I Hate You for Making Me Write "Sizeist" So Often: It Makes Me Feel Like A Douchebag

I’m going to call this a Fat Tuesday, even though I’m posting on a Thursday *gasp*, because I’m going to be addressing weight issues and media, and hell, if that doesn’t qualify for the Fat Tuesday tag, I don’t know what does. I’m adding my voice to the resounding response to Maura Kelly’s painfully ill-considered and badly written rant about CBS’s new sitcom, Mike & Molly.

When I decided to write on this subject, I was amused to find that the first few issues I had with Ms. Kelly’s blog had more to do with her writing style than her topic. Now, I am not pretending to be a pro at this (I’m certainly not being paid by MarieClaire.com for my ignorant ramblings, as Ms. Kelly STILL is). I’m not a grammar Nazi (unless you flub your too/to/twos too many times) and I prefer a looser, more conversational blogging style. So I’m not going to bitch about grammar and syntax and scholarly style norms, or any such nonsense, because I consider those concerns a bit too pedantic for this particular format. HOWEVER. This woman is a lazy writer. At least 3 posts on her blog in the past month begin with “My editor asked me what I thought about X” Yawn. Seriously. This may in fact be how you come to be writing on these particular subjects, but A) I, as a reader, don’t want to hear about your editor passing down assignments. I want to believe you’ve personally put some thought into your posts. Cut out the editor and give me the polite illusion of a personal touch, would ya? B) Variety. Please, goddammit. Your structure is ridiculously dull and static. Skimming your blog archive, Ms. Kelly, I am struck by an irritating same-ness in your writing. To then swell these problems with an (arguably unintentionally) offensive and sizeist rant is just… Immensely irritating.

Alright, onto the meat of the post: “while I think our country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it's at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy.” I think it is fascinating that, having admittedly never watched the show, you feel qualified to judge the implicit messages of the “text”. Would you write an essay on sexism in Moby Dick without reading it, simply because you’d been told there aren’t any women in it? I would hope not. That is essentially what you are doing by suggesting implicit messages in a show you have never seen. Additionally, YOUR implicit message is that “naturally skinny” people are, almost by default, healthy. Ummm, no. (See what I did there? Fatties can play the “implicit” game too.) Fitness and health are not actually directly and exclusively linked to weight or BMI, as your implicit thesis suggests. And where did you get your medical degree, Ms. Kelly, to be making these generalizations with such conviction in the first place? Oh right, you didn’t. You just listen to the talking heads feeding our unhealthy media obsession with weight. Carry on, then…

Ms. Kelly goes on to say “I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room”, and then compares watching a fat person walk to WATCHING A HEROIN ADDICT. Wow. Are you trying to earn points for your asshole merit badge? (Setting aside the painfully obvious racist and homophobic echoes of this sentiment, because really, it is a little ludicrous to conflate weight with race or sexuality, since weight is, at least in theory, something which is within the individual’s power to change, unlike race/sexuality) Human beings are not subject to your personal aesthetic preferences. You don’t have to like the way my fat ass looks, Ms. Kelly, but you do have to treat me, and all the other “fatties,” like human beings. Your ill-considered blog doesn’t do that. It minimizes, ridicules, and dehumanizes us, reducing not only the stars of Mike & Molly but ALL fat people to simple ambulatory displays for your personal aesthetic evaluation. Fuck. You. Very much. I can’t be arsed to care whether the sight of my body disgusts you or not, and I sure as hell don’t want, or deserve, to hear about it. I’m fine with you being privately offended by my appearance, Ms. Kelly, but you should bloody well keep your sizeist bullshit in your head, where it belongs and hurts no one but yourself.

And then comes my favorite paragraph. “Now, don't go getting the wrong impression: I have a few friends who could be called plump. I'm not some sizeist jerk. And I also know how tough it can be for truly heavy people to psych themselves up for the long process of slimming down. (For instance, the overweight maintenance guy at my gym has talked to me a little bit about how it seems worthless for him to even try working out, because he's been heavy for as long as he can remember.)” Oh my purple-flying-monkey-god, tell me she didn’t. Did she honestly pull “But I’m not racist/homophobic/sexist because even though I am not an (icky) green/gay/woman myself, I have a FRIEND who is.” Also? Plump=/=obese. And you’re kind of a sizeist jerk for caring/noting your friend’s “plump”ness to justify your sizeist jerkhood. It’s a vicious cycle; see how that works? Final point: you don’t KNOW how hard it is, do you? Have you ever needed to lose even 30 pounds (or more) for health reasons? (I know, because of her apology and bio, that Ms. Kelly is a recovering anorexic. Which… kind of tells me she has NO IDEA how hard it can be to lose weight. Anorexia and extreme overeating are on completely different ends of the body control/dysmorphia spectrum.) You cite the maintenance guy at your gym as your reference for this knowledge? For reals? Wow. So… some guy you’ve watched mop up the showers told you in passing he doesn’t see the point in trying, and so you now, as result of these interactions, are qualified to comment on the invisible difficulties of weight loss? LOL, I think not, but thanks for playing. Or, y'know, not.

Finally, Ms. Kelly offers to give health and diet tips. “long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it's cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you're getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more.” OMG, earth shattering news! Exercise more and eat better! I think I’ve lost 5 pounds just reading that thought, random MarieClaire.com blogger! What. A. Revelation. So, you insult my aesthetic worth, minimize my very real struggle with weight loss, and then condescend to my poor fat ass by passing along the advice I’ve been hearing since grade school. Seriously?

Returning to the initial problem: Ms. Kelly posits that Mike & Molly is implicitly suggesting that obesity is good, or healthy, or fun, or some shit like that. Without having ever seen the show, and knowing only that “I guess these characters are in Overeaters Anonymous. So ... points for trying?” If the only thing you know about a show is that it features overweight people falling in love and ATTENDING WEIGHT MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS, how exactly do you arrive at the conclusion that the show is PROMOTING obesity? I HAVE seen a few episodes of the show, and while I am not a fan of it for various unrelated reasons, I feel the show is more about people, regardless of weight, leading normal lives. Shockingly, fat people are just as capable of finding love and holding down jobs as skinny people, and this happens to be a show about such people. And hey, the fatties are ostensibly trying to lose the weight, so… they’re promoting obesity? Does. Not. Compute.

PS: the suggestion made by some commenters that Melissa McCarthy should be contractually obligated to lose weight on/for the show to mitigate the “yay Fatties!” effect? Should go suck on an exhaust pipe. When contracts start including weight clauses to prevent actresses from dropping to unhealthy weights during the course of a show, then you can TRY putting in weight loss clauses. When Lea Michelle and the 90210 girls stop melting away before my eyes, then you can start pressuring Ms. McCarthy to drop a few. Otherwise, stuff your hypocrisy up your puckered asshole, m’kay?

I Like It, So Deal With It

“I like it on the stairs.”

This was my status update to Facebook yesterday, as a part of a silly little meme to raise awareness for Breast Cancer Awareness month (October, for those of you playing along). The idea was to post a sexually suggestive “I like it” sentence describing where you keep your purse. It’s a quick, light-hearted meme, and it DID get a fair few women talking about BCAMonth. This is precisely what irritates me about the counter response to the meme. Several of my male friends posted today, and late yesterday, bitching about how keeping the meme’s meaning a “secret” ran counter to the meme’s supposed purpose, and PS, men get breast cancer too, so maybe we should’ve let some of them in on the joke too, hmm?

Calm the fuck down, boys. And to begin with, let’s put the bitchy generalizations aside for a moment, shall we? I, personally, did send the message regarding the meme to some of my male friends. I did not spam EVERY man, woman, and child on my FB, however, because let’s face it, not everyone is receptive to this kind of silliness, as the backlash to this meme so clearly illustrates. Furthermore, the complaint that women weren’t explaining the meme when queried is ridiculous. Do you know why I personally didn’t explain the meme to any men on my page? Because not a damn one of them ASKED. If you don’t ask and can’t remember how to Google It, then it isn’t really my fault, it’s yours. Thanks for playing though. Or not. Additionally, it only took 24 hours or so for the message to get to y’all, so as a result of this meme, you DID hear about BCA month. You just didn’t get to be in on the joke. That wasn’t the point. This was obviously and unashamedly a stunt to get media attention, for both the meme AND THE CAUSE.

This last point is what I find most ridiculous about this blog post some of my male friends have been linking to criticize the meme. She says “This entire thing was just a stunt to get in the news. And congrats, by the way. It did.” Exactly. What’s your point? By getting on the news, the meme brought attention both to itself AND TO THE CAUSE. You can’t discuss the meme without discussing its purported cause. So the meme succeeded, just not in a way that you personally find palatable. Suck it.

A final thought: I am offended by the douchebags out there saying I’m an asshole for joking about this, that I’m somehow sexualizing breast cancer. Excuse me? First, don’t assume that everyone grieves or deals with disease in the same way. I know breast cancer survivors, I know people who have lost loved ones to breast cancer, my grandmother had it, and I have myself lost loved ones to cancer. I’m sorry your personal grief is rubbed the wrong way by this, but I find, to be horribly trite, that laughter often is the best medicine, and if joking a little bit alleviates some of the pain this subject elicits, then I think that’s all to the good. A little innuendo never hurt anyone.

It’s a facebook meme. Get the fuck over it. Facebook is not serious business.

On the Shortcomings of the Modern DIY Cupid

So, recently I’ve been doing the online dating thing. Started off with Match.com, discovered I was almost invariably interested in people who were not members, and therefore could not receive or send emails or IMs. Yeah… I’m paying y’all to show me people I’ll be interested in/compatible with, but because they haven’t paid you as well, I can’t actually connect with them? FAIL. Lesson learned, pay sites are a crock.

So now, I’ve switched over to OKCupid.com, which is free. Huzzah. I’m also getting a lot more response on OKCupid than I did on Match, so I’m happy in that regard. Still a lot of “Hey, you’re hot, hur hur” emails mostly, from guys who aren’t remotely my cuppa, but we can’t fault the service for that. The blame for that falls squarely on the men.

With that in mind, I thought I’d post a little Don’ts of Online Dating for the men folk. (Granted, I know I’m largely speaking to myself and the metaphoric walls at present, but… meh. Lemme spin my wheels a bit.)

• When emailing a woman, DO NOT send a “Hi/Hiya/Hullo, you’re hot, how you doin’?” message. How am I supposed to answer that? “Thanks, fine, and you?” Wow, that’s spectacularly dull. Since you are the one initiating contact in this scenario, gentlemen, the onus is on you to start the conversation. “How you doin’” does not qualify as a good opening conversational gambit. Save it for your IMs. Further, if you put this little effort into your message to me, it tells me a) you’re not invested enough to dedicate a moment’s thought to this conversation, b)you couldn’t be arsed to read, or even skim, my profile to find something to talk to me about. This is not an auspicious beginning. Also, this is not MySpace. I expect this bullshit there, but not on a dedicated dating site.
• While I understand and approve of the fact that some of you would like to attract intelligent women, some of you are going about it completely wrong. You seem to think that peppering (or rather saturating) your profile with SAT words will do the trick. Fine, it is possible that your vocabulary will impress a smart woman. Probably not, though, because for the most part, this just makes you look like a pretentious, self-aggrandizing ass. You might as well just brag to me about your SAT scores and have done with it. Triple bonus FAIL points if you don’t even do a basic proofreading/spell-check and you choose to compliment your $5 words with basic grammar errors and incoherence. (PS to the jackass who messaged me earlier today: pairing “fancy” words with loopy, indecipherable new age bullshit and faux nihilism isn’t sexy. Especially when you also BOLD all of the SAT fodder, and quote “Finding Nemo” thrice, without irony. You, my dear, misguided, and newly minted man-child, are a bit of a douche-nozzle.)
• While we’re on the subject of your profile: don’t tell me you hate writing about yourself. Yes dear, you and everyone else. You like to laugh and have fun? Who doesn’t? This is not a unique trait, and gives me no idea of your individual identity apart from the herd. By all means, if you ARE a herd animal, proceed with the clichés, but otherwise? Tell me something specific and unique about yourself.
• Humor. Don’t tell me you’re funny. Show me. I don’t care if it’s hard. If you absolutely CANNOT find a way to inject humor into your profile, then guess what, pumpkin? You aren’t funny. Or at least, not anything out of the common way.
• Pictures. Do you not realize how important these are? You MUST post at least 2. A good headshot and a ¾ body length shot. MUST. This is a non negotiable. For preference, if you are an aspiring actor/model/cougar slave, don’t use your professional headshots for your main profile shots. This is not an audition. Ideally, I’m going to be interacting with you in the private sphere, outside of your business. I would like to see what you look like in your day-to-day, not how purdy you can be made to look with Photoshop/airbrushing, professional lighting, and manly make-up. Don’t post pictures with your children/minor relatives/hot female friends/exes. Don’t. Further, do not take your profile pictures on a cell phone. It is simply not that hard to get your hands on a decent digital camera. Hell, even a photo booth shot would be better than a shitty, low res cell phone pic. Final point about pictures: keep your shirt on. Yes, even if you actually are a hard body. Women don’t work the same way men do (and I read women being blasted for overly revealing photos in this arena too), and posting topless shots makes you look conceited. My advice: in all of your pictures, you should look date ready, whatever that means to you. I’m not saying dress up, necessarily… just appear well groomed. In large part, your pictures are what I am basing my first impressions of you upon. Do you really want me to form my first impression of you based on that photo of you drunk and dirty at a frat party, and that one time you dicked around in a towel after a shower flexing in your bathroom mirror? If you do, cool, mission accomplished, but if not…

Well, I think that’s all I’ve got for now. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t all bad. I had a really fun convo with a guy about pirates and Vikings, as well as a very sarcastic exchange about our incompatibilities. A funny, clever guy. But he’s 23. Why? Why can I not find an intelligent, attractive funny guy who’s older than me? Nothing is likely to come of this, because of my personal hang ups about his age, but it was fun, nonetheless. So, lala, the grand OKCupid experiment continues…