This post is mostly not about sex

Since the relapse of my eating disorder, and during my attempt to actually recover this time, I have been in a weird place where the idea of having sex really grosses me out. I'm sure it's temporary, but as I'm learning to reform my associations and emotions on such basic things as eating food, I'm also discovering that I need to reform my thoughts and tendencies as it relates to dating and sex as well. 

This revelation came about after a chastisement over handling an intimate relationship rather callously, even though I had never meant any harm and didn't even realize that I, or the relationship, was as important to the other person as to warrant said chastisement. I realized, after a conversation with this person, that I take a really fucked up approach to sex, and that this is because of how I feel about my body and the deserve level associated with it. And that that dysfunction is to blame for my recent celibacy. 

I'm fat. I know that, I can't do anything about it, and intellectually I know that beautiful and sexy are not antonyms to fat, and that the people attracted to me are attracted to all of me including my fat. This idea blows my freaking mind right now, because how is that fucking possible?! Of course, there are also people who feel the same way Mable* does about my physical attractiveness: that I am pretty, despite the fat. 

In the past, I've approached sex and relationships from this viewpoint. I've always thought that the people I would get involved with did so despite my fat, that it was my eyes or personality or whatever, and these relationships would never work out for one reason or another (I guessed fat), and it would devastate me. In the recent past I had a partner who, for some reason, always felt it necessary to clarify that he didn't want to be my "boyfriend" right when we were getting intimate. The last time it happened, it really bothered me, (actually it still bothers me right now), but I didn't say anything, because that's the level of respect and love I felt I was due from that thin, attractive person.

My modus operandi in the past has been to be really casual about sexual relationships, until they get serious and then just go off the fucking deep end. Once is fine, twice is fun, but more than that I never have the tools to handle because I don't think I'm worth the investment of a regular affair. And, apart from The Emperor, I've never had a long term relationship, let alone a serious one. Most of my experience in dating has fallen along the lines of the example mentioned in the previous paragraph, and I don't know how to deal with people who are attracted to all of me, including my fat, including my neuroses, rather than in spite of them because I can only accept myself in spite of them.

"But Rachel, you said you were gonna talk about sex." Yeah, I know I said that, but my thoughts on the subject aren't quite as formed as I'd like them to be. The point is, for so long I have been laboring under the idea that in order to be worthy of any kind of actual love and affection, I needed to be thin; that my relationship with The Emperor is a fluke, and that I can't have other relationships that are equally fulfilling because there's something wrong with me.

Turns out I've been wrong this whole time. I don't think realizing that is going to make my emotionally-imposed celibacy abate any faster, but if I'm smart, I'll work this realization into the rest of them and begin forming better relationships that don't leave my partners feeling like the missed something or that I don't care about them.

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*I named my eating disorder, remember?

Recovery Week 6

This week wasn't really that interesting. The only day when I missed meals was today, but that was okay because when I went in to get my throat swabbed for strep, it activated my gag reflex. Fortunately, there was nothing for me to vomit onto my doctor*, so I didn't. 

Most of the week I listened to audio books rather than the radio, but today I listened to Randi Rhodes, and I had an urge to purge when she was talking to a listener who was, I guess, her inspiration while losing weight. I don't know if you know much about my favorite radio host, but she's not that big. She would disagree, naturally, but she really isn't. The pervasive idea that thin is the ideal, that one's value is even remotely related to the number on the scale; that prettiness, as defined by a culture who wants everyone to be so skinny you can see ribs, is the only important thing... is very upsetting.

Then there was an interesting juxtaposition of commercials: diet pills and weight loss programs, followed by "you can end hunger"... lose weight! Feed the children! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!! It's no wonder there are people like me in this society, who are obsessed with food, our culture is obsessed with food. It's insanity. 

Another thought of note, is the idea of taking care of the inner body. This is an idea broached by Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now, and prompted the thought in me "I spend so much time in my head, that I hardly ever spend time in my feet". Awareness of and oneness with the inner body brings us into the now, and this is why exercise is important. Yoga came about as a moving meditation, a means of spending time in one's feet, so to speak. I haven't been exercising much since beginning my recovery because in our culture, exercise is about losing weight. Very few people (that I know anyway), exercise for the fun of it.

I do enjoy swimming. And yoga, of course, and I think in the next few weeks I'll be moving more so that I can be in my body more. I think this will help immeasurably in my recovery. For now... I've got some healing to do since I've apparently come down with something.

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*Not that Doctor.

Fat girl chic... and shame?

I shop at Lane Bryant, pretty much exclusively, for three reasons:
1. I like their clothes.
2. Their sales associates are really, really nice to me.
3. They gave me credit.

And while for the most part I can identify with their models, I've been noticing once in a while that images on their website look shopped, or that models are much smaller than the sizes 14-32 clothing that Lane Bryant sells. It's subtle though. I'll see a woman with a much slimmer neck than the rest of her body would indicate. Arms are shaved down when the model is wearing a sleeveless top. Bust sizes are changed. Waists are made smaller.

What message is the Lane Bryant website trying to send to its customers? Even your fat ass can look skinny in our clothes? This is by no means an egregious action on the part of the marketing department, but it is subtly sinister and makes me slightly uncomfortable, because I have a size 14 waist and I know what it looks like in pictures -- regardless of whether I'm wearing clothing from Lane Bryant or somewhere else. This ain't it.

Check out the waist:hip ratio in the image at right. These high-waisted pants (which are a pretty good representation of the kinds of pants LB sells) have, in this image, a waistband that would not fit passed the hips of the woman who is wearing them -- unless that's one long-ass zipper! Moreover, this is not a size 14 waist -- but it is a size 14 butt. Two options here: this woman is incredibly disproportionate and all her body fat is either in her butt or her tits; or this image has been photoshopped to make it appear as though this woman has a smaller waist. Why would Lane Bryant do this?

There are probably a number of reasons, and some of them might be acceptable; for instance, they're trying to make money and their marketing department may have information that tells them that women are more apt to buy clothing that is draped over thin models. Maybe this isn't a great reason, but there is no real "great" reason. A less acceptable one, in my mind would be that this is what they think women should look like, but I really don't think that Lane Bryant has an actual opinion of women's bodies. I think they're trying to make money.

Current beauty standards seek to smooth over the wrinkly and bumpy bits. Even if, as Cosmo proclaims, fashion is trending toward "curvy" women, an unsightly curve is still worthy of ridicule. If the woman-at-left's arms were their actual size (upon close-ish inspection, the left shoulder/deltoid area has been shaved down, and the bicep/tricep area of the right arm has been smoothed and adjusted, as has the wrist; although it is possible that this model has dainty wrists), these beauty standards would say that this blouse would not look its best on a model of wider arms.

But, if that is truly the case, and a woman of wider arms would not look good in this particular blouse, why is the company try to sell this blouse to women who most likely have wider arms, waists, legs, etc than the models who show off how great the prospective customer could look in the prospective wardrobe?

As I stated above, most of my clothing comes from Lane Bryant, the "fat girl store" as I call it without enmity toward myself, my fat, the store, or its other customers. I also think that images being over-shopped so that the models conform more to "conventional" beauty standards is the exception rather than the rule. I do believe that most of the models on their website and in their catalogs are my size and bigger, and I'm certain that they are all bigger than your average Victoria's Secret model; but I wonder, what's with the subversive fat-shaming if you're trying to sell clothes to fat chicks?

I'm not sure that "fat-shaming" is a motive here, in fact it's probably an afterthought if it's a thought at all; however, it is the effect. "This blouse wouldn't look right on the model if her arms weren't shopped thinner" is, as an aesthetic rule, fat-shaming. "This model should have a thinner waist to show off how great her butt looks in these pants" is the same. There's no real reason the models above should have had their proportions changed in order to "look good". Moreover, changing the proportions of plus-sized models in plus-sized clothes in order to advertise to plus-sized customers is really unnecessary.

Of course, even the images of super-thin runway models are shopped to make them look thinner with longer necks and legs, so why should the models who hock the fat girl clothes be exempt from this? It's industry standards, after all, and those have nothing to do with making women feel badly about themselves and their bodies... right?