Body Size Liberation (Warning: Nude Photos)

[JackRiddler]

Brentos's graphic:

Well there's a thread that went quickly downhill, from the sublime to the horrifying.

The only horrifying thing here, though not very, is the speed with which some rush to display their conditioning.

Requesting sauce on 2nd pic from OP, plox.

Requesting translation. If you mean the source, the bw photo up top is from one of like a million users on deviant art:
http://uniquenudes.deviantart.com

[Nordic]

Hey, on a thread which seemed to be celebrating the beauty of the female form, in all its wonderful shapes and sizes, to stumble suddenly across this:





was indeed horrifying.

Your mileage may vary.

The female body is simply far more beautiful than the male. Even way back when I was in figure drawing class, the aesthetics of the male body was always, to me, far less interesting and pleasing to the eye.

Maybe because I'm a hetero but I really don't think so. It's like comparing a bowl of fruit to a bowl of automobile parts.

[JackRiddler]

I think it's an amazing pic. And it's got a beautiful young woman in her own unique, wonderful form, so what's your complaint?

But seriously

There's something more at work here than the observation that women are more fun to look at. The man is not a bowl of auto parts to you, because (I'm assuming!) a picture of auto parts would not inspire revulsion. You wouldn't call auto parts "horrifying."

It wasn't easy for me either to find a pic of a 300-lb-plus man that looked attractive. I wonder if it's the pretty girl next to him that makes him look, to me, pretty good. I don't think so actually. I'm going from one photo, but he seems to have charisma, or a good-naturedness or ease in his skin that works.

[JackRiddler]

And what is it with Brentos's pic? I moved it to a new server, and it seemed to display, then it disappeared again.

I've noticed this world has gifs in it that display at first, then disappear on the next load. Why, lord, why?!

[Project Willow]

The female body is simply far more beautiful than the male.

Ask the ancient Greeks about that. Nordic, I swear, if ever there were needed the voice of a 1950's male on this forum, I'd come directly to you. I can't believe in this day and age men can still get away with wearing these attitudes in public, but apparently they can:

(from a lounge thread) But with a woman you can have the wrong tone in your voice, or the wrong look in your eye, and suddenly it can become a big deal to them, and they can take something very personally that you're not even aware that you did. It can interrupt the normal flow and the normal habits of a work place situation.

You mean normal equal all male? Seriously, dude, you're certainly no woman hating Morgan fellow, but your attitudes have about 4 decades of dust on them.

A clever analyst will deconstruct me deservedly by analyzing my implicit acceptance of the male gaze's hegemony, critiquing the picture I presented as an example of male sexual power fantasy and sense of privilege at work.

I'd wager those women believed on some level they were empowering themselves by taking on the gaze, and that act itself is open to all sorts of interpretations.

After several waves of backlash including an outright assault against the word feminism itself, the existence and hegemony of the gaze are topics now relegated to tiny, windowless offices in a few college campuses on the verge of being turned over to janitorial any day now. So unless you want input from say, a 1980's point of view, such an analyst might be difficult to find. Better yet, start another thread and attempt to do a review from the backlash of the so-called third wave to where we are now, a place that has much more to do with the hegemony of market forces and their manipulation of various impulses than any unaddressed, on the ground contention between the sexes. IOW, we are, both sexes, under siege from corporate rule and most of the women who might have been advocating on behalf of their sex, fold their critiques into larger questions on the giant beast dragon that is creeping corporate fascism. Meanwhile, the next generation's heels have grown more torturous, their skirts get shorter and the young women going out to dance in my neighborhood neglect to wear coats. There are a number of differentially directed forces at play and I hate to say it but it almost seemed simpler when my women's studies class took to the streets to cat call men in 1986.

Since it is a statement that I, as a woman, an artist, a feminist, and an activist not only believe in, but could say might be the very organizing principle of my life, I will reassert for all those who might have forgotten their herstory, the personal is political. With that in mind I will share the following.

The aspects of the gaze I found particularly dehumanizing when I was younger have lessened, and I don't think it's because I'm older, I think it has improved somewhat due a great deal to the education and activism that came out of the second wave. Being a woman of some ability and intellect, I always deeply resented being stared at in public, openly treated as a sexual object with every other aspect of my humanity stripped away. The staring or commentary was usually carried out by insecure men who seemed to take particular pleasure in assaulting women outside of their perceived class. I became so intolerant of these daily insults (and others more directly psychical as well) that in my thirties I allowed myself to become obese. That tended to lessen the occurrences, as the more weight I put on, the less of an immediate target I was.

I don't wish to confuse the issue as blatant staring and cat calls in public have little to do with sexual attraction and everything to do with displays of power, however, adding weight to make oneself less sexually attractive is not an uncommon strategy for survivors of sexual trauma. Obesity, however, is a complex issue with many potential causal factors.

The gaze, in its many forms is something, even as a woman now stepping out of certain attention circles in new ways, I have never really acquiesced or numbed myself to. It is omnipresent even though it has, as I mentioned earlier, become less insulting and intrusive over the years. I'd like it if other women spoke to this issue.

Now for the flip side of all of that. Over my long experience, I've seen supposed visually oriented males whose perception was demonstrably skewed, and quite beyond expectation, to reflect desires based in other virtues. Anyone who remembers the hand-drawn avatars I used for awhile and who has seen my real photo is a witness to same. Advertising's manipulation of female attractiveness not only perpetuates destructive expectations of female bodies. It also distorts our shared understanding of male sexual desire, which obviously, and out of necessity, involves far more complex factors than pure visual response.

Now this thread is called "Body Size Liberation", to me that includes men and we have one example. Give us some more meat, will ya?

[Nordic]

Well, Willow, I don't know what to say. I'm sorry I offended you. I really am.

I try to be as empathetic as I can possibly be in this life, and I think I'm far far ahead of 95% of the men I know in that regard. I will never know what it is like to be female, however.

And even though it may sound silly, I really love women. I was raised by them (my father was hardly around), and throughout life many of my best friends have been female rather than male. I found females to be better friends, much less likely to hurt me and inflict cruelty. They also liked to talk about many of the things I liked to talk about. Men can be pretty boring. I'm still amazed how many grown men want to talk about cars. Fucking cars!

In fact, it's only in the last ten years or so of my life that I've grown to appreciate men. Having a son helped, too.

That being said, when I'm on this forum, I just say it like I see it, and I'm pretty bluntly honest about things. Unlike most people, I'm more honest on the intertoobz than I am in real life.

So if my existence and my thoughts and my impressions on the world offend you, well I'm truly sorry. But I can't change those things and I can't censor myself out of fear that what I say might offend you. I do enough of that in my real life.

As far as "the stare" I can only relate to that insofar as creepy gay men have given me that when I was younger, even when I was a boy.

As far as "male attention" my wife now complains that she doesn't receive it any more. She got a lot of it when she was younger.

"The stare" and "male attention" might be two different things. Maybe one is good and the other bad. Probably.

I have never walked the mile in your moccassins and I never will, so I'll just have to leave it at that. I'm sorry anyone ever hurt you in your life.

Yes, men can be horrible. That's why I have largely avoided them in my lifetime.

I don't know if it matters, but I was sexually abused by a female family member when I was pretty young. God only knows how that's affected me. Maybe you have some ideas. I've never dealt with it, even when I was seeing a shrink. It didn't seem to be relevant to the issues I was dealing with when I was seeing him.

[Project Willow]

Nordic, I perceive you to be much as you've described yourself, and you did not offend me. Rather, I just found your statements oddly unselfconscious, and felt I must call you out on a couple of them.

I don't know if it matters, but I was sexually abused by a female family member when I was pretty young. God only knows how that's affected me. Maybe you have some ideas. I've never dealt with it, even when I was seeing a shrink. It didn't seem to be relevant to the issues I was dealing with when I was seeing him.

Of course it matters and I am sorry that happened to you. The effects of abuse are sometimes so individualistic, I wouldn't feel confident speaking to them in general. I just hope you are able to resolve that trauma in your own time and in a way that benefits you greatly.

[Searcher08]

...

There's something more at work here than the observation that women are more fun to look at. The man is not a bowl of auto parts to you, because (I'm assuming!) a picture of auto parts would not inspire revulsion. You wouldn't call auto parts "horrifying."

It wasn't easy for me either to find a pic of a 300-lb-plus man that looked attractive. I wonder if it's the pretty girl next to him that makes him look, to me, pretty good. I don't think so actually. I'm going from one photo, but he seems to have charisma, or a good-naturedness or ease in his skin that works.

So when I look at the picture of the big guy, I have multiple responses to it

a) The guy looks fun - and I wonder if they are best friends or a couple
b) That guy is going to get a stroke or heart attack from being morbidly obese
c) Does that guy feel as 'cool' about his eating and exercise and health choices as he does about being at ease in his skin?
d) Holy Sheet, Leroy just escaped!
e) I wondered if he worked out when he was younger, or was a wrestler who like Arnie has let himself really go to seed physically.
f) I thought of all the profits that money over the years that guy may have sent the way of McDonalds and wondered how many trees were cut down and cows slaughtered in the value chain to create that amount of fat.
g) On the other hand he might be a beer drinking vegan...
h) Why do you (JR) want to portray this photo as beautiful and for this to be accepted by others as beautiful?
i) Is there an assumption that if one looks at this and finds it non-pleasing aesthetic, that that means one is somehow thinking / feeling less for the persons shown?
j) Body Liberation is liberation from... what? My version would be to care enough about the body (as part of oneself) to be fit and health and be aware how the health choices one makes will literally shape the physical reality of ones body over time. Liberation from the need to conform to societal standards of body appearance doesn't have to mean 'Look love me, love my lardyass' .

[Project Willow]

Interesting that in your list there Searcher, you did not once wonder if he had some sort of medical condition.

Conditions listing medical symptoms: Obesity:

A

* Abdominal obesity metabolic syndrome ... abdominal obesity
* Achard-Thiers Syndrome ... obesity
* Acrocephalopolysyndactyly, type 2 (ACPS 2) ... obesity
* Adrenal adenoma, familial ... excessive body fat in torso
* Adrenal Cancer ... obesity, excessive body fat in torso
* Adrenal Cortex Diseases ... upper body obesity
* Adrenal Cortex Neoplasms ... excessive body fat in torso
* Adrenal gland hyperfunction ... excessive body fat in torso
* Adrenal incidentaloma ... excessive body fat in torso
* Adrenocortical carcinoma ... excessive body fat in torso
* Albright like syndrome ... obesity
* Albright's hereditary osteodystrophy ... obesity
* Alcohol-induced pseudo-Cushing syndrome ... weight gain
* Ampola syndrome ... obesity
* Aniridia -- ptosis -- mental retardation -- obesity, familial ... obesity
* Aniridia ptosis mental retardation obesity familial type ... obesity
* Anophthalmia -- short stature -- obesity ... obesity
* Aromatase deficiency ... obesity
* Atkin-Flatiz syndrome ... obesity
* Austrian syndrome ... weight changes
* Autoimmune thyroid diseases ... weight gain
* Ayazi syndrome ... obesity

B

* Babinski-Froelich Syndrome ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl Syndrome ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 1 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 10 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 11 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 12 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 2 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 3 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 4 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 5 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 6 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 7 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 8 ... obesity
* Bardet-Biedl syndrome, type 9 ... obesity
* Bearn-Kunkel syndrome ... obesity
* Biemond syndrome type 2 ... obesity
* Binge eating disorder ... obesity, overweight
* Bipolar disorder ... weight gain
* Bobble-head doll syndrome ... obesity
* Borjeson Syndrome ... adult obesity
* Budd-Chiari syndrome ... increased weight

C

* Cardiomyopathy -- hypogonadism -- metabolic anomalies ... obesity
* Carpenter syndrome ... obesity
* Chondrodysplasia, Grebe type ... obesity
* Choroideremia ... obesity
* Chromosome 1, uniparental disomy 1q12 q21 ... Overweight
* Chromosome 11p, partial deletion ... obesity
* Chromosome 12p tetrasomy syndrome ... obesity
* Chromosome 1p deletion syndrome ... overweight
* Chromosome 21q deletion syndrome ... obesity
* Chromosome 3, trisomy 3q13 2 q25 ... obesity
* Chromosome 4, trisomy 4p ... obesity
* Chromosome 5, trisomy 5q ... Obesity
* Chromosome 5q duplication syndrome ... obesity
* Chromosome 9, partial trisomy 9p ... obesity
* Clark-Baraitser syndrome ... obesity
* Cohen Syndrome ... obesity
* Cortisone reductase deficiency ... abdominal obesity
* Cushing syndrome, familial ... upper body obesity
* Cushing's syndrome ... extreme weight gain, upper body obesity, increased weight, obesity around trunk

D

* Del (1) (pter-p36.3) mosaicism ... obesity
* Del (2) (pter-p24) and dup (18) (q21-qter) ... obesity
* Del (2) (q37.2-qter) ... obesity
* Del(1) (pter-p35) ... obesity
* Deletion 6q16 q21 ... obesity
* Depression ... weight gain
* Depressive disorders ... weight gain
* Diabetes ... Weight gain
* Dup (2) (q11.2-q21.1) ... obesity
* Dup (2) (q33.1-q35) ... obesity
* Duplication 5q ... Obesity
* Duplication 9p partial ... obesity
* Dysthymia ... weight gain

E

* Eating disorders ... Obesity, Weight gain
* Emerinopathy ... obesity
* Empty sella syndrome -- acquired ... obesity
* Empty sella syndrome -- primary ... obesity
* Extranodal Marginal Zone B-cell Lymphoma of Mucosa-Associated Lymphoid Tissue ... weight gain

F

* Familial hypopituitarism ... increased weight
* Familial hypothyroidism ... increased weight
* Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis ... weight gain
* Fowler-Christmas-Chapple syndrome ... weight gain
* Froelich's syndrome ... obesity
* Frolich's syndrome ... obesity
* Fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase deficiency, hereditary ... obesity
* Frölich's syndrome ... obesity
* Functioning pancreatic endocrine tumor ... excessive body fat in torso

G

* Gastro-enteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumor ... weight gain
* Gelatinous ascites ... increased weight
* Grahmann's syndrome ... obesity
* Growth Hormone Receptor Deficiency ... obesity

H

* HAIR-AN Syndrome ... obesity
* Hepatic veno-occlusive disease -- immunodeficiency ... increased weight
* Hereditary hypothyroidism ... Weight gain
* Hydrocephalus obesity hypogonadism ... obesity
* Hyperadrenalism ... excessive body fat in torso
* Hyperandrogenism ... obesity
* Hyperostosis frontalis interna ... obesity
* Hyperpituitarism ... Obese
* Hypertrichosis brachydactyly obesity and mental retardation ... obesity
* Hypogonadism -- mitral valve prolapse -- mental retardation ... obesity
* Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism -- syndactyly ... obesity
* Hypopituitarism ... weight increase
* Hypothalamic dysfunction ... overweight, increased weight
* Hypothyroid goitre ... Weight gain

K

* Klinefelter syndrome ... rounded body type, overweight
* Klinefelter syndrome, variants ... overweight

L

* Laron Dwarfism ... obesity
* Laron Pituitary Dwarfism ... obesity
* Laron Syndrome ... obesity
* Laron syndrome type 1 ... obesity
* Laron syndrome type 2 ... obesity
* Laron Type Pituitary Dwarfism 1 ... obesity
* Laron-type dwarfism ... obesity
* Laron-type Dwarfism Phenotypic Syndrome ... obesity
* Leschke-Ullmann syndrome ... obesity
* Lipoprotein disorder ... overweight
* Lowe oculocerebrorenal syndrome ... chubby during younger years

M

* Mauriac syndrome ... obesity
* McCune-Albright Syndrome ... weight gain
* McKusick type metaphyseal chondrodysplasia ... adult obesity
* Medication related hypothyroidism ... Weight gain
* Mental retardation -- blepharophimosis -- obesity -- web neck ... obesity
* Mental retardation -- epilepsy -- bulbous nose ... obesity
* Mental retardation -- epileptic seizures -- hypogonadism -- hypogenitalism -microcephaly -- obesity ... obesity
* Mental retardation -- gynecomastia -- obesity, X-linked ... obesity
* Mental retardation -- nasal hypoplasia -- obesity -- genital hypoplasia ... obesity
* Mental retardation unusual facies ampola type ... obesity
* Mental retardation X-linked short stature obesity ... obesity
* Mental retardation X-linked syndromic 7 ... obesity
* Mental retardation, epileptic seizures, hypogonadism and hypogenitalism, microcephaly, and obesity ... obesity
* Mental retardation, X linked -- precocious puberty -- obesity ... obesity
* Mental retardation, X-linked -- gynecomastia -- obesity ... obesity
* Mental retardation, X-linked -- hypogonadism -- ichthyosis -- obesity -- short stature ... obesity
* Mental retardation, X-linked, 36 ... obesity
* Mental retardation, X-linked, 91 ... childhood obesity
* Mental retardation, X-linked, syndromic 11 ... obesity
* Mental retardation, X-linked, syndromic type 11 ... obesity
* Metabolic Syndrome ... abdominal obesity, Obesity
* Metaphyseal dysostosis mental retardation conductive deafness ... obesity
* MOMO syndrome ... obesity
* Myxedema ... weight gain

N

* Nguyen syndrome ... obesity

O

* Obesity ... Increased weight
* Obesity -- colitis -- hypothyroidism -- cardiac hypertrophy -- developmental delay ... obesity
* Obesity due to congenital leptin deficiency ... obesity
* Obesity, hypothyroidism, craniosynostosis, cardial hypertrophy, colitis and intellectual deficiency ... obesity
* OHSS ... weight increase
* Optic pathway glioma ... increased weight
* Overgrowth syndrome, type Fryer ... increased weight
* Overweight ... Increased weight

P

* Panhypopituitarism ... increased weight
* Physical addiction ... weight changes
* Physical inactivity ... Weight gain
* Pituitary cancer, childhood ... weight increase, excessive body fat in torso
* Pituitary tumors, adult ... weight increase, excessive body fat in torso
* Polycystic ovarian disease, familial ... obesity
* Polycystic ovaries urethral sphincter dysfunction ... weight gain
* Polycystic ovary syndrome ... obesity, weight gain
* Polyneuropathy -- mental retardation -- acromicria -- premature menopause ... obesity
* Prader-Willi syndrome ... Obesity
* Primary hypothyroidism ... Weight gain
* Prolidase deficiency ... childhood obesity
* Psychological addiction ... weight changes

R

* Renal tubulopathy -- diabetes mellitus -- cerebellar ataxia ... obesity
* Retinohepatoendocrinologic syndrome ... obesity
* Riedel syndrome ... weight gain

S

* Schinzel Syndrome ... obesity
* Schroeder syndrome 1 ... obesity
* Secondary hypothyroidism ... Weight gain
* Sengers-Hamel-Otten syndrome ... obesity
* Simpson-Golabi-Behmel syndrome, type 1 (SGBS1) ... obesity
* Simpson-Golabi-Behmel syndrome, type 2 ... obesity
* Sohval-Soffer syndrome ... obesity
* Sub clinical hypothyroidism ... Weight gain
* Subaortic stenosis -- short stature syndrome ... obesity
* Summitt syndrome ... obesity

T

* Tertiary hypothyroidism ... Weight gain
* Thyroid disorders ... weight gain
* Thyroid hormone plasma membrane transport defect ... weight problems
* Type 2 diabetes ... Weight gain

U

* Urban rogers meyer syndrome ... obesity

V

* Vasquez Hurst Sotos syndrome ... obesity

W

* WAGR Syndrome ... obesity
* Weight cycling ... Obesity, Overweight
* Wilms tumor -- aniridia -- genitourinary anomalies -- mental retardation ... obesity
* Wilson-Turner X-linked mental retardation ... Obesity

X

* X-linked mental retardation craniofacial abnormal microcepahly club ... Obesity

Y

* Young Hughes syndrome ... Obesity

Then there are these possibilities...

1. Sleep debt. Getting too little sleep can increase body weight. Today's Americans get less shut-eye than ever.

2. Pollution. Hormones control body weight. And many of today’s pollutants affect our hormones.

3. Air conditioning. You have to burn calories if your environment is too hot or too cold for comfort. But more people than ever live and work in temperature-controlled homes and offices.

4. Decreased smoking. Smoking reduces weight. Americans smoke much less than they used to.

5. Medicine. Many different drugs — including contraceptives, steroid hormones, diabetes drugs, some antidepressants, and blood pressure drugs — can cause weight gain. Use of these drugs is on the upswing.

6. Population age, ethnicity. Middle-aged people and Hispanic-Americans tend to be more obese than young European-Americans. Americans are getting older and more Hispanic.

7. Older moms. There's some evidence that the older a woman is when she gives birth, the higher her child's risk of obesity. American women are giving birth at older and older ages.

8. Ancestors' environment. Some influences may go back two generations. Environmental changes that made a grandparent obese may "through a fetally driven positive feedback loop" visit obesity on the grandchildren.

9. Obesity linked to fertility. There's some evidence obese people are more fertile than lean ones. If obesity has a genetic component, the percentage of obese people in the population should increase.

10. Unions of obese spouses. Obese women tend to marry obese men. If there are fewer thin people around — and if obesity has a genetic component — there will be still more obese people in the next generation.

What I alluded to in my post above, obesity as part of a pattern of responses to trauma, I see has continued to be fleshed out by the medical establishment:

...A 2009 study of more than 15,000 adolescents found that sexual abuse in childhood raised the risk of obesity 66% in males in adulthood.

...If, for instance, a modern child’s early life experience — in the womb and during the first five years, particularly — is constantly stressful, it would be incredibly energy-consuming, says Dr. Bruce Perry, senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy. “If your genes get the message that you are entering a stressful world, it makes complete adaptive sense to take the existing metabolism and tune it up to deposit fat and store energy to prepare for what the body is expecting will be a challenging and stressful life,” he says.

“Early adverse experience can disrupt the body’s metabolic systems,” says Shonkoff. “One of the cornerstones of biology is that our body’s systems when they are young are reading the environment and establishing patterns to be maximally adaptive.”

Researchers also posit that high levels of stress hormones caused by ACEs [abuse] can wear down the body over time. A temporary spike in blood pressure in response to a stressful event may be useful to power an adaptive fight-or-flight response, but over the long term constant high blood pressure could raise a person’s risk for heart attack and stroke. Studies have also found that consistently elevated levels of stress hormones, like cortisol, can lead to permanent damage in certain brain regions linked to depression.

It's that old paradigm, what should provoke compassion instead out of ignorance elicits judgment and rejection: "...lardyass".

[JackRiddler]

Searcher08:

a) yeah
b) maybe, and?
c) maybe, but how do you know his weight is due to his choices? (ably covered by willow)
...

f) I thought of all the profits that money over the years that guy may have sent the way of McDonalds and wondered how many trees were cut down and cows slaughtered in the value chain to create that amount of fat.
g) On the other hand he might be a beer drinking vegan...
h) Why do you (JR) want to portray this photo as beautiful and for this to be accepted by others as beautiful?
i) Is there an assumption that if one looks at this and finds it non-pleasing aesthetic, that that means one is somehow thinking / feeling less for the persons shown?
j) Body Liberation is liberation from... what? My version would be to care enough about the body (as part of oneself) to be fit and health and be aware how the health choices one makes will literally shape the physical reality of ones body over time. Liberation from the need to conform to societal standards of body appearance doesn't have to mean 'Look love me, love my lardyass' .

you answer your f) with your g).
h) I don't "want to portray," I happen to think it is beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so no one else need think so, but I do wish everyone would find it in themselves to outgrow their prejudices about it, meaning: not to act offended at the mere existence of fat people, never automatically assume "it's his fault," not to judge, possibly even to expand one's self-control to the point where involuntary feelings of repulsion are banished (which does not mean you have to find it attractive!).
i) No.
j) One should make healthy choices to the extent these are possible and available. But if one fails to do so, or if one ends up fat anyway (due to unchosen factors), one should not be judged, shunned, and made a target for legitimate social abuse.

My own K. There is bad juju happening in a culture where people have gotten progressively fatter and yet, at the same time, the perception of one's self as being fat is probably the number one source of self-hatred. Fat is equated with repulsion, laziness and disgust. For many people a few pounds gained are a disaster and unmentionable among friends.

There's no way the self-hatred and socially sanctioned abuse help the obesity problem, you know? It's like an extra punishment that makes no positive difference. Why is it so?

There's much more than that. It's the emaciated beauty ideal of fashion (which to my impression is full of practitioners who are open in their hatred of the women they supposedly make clothes for). Also, it's in the normative patterns of male hetero attraction, by which I mean there's an expectation that boys must like girls in a certain shape and type (luckily one with more room for curves than the high fashion ideal). If you like fat girls, you're a "chubby chaser" and a loser who has no other alternative. Willow seems to acknowledge this aspect of it too. The norms of what girls are suppposed to want in boys' looks are looser. It's the girls who have to meet a stricter standard, and the boys who are expected to salivate (only) for that standard.

----

Willow, wow you rock. Thank you so much - your posts make me very glad for opening this thread.

Nary a body of thought in the West has come under more concerted and universalized assault than second-gen feminism. You'd think it was a major threat, which of course it was and is.

[Nordic]

It wasn't easy for me either to find a pic of a 300-lb-plus man that looked attractive.

Hm, okay. So how long did it take, how many photos did you examine, how "difficult" was it (opposite of easy) and why were the others not "attractive"?

Could I post one of your rejects and then criticize you for not finding it "attractive"?

I think I could.

[JackRiddler]

Nordic: What's the deal? You're repeating what I offered about myself, as though I didn't know it. I'm flawed and full of paradox, sometimes to extremes. I've had swings on this very issue.

Anyway, the pic wasn't that hard to find. About third page on an image search (I forget what string I used).

Now note, no one prompted you to call the pic horrifying. That you joined the thread to do so buttresses the point about fat people as an easy, accepted, consensus target for ridicule and abuse. It's expected that people will and should automatically react with repulsion and disapproval at the sight of fat people (the way we don't automatically or universally react to seeing a bowl of oily car parts, as per your analogy).

No need to be hard on yourself. You're all right.

--

Socialization into the abuse of fat people starts very early. Adults treat the fatter kids differently, starting at very young ages.

I was looking for the famous 1961 study about young children's attitudes to fat peers and found this more current review of the lit:

http://www.huliq.com/27135/fat-children ... nt-teasing

Fat children have more suicidal thoughts because of constant teasing


Overweight children are stigmatized by their peers as early as age 3 and even face bias from their parents and teachers, giving them a quality of life comparable to people with cancer, a new analysis concludes.

Youngsters who report teasing, rejection, bullying and other types of abuse because of their weight are two to three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts as well as to suffer from other health issues such as high blood pressure and eating disorders, researchers said.

"The stigmatization directed at obese children by their peers, parents, educators and others is pervasive and often unrelenting," researchers with Yale University and the University of Hawaii at Manatoa wrote in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin.

The paper was based on a review of all research on youth weight bias over the past 40 years, said lead author Rebecca M. Puhl of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

It comes amid a growing worldwide epidemic of child obesity. By 2010, almost 50 percent of children in North America and 38 percent of children in the European Union will be overweight, the researchers said.

While programs to prevent childhood obesity are growing, more efforts are needed to protect overweight children from abuse, Puhl said.

"The quality of life for kids who are obese is comparable to the quality of life of kids who have cancer," Puhl said, citing one study. "These kids are facing stigma from everywhere they look in society, whether it's media, school or at home."

Even with a growing percentage of overweight people, the stigma shows no signs of subsiding, according to Puhl. She said television and other media continue to reinforce negative stereotypes.

"This is a form of bias that is very socially acceptable," Puhl said. "It is rarely challenged; it's often ignored."

The stigmatization of overweight children has been documented for decades. When children were asked to rank photos of children as friends in a 1961 study, the overweight child was ranked last.

Children as young as 3 are more likely to consider overweight peers to be mean, stupid, ugly and sloppy.

A growing body of research shows that parents and educators are also biased against heavy children. In a 1999 study of 115 middle and high school teachers, 20 percent said they believed obese people are untidy, less likely to succeed and more emotional.

"Perhaps the most surprising source of weight stigma toward youths is parents," the report says.

Several studies showed that overweight girls got less college financial support from their parents than average weight girls. Other studies showed teasing by parents was common.

"It is possible that parents may take out their frustration, anger and guilt on their overweight child by adopting stigmatizing attitudes and behavior, such as making critical and negative comments toward their child," the authors wrote, suggesting further research is needed.

Lynn McAfee, 58, of Stowe, Pennsylvania, said that as an overweight child she faced troubles on all fronts.

"It was constantly impressed upon me that I wasn't going to get anywhere in the world if I was fat," McAfee said. "You hear it so often, it becomes the truth."

Her mother, who also was overweight, offered to buy her a mink coat when she was 8 to try to get her to lose weight even though her family was poor.

"I felt I was letting everybody down," she said.

Other children would try to run her down on bikes to see if she would bounce. She had a hard time getting on teams in the playground.

"Teachers did not stand up for me when I was teased," McAfee said.

A study in 2003 found that obese children had much lower quality of life scores on issues such as health, emotional and social well-being, and school functioning.

"An alarming finding of this research was that obese children had (quality of life) scores comparable with those of children with cancer," the researchers reported.

Sylvia Rimm, author of "Rescuing the Emotional Lives of Overweight Children," said her surveys of more than 5,000 middle school children reached similar conclusions.

"The overweight children felt less intelligent," Rimm said. "They felt less popular. They struggled from early on. They feel they are a different species."

Parents should emphasize a child's strengths, she said, and teachers should pair up students for activities instead of letting children pick their partners.

McAfee, who now works for the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, said her childhood experiences even made her reluctant to see a doctor when she needed one. She recalled one doctor who said she looked like a gorilla and another who gave her painkillers and diet pills for what turned out to be mononucleosis.

"The amount of cruelty I've seen in people has changed me forever," McAfee said.

The Yale-Hawaii research report recommends more research to determine whether negative stereotypes lead to discriminatory behavior, citing evidence that overweight adults face discrimination. It also calls for studying ways to reduce stigma and negative attitudes toward overweight children.

"Weight-based discrimination is as important a problem as racial discrimination or discrimination against children with physical disabilities," the report concludes. "Remedying it needs to be taken equally seriously..." Pravda.ru
Submitted by Dinka on 2007-07-12

The one thing I don't like about the above article is the concluding sentence, because the way these things work, it sets off comparisons and turns it into a competition about which form of discrimination is really most "important." It should suffice to say that treating people like shit from childhood because they happen to be fat - something that children especially do not get to choose - is wrong and can cause lasting psychological damage.

[Cordelia]

I've been struggling (along with a decision to only lurk due to looming mega personal milestones that make me mistrust almost all of what I say, do, think & write of late) with some knee-jerk responses to this forum (but, really, don't knee-jerk responses have something to teach oneself?).

I found the OP photographs offensive for other reasons. I guess Abu Ghraib just took the pleasure out of viewing overlapping naked bodies. (Along with my own early forced participation in photos that brought others pleasure but forever skewed and corrupted my moral, aesthetic & artistic senses). I know, there's just no comparison, but still........I can't help but wonder how many people really do enjoy stripping down and entwining limbs with co-workers and strangers, no matter how well paid they are. I imagine getting that one pyramid shot under bright lights must have taken a lot of time & a lot of takes. But then I no longer carry any exhibitionistic traits, so never mind; maybe the models all really enjoyed the sessions. Leave it to the fashion industry to exploit and to exhibit such bad taste, which we should be used to, remembering, for example, earlier promotions to make teenage drug addiction in vogue.

Nordic, thank you for disclosing your early sexual abuse at the hands of a female family member. I have to admit that I wondered, after you wrote several times that you were raised primarily by women, if there could be a dark corner lurking, and it's important for people to acknowledge that both sexes can be abused by both sexes. I think maybe it does matter to you, because you state that you were sexually abused, rather than, I don't know, initiated. And anything else I could add to that would just be projecting my own struggles to work out my own issues, which appears much easier to do on an anononomous board, rather than in real life.

I don't wish to confuse the issue as blatant staring and cat calls in public have little to do with sexual attraction and everything to do with displays of power, however, adding weight to make oneself less sexually attractive is not an uncommon strategy for survivors of sexual trauma. Obesity, however, is a complex issue with many potential causal factors.

Willow, there's so much to respond to. Another common strategy for sexual trauma survivors is, of course, to starve oneself, which was my tactic, during one re-invention, in becoming 'invisible' to male attention. But it's another complex issue.

Socialization into the abuse of fat people starts very early. Adults treat the fatter kids differently, starting at very young ages.

My mother loved to make fun of fat people; children and adults. I assumed this was normal.

I'd best go back to lurking...........

[Project Willow]

Thank you for sharing Cordelia, in spite of your impulse to just lurk. It is indeed amazing the extremes to which we will go to assert control over our bodies' experience. I know of survivors of ra/mc who became beautiful ballet dancers. I still shake my head over it. How could we have such opposite strategies of control? Rather than an absolute disconnect, some choose an intense over-control. Whatever works is best I guess.

My own K. There is bad juju happening in a culture where people have gotten progressively fatter and yet, at the same time, the perception of one's self as being fat is probably the number one source of self-hatred. Fat is equated with repulsion, laziness and disgust. For many people a few pounds gained are a disaster and unmentionable among friends.

There's no way the self-hatred and socially sanctioned abuse help the obesity problem, you know? It's like an extra punishment that makes no positive difference. Why is it so?

The internalized stigma is frustratingly perplexing! I have sat down more than once with very thin females who pour out their anxiety to me over having gained a quarter pound as if it threatened their very life, or at least all of their social connections, and their identity. They poured this out to me expecting overt gestures of grief and sympathy, to me, a woman who is far beyond a few pounds overweight! What kind of cognitive dissonance serves up this absurd behavior? What indeed is at work here? The only thing I can fathom is the absolute triumph of the market's vision, a triumph working on such a profound level on expectations of social rejection, which for social animals is indeed life threatening, but apparently personally isolated as well, as it only applies to themselves (and not to their friends, like me.)

If you like fat girls, you're a "chubby chaser" and a loser who has no other alternative. Willow seems to acknowledge this aspect of it too. The norms of what girls are suppposed to want in boys' looks are looser. It's the girls who have to meet a stricter standard, and the boys who are expected to salivate (only) for that standard.

It's astounding because whether my portraitist used the ideal as symbol or rationalization is the question. I had not considered the latter until you reviewed the point. I was flattered, and now I question and might be disturbed by the portraits if they are indeed a relfection of the processes we are outlining here.

Willow, wow you rock. Thank you so much - your posts make me very glad for opening this thread.

Thank you for saying that, and doubly so, because I have always had such thoughts about your contributions on the board.

[Nordic]

Jack, I was just giving you a hard time. I know what you're getting at, but I take issue with it, in that I don't believe there is such a thing as true objectivity, and I find the notion of it to be actually dangerous. To look at people with maximum objectivity, in my experience, makes one look at people as simply organisms, like any other organism. I went through a period in pre-med studies in college, where I felt like I was going crazy, because I would look at people in exactly this way, and it was as if I was an alien from another planet look at my fellow humans as if they were alien life forms. All I could see, thanks to our buddy Darwin, was the evolutionary history behind every trait in humans, myself included. One time in the shower, looking down at my feet, was particularly unsettling. Human feet are very odd.

This is the reason I got out of pre-med and went back into the arts. These days I kind of wish I'd just seen a shrink or something and dealt with it, my financial reality would be far different now.

As far as how fat people are treated, I am disturbed by the article posted because I, someone who has never been fat, and who when young could eat anything I desired and as much of it as I desired, am now faced with a 7 year old son who seems to be developing a little bit of weight problem. He could stand to lose a few pounds. I'm not saying that as a fat-hater, but as someone who is worried about both his health and his future. At the rate he's going he could have a real weight problem by the time he's 12 or so. I don't know how to deal with this. I never had to deal with it. And when my son says he's hungry, goddamnit I want to feed him. He's a big guy so he has a big appetite.

Right now it sorta works for him because he's just a huge strong kid. He's by far the tallest and biggest in his class, and he enjoys the status this brings.

Life is complicated.