More Fat Musings

So I was browsing Hari Kondabolu’s tumblr account because he has amazing politics and I have a crush on him. I was heartened to find his reblog of a short Salon.com article by Haley Morris-Cafiero documenting her photography project, Wait Watchers, where she turns the lens back on people that stare or give her dirty looks due to her weight. I had seen Morris-Cafiero’s work before and I was excited to share it again on my Facebook feed. I’d shared it before, but I don’t know why this time it just felt important. 

Hours later I noticed a Facebook friend of mine (not especially a friend persay) had shared my link without linking the full exhibition via Morris-Cafiero’s website and had proceeded to curate a conversation with her friends on her Facebook that consisted of breaking down Morris-Cafiero’s work and denying that the artist may experience oppression due to her size. The thing that made me angry the most was that all of these people commenting were thin. They were searching very hard to find other explanations for the subjects’ expressions around Morris-Cafiero. 

This all made me angry and a bit sad, but then I remember that this person who shared the link was the same person who proceeded to tell me and another friend about how horrible it was to be around fat people in the Houston airport, and how funny they looked using the tram because they were too fat to comfortably walk the distance. 

I admit I don’t understand this person very well. What I do understand though is that she does not see the people in the fat bodies. Fat people are an inconvenience to her. Fat people are subjects of jokes and derision. 

What it reiterates for me is that fat people are not worthy of humanity, and because I am fat that includes me. I'm sick of being dehumanized and watching others be dehumanized because our bodies are seen as invalid.

(Please check out Haley Morris-Cafiero's awesome work here)

Microaggressions: Fat Hatred

Last night I met up with a really good friend of mine at a posh restaurant downtown. She brought along another friend of hers whom I'd met before, and that was cool. I'm a friend with that person on Facebook. However, I am not sure how I feel about her because I've seen some posts that collude with White privilege or posts that are very anti-fat. Tonight was the last straw.

She proceeded to talk about her new gluten diet, how she dropped ten pounds on it (she wasn't fat to begin with) and how great that is. I just pretended to be interested and nodded a lot. Wasn't really that big of a deal. Until dessert.

My friend and I decided to split a really rich (delicious) piece of cheesecake. The other chick wasn't going to order dessert (naturally). After we ordered the cheesecake, she told us a story about her trip back from D.C. and how she was in the Houston airport and how fat everyone was in Houston. She said that she could hear them having trouble breathing and that they were "4 times her size" (not difficult when you're skinny.) She thought it was "so funny" how all the fat people in the airport were getting rides on a cart from the terminal to the baggage claim. When she found the gate for her flight to Portland she said it was all skinny people and "Yay she had found her people." The skinny people.

She kept looking at me when she was telling this story. I was the fattest one at the table. I'm usually the fattest person in my group of friends. I am healthy, I am a fast runner, I don't use a lot of salt or sugar, I go to the gym 4 times a week and I could probably bench press that idiot. I ate that fucking cheesecake because fuck diets and fuck making yourself feel better by making fun of other people. I am not sure if I will be hanging out with this person anymore. We are saturated with fat hatred in society and I definitely don't need to be around it in my relationships.

Check your thin privilege, but pass the fucking cheesecake. 

"Bear" Culture & White Gay Hegemony

As I have grow older, I developed more of a body type that is a defining factor for the 'bear' subculture of mainstream Western (American) gay society. I have some issues with this label, especially because I do not identify as a 'bear' nor do I identify with many of the aspects & interests within this gay subculture.

Bear culture may have originally formed as an answer to the vibrant femme presence that most people thought of as "gay". Bears tend to perfer to present as hypermasculine by growing beards, cultivating more muscular or fat heavy bodies, not shaving their body hair (popular in mainstream gay culture), & dressing more "straight" among other things.

The irony of the bear image is that it is very specific, which seems contrary to it's first incarnation as a down-to-earth answer to starving twink bodies and gilded drag queen fabulous. Men are judged as non-bear based on body weight (even too much fat can be non-bear), their facial hair and body hair, among other identifiers.

Another issue with the image of what is "bear" is that generally bears are seen almost exclusively as White men. There have been many incidents of people of color who find bear body types attractive or who identify as bears who were unable to gain access to a certain online community. There is also a large reflection of the "no Blacks, no Asians" trend on profile sites. This echoes the implicit racism in mainstream gay culture as well.

While bears may have originally presented as your average man who happens to desire other men, who is "working class" and "just another one of the guys", this has shifted greatly. Bear culture tends to side with mainstream gay culture which has a backbone in upper middle class capitalism (classism), racism, economic marriage equality (heteronormativity) and body image issues (who gets to define a bear?)

I take issue with this, especially the issues in presenting another White face of the gay community. I also take issue because I do not identify as gay, whereas bear culture is disproportionally full of gay men. Bisexuals, transpeople and people who idenitfy as queer or otherwise may not be as accepted in bear communities.

Even though now I reflect more of a bear-type body, I remember when I tried gaining access to bear culture and community as a thinner man and was denied many times by men I found desirable.

This is why I do not identify as a bear.