Though I must say, the writer's attitude to her tuned out (by fatness) libido invoked a similar response to recent spotlighting of asexuality. Sexuality as a conditioned response triggered only by certain preferred body types-hints at a basic malleability or even asexuality as an assumed default.
There is something asexual about such an extent of sensitivity to the way people look when sex is supposed to be about the feelings it gives. If bodies are that disturbing, why not buy a doll?
Anyhow, the extent to which fat people have become projection fodder is really strong in the responses too. There's a slightly eerie feeling of being spoken about and past, in your presence the conversation being a closed circle with you on the outside waiting.
That's really how it is on a macro level. The obesity crusade, though fat people signed on too, is that of others. Assumptions about the efficacy of the calorie restriction feel like listening to children filling the gaps in their knowledge with whatever they can think of.
It speaks again of what many of us keep talking about, the way the 'obesity' construct has dehumanized and disconnected fat people from others. I don't believe we will ever communicate normally until it has been dropped from everyday discourse.
I'm not speaking of censorship but of a changed consciousness.
I keep looking at;
I don't think losing the beer belly will make me want to drop my pants all the time, but it couldn't hurt, right?The attitude under those three words sums up the weight of consequence between those who demand and those who have to obey. She doesn't even feel a flat stomach will make a difference to her "libido issues" but hey, its all so trivial he might as well!
Who gives a shit about him or the effects on his state of mind? Often we speak of self esteem, but what of the grind of WLD? What if he's one like me who's diet proof and ends up eating more than he has ever eaten or wanted to eat because his body's defences respond that way?
All controls come down, it is ugly and feels so and it can bring with it-as it did with me- a flat-lining of satiety, which adds to depression. At the same time, any doubts about the normality of your eating are put to rest as if you were before, you are not now.
It may all may turn out to be hunky dory, its just the lack of space to realise the former, no room for, boy, that didn't work! It sort of has to or you are marked.
I also realized reading this, that there's something about diet believers attitude that that brings an impersonal edge to what is presumably an intimate relationship. You are sharing your life, your body with them, yet, there's no sense of context informing their analysis of the situation.
It could be from a stranger. There's a sense of, who's in charge of this person? Do they have a mind of their own, any independence? What other mental hooks can bring them to heel?
It's a bit like those who complain about one partner leaking details of the relationship to friends or relatives. They then feel they have some kind of say in it and interfere.
It's not so much about weight it's about how they are suddenly taken a step back from you, looking at you in a rigid way that might as well be to a stranger. That feeling of being in the presence of someone with their their own mind is punctured, it's like you are now under the influence of something impersonal and unaccountable.
You are forced to carry the blame for its failure, yet must follow its orders. Whilst you're left with someone you thought was your companion in arms and is now the extended arm of this entity.
I think there's only been a couple of instances when weight or shape became a bit of issue. It wasn't conducive to intimacy is what I can say. How can you abandon yourself fully when feel like you're being appraised?
How can you trust or even respect someone who isn't capable of questioning the source of their own opinions? Who is in charge of them?
I also have to mention Dan Steelglutes's attempt at cutesy ironic sexism misses its mark.
Having signed on to fight oneself, only for it to end in a much refuted and denied futility, will run you "out of room". And yes, women have been more affected by dieting on the whole. For fat women there have been times when many of us have felt our existence as viable women depended on becoming slim.
We followed the instructions of male led authority-I don't know about you, but I never once considered who was delivering the message-and were never allowed to acknowledge that because they weren't and still aren't ready to do so, unequivocally.
The aftermath of burnout, in whatever form often leaves people a bit wet and shaky, for a while.More entitled than the fatuous demands to try to make your body go where it won't.
You know like when you repress yourself and replace it with an alternative required consciousness, only to find yourself burnt out and unable nay unwilling to continue?
Like that.
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