Yeah, well, Rush is a special case. Not only because he’s a deep-down asshole, but be cause he has the gall to pick on other people’s looks…something he was busted rightously on by David Letterman, a priceless moment in TV history.
Stoid
This is a non-smoking area. If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and act accordingly.
righteously
righteously
Well, after I posted to this thread, I never ventured back this way, and so I never saw Byzantine’s response until now, when the whole thread was resurrected, so allow me to clear this up, albeit belatedly.
No, I was not offended by anything you wrote, not in the least. I’m not sure what it was that gave you that impression (the “thanks for the sandwich” remark, perhaps? That was just me thrashing around for a conclusion), but I only intended to relate the story of one who has never stood for anyone telling her how she’s supposed to look, yet wound up anorexic anyway. That’s all. And if you’re worried about me, don’t be. That was all a couple of years ago, I’m fine now. Anyway, sorry for the conclusion, hope this clears things up.
Stoidela,
I respect you point of view. I also praise the fact, that you included another example, namely that of black people. There is a different however.
I’m not saying this is the case with you, but a lot of fat people DO have some control over their weight - I know I’m a few kilos heavy and if somebody mocks me for it, I can call them ignorant of course. I could also try and do something to try and take the CAUSE of their laughter away. Again, I’m NOT saying this is always the case.
I agree with you regarding your statement that 95% of all humour is based on deviations from normal weight, religion, height, amount of hair, skin color, you name it. But in my view, that’s just the way it is. It’s been like that forever, and to call it ignorant will only make you bitter since you won’t be able to resolve it in the first place. Furthermore, some of the best Jew jokes were told to me by Jews (yes, even the concentration camp-type), best black jokes by black people, etc etc.
It’s just about having a laugh. As long as it isn’t personal, I’m fine with it, even if generalized groups of people are aimed at. But once more, that’s just my opinion and I sure respect yours.
Maybe this illustrates my defence of TVeblen a little bit better, and maybe it makes me a tiny bit less ignorant in your view. As long as this post lets you know no harm or offence was intended, I’m satisfied.
Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
Christ, this is starting to feel like an AA meeting.
“Hi, I’m Suzeanne, and I’ve had weight difficulty and self-image trouble.”
I’m 5’5", with very definite, almost overexaggerated curves. I was a D cup in high school, weighing a whole 110. It varied up and back down 5 pounds or so, but it was consistent enough. Even now, I sometimes look back and blink at how … odd I look in some pictures because of being thin with those curves.
Then I made it to college. I think my low point at 5’5" was 102. 102. People thought I was anorexic. I wasn’t – I just had an awesome metabolism and never slowed down long enough to eat. I looked AWFUL. There are very, very few pictures of me during this time. I’m glad. When I finally put 15 pounds back on once I got home and started working, I had more compliments than ever before.
Another 10 pounds, and suddenly I couldn’t get rid of dates. The curves filled out like they were supposed to. There was balance to my body at last, because my hips and breasts weren’t so out of proportion to the rest of me. 125-130 was a perfect weight for me, and everyone noticed.
Of course … the first baby put all that right out the window. I was sick the entire time, Toxemia put me to bed, and 125 was a thing of the past as I ballooned up to 200. My face lost features in puffy cheeks, and the weight refused to come off until I gave birth to my second child and dove back down to 140.
I’ve seen both ends of it in dramatic scale of 100 pounds difference. Right now, I’m definitely overweight, though it’s balanced again by the fact that my breast size never decreased after having two children. For my own health (I have asthma, and carrying around extra weight is awful when you’re wheezing already), I could stand to lose 20-30 pounds, but I’m not going to kill myself trying to lose weight. I’m relatively comfortable with who I am — but I guarantee I will NOT reach 200 ever again. It was just way too big of a health risk, and, truth, I really didn’t like the way I looked.
When we stop trying to live up to other’s expectations and worry both about how we look to ourselves and how we FEEL … the world is a whole different place.
I resent those people who say that being what is perceived as fat is someone’s fault. Do some studying on the subject and you’ll find that body metabolisms differ. Two people can eat the identical foods in identical quantities, and one will gain weight, the other won’t. My husband and I are perfect examples of this. And there is such a thing as food addiction, just as there is tobacco and alcohol addiction.
My husband, who still weighs what he weighed 25 years ago, has said that in his opinion battling this type of a weight problem is more difficult than kicking addictions to cigarettes or alcohol (not that those are easy). He’s done both of the latter, by the way. You can give up cigarettes, and you can give up alcohol (again, not easy), and in your efforts to conquer those addictions you can try to avoid them. You can’t avoid food – you’ll die. Every day you MUST consume some of the stuff that you battle constantly. It’s like somebody trying to conquer alcoholism but having to consume three or four servings of alcohol every day, just to stay alive, and then trying to stop there. Or trying to “cut down” on smoking – how often do you hear that that has been successful? “Oh yeah, I used to smoke two packs a day, and now I only smoke five cigarettes a day, no problem at all!” Yeah. Right.
I’m tall, I’m big, I’m redheaded, and I’m gorgeous, dammit. And all you folks out there who wouldn’t give me a wolf whistle or the time of day because I’m not a size 7 – well, this ain’t the Pit, so I’ll keep it nice. Let’s just say that this is your loss, honey, not mine.
And you wonder why twelve year old girls starve themselves.
-Melin
Well, one more time I have well and truly put my foot in my mouth all the way to the ankle.
Stoidela, I apologize for the distress my comments caused you, and possibly others. It was not intentional, but pain is pain, no matter the intentions of the giver. And I can’t in justice disagree with anything you said. Cheap laughs about appearance are just that: cheap.
If I may be permitted a meek explanation, please recall that I used Collen Dewhurst to exemplfy “majestic”. She was a big, brilliant, imposing woman who was, yes, majestic.
My snickering post was based more on the mental image TennHippie’s comment called up. All I could think of was the classic “Mad” magazine, with a furious old lady whacking away w/ her cane at an over zealous Boy Scout dragging her across a street she didn’t want to cross in the first place. My mental image was an army of Greenpeacers storming a peaceful beach and tossing sunbathers into the surf in hordes.
But no matter my inane reasons. My comments offended you, with full cause, and I apologize to you and others I offended.
Veb
Melin,
You weren’t referring to me now were you ? I mean, I clearly stated that the ‘fat person’ (I’m sorry, I’m not gonna be PC about this) SOMETIMES has some control over their weight.
Your points on different metabolisms are all true, but don’t change the fact that a lot of people with weight problems could do something about them by merely eating less food (by no means do I state here that anyone should starve himself).
In that respect, it differs greatly from the other part of Stoidela’s analogy, namely jokes about ethnic or racial background. And that’s why I pointed that difference out. Not to create the impression that I am someone who thinks ALL fat people are to blame for their own weight problems.
Hell, my girlfriend eats 3 times as much as I do and is as slim as a twig, whereas I gain weight very easily - don’t tell ME about differing metabolisms 
Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
No flame intended to anyone personally, of course; this is just how I feel on this subject generally.
I"ve been fat all my life, and I hadn’t noticed a lot of fat-hating people asking if I have a good enough reason to look the way I do. The men who ignore me at parties or insult me on the street don’t seem to care whether it’s practical for me to lose weight or not (and I make no statement on the matter.)
It’s not necessary to speculate as to why any particular fat person is fat. I guess we could issue the ones who have an adequate “excuse” a certificate exempting them from rudeness, hostility, condescension and discrimination. While the others would remain fair game, of course.
And to anyone who immovably believes that fat folk choose to be fat: Then assume we chose it and we like it this way. Think of it like bleached hair, a tattoo or a nose ring; an aesthetic choice that may not be to your taste, but on which there’s no need to speculate or remark.
Catrandom, fat chick
Why not?
I come from Pennsylvania Dutch stock. Bandy legged, pot bellied farmers, mostly in the 220-250 lb. range. I was much the same for most of my life, and then, at 38 years old I become interested in avoiding the fat and forty club. I began dieting, and exercising. I got pretty into it, in fact. I counted calories, and I went to the gym three days a week. I did multiple sets of resistance exercises, with small weights, high rep counts. I swam. In the beginning I swam until I was exhausted. Within six months, I swam until it was time to leave (about a mile a day, after forty minutes of weight training).
I got fit. Really fit. I lost sixty-five pounds. I could do a hundred sit ups with a two year old cradled in my arms, and twenty pike positions pull ups with the same kid hanging on my knees. I could lift average sized people over my head.
My conversation was pretty boring. I barely maintained my literacy. Women did not start throwing themselves at my feet. I did like being strong.
That was a while ago. I got bored with the whole fitness thing, and the whole women at my feet thing too. I gradually gained back forty of the sixty-five pounds. Now I am fifty, and look more like Santa Claus than
Richard Gere. It did me no harm, aside from the fact that I wasted some time. Moderation might have been more reasonable, but the real facts of my character are that monomania was the only likely way that I would overcome my physical genetic heritage. It just doesn’t matter enough to me to keep it up. I think women who are outside of the healthy norms of good nutrition look . . . unhealthy. I think it looks unattractive to be unhealthy. I think you can be very beautiful, if you learn to be loved, and to love. You won’t get on any magazine covers, or on television. You can consider that a drawback, or a benefit, as suits you.
TrisI have accepted Tv’s ver nice apology privately, I am accepting it publicly.
Perhaps later I shall return to address the (completely predictable!) issue of “well, fat people can, usually, DO something about being fat” bullshit, which, while it may be technically correct (and that is certainly a discussable issue) is NO FUCKING EXCUSE FOR BEING NASTY, MEAN AND RUDE TO FAT PEOPLE.
Ahem…pardon me. I need to compose myself before I discuss this further.
This is a non-smoking area. If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and act accordingly.
Well, since Stoi is off composing herself…I’ll step in. I’m 5’7", and 265 pounds. Yes, I am overweight. Yes, I know this. And yes, it’s bad for my health.
Now…I have been trying to lose this damn weight for a year. And I mean seriously trying. As for “you can do something about it,” I’ve tried. I have binge eating disorder. I will sit there and KNOW I’m not hungry and eat. Obviously, this doesn’t help me losing 100 pounds.
So…my point is this. If someone’s fat, they know. And you DON’T know what’s going on behind it. So…don’t assume that they are that way because they want to be. It’s hard enough being this way, believe me. I get enough crap from my parents about it. sigh
And random point: Thank GOD for Liz Claiborne plus sizes…I at least have NICE things to wear while I try and lose this…
Well, since no one dies from second-hand fat, I figure it’s none of my damn business what anyone else weighs.
i havent been skinny/thin for quite a few years now… but im healthy and happy… i work in a junior high school where there are so many skinny to the bone girls, its scary. They are sick all the time, sunken in faces… i guess i just dont see whats attractive about that. But girls in their teens see what the boys look at…
Composed, but always annoyed.
Those of you who do not have any serious struggles with your weight are arrogant in the extreme, not to mention ignorant, when you declare that fat people “can do something about it” as though it were as simple as falling off a log. If it were that simple, don’t you thnk we’d DO IT? Is ANYONE flat out STUPID enough to believe that fat people are okay with being fat? Or that they are “just weak” and therefore deserve to be treated like shit?
Smokers can quit smoking
Alcohollics can quit drinking
Compulsive gamblers can quit gambling.
Drug addicts can stop taking drugs
None of these behaviors is “natural”, meaning necessary for life.
Eating is. It is also natural to desire high calorie, high fat foods. This makes dealing with food issues and weight loss a thousand times more difficult for people who have this problem. it’s incredibly complicated. If you are going to feel anything for fat people, feel sympathy. Not pity, just sympathy. Our struggle is enormous, just like we are.
And don’t forget: YOU might be us someday. I’m sure we’ve all known more than one person who never had a weight problem until they had kids, or stopped playing sports, or whatever. Then “poof!” - your’e on the other side. “There but for the grace of God” indeed!
This is a non-smoking area. If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and act accordingly.
i agree totally!!!
Stoidela, I just wanted to commend you on your articulate, if heated (though deservedly so) posts throughout this thread.
I have family members that are overweight, fat, whatever. They hate it. They try to lose it. All the time.
Another thing that people, if they didn’t have their heads up their asses, should understand is the huge amount of the short life we are given used in trying desperately to lose weight. Show some empathy for chrissake.
I am particulary offended by Coldfire. Since when is it a person’s responsibility to remove the cause of someone else’s ridicule? What fucking planet are you from? What ever happened to basic common courtesy?
trisha
particularly
its a stupid and non accepting world we live in sometimes… laughing at over weight people, people with disabilities. etc. although im not a religious person… god made us who we are… and if a person had any class they would see the inside before the outside… get a grip