Surprise, I don't hate you!

You know, I think that most fat acceptance activists still struggle with body image sometimes. I know I do. It would be difficult to live in this society and not struggle with it.

There's a big difference between keeping fat acceptance spaces free of diet talk and condemning dieters. Hell, dieters aren't even excluded - they're just asked not to discuss their diets or body snark in these spaces.

This whole question reminds me of the whole good fatty / bad fatty debate around HAES. Saying "Weight loss dieting is inconsistent with fat acceptance, and I've given it up." doesn't mean "I hate dieters." Similarly, saying "I make an effort to be physically active and eat a balanced diet" doesn't mean "I'm a good fatty and therefore, you're a bad fatty."

There are so many forces acting to make us insecure about our bodies and our habits, and this kind of thinking is the result. It's rooted in shame and insecurity, and it makes it difficult for us to trust each other and present a unified front.

Just curious, withoutscene - did something in particular inspire this post?

I posted on my blog the other day about a conversation I had on Facebook with someone who thought WLS was a good idea. The upshot of that conversation was that she said okay, I (meaning me, vesta) would stay fat, but that some people didn't enjoy being fat. Now, nowhere in that conversation did I say I enjoyed being fat. What I said was that rather than risk death (again) by having WLS, I would stay fat, healthy, and happy. Which led to some thinking on my part and then to a whole blog post about the difference between living my life fat and happy and enjoying being fat - and I do think there is a difference.
One comment I got on that post nailed it for me:

It doesn't matter to me whether I'm happy about being fat or not, the alternatives are not only worse, they offend me as both theory and in practice.
I take it from there, I can choose to be unhappy about being fat; equally I can choose to be neither happy or unhappy, just recognise the fact that respecting and appreciating the body I actually have makes most sense to me.
What I accept above all is myself, no matter what "package".
I'm not going to pretend that fatness is making me sick or hurting my knees and all that, if it isn't. Conversely, I'm not going to pretend fatness makes me feel like superwoman or whatever, if it doesn't.
What, who I'm accepting/trying to accept above all is myself.

Wise woman who said the above, and said what I was trying to say so much better than I did.

WLS - Sorry, not my preferred way of dying. *glares at doctor recommending it*

I do think it's strange that something called "Love Handles" would be used in such a negative light. Perhaps we should all start naming various parts of our bodies (problematic or no) fun names. Hmmm...Sweetie Buns?! I don't know. But it is odd.
I'm trying to think of easy or one liners for when women come in my shop and start with the whole, "Oh, like I need the calories" even when I'm offering them the healthiest of snacks! They see being in the presence of food as a moment to repent or take penance. I dunno, I'm not religious. But I would love a chance to improve the dialogue they start.

"Kind words are short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless." Mother Theresa

I don't hate anyone for dieting. I understand the pressure to slim down all too well.

However, I reserve the right to be massively annoyed if all you talk about is your frigging diet -- how hungry you are and wish you could eat but you're not allowed, how good you're being, how many calories Food X is, how many points or grams or whatevers you have left today, how much more you still need to lose, how awful your giant thighs are when they're smaller than mine could ever become short of world famine, how you're gonna die of the diabeeetus if you don't slim down...my ears and whiskers, it is tiresome. It blots out virtually all possible conversation, to the point where I'm ready to scream, "EAT THE DAMN CHEESE FRIES ALREADY AND SHUT UP! I'M SICK OF HEARING IT!"

Now, if you can diet without turning it into round-the-clock performance art, fine. Not my thing, but as long as you don't pressure me or hint in any way that I should be doing likewise, I think we're okay.

You're not a lone in your thinking "withoutscene", I know I've struggled with it and have done things that don't make me feel proud but I feel like I'm "dealing" in a society that really hates and punishes people for being fat. It's hard for some of us to push it aside and pretend it doesn't affect us when we sometimes feel overwhelmed by it. Moxie

I just want to call everyone's attention to a great post on this topic over at Red No. 3. It started out as a long comment on this post, and it's well worth reading.

Years ago, I heard someone point out that dieting in the U.S. is basically a cult or religion. When you start thinking of it that way, as the women's religion, the constant talk -- like offerings to the Diet God -- begins to make sense, even if it remains annoying. Eating yuck in a pouch is a sacrifice to the Diet God. Etc, etc.

DeeLeigh- Yeah Brian pretty much nailed my whole take on the divisiveness of this whole issue.

Why is it, even WITHIN the sphere of F/A, that we are so often forced to explain / justify our positions? Over and over and over. Why is it that, such a simple concept, needs to be examined, parsed, re-examined, adapted, watered-down, and expanded / contracted sometimes to the point where it becomes practically meaningless in it's complexity?

I know my conspiracy theory humor can cross back and forth across the line between 'Yah know, that could be.' to 'WTF is he talking about?' but it's almost like somebody is running a disinformation / propaganda Op on F/A.

Yeah, I know, 'WTF is he talking about'. Really, I think it has more to do with the Self-hating Fatty phenom then anything else (not ragging on people who haven't 'found' acceptance yet so lets not get all heated). People who are so entrenched in the FoBT that they are not quite ready to let go of some or all of that. I mean, isn't the FoBT all about being / becoming accepted? Isn't that the ultimate goal? If I've clung to that with every fiber of my being for years, how much am I going to trust this crazy new, off-the-wall, concept of Fat Acceptance I keep hearing about? Especially when it's diametrically opposed to EVERYTHING I've placed all my faith in for years. Now throw in the fact that Every. Single. Detail. doesn't map to ME or my life. I'm not 'that fat', I'm fatter than most, I don't 'exercise', I want to accept my body but I also want to lose weight, but nobody in F/A seems to be talking about MY EXPERIENCE. They must hate people who are / do / don't do X_______! They're not accepting me! They're excluding me!! At which point we have to start explaining things. . . Again.

Really the above kind of attitude just boggles me. Especially when, as has been noted by Brian at Red3, I've never seen or heard of anybody being actively excluded from the 'sphere. Even those who actually WANT to discuss dieting or weight loss efficacy (One of the FEW hard and fast, agreed upon, rules of the Fatosphere) have a place within the Feed. So why are we consistently forced to justify ourselves? All we're asking for is to be left alone to pursue our lives the way we see fit and not be judged, discriminated against, ridiculed, or punished for it. What about this needs so much explaining?

Learn how to logic- Lesson #7
Unhealthy+Thin= Possible =Fat+Healthy.

B4C - When I first learned about FA, I did a lot of reading and not much commenting (and a couple of times, when I commented, I hadn't thought things through, and put my foot in my mouth). So I started my own blog to kind of work things out on my own because I didn't feel like I really fit in anywhere - I had dieted to fare-thee-well in the past, I had had WLS, I'm disabled, I didn't practice HAES, I didn't exercise (and didn't want to, I'm not into pain and exercise causes me pain), I didn't like my body and wasn't sure I ever would, and the list of negatives goes on and on.
One of the major things that made me feel like I didn't belong in FA was the dust-up with Kell and Brian on Shapely Prose over Heidi's post about WLS and why she decided to have it. I thought, at the time, that if she was attacked like that, by people who had been in FA for a long time, what chance did I have (even though I was anti-diet/anti-WLS)? And the further shit that happened when Kate asked me to guest-post about my WLS experience made me even more reluctant to comment on other blogs (as you can see, I've gotten over that...lol). People who are new to FA see that kind of in-fighting and wonder, just like I did, if there's any place in the movement for them. Does the movement address the needs they have, or are they going to be attacked when they make mistakes? Not everyone is an opinionated bitch like I am, nor are they strong-willed enough to be able to say "I need FA, so I'll take the things I need from it, make friends where I can, and fuck those who can't/won't help/understand me."
I've learned enough over the last 3+ years that I pick my battles. I know there are people whose minds I can change and there are those whose minds will never be changed. I don't waste my time on the latter any more. I read everything I can find on FA, and take what I can use and pass it on to anyone who wants the knowledge. I don't mind repeating the things I know simply because there are always newbies coming in and how else are they going to learn? Hell, I'm even willing to tell them that there are days I hate my body and that I think it sucks dirty ditchwater, but those days are usually balanced out by the good days when I also love my body and think it's pretty damn hot. It is what it is and I've learned to deal with being fat, whether I always like it or not (and I'm willing to bet that there are thin people who feel the same way about their bodies, too).
None of us have exactly the same experiences when it comes to being fat, but those of us who are farther along the road to acceptance can tell newbies that it's possible to reach a point where you don't hate your body every day, that it's possible to know you're a worthwhile person no matter the size of your ass, and that no one has the right to make you feel less than. These are things that bear repeating for all of us, not to justify our existence to the haters or to ourselves, but to remind ourselves of how far we've come (and how far we have yet to go).

WLS - Sorry, not my preferred way of dying. *glares at doctor recommending it*

"If you feel bad about your body--or you just don't feel like celebrating it lately--it's okay, everyone does, some of us more than others. I don't speak for all fat activists--surely--but if you are feeling bad about your body, I'm okay with hearing that as long as you aren't expecting me to reciprocate the same feelings about my body as an exercise in bonding."

I also think these things are worth repeating sometimes. When goals and ideals of what we are aiming for are stated it can feel daunting when we personally feel very far away from those goals. It can feel alienating and like we don't quite fit in where these goals a being stated, like Vesta44 said. So I think saying where our feelings are, and that we struggle with acceptance is a worthwhile thing. I also think that sometimes the ferociousness of the fate hate that's out there and how very hard it is to withstand it sometimes isn't acknowledged as much as it could be on this site.

Also, in other venues, I have experienced being presented with "a solution" to society's aversion to fat and fat people and essentially told that "the solution" makes it all ok and that if I don't go along with it I'm just doing it wrong. "The solution" has been variations on a theme of "just be positive about everything". It's something I've ended up being hyper-sensitive about. So I'm wary about anything that offers a logical theory but seems to leave the feelings behind. So people repeating that they struggle with their feelings is helpful to me.

I have very powerful feelings of shame about my fat that go back to when I was first ridiculed about my weight at age 7 (I also have very powerful feelings of anger but that's another issue). These feelings of shame have stayed and they're not showing any signs of going. I wonder how people on this site will view these feelings. I don't want to pretend I don't feel them, but I get that people here wont want to have an endless pity party about fat shame. It can be difficult to know how to juggle sometimes.

I truly believe the world will not become the utopia we hope for until we learn to accept others as-is and, in turn, learn to accept acceptance of ourselves as-is.

There are so many other things to worry about in this lifetime beyond how we look, or what other people think about how we look.

*****
Our society simultaneously encourages and disparages obesity. That pisses me off. Also: slow food fan, organic gardener, journalist.On Twitter as @AngryFatWoman. Blogging at AngryFatWoman.com. Posts by Rhiannon Bowman.

That people who have had / are considering / need to have WLS ARE NOT 'the enemy'.

The problem is not surgery, but propagandizing for it to compensate for their reasons for doing it. People who've had surgery/ are dieting are supported, fat acceptance is support, support for their humanity, their bodies, their souls, their self respect. If that's too extreme, isn't it clear what that means?

It wasn't WLS supporters, but people like Kell who provided an incredibly valuable perspective and I feel the movement has suffered without her participation.

I'm so glad someone finally made that point. If fat acceptance is so radical, why is it only the 'radicals' who aren't around? FA is not radical, except maybe in painting a smile on a kick in the face.

HAES has become fat healthism, we hear endlessly about the poor oppressed dieters, it's all angled to cleave to the mainstream in every conceivable way -we are the mainstream, we don't come from outer space and yet the consistent overall message has been FA/fat people; go fug yourselves.

People understandably bitter about this constant rejection have to find someone to blame for the failure of haters to be charmed out of hate that is obviously so rewarding for them, because we ask them too. Hence the non existent radicals.

Instead of questioning the underlying theory of persuading those who've told you flat out they are determined to mash you into the dust, because they feel like it. Not because they are brainwashed, please, even I have more faith and respect for haters than that, they are choosing it, just like we can choose internalized fat hatred, or not.

The best way to change that equation that I can think of is to make fat hating less rewarding, by withdrawing our support for it, let those who wish to hate do their own dirty work.

By valuing ourselves and respecting ourselves in the face of opposition. I know that's not easy, for any of us, but if that's too 'extreme' a message for us then I can't really see what fat acceptance is supposed to be, liberation or the hate yourself a bit less fattie movement.

osxgirl, I really like what you wrote. I know I'm never going to be skinny and I gave up dieting long ago because it doesn't work. That doesn't necessarily mean I am completely happy at 266 pounds. My physical therapist wants me to get back to horseback riding (haven't ridden for three years due to pain and exhaustion), and it's harder at 266 pounds than it is at 240 pounds; my balance simply isn't as good. I would like to weigh 200 pounds or so, but it won't happen unless it just happens, because I came to understand how destructive the dieting mentality is. For me, it's about accepting myself as I am now. I would like to have more energy and get back to hiking, swimming, etc, but right now that's not possible because I don't have the endurance. So I accept where I'm at at the moment, and celebrate every good day when I get to be outdoors and active. This is not to say I wouldn't like to climb another mountain before I die!

I like having radicals in fat acceptance. If I had the guts, I'd be more active and outspoken myself. If we are going to get hated on anyway, what have we to lose? Let the compromises come later, after we have won a few battles, at least. Let those compromises be between Extreme Them and Extreme Us, because Extreme Them and Moderate Us hasn't been working all that well.

I am also anti-diet talk for two reasons 1) because it tends to derail discussions, and 2) because you don't wave a rope around in the presence of people who've narrowly escaped hanging. Too many people have had their health destroyed by dieting and the culture that goes with it.

I don't know the details of why Kell quit FA - surely it wasn't that article where Heidi explained why she was having WLS?!? It was VERY clear that Heidi felt she was being forced into it, so what was the problem?

I kinda feel like this is something I need to comment on, since I think I may be one of FAs most "successful" weight-loss maintainers. (Paul Campos is da bomb, of course.)

I have, over the past six years, really, really, really NEEDED FA to keep my head straight and to develop an understanding of diet mechanics and sociology. Without FA, I think I would be completely lost. I would be trapped among the gushy "Lifestyle" idiots, and likely in the throes of depression. Ironically, I probably would have regained the weight, because I wouldn't have appreciated the enormity of the task I decided to take on.

Paul let me join BFB, even though I confessed to him way back then that I had just lost 68 pounds, but suspected "something was wrong" with the diet culture that only offered me stupid "tips and tricks," and not much depth. Shortly thereafter, I took on the assignment of researching the long-term success rate of diets for Big Fat Facts (which I should probably update -- the results are the same, but my research is more solid now). When I discovered that the empirical research with the best integrity put maintenance success at 3% at five years (and God knows what happens after that), I had a big "oh, shit" reaction, and my life has been a social experiment ever since, that I deeply hope will be of use to the FA cause.

Perhaps we "dieter" FA participants can help create a "tipping point," when enough of us add our voices to the Marilyn Wanns, et. al. and report that fat people are no more lazy, ignorant or emotionally broken than naturally trim people, but that weight-loss maintenance is abjectly unfair. It isn't a "lifestyle"; it's a time-consuming, unsatisfying job with a tyranical boss. Simple "portion control" is a fairy tale -- maintainers eat a radically different diet from naturally trim people. Binge impulses are real and based in biology/endocrinology, and not emotional dysfunction. As a maintainer, your body, naked, looks no better (by society's standards) than when you were fat, because you are deflated and deformed. Most importantly, maintenance doesn't work for all people who attempt it, even when they do EVERYTHING right. We who do maintain enjoy a complicated list of advantages, biological and social, that are unavailable to most people.

I thank you all for putting up with me.

DebraSY - Your voice here is one of the many reasons I keep coming back to BFB (and all your research on Big Fat Facts, which I've quoted to family/friends often).
You have a way of cutting through the rhetoric and getting to the heart of the matter that I really admire. What you said about "dieter" FA participants helping to create a "tipping point" is one of the advantages to having maintainers in our midst (Fierce Freethinking Fatties has a blogger who is also maintaining her weight loss, and it's not something she recommends).
Every voice counts, and I'm glad yours is among us.

WLS - Sorry, not my preferred way of dying. *glares at doctor recommending it*

Is there a clear boundary definition among fat-positive blogs re weight-loss talk? From comments here, I genuinely can't tell.

Which blogs can I read without encountering people who post about their current, active weight-loss goals?

misappropriating our vocabulary to define the precise opposite of our purpose and throw a tantrum when we resist the redefining of terms that have existed for decades to describe a clear and easily understood purpose.

Agreed. Empathically. There has been, active, attempts to co-opt the ideals and language of Fat Acceptance in the past and, in fact, it's going on in the UK right now. Whenever / wherever this kind of thing pops up it NEEDS to be called out and shut down however, I believe the the people doing it have got quite a different agenda (re; ending all unacceptable fatness) from that of anyone I've ever heard professing themselves as 'Fat Accepting'.

Fat Lib, Fat Pride, Size Diversity, and Body Autonomy, we've had that convo several times before. Here, recently in fact, and elsewhere. But I don't see this as a concerted attempt or a creeping diffusion / corruption of the core, Fat Acceptance, ideals. For me it's become a 'Defining the Movement' conversation and I'm of the mind that this a good thing. Because it serves to help us figure out who we are and further define what it is we're trying to do. Looking back, despite the, fairly inflexible, ideas we had about what was, and wasn't, F/A quite a few websites or BBS slowly (or in some cases over night) became Weight Loss Advise Circle Jerks / Diet Cluster Fucks {Credit; Big Liberty}. A few that had started out as dedicated F/A spaces turned into shill zones for commercial diets or were left to spammers like abandoned houses that, eventually, turn into crack dens. How often do you hear about / see that happening NOW? I don't see it nearly as much, and I think it's because the message has gotten through to the general public; 'We're NOT interested, don't bother'. Those storms still rage outside the Feeds / 'Sphere and, sure, we get the occasional confused n00b. Trolls? Will always, ever, be. They come with the territory, but the core ideals of F/A are is still there and are as stable as ever.

As far as having radicals in F/A, I'm with strawberry. Within any movement, it's often the radicals who spark motion. However I think moderation is ALSO necessary. Last time we had this convo, a lot of comparisons to the Civil Rights Movement got floated and even then it was noted that King may have provided a strong center around which people rallied, but how much would he really have been able to get done without Malcolm X prowling around like a hungry wolf on the fringes making the government, the mainstream, and even media, very, VERY, nervous? Back then they needed BOTH. I think, to be effective, we do as well. On the plus; we do have a fairly solid center. It's grown, slowly, but steadily and shows no sign of stopping. The question is; where do we find our 'X'?

Learn how to logic- Lesson #7
Unhealthy+Thin= Possible =Fat+Healthy

A lot of the opposition to FA fits under the banner of trying to drag us back to where we have been by reminding us where we have been. It's the same techniques that got us there in the first place.

The people who say fat acceptance should be about accepting blatant fat hating in our midst are reminding us of when we did routinely accept just that and hoping that will drag us back there, or keep us tethered there. We are told a lot remember what/where you were? That is who you are forever, fat acceptance is just lying to yourself.

They point to the distance between some of what we want to achieve and where we are now to try and invoke a sense of inauthenticity about ourselves, now, which is also something we have and are struggling with (witiness how we readily point to our 'lack of credibility').

I think Blt4Cmfrt's point is right, excluding things like the idealisation of WLD is about learning from the mistakes fat acceptance has made in the past. FA does have a past that we can learn from, some should give it a cursory check, as they clearly don't trust anything a fat person may assert on (their own)general principle.

I don't have a problem with people dieting, but I think that people should diet because they are unhealthy; not because they are fat. People seem to have lost sight of the fact that dieting is supposed to give your body the nutrients it needs to be healthy. Slimfast is not what is best for your body, however many vitamins they cram in!

Fat people can be healthy, just as thin people can be unhealthy, and I hate the fact that we are encouraged to deprive ourselves just to look a certain way. I don't want to hear about your lastest diet, just as you don't want to hear about my latest bowel movement! In a society that breeds insecurity and low self-esteem, isn't there more strength in believing in yourself, than in following the crowd?

That said, if people truly want to lose weight for themselves - to improve their fitness of quality of life - I don't see the problem. I still, however, don't want to hear about it: I am insecure enough - I don't need to have other peoples' insecurities pushed upon me as well.

I COULDN'T hate you Moxie. You're braver than you think. In fact, when you realize what you're fighting, and how powerful, loud and well-financed the social imperative to lose weight really is, it's a wonder that so many of us can stand up to it even a little bit. You had the courage to get your lap-band operation reversed, and how many people do that without opting for additional weight-loss surgery?
I enjoy your posts a lot and hope you will comment more often, if/when you can.

I have such strong feelings about this website I almost can't even put it into words how very much it means to me. It is THE ONLY place I can go where I don't get mixed messages about celebrating my body size, about embracing my fat self. I have found so many support networks for fat people that provide some support but it is mixed with a good bit of diet and surgery talk as well as fat phobia accepted and woven throughout. AND NO ONE INTERVENES TO STOP IT. Yes, there are debates, but no one simply says, NO, NOT ALLOWED, THIS IS A FAT POSITIVE SPACE. Thus I can go on other sites hoping to boost up my belief in myself only to leave without a true sense of security and happiness in who I am. To have a place where I can go in which diet talk is NOT allowed and in which true, strong fat politics can be COUNTED on, wow, I don't know what my self-esteem would do without this place! It must be hard to have to keep telling people that this is not the place for size negativity and diet talk but please know that there are people like me out there who value it beyond words. This site is VERY smart, caring, and, most of all, home to me. When I encounter people who wish to debate my acceptance of and celebration of my fat self, because I know this site doesn't give the mixed messages so common on other sites, I am able to say, "Please go read http://www.bigfatblog.com for ten minutes a day for a year, and then we can talk." I can say this with the confidence that they won't be reading debates about whether fat is good or bad but instead will be reading an intelligent, well informed point of view that I believe in with all my heart. This site is a true rarity that way and deserves preserving like an endangered species!

Jennifer

Moxie, I appreciate you telling your story. Your background has a lot of similarities to mine. My mother first put me on diets when I was 8 and there-on followed the whole yo-yo story, psychological yo-yoing as well as physical. I too was very sensitive, in fact it was one of my mother's criticisms, "you're just too sensitive". So apart from not having had WLS we've been on a very similar road.