Saturday, 3 September 2011

How mean is fat acceptance?

The appeal for FA denizens to tread lightly on those who've kicked the crap out of fatz has forced me to consider this question, is it cruel to people who are used to having a soft landing place for their feet swinging limbs to withdraw that and let them fall on their own momentum?

That may seem like an idiotic question when you say it like that, but there is no doubt that in general we fatz seem to be awful reticent about calling our tormentors to account, for their own freely chosen behaviour.

This wasn't altogether unpredictable, after all, I myself have as much reluctance as anyone else but I try to overlook it somewhat because I feel it is old habits dying hard, namely being outer directed, focusing on other people's feelings with disregard for my own.

Then being asked to account for what I was supposed to be the product of what I was not paying attention to and also repressing. You can say its forcing myself to get back in touch with my own feelings, rather than distracting myself with others, I trust them to take care of themselves in the meantime.

I've also noticed a lot of the hurt people feel at fat people's emergence from non sentient outer directed. There's an element of we thought that was settled and we were happy with that. As you know when you put anything down that can become a makeshift storage or table, it exerts a gravitational pull bringing all flotsam and jetsam of the universe.

Okay, people put stuff on it.

People put a lot more stuff on our erased, obedient, genuflecting selves than I ever thought possible. Or maybe its that the things they put on them, got things put on them and enabled all sorts of things out of reach things to be tantalizingly touched with the finger tips.

By trying to regain the humanness of that part of ourselves, there's a sense that we are cruelly disregarding all this and we are in our way just as reluctant as others I sense. We don't want to be where we are, but its the change our minds that will have to come about that we ambivalent about.

If you want to look at it this way and it is fair to a fault fat acceptance is cruel or certainly feels it, both ways. From looking outward to restoring inside, from thinking about how you look to hostile others, to how you actually feel as an original autonomous being.

You know as in existing with the flow of your experience inside and out, rather than watching yourself, looking to catch yourself out before you do any fat creation whilst you're not looking.

Relative to before it can feel incredibly self absorbed, I certainly do feel I have become that way myself and sometimes overly analytical and precious.

Isn't it grand? In the past I would have worried, I'm a fat person being precious, oh the shame. Now I just think lighten up or get over it, I treat myself according to the way I'm being, not how much I'm making up for or not being fat.

Sometimes, it's almost fun.

The 'cruelty' of fat acceptance, is really the cruelty to ourselves of going along not with cals in/out ideology, anyone can make a mistake, no it was by accepting the hostility that increasingly went with it, for that reason.

For not policing boundaries by saying "okay you can say I'm in the wrong but that doesn't give you the right to act up like this, back off" etc., Its the lenience of "anything goes" as we are fat and wrong that was really cruel to ourselves.

And if you view this belated push back as a cruelty to those who've for instance gotten used to us making them feel better because we seemed a bit more beaten down, then let that be a lesson to us all.

If we carelessly allow cruelty to ourselves that builds future "meanness" towards anyone nice enough to take advantage.

5 comments:

  1. "That may seem like an idiotic question when you say it like that, but there is no doubt that in general we fatz seem to be awful reticent about calling our tormentors to account, for their own freely chosen behaviour."

    No one "freely chooses" their behavior. Fat acceptance advocates talk about prejudice and open hostility toward fat people as a "choice", but it is no more a choice than it is for a fat person to remain fat. Each person is driven to be who they are by biology and psychology. Personal history and need drive every behavior and thought. Oversimplifying it as choice is subscribing to the exact same mind set which says "put down the fork, fatty."

    Changing minds and opinions about anything for people with an ingrained prejudice is not a simple matter. They have complex rationalizations and notions underlying what they believe that were formed by every experience and bit of information they were exposed to. Dismantling that thinking is a matter of education, encouraging empathy, and waiting for the zeitgeist to shift one person at a time. This has been the case for all prejudice against a particular group of people.

    People do not simply "choose" anything. In fact, they have to push very hard not to act in default. That is a big reason why people can't change their lives as they would like. While angry fat haters aren't even trying to change their mindsets because they think they are "right", they equally believe that fat people aren't trying to lose weight because they think being fat is inevitable for them. They think you are just as wrong as you think they are. Talk of "choice" makes your underlying mental processes exactly the same, but focused in different directions.

    I've written about this many times. People need to stop talking about choice in this manner and exercise more subtle understanding and deeper empathy or nothing will ever change for anyone. We'll just keep shifting blame and talking about personal responsibility as if people were blithely selecting behavior like a box of cereal in the supermarket.

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  2. SFG,

    That could be an interesting though I have to warn you somewhat condescending lecture for your idea of a generic fat acceptance person.

    When you find someone who matches it, why not deliver it to them?

    Afterward, don't feel FREE to let me know how that goes down.

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  3. I see being subtle with them as a waste of time, I also believe that fat hatred is so entrenched in society, that a lot of size acceptance folks seem to have Stockholm syndrome where life becomes about pleasing the "abusers" [the fat are supposed to be more happy then everyone else and PROVE this daily somehow as an excuse for their existence. I have no problem telling the fat haters they are socially programmed, and WRONG and need a can of "get right". If anything the size acceptance movement holds the qualities of deference, it is extremely feminine in nature--few men are tied to it, except those who want to exploit the fat women--FAs and focuses on the shallow. In fact I have hinted at this on my blog enough, that I found the top personalities in SA as almost forcing a sort of shallowness in personalities, serious types not apply. I am not in the mode to sugarcoat things for those who are brainwashed by the diet industry and other corporations who seek to profit off all of us. Having almost died of fat hatred where I was denied thyroid tests, this is serious business to me. No problem in telling them. HEY YOU ARE WRONG. If anything fat people embrace their own reduced status in this world all too easily and blame themselves for things they should not. Size acceptance I see as the "enablers" more and more.

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  4. I just had another comment censored by size acceptance denizens, who care more about following their pre-set rules then allowing any open and active discussion. I broke rule #6 breaking the body first politics.
    http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2011/09/part-iii-size-acceptance-ideologues.html

    As for meannness, they do not mind exhibiting "cruelty" when it comes to silencing others and demanding they match the status quo.

    I'll say it again, size acceptance as it now exists serves as the social programming enabler to a fat hating society, with it's own rules and no freedom of thought.

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  5. Everyone sets their own limits and has rules. You can only be truly "silenced" where you have no space to freely assert your views.

    I have disagreed and been disagreed with, times without number, rarely have any of my comments been blocked.

    If I held the 'sphere in contempt, I wouldn't bother with it.

    What I truly hold in contempt is the low standard set by taking the mainstream's lead which lowers our standards unduly.

    FA is still formed too much by what is against it rather than what it is for.

    Because of that, FA is still fat hating enough for people with plenty of contempt for fat people to hang out comfortably and they do, in plain sight.

    If anyone cannot gain a foothold, its hard to see through their eyes what they wish to belong to.

    'Scientists' should be expected to study the subject of their choice, especially if they've hyped it into a lethal 'epidemic'.

    If they do little to nothing for those at the end of the scale who most can agree are likely to be most in need of help, they need to be queried, until they answer.

    I've yet to get why those who feel in need don't go directly to source and make connections; finding out who they are sending them regular e-mails, following their activities and discussing them, letting them know they are being watched with anticipation.

    That usually puts a rocket up their arse, when they are genuine, anyhow.

    Why try to get others who don't want to do, what you want to do?

    I'm just not getting that.

    'Curing obesity' is discussed in spaces dominated by men using words like "hedonics", which you might find more to your liking.

    I'm sure you know of other places where the balance of weight differs as well as tone, POV and discussion points.

    If nothing suits, get together with like minds and create one more to your liking.

    If not that, show what an uplifted free thinking fat person thinks like, we all can learn from that example.

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