Tag: body image

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things that are hard to write

I will never be beautiful

I will never be beautiful.

I’m not saying this because I want or need reassurance. It’s the knee jerk reaction, and I understand that, when someone sounds like they’re feeling down about themselves. But I’m not feeling down about myself, and I don’t think reassurance really works, for all its good intentions.

I’ve spent my entire life being told by others that I look okay, that I’m pretty, that I’m beautiful. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear it, it feels like a well-meaning lie. I don’t feel beautiful; I don’t have the necessary magic to look in a mirror and see myself as anything but the sum of my flaws. I don’t think you can convince someone that they are beautiful, or smart, or talented, if they truly don’t believe it themselves. I hear that I’m beautiful when I feel ugly. I hear that I’m beautiful when I don’t even look like myself any more.

There’s something wrong with me, or there’s something wrong with that word.

Some people want to redefine beautiful and I say, good for you, do it. But what I want is to be free of the tyranny of that goddamn word. Beautiful is nothing but a series of endlessly moving goal posts. It’s the unattainable, and people are ruthlessly mocked for not being able to attain it.

Rachael Author Photo 2

Beautiful has murdered countless women and men since its invention. We starve ourselves while surrounded by food, break our own bones, destroy our muscles and tendons, die from infections caused by this and that cosmetic tweak. At least when people die for love, they get immortalized in odes. Being disfigured for beauty just invites more mockery, for being superficial, for trying to please people who will never be pleased. It’s a no-win game.

And why should the fuckability rating complete strangers put on me have any grip on my soul? That isn’t what moves me.
No matter what I look like, I’m still me. Is there anything more pointless than trying to hammer myself into a foreign shape for the benefit of a word? Better to try to use whatever art I have in my soul to try to get the outside to match the inside so I can finally be content.I’ve cried more tears over beautiful and the way it’s twisted me up than I have over all of my dead relatives combined, and I feel fucking ashamed to admit that. I’ve spent years wondering why I can’t find a dress that doesn’t make me feel shakingly stupid when I would have better spent the time and energy trying to figure out who the hell I am.

I will never be beautiful.

I will never be beautiful.

But I will always be me.

Categories
feminism rants things that are hard to write

Stop calling me a "real woman"

Because you know what that implies? Are there really femmebots out there, complete with boob guns that make up the category of “not real” women? Are there girls made out of plastic? Is there a test you have to take, or are there government regulations sort of like they have for beef that mean we get tagged as real women, right next to the stamp stating we’re organic, because hey we’re composed of carbon-containing molecules?

It’s a bullshit term. It always struck me wrong when I went to Lane Bryant and was rewarded with “real woman dollars” for shopping. But the wrongness burst into ugly life when I re-watched the episode of Project Runway where one of the designers is a giant toolbag to a plus-size lady. The utter patronizing tone in which its delivered and that it’s obvious he’s using it in place of “fat” because he’s trying to weasel out of being eviscerated for being an asshole is even more insulting.

You’re not fooling anyone. We shouldn’t need some kind of smirking consolation prize for wearing clothing that’s bigger than a 16. We already know we’re real. We exist. It’s a sad disguise for the fact that often plus-size clothing feels like cultural punishment by setting set us in an adversarial position to women who wear “normal” sizes. Perhaps if we’re too busy trying to look down our noses at each other, we’ll miss the evil truth that we’re being compelled to attack people who should be our allies in this struggle, divided falsely along superficial lines.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe it’s just a pathetic attempt to make us feel better about ourselves. Hey, you’re large and are apparently considered unworthy to wear anything other than black smocks (it’s slimming, you know) but you’re a real woman. As if realness is determined by mass rather than an authenticity of spirit. 

Being a woman isn’t a contest that some of us have to lose. There is a full spectrum of women to which we all belong, an infinite continuum of what it means to “look like a woman,” and no part of that spectrum should be defined as inherently superior. Doing that (and then gleefully jumping over a cliff with the invention of photoshop) is what got us into this mess in the first place.

I’m tired of the implication that my struggle to accept myself has to come at the detriment of other women.

Real women are fat. Real women are thin. Real women come in all colors and shapes and identities, and sometimes we have curves, and sometimes we don’t but damnit we’re all real women.

And we’re all really beautiful.

Categories
fitness for fat nerds rants things that are hard to write

Losing weight sucks

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but I’ve been putting it off. It’s tough to write. Anything about weight and self-image and societal bullshit is kind of destined to be.

Over the last two years and three months, I’ve lost about 75 pounds, going from 270 to 195. I’m now back down to what I weighed as a sophomore in high school, before I started training as a powerlifter. The reason I decided to try to lose weight (and keep trying) is because there’s a lot of type II diabetes in my family, and I want to dodge that bullet.

I tell you this not as some kind of brag line, or because I’m looking for congratulations, but because I feel that it lends meaning to the point of this post. I lost 75 pounds. I generally feel healthier as a person. And I would never in a million years get on someone else’s back and tell them they are in some way obligated do what I’ve done.

Losing weight sucks. It sucks a lot. It can be utterly soul-destroying, and it’s self-inflicted.

There’s this narrative that all us fat nerds know. It says that we must be fat because we’re lazy. Because there is something fundamentally wrong with us. Because we’re greedy. Because we’re gross and lack the willpower to resist evil, sinful things like that piece of cake. It’s our fault, and we deserve to be summarily judged by perfect strangers simply because of how we look.

After 75 pounds, I hate that narrative more than ever. I hate that people assume I must be significantly more physically fit now than I was 40 pounds ago. I hate that outside of my immediate circle of friends and family, the news that I weigh less than I used to is greeted with far more enthusiastic congratulations than the fact that I’ve published stories in professional magazines. The latter normally gets a, “Hey, that’s cool.” The former receives the kind of approbation I’d expect if I’d just fucking cured cancer.

I hate that I can’t write about this without crying.

Losing weight sucks.

Anyone who tells you that losing weight is easy is lying to you. They’re trying to sell you something, or they’re trying to make you feel like shit because they’re an asshole.

Between cardio activity and weights, I’ve probably spent 15-20 hours per week on physical activities in the last two years. It’s like a part-time job. I write down everything I eat. Everything. And then I count the calories and wish I could have a beer, but not today.

I know I’m lucky. I have that kind of time I can invest into physical activity. I also know that my 15-20 hours a week is nothing compared to the time invested by people who are professionally good-looking. You know, the people we constantly get told we should look like, as if they are the true norm. There are a lot of people out there who literally do not have that kind of time; they have multiple jobs, they have kids, they have responsibilities that don’t let them go ride around on their bicycle for two hours a night. And there are also people who just would rather spend their time doing something else, and I sure can’t blame them for that. The only reason I’ve managed to keep doing it is because I like biking and kung fu.

I hate writing down everything I eat. I hate counting calories. I can’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to put themselves through that either. I don’t feel like I have a right to demand that my fellow human beings are miserable. I could probably lose weight faster, but I’m human, and there are days where I decide that if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I don’t want to die regretting the fact that I didn’t try the red velvet cake. If anyone has a problem with that, they’re welcome to fuck themselves.

Losing weight sucks.

This is the part that sucks the most: it doesn’t magically make you love yourself. You still look in the mirror and hate the same things about yourself that you hated 20, 40, 70 pounds ago. Losing weight is a slow motion process of punctuated equilibrium. You don’t even realize anything has changed about your body until you look at old pictures. Maybe then you can feel like there’s been some kind of improvement (however you judge that) but then it’s back to the same you in the same mirror and the million things you wish were just different.

If I just lose some weight then I’ll… is one of the dumbest phrases ever spoken. It’s a lie, and an excuse. If you’re not brave enough to do something now, you won’t be when you weigh less.

Because there’s still all the shit in your head, years upon years of the world teaching you to hate yourself, and that’s harder to lose than every spare pound you have.