like crap I at least appreciate later on knowing that I was feeling like crap. I’ve learned so much from my crap moments that I can’t really trade them. I wouldn’t be me without them.
I think it is hard to be accepting of ourselves, whether we are fat, thin, tall, short or whatever. I reckon that if I wasn’t fat I wouldn’t be happy with other things. So to hell with going backwards, I’ll happily keep moving forward. I just need to remember to cut myself some slack occasionally.
Art imitates life…
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
I took my daughter to the art gallery today – we went and saw the European Masters exhibition here in Melbourne.
Art Galleries make me happy – they feed my soul.. and part of the reason is because they give me some nice examples of beauty that doesn’t fit the modern ideal.
They remind me that once upon a time, my shapely arms, hips, belly and thighs were considered very beautiful indeed…that they way I look, was, in fact, the popular ideal.
I look at these paintings and I see me – or I see people I know. At the very least I see bodies that are like the bodies around me. I see the familiar. I also see how all these different shapes and sizes are beautiful..
Strange isn’t it – that in this day and age of photography and video that we struggle to find images we can similarly relate to in our popular media. The advent of the “size zero” ideal, along with the photoshop wizards have robbed us of a benchmark the majority of people can relate to.
In an age where we ought to be able to more accurately reflect “real” bodies.. we have all the tools to show EXACTLY what normal, regular, average people in all their glorious diversity look like right at our fingertips… instead, for some reason, what our magazines and billboards and catwalks show us is a hugely distorted view….
When we look backwards, to the age where they didn’t have photography, we see more realism shown through painter’s brushes than we do through our photographers’ lenses.
Strange, don’t you think?
Here’s some of the beautiful, beautiful fat people I was admiring today:
I don’t know about you, but just looking at these makes me feel more at peace with my own body.
Smoking versus Fat
Friday, August 20th, 2010
I hate smoking. I hate it with every fibre of my being. I grew up a severe asthmatic, and even the slightest hint of smoke sets me off. My father is a smoker, and has been since well before I was born. And I hate it. When I went to school my uniform blazer often reeked of smoke because he would light up in morning traffic. The smell was so much so that teachers would pull me aside to warn me about my bad habits. Hell, even my grandfather smoked for 77 years before it got him.
We are now a society that has banned smoking in a lot of areas, and as a society we tend to make moral judgements on those who do. Well, at least I do. If I’m being honest, I consider people who smoke to be less intelligent, more prone to impulsive behaviour and with disgusting hygiene. I am aware of the bias I have, given my family history.
Tonight I realised that people think these same things about me, but because I’m fat. See, I hate the smell of smoke. But they hate the sight of fat. I feel as if smokers encroach on my personal space. They think I, as a fat person, encroach on their personal space. I care about the damaging effects to smokers’ health and wellbeing. They want to fight obesity to improve my health and wellbeing. I must admit, it’s an interesting comparison that I hadn’t really considered until this evening.
Does this make it better/worse/indifferent? I don’t know. I think there’s a difference between fatness and smoking, because a person chooses to be a smoker – but then people think I choose to be fat, too. And maybe I do? Does it make them any better than me? No. It just means I’m fat. Just like it just means my dad is a smoker. It doesn’t make him better or worse than me. Or anyone. It just is.
Why do we make the moral judgements we do? Why is any one group more or less simply because? I will never like smoke being around me because too much of it induces an asthma attack. But my dad is a very considerate smoker these days, and if I ask him to he wont smoke around me. I’m afraid it can’t be the same if a person dislikes my fat; it’s not something I can (or am prepared to) change so easily.
My dad disagrees about the medical risks of smoking – he claims that people die of lung cancer and emphysema who don’t smoke, and that correlation does not equal causation. I don’t know what the actual research is or who did it; I only know about those ads I’ve seen on television where they wring a sponge out to symbolise a smoker’s lungs. But I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been judging people based on the court of popular opinion, in exactly the same way people do about studies regarding fat, and obesity. I know it sounds crackpot and conspiracy theorist to assume that studies are wonkily funded, but if reading books on obesity and politics has taught me anything is that you can’t always trust the studies. It’s important to look at who funded each study, and if the research is unbiased. Only then can we get true results.
I’ll always disagree with smoking because it fucks with my ability to breathe. But I think from now on I’m going to stop making moral judgements. I have no right. Nobody does.
Triggering
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
This was recently posted over on my new blog Nicholosophy. I’ve taken the liberty to cross-post this as I think it’s very relevant to what we often deal with within the Fat Acceptance community. As a warning, I mention the terms ‘weight loss surgery’ and ‘sexual assault’ but do not talk about these topics.
I’ve had this topic in my drafts bin (which is where I keep all the things I want to write about) for the last few days but I’ve been putting it off. I think it might be that I’m concerned about what I’m going to write and how it is going to trigger me. Now it’s funny that I should start a post on triggering with how I think my own writing might trigger me. I haven’t even explained what it is yet, so perhaps I should get onto that.
A trigger as defined by the Wordnet (r) 2.0 dictionary is “an act that sets in motion some course of events”. As an example, you turn the key in your car and you trigger the ignition system to start the car. It could be the fact that you stand on your dog’s foot triggers it to growl. These sort of situations make sense – you do something which causes a reaction. However triggers don’t have to relate to setting off some sort of physical event. They can be emotional as well.
Triggering is the concept that some things, when said or written, can trigger a bad emotional response. A blog post or video or tweet is considered ‘triggering’ if it sets off someone to have a bad reaction because it brought up some situation or issue that they have faced in the past.
I’ll give you an example of an emotional trigger that happened with me the other night. I was washing up the dishes and “Australia’s Funniest Home Videos” was on the television. Like any home video clip show, they often show things that are perhaps funny to some but just make other cringe. But you don’t expect much of an emotional response, except perhaps laughter.
Well the clip they showed was of a fat man on a water slide. The voice over went something like “Now I know why the attendant wanted to grease me down before I went on the slide”. The man was stuck – not because the slide wasn’t wide enough but because he must have been sticking to the slide. He then gets up and starts to walk down the slide. Apparently this is considered ‘funny’. But I was upset, not laughing.
Back in the 90s I went to the local water park here called “Wet ‘n’ Wild”. I was a teenager and I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to roller coasters, speed slides or anything of that nature. This time I thought I’d get on the speed slide. They have mats bu
t since I was concerned that I would end up going too fast and crap myself, I decided I didn’t need one. No one said anything to me suggesting it would be a good idea. So I got in and pushed myself off.
Cue me half way down a speed slide unable to move because I was sticking to the slide. The embarrassment and shame of being the fat kid stuck in the slide still hits me today. I had to get out of the slide, walk down the maintenance strip on the side of the slide and come down to the bottom. To make matters worse, I cut my foot open on some wire and had to get attended by first aid.
A little piece of me died that day. A little piece of me went away and locked itself so tightly inside that it would never get hurt again. Any time I think of that day I end up in tears. Hence why I’ve put writing this off until now.
Consider someone who has been sexually assaulted, bullied or who has been bashed up because of their race of sexuality. Any time something comes on TV or the radio or the internet that reminds them of that time, it triggers an emotional response. A very innocent situation or words said that would not make most people react can cause them to become upset, angry or even (in the extreme) violent. And it is all perfectly reasonable for that to happen, because they are dealing with a hurt unlike anything else that most of us experience.
My experience on the slide that day is significant to me. I can’t imagine what it is like to have someone overpower you, take away your dignity and sexually assault you. I can’t imagine what it is like to be spat on and kicked to the ground because you are gay. I’m sure it hurts and haunts much more than my experience. So if a TV show can trigger an emotional response in me, it must be worse for them.
In the Fat Acceptance community, talk about weight loss and weight loss surgery is considered triggering. The first time I ever learned about triggering was when I posted a blog post on Axis of Fat which was an interview with a lady who had gone through weight loss surgery. The idea was that I wanted to learn more about it so that my opinions could be formed based on fact and not conjecture. What I didn’t realise was that my post would trigger emotional responses in some people that crushed them inside.
Now when I write a blog post and I think the content might be triggering, I warn the reader at the outset. That way they can make up their mind whether they want to read on or not. I don’t have to stop writing about the triggering subject matter. I allow the reader the chance to have the choice about whether they read about it. This is actually fairly standard practice in the Fat Acceptance community.
I need to keep in mind every day that everything I write here, or on Twitter or Facebook can be read by someone I don’t know too well. I don’t know about everything that has happened to them and even with my closest friends, they could have some secret trauma that they have locked away for their own self preservation. I have to keep in mind to be sure that what I write won’t be triggering for someone. If I think it will, I either don’t write it or I warn people in advance. Quite often it is probably better to just leave it well alone.
Dr Samantha Thomas – an honorary fat.
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
So in case you don’t know, the fat-o-sphere has a fair bit of activity going on via Twitter. This is how I was introduced to Dr Samantha Thomas – in my opinion she’s one of the coolest supporters of the Fat Acceptance movement. If you don’t know of her work, I highly recommend subscribing to her blog. Her latest post is so awesome; and it’s making me feel as if some people are finally getting it.
We at Axis of Fat have been approached by several different academic and media outlets to give fair and accurate representation about Fat Acceptance. While sometimes the questions seem a little obtuse to me, I think it’s merely because the idea of Fat Acceptance is so foreign to so many people. We currently live in a society where body shaming is key, so whenever anyone brings up a contrary opinion it’s a shock to the system. But I think it’s a good sign that people want our opinions. In ten, twenty or even fifty years, it will be this time where people will look back and say that the tide began to shift.
What do you think?
Fat – don’t just throw it about willy nilly
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
One of the aims of the Fat Acceptance movement is to reclaim the word “Fat”. That doesn’t mean we should throw it around willy nilly though.
For years, the word “Fat” has been used as a pejorative. Cries of “Get off your FAT ass”, “FAT prick”, “Look at the FAT f#@ker”, “Oh look, another FATTY!” have been used to beat down and belittle fat people. So it’s right that we go out and try and reclaim this word.(It’s strange though that fat has also moved into other areas, such as “Fat beats” and “Fat wheels”.)
Fat should be in the same class of adjective as tall, short, slim, etc. It is merely a word describing a physical characteristic. It makes me uncomfortable to think that people have to mince words to try and describe my physical shape. “Big boy”, “Bulky”, “Well Build” are all just covers for the word “Fat” because people are scared of being offensive. Hey, I’m FAT.
However we need to remember that not everyone is up to the same stage of self-acceptance as the next person. A lot of people would still be offended by being labelled as fat.
So what do we do? Talk.
I think it is important to talk to our friends and family, fat or not, about how we are happy to be labelled as fat and WHY we think it is important to reclaim the word that has been held to be so offensive for so long. The more that we educate others around us, the less impact the word is going to have and less times are we going to hear it being used in an offensive manner.
I actually think I’ll be long past my prime before the word fat loses all offensive undertones, but the small steps that we make today mean that fat people in the future don’t have to be offended by using an adjective that aptly describes them. Fat.
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
I am more than a fat person. I am deeply passionate about politics. I love reading. I am an advocate for human rights. I’m one of the biggest pop culture geeks in the ‘verse. I am a volunteer for mental health organisations. I am an animal rights activist. I have the dirtiest sense of humour of all my friends. I love photography and home renovation. I love gardening in my veggie patch. Yep, I eat veggies! And I’m still fat! I’m a vegetarian, in fact, so it offends me when people tell me to put down the bucket of KFC – the truth is i rarely eat fast food because there is little that is tasty and available to me. But even if there were? I probably wouldn’t eat it then, either.
I am a human being first and foremost. I have feelings. I feel pain the same way a thin person feels pain. I am hurt by hurtful comments. But the likelihood is that outside of the FA sphere, people wont see that. People see me as a fatty, and that’s it.
“It’s just calories in calories out. You need to lose the weight for your health! STOP CLOGGING UP OUR MEDICAL SYSTEM WITH YOUR HEALTH PROBLEMS THAT I CAN DETERMINE JUST BY LOOKING AT YOU. You’re fat, thus you must have type II diabetes. You’re fat, so you must have heart problems. You’re fat, so you deserve to be namecalled, harassed and generally looked down upon. Thinner people are better than you. You should be taxed more because you are fat. We should make doors thinner to exclude fat people. What are you talking about, fat people boost the economy because they consume more! I have the right to judge what’s in your shopping trolley, because YOU ARE FAT.”
Some of the above comments are on this post (which AoF’s Nick was interviewed for, hi nick!) I wrote a comment in response to the other comments (engaging in this behaviour always reminds me of this comic, but when it comes to this sort of bigotry I have to speak up.) Here is the comment I wrote (which is currently awaiting moderation.)
“You are dehumanising fat people with this kind of talk. We are all individuals that are all fat for different reasons. Regardless of those reasons, you have no right to discuss what I should be doing with my body. You wouldn’t want someone forcing you to do something, would you? It’s so easy for you to be this way under the anonymity of the internet, but I dare you to say this to a fat person on the street. You might then see that fat people have feelings too. Yep, I’m fat. I’m also an atheist, vegetarian, self-confessed geek who loves gardening. But you have no right whatsoever to be the judge of my body, what I look like, how I act, what I buy and (maude forbid) what I eat. You should be looking at your own prejudices towards people who are different, and the hateful bigoted attitudes spewing from your mouths.”
I don’t want to deal with these behaviours anymore. Why can’t we all just get along.
