I must admit, I've not read this book , but I love the title. For me, this sums up what fat acceptance is all about. It goes just as much whether you are fat, thin, slim, plump, inbetweenie, whatever.
In all the discussions where an FA perspective is brought up, there seems to be a profound misunderstanding amongst those who set themselves against it. They are determined to be against it without grasping what it is, or what's being said.
Because they believe that the fat is intrinsically evil/ or unhealthy and that the only possible righteous position must be total opposition to that evil/ unhealthiness, that FA must be in league with evil/unhealthiness and it is formulated to be in opposition to their 'beliefs', i.e. it must be the worship of evil. Such is the cubby hole they're stuck in.
This could not be further from the truth.
It's about us, not them, it's about our opinions, not theirs. It is up to us to say what it is and what it is not, not them. They've had their say.
It's hard to think of anything more deeply uninspiring, than setting myself against those against fat, I'm not even sure I know or care exactly what that is.
I can assure you, I was thinking about myself and others like me when I got involved with FA. I was sick and tired of not being able to have a conversation about fat and/or fatness, that didn't reek of someone else's ignorant, base and ill-informed abuse. I wanted to hear something that reflected my experiences, compare notes, size up differing viewpoints and conclusions. Instead of always hearing some twisted version always putting me in a concern, ordering 'justify yourself to me, NOW'. I wanted to get away from it, not to connect myself to it, by setting myself in opposition to it. Their problem is they cannot understand.
No means no and that includes fat children as well, who's well being I would not entrust to them.
I don't think of FA as in opposition to anything, but that which is inhumane and seeks to set up yet another tedious round of false superiority/inferiority, ye gads, are we ever going to get sick and tired of that nonsense?
FA is not even essentially about being fat, it's about humanness, and what you need to feel truly alive. In the same way that people who wish to return to normal eating wish to get out of the way of their bodies magnificent capacity to regulate it's own appetite and hunger. FA is in part about wishing to get out of the way of your own self-esteem. Allowing to be restored and flow unhindered by punitive and pointless self-loathing.
We are born with self esteem, we don't know any better than to reach for love and sustenance and warmth. We need our self esteem, if we unpick it, we will have to replace it with something else and what is that likely to be? It's a false equation, it can't just go, it just creates havoc and starts to make a big mess of a person.
Just don't bother to try asking those who want you to do without it about that. I doubt they're trying it for themselves so they wouldn't know either. All they know is what they insist is supposed to happen. I'm not saying that they don't have self-esteem issues, but they are not aiming for the lack of it as a transcendent state toward self-betterment.
Yeah, sounds really stupid when you say it like that, doesn't it?
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