I’m glad Lindy West loves herself and her body, and I’m happy that she’s done with shame, and I think she’s beautiful and charismatic and hilarious and I always have. I take issue, however, with Lindy’s setting me up as some sort of boogey/straw man, attributing prejudices to me that I do not feel, and attempting to purge her fatshame by fathateshaming me. Arguing that the obesity epidemic should be off limits for discussion on Slog—or that Stranger writers, a notoriously snarky bunch, must slip on kid gloves before we sit down at our computers to post about this issue and this issue alone (really? at a publication that’s joked about child rape, AIDS, and the Holocaust?)—because “fat people know they’re fat” is simply ridiculous.

There are two things I’d like to clear up before I really get going…

Thing 1: I’m not Lindy West’s “boss.” I didn’t hire her, I don’t have the authority to fire her, I don’t edit her. Lindy’s post was courageous and it was inspiring—until the ad hominem attacks began—but it wasn’t standing-up-to-the-boss brave. Because I’m not her boss. I could probably get her fired, I suppose, but I wouldn’t try to do that, because she’s brilliant and funny and, even if she disagrees with me, even if we come to rhetorical blows on Slog, we all argue all the time on Slog. What would Slog be without our intramural battles? What’s different about Lindy’s post is the personal nature of Lindy’s attack. She’s accusing me of bigotry and malice—she’s accusing me of attacking her personally, which I’ve never done and would not do.

Thing 2: I was out of email, cell, and Internet range all weekend, starting Friday afternoon, and didn’t get a chance to really sit down and read Lindy’s post until late last night, and that’s why I’m only just responding to it now.

Okay! Let the record show that I love that Lindy loves Lindy—everybody loves Lindy and so should Lindy—but I’m not so in love with the way Lindy used this quote from a Savage Love column I wrote more than seven years ago:

I am thoroughly annoyed at having my tame statements of fact—being heavy is a health risk; rolls of exposed flesh are unsightly—characterized as “hate speech.”

That sounds bad floating out there in space like that, all removed from its original context and shit.

That’s one sentence from a column that came at the end of a series of columns—a series of columns from 2004—that was not about the general unsightliness of fat people. It was about the late, unlamented fad for skin-tight, low-rise jeans coupled with midriff-baring tops. (The columns are here, here, and here.) The columns weren’t just critical of overweight or obese women in low-rise jeans and midriff-baring tops, but of women who didn’t have the right “proportions” to pull off that look; “most women” didn’t look good in these getups, not just fat women. (Men came in for some slamming too.) In its original context the remark was not a reference to fat people’s bodies generally, or a suggestion that fat people didn’t have a right to live in their own bodies without shame (or wear those stupid jeans if they wished), but to a particular kind of pants that do not flatter most bodies, pants that created and exposed unsightly rolls of flesh on fat women, not-so-fat women, and not-at-all-fat women alike, pants that have mercifully been consigned to the dustbin of fashion history. I suspect that Lindy was casting around looking for the most damning possible sentence, found that one, and tossed it up on Slog. It’s that or believe that Lindy was intentionally dishonest and manipulative. (And, yes, it could’ve been better put. Allow me to amend the record: “I am thoroughly annoyed at having my tame statements of fact—being heavy is a health risk; the rolls of exposed flesh created by low-rise jeans/high-rise tops are unsightly—characterized as ‘hate speech.'” And thank God no one wears those fucking things anymore.)

As for the rest of the evidence of my supposed bigotry that Lindy links to in her post—sometimes snarky posts of mine linking to news stories about the obesity epidemic; links to research that gives lie to the diet-and-exercise-have-nothing-to-do-with-the-obesity-epidemic lie pushed by dishonest, vindictive, and codependent fat activists; a post of mine featuring a Tim Minchin song that I labeled “brutal” and “bullying” but whose title I happen to agree with strongly (can we all agree that people shouldn’t feed donuts to their obese children?); discussions in a book I wrote a decade ago about the crazy fat people at the NAAFA convention (there are crazy fat people out there, Lindy, just as there are crazy gay people out there; be careful who you crawl into bed now that you’re a “brave” hero to the FA movement for standing up to your bigoted “boss”)—the bigotry in my posts exists only in Lindy’s imagination. (Okay, I totally crossed the line when I made fun of Kate Harding’s arms, which I’ve never even seen (they could be made of steel for all I know), and for that I apologize. I could dig up a few hundred emails from FA movement folks calling me a cocksucker, if it that would help balance the scales.)

Take Lindy’s reaction to my “Ban Fat Marriage” post. Opponents of marriage equality in Iowa claim they want to ban gay marriage because gay men are unhealthy. By that logic, I wrote, “fat marraige” would also have to be banned in Iowa. Did I mean that fat people shouldn’t be allowed to marry? Of course not. Does pointing out that there are a lot of fat people in Iowa—30% of the population of that state is obese—somehow “stigmatize” fat people? Um, no, not unless the existence of fat people is somehow inherently stigmatizing. I did point out that there are health risks associated with being obese—I had to in order to make the point that Republican legislators in Iowa are bigots—and you know what? There are health risks associated with being obese. There are also, as I’ve written until my fingers were numb, health risks associated with being gay and sexually active. (They’re not the ones the bigots in Iowa are talking up; more on those health risks in a minute). Citing the prevalence of obesity in Iowa and mentioning the health risks associated with obesity to make a point about bigotry isn’t by itself bigotry. So what was up with Lindy’s reaction to that post? I think this reader is on to something:

I read your “Ban Fat Marriage” post. Applying the arguments for position X to analogous position Y in order to show that both arguments are spurious and indefensible is a standard and often effective tactic. Perhaps as a matter of discretion, you left out the “ick factor” that is often applied to gay (man-on-man, that is) sex, which could easily go with fat-on-fat sex as well, but when I mentioned the article to my spouse, I threw that in. Then I saw Lindy West’s reactions “RE: Ban Fat Marriage” and “Hello, I am Fat.” Apparently, Lindy isn’t very good with reading comprehension, which is kind of startling since she writes for a living. Or maybe she suspends her reading comprehension and reasoning skills whenever the subject of “fat” is broached. I’d wager the latter is the case.

I’m going to start numbering these things, à la Lindy, because I wanna get through this and return to my regularly scheduled life:

1. Lindy cites that particular quote, above, as proof that I’m a bigot. She claims to know what I think about fat people and how I feel about fat people and leaps from there to claims that I think fat people are gross and that I don’t want fat people touching me (no more hugging my relatives, I guess), which she then condemns me for. Ad hominemineminem. (I’m on an airplane sitting next to a fat person RIGHT NOW, Lindy! A fat person I’m sharing my NYT with! I even let her do the crossword! Because I HATE!) It’s hard to disprove a charge of bigotry without resorting to some-of-my-best-friends-are—and on this subject I can resort to I-once-was-myself (relevant email from my brother after the jump)—but I’m not an anti-fat bigot ,and one piece of material evidence I could point to might be all the people of varying sizes that I have hired or had a hand in hiring over the years. The first thing I said to Lindy when we met in person wasn’t “Unsightly! Unsightly!” but “Your film reviews are amazing—we’ve got to get you on staff.” If that’s bigotry… (Discrimination in the workplace is a huge problem for the obese… but not at the Stranger, despite the place being partly run by a fatpohbic bigot. Weird.)

2. I never claimed to be concerned about Lindy’s health. The science is in: obesity has serious potential health consequences. Which is not to say that all the obese folks are unhealthy and all the skinny bitches are healthy. Individual results may vary. But being seriously overweight is likely to harm a person’s health. That said…

I have always maintained that people have a right to live their lives and pursue their pleasures, wherever they find them, even if there are potential negative health consequences, even at the risk of shortening their lives. There are health consequences to being obese—the First Lady agrees, Lindy, go get her!—but like I wrote at the end of the gluttony chapter in Skipping Towards Gomorrah, we should all have the right to live however we damn well please without being stigmatized or discriminated against. But we don’t have a right to demand that other people pretend that there aren’t health consequences involved with being obese, with smoking, with eating meat, with skiing, and, yes, with being gay and sexually active. Sexually active gay men have much higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, higher rates of HIV transmission, higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse (sometimes that drug and alcohol abuse is rooted in self-hatred, which the wider society is responsible for creating; sometimes it’s rooted in destructive community norms, which gay men are responsible for creating and perpetuating). I’ve written about the risks gay men face—the potential negative health consequences of being gay and sexually active—until my fingers were ready to fall off. Was that bigoted of me?

3. I could give a shit about health-insurance premiums. I support a government-run, single-payer health care system, one that spreads everyone’s risks around—the obese, the gay, the smoker, the skier, etc. I’ve no doubt linked to stories about the health care costs associated with the obesity epidemic because, you know, it’s an aspect of the obesity-epidemic story and I’m interested in this story. (I’m a sex-and-relationship columnist; I could no more avoid questions about bodies and health and size than I could avoid questions about blowjobs and assfucking and cunnilingus.) I believe that the extra burden the obese place on our health care system should be borne without complaint just as the extra burden the HIV-positive place on the health-care system should. (And, hey, have I mentioned that my seventy-year-old dad is a smoker and on Medicare?) But there’s nothing bigoted about encouraging the obese to take steps to improve their health—that usually means making the kinds of changes that lead to weight loss—any more than there’s something bigoted about encouraging gay men to use condoms, fuck fewer people, stop using meth, etc.

4. I’m interested in the obesity epidemic—what causes it, how it got this bad, what we’re going to do about it—and I’m angered by what I perceive to be the dishonestly of many FA movement activists. I think the obesity epidemic is remarkable, which is why I remark on it, and I will continue to remark on it so long as I’m blogging, and I reserve the right to make the odd snarky remark. I will continue to post the links to stories about the obesity epidemic that catch my eye, stories like this that give the lie to the whole lack-of-exercise-has-nothing-to-do-with-it crap pushed by fat-acceptance crowd:

Adult obesity rates rose in 28 states last year, the report says…. Among the [report’s] findings: In a dozen states, more adults reported getting absolutely no regular physical activity beyond their jobs. It’s not likely a coincidence that the fattest state, Mississippi, also has the highest rate of physical inactivity in adults. There was a lot of overlap in the most-obese and least-active lists.

This stuff interests me not just because it pisses off the FA crowd. It’s interesting all on its own.

5. The takeaway from Lindy’s post—once the euphoria of our pleasure in Lindy’s triumph over her self-loathing fades—seems to be this: Fat people already feel bad, so shut up. Reading about obesity reminds fat people they’re fat and they already know they’re fat and feel bad about being fat, so shut up. And diet and exercise never work and even if they worked for you it’s unpossible for a heavy person to keep the weight off so why bother, so shut up. And shut up because your not shutting up is making it harder for fat people not to hate themselves and only after fat people stop hating themselves and lose the shame can they… begin to lose the weight that they can’t actually lose. And shut up.

I find that very confusing and confused.

And finally…

Look, Lindy, I hear you. You don’t like my posts about obesity. You don’t think they’re helpful. They’re not necessarily meant to be helpful. You seem to assume that I post in the hope that fat people will read my posts and drop the weight. That’s not my motivation; neither is shaming fat people. I’m interested in the obesity epidemic and I’m following the news about it and I assume other people are too and I’m posting about it and I’m ticked off about some aspects of it (including, yes, the vitriol that has been aimed at me over the years). And, yes, I believe that people should be fit—fit, not skinny; active, not sticks—not because Fat Is Gross, but because healthy—which doesn’t always translate to skinny—is better than non-healthy. It’s pretty much the same reason why I think people shouldn’t smoke or fuck strangers without protection or play on railroad tracks or smoke meth or vote Republican.

I am not, however, responsible for your shame (RIP). You arrived at my posts with your shame, my posts didn’t create it, and you managed to conquer your shame despite my posts. Good for you. (No snark intended in that “good for you.” Seriously, Lindy, good for you.) If you don’t want to read my posts about this subject—about any subject—just skip ’em.

And finally-for-real-finallyfinallyfinally… if you had written to me at my column seeking my advice about all of this (and I realize you didn’t and I realize that now I’m the one pretending that I can read your thoughts—but, hey, you pretended you could read mine, so looks like we’re even), here’s what I would have to said after reading your letter: It sounds like you’re externalizing an internal conflict about being fat—you’re projecting your anger and self-loathing onto to me, and seeing malice and bigotry where none exists, and perhaps that’s useful because that anger seems to be liberating and motivating. If having your own personal boogeyman on Slog helps you conquer your shame and love your body and this helps you break out of old, self-destructive patterns and habits (you can’t be losing weight now just because your attitude changed), then I’m happy to be your own personal boogeyman. But honestly, Lindy, you don’t need one. You’re stronger than that.

················

Here’s the email from my brother Bill…

When you do have time to respond to Lindy: note how often these people (LW included) use anecdotal evidence and generalize to the Whole World about it. She cannot lose weight dieting, so it’s not possible. Then you might talk about our family.

You were fat as a kid. You started exercising and eating right and voila, you’re not fat.

Other family members, not so much. Post a link to our CHF talk, where I look like fucking buddha for crissakes. if you and I both have genetically preset weights which our bodies just naturally go to, then we’d be roughly similar given our shared genetic backgrounds. But I don’t exercise as much as you do (my biking not withstanding, I haven’t been to a gym in years) and I don’t eat as well as you do and so I’m 20 to 25 lbs overweight.

You and Eddie exercise a lot, eat right and are in good shape.

If they get to generalize anecdotes about themselves, so do you.

The ultimate irony in all of this? I still feel like the fat kid.

473 replies on “Hello, I’m Not the Enemy”

  6. Dan, i read 2 minutes of your boring treatise. pretty clearly to me Lindy calling you as a fatist faggot asshole has hit a nerve. i read the piece. i was offended. i was offended a few weeks back when you berated a minimally sexual person. from memory you flippantly speculated some worst case scenario based on no facts. it smacked of pre-conceived bias. and seemed perhaps just another example of your propensity to hold your view above all others. stridently

    i get that you’ve used shock to wake people up. but i feel like the act is old. and counter productive. i’m an Aussie who discovered you when in Seattle a couple of years back. i was instantly impressed with your insight and utterly pragmatic opinions. but as i’ve followed you further, the Savage approach just begins to grate. and seem tired. like some of you’re recent responses. and this diatribe telling Lindy that you weren’t being a cunt when patently you were, says to me that it is time to take a break, Dan

    i know you’re popular and famous, but try not to let it spill over into conceit, Dan. because just personally, i’ll accept advice about the most sensitive and personal aspects of my life from someone who is positive overall, not some snarky bitch who doesn’t give a fuck and will exploit people for a bit of drama in his TIRED OLD COLUMN

  7. Dan, i read 2 minutes of your boring treatise. pretty clearly to me Lindy calling you as a fatist faggot asshole has hit a nerve. i read the piece. i was offended. i was offended a few weeks back when you berated a minimally sexual person. from memory you flippantly speculated some worst case scenario based on no facts. it smacked of pre-conceived bias. and seemed perhaps just another example of your propensity to hold your view above all others. stridently

    i get that you’ve used shock to wake people up. but i feel like the act is old. and counter productive. i’m an Aussie who discovered you when in Seattle a couple of years back. i was instantly impressed with your insight and utterly pragmatic opinions. but as i’ve followed you further, the Savage approach just begins to grate. and seem tired. like some of you’re recent responses. and this diatribe telling Lindy that you weren’t being a cunt when patently you were, says to me that it is time to take a break, Dan

    i know you’re popular and famous, but try not to let it spill over into conceit, Dan. because just personally, i’ll accept advice about the most sensitive and personal aspects of my life from someone who is positive overall, not some snarky bitch who doesn’t give a fuck and will exploit people for a bit of drama in his TIRED OLD COLUMN

  8. This nonsense has to stop. Really, this was the “issue” she could find to bring you down? This just smells to me like someone trying to pick on a peer who has tapped a ripe nerve in society and who’s voice is being heard nationally and making a huge difference about an issue that is saving kids’ lives. To say that you “hate” fat people is ridiculous. Especially from someone that knows you and works with everyday. You are making the point that obesity is unhealthy. We live in a country filled with obese people. Teen obesity is a huge problem. Shame on Lindy for making this personal and taking your words out of context. Now go focus on the important issues.

  10. @ 467 – popularity is no indicator of quality. by that logic Two and a Half Men is as fresh as a daisy.

    you’re right, (thankfully) no-one forces me to read Dan’s column. i doubt i’ll read much of it again. to me Dan playing/being an asshole regularly gets in the way of and obfuscates what is otherwise often brilliant and potentially helpful advice. which after a while is just irritating and exhausting.

    i try and avoid situations that make me upset. but i did once love Dan, so my 1st and last comment on these pages was pretty much a goodbye note. just in case Dan cares what anyone else thinks. please don’t take it personally Ricardo. i fully endorse your right to read the same old thing over and over again

  11. @ 468 – We weren’t discussing quality as such, but “tiredness”. I believe they’re two different concepts.

    For instance, you can repeat something until it gets “tired”, but if it’s a sound argument, well-developed and all, its quality can’t be debated.

    And I wasn’t taking this personally (I’m not Dan, so why should I?), just stating the obvious… which you seemed to have missed.

    On the other hand, your need to write a goodbye note to someone who has no idea who you are halfway around the world does suggest that you are taking Dan’s behaviour/answer/attitude a tad too personally.

    Just saying.

  12. “The ultimate irony in all of this? I still feel like the fat kid”

    I think I want to cry when I read this. Partly because the one who used to be the fat kid would be sincerely hurt to think that they were pointing the judgy finger at fat people. Also because it illuminates how that sadness never goes away completely. I was the weird girl in school, the jock bitches would slam me into the lockers shouting nasty names (dog, dyke, shithead) and then laugh really loudly at how awesome they were for picking on me.

    Now, I’m a teacher, I’m healthy, pretty content and heavily educated. You’d think you could lose the memory of that horrible, crushing pain. Yet it’s refreshed ever time I see her, in almost every junior high Science class: last girl picked, long shaggy hair in her face, head low, scribbles and drawings in her notebook. There’s a painful version of my old self that comes through the school each year into my classroom. Despite the bullshit fluffy bully programs the school gives us, every year, there’s the same group of jock bitches that tease and intimidate her and nothing authentic I can do to stop it outside of my class.

    Considering all this, I could never imagine Dan having a hate-on for anyone that didn’t deserve it. Not if he remembers that awful, awkward kid feeling.

  13. I disagree with the person quoted in Dan’s message. I wonder if this really has to do with West’s obesity. (And why should I care? If her weight is a problem, it’s hers, not ours.) Her writing in The Stranger is scatterbrained and dull. Is it such a surprise that her reading comprehension skills are as retarded as her writing skills?

    Or on the other hand, could this be the evolution of her publicity stunt writing style–from sloppy syntax with no content, to readable sentences with sloppy content? Is West really serious about this whole thing, or is she just trying to be cute and sarcastic again? It’s hard to take her comments seriously either way.

  14. I read Lindy’s post first and found it very freeing. Then I read your post, Dan, and I found out that Lindy was only able to create her mental “freedom from fatness” by taking liberties with others’ words and intentions. She is doing herself no favors by not being honest, and she is certainly not helping her readers.

    As far as your response goes, I found it very fair and well-organized (although you might have been a little too nice to the woman who basically fed you to the wolves).

  15. I’m glad you’re thin, Dan, and I’m glad you completely pwned Lindy in your very well-done piece, and I’m glad you’re not a fat bigot (I really do believe you), and I’m glad that you’ve been able to stay thin and healthy by, at least in part, walking so much.

    But Dan. Dude. Really. You still need to grow up and learn how to drive a fucking car.

    I love ya, man, but what is wrong with you?

  16. Dan, back in 2004 when you proudly made fat-hating statements in your column, I responded with these words and you printed them:

    “FAT!SO? says fuck you! It saddens me to know that you continue to cling to your fat-hating prejudice. The same attempts were made to stuff queers back in the closet, just as you are now attempting to stuff proud fat rebels (and our low-rise jeans) back in our closet. Fuck you! You’re not required to like us or look at us or fuck us, but you are required to stay the hell out of the way of our liberation! My health is not in danger from my weight. (I eat right, exercise, and enjoy excellent health.) However, your health may be endangered if you persist in promoting weight-based prejudice. (Really, all that stress every time you step on the scale… it can’t be good for you!)”

    You have written nothing in the intervening years to make me view you differently. From what you’ve written here, you clearly carry a heavy burden of fat shame. (Not surprising. In my travels around the world giving weight diversity talks, I find that people of all sizes carry incredible amounts of the stuff. Also, gay men’s culture can be especially fat-hating.)

    You also completely fail to understand that your weight/health views are not at all uncontested or even particularly accurate. Here’s the primary, science-101-style critique that Health At Every Size medical experts apply to the “obesity” epidemic and fat=doom beliefs: correlation does not prove causation. The obvious insight from this fact is that there could be any number of confounding variables that could explain the rather weak correlations between weight and morbidity/mortality. (If we assume that correlation proves causation, then we believe cold weather causes turkey deaths in November despite the confounding, even causal variable: Thanksgiving.) The CDC’s lead statistician on weight/health data, Katherine Flegal, makes this point in a recent paper published in JAMA — that confounding variables like stress, discrimination, dieting history, and fitness level could explain weight-based correlations with morbidity/mortality. Flegal also published in JAMA in 2006 the news that rates of so-called “obesity” have stopped increasing. (http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/295/13/…) I don’t imagine such data will diminish your eagerness to hate-monger about the “obesity” epidemic. I don’t imagine data, in general, can undo prejudice. Your statements about health are stereotype, not science. (And yes, it’s a prevalent stereotype, even among so-called scientists — you’ve noticed how the “obesity” scientists are well-paid consultants of the $59.7 billion/year weight-loss industry.)

    Dan, I have met you in person and discussed these points with you. (Remember, you tried to research gluttony at a fat pride gathering? And if that isn’t proof of your deeply held weight prejudices, what is!?!) If I were Lindy, I would not enjoy having you as a coworker. I dislike being around people who insist on carrying fatphobia and prejudice, as you do. (Kinda like I dislike being around homophobes, racists, sexists…) Because of your beliefs and statements, you’re the sort of person I would never socialize with or share a meal with or publicly link to in a social network or, well…like. I only engage with you because I hope it serves my purpose of confronting and ending weight-based stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination (in your readers, if not in you).

    I applaud Lindy for publicly and proudly and effectively raising the argument for weight diversity and Health At Every Size.

  17. @474

    I think you’re done thumping this straw man. Really. I like your writing, Marilyn. But this discussion’s really devolved. Reasonable accommodation is worth fighting for. Fat bias in employment is worth fighting against. Social acceptance is worth fighting for. Fighting for social benefit, or advantage rather than accommodation, or to change social mores, or to play games with data, or to slide the goalposts … are those worth fighting for? Really?

    Fitness at every size is a laudable goal. (And one that I would personally benefit from). While it’s true that fitness is a stronger exploratory variable than weight when studying excess mortality, they’re not independent of each other.

    I personally find it considerably harder to stay fit when I am heavier than when I am not, and I don’t think that I’m exceptional in this respect. For example, being north of 250 and running long or hard makes for sore joints; doing chin-ups (yes, I can do chin-ups) or lifting weights until failure makes for painful DOMS. Based on these and many other observations, I really have to believe that the price of fitness gets higher as weight does.

    That’s one of the elephants in the room; we discuss fitness and health and weight in the abstract, as if we could separate one from the other, but when it comes down to individual situations, they’re thoroughly tangled. That’s why I support you in fighting against fat bias and for accommodation – because Not Everyone Can Pay That Price. I can’t ask anyone to pay that price. Clearly I can’t pay that price. But I can’t support your position here.

    The other elephant in the room is Dan’s metier. He is an advice columnist. When he answers a question related to weight, 99 times out of 100 (or maybe more) it’s a variation on: “my sex partner won’t sleep with me since I gained weight”, “I don’t want to sleep with my sex partner since he/she gained weight”, or “I’m obese, but I’m attracted to Victoria’s Secret/Calvin Klein models. Yet, they will not sleep with me. What’s wrong”?

    The answers are inevitably: “talk to him/her and see what you can work out”, “talk to him/her and see what you can work out”, and “is this really what you want, and good luck with that”. And those are the RIGHT answers, because he’s dealing with individuals, and individuals have to work out the sticky points between principles, wants, and needs.

    “Blame it on society’s bias against fat people” is a wrong answer – not incorrect. It’s entirely correct. It’s still wrong – it’s the right answer, but not to that question. Blaming Dan for anti-fat bias is a wrong answer, too; he didn’t create it, he’s not promoting it, he can’t eliminate it, and he’d be wrong to ignore power imbalances driven by it. Clearly you’re not blind to them; why should he pretend?

  18. According to all sorts of research studies, people who exercise regularly (in ways that aren’t physically damaging, obviously) are healthier than people who don’t. My friend Linda Bacon, PhD, a nutrition professor and Health At Every Size expert, tells me the difference in weight between groups of people who exercise regularly and those who don’t is about 10 pounds. Exercise is a magic pill for fitness and health, not for weight conformity or thin supremacism.

    I notice personals ads have a common refrain: No BBWs. No offense, it’s just my preference. I disagree. I don’t think it’s a preference, I think it’s a prejudice. When lots of people find it impossible to imagine that even one member of an entire demographic might be hot, then that’s not about attraction, that’s about prejudice (literally, pre-judging). The answer is for fat people to screen out bigots and reward the cool kids who can see hotness in all shapes and sizes with lots of yummy, mutually enjoyable sex.

  19. Dan – I have loved you forever, but I read words you wrote today that tell me you just Don’t Get It. These are your words: “Beer-gutted, love-handled, hairy-backed men shouldn’t go shirtless in summer. Or any other season.”

    You talk a good line about tolerance, and then say shit like that. Now I think you can go fuck your skinny-ass self and die. Nothing else you have to say is of any interest to me, unless it’s “I’m sorry.”

  20. I’m curious. I understand that one quote was out of context (although if you find even a skinny girl’s tiny bump of flesh icky…), and you were commenting more on people wearing what flatters their body. But I didn’t quite understand the connection beyond that when you went on talking.

    You said, “I’m a sex-and-relationship columnist; I could no more avoid questions about bodies and health and size than I could avoid questions about blowjobs and assfucking and cunnilingus.” I disagree. Sex and relationships. You’re not a healthy-living writer. You’re not a society issues writer. You’re a living-and-interacting-well writer.

    When it comes to sex and relationships, questions about bodies might be about body image, health might be about staying healthy while interacting or how to talk to someone about a health concern, and size might be, again, an image thing (for example, a very tall person with a very short person also might have issues). But who would ask a relationships writer for health advice?

    My guess is you’ve expanded your domain. After all, society is one giant relationship, right? Wrong. If you’re a writer on overall social issues, you can feel free to comment on how people live. But you might want to define yourself better.

    Or, you at least might want to actually model appropriate interpersonal relationships and communication, rather than knee-jerk angry list-rants.

    Oh, yeah, and “see, I’m sitting nicely next to a fat person and even shared my NYT with them!” sounds a lot like saying “look, I’m sitting next to this [insert term for some generally marginalized/ickified group here] and not recoiling in horror – look, we just talked a little, and we accidentally touched while sharing an armrest and I’m not running to wash my arm!” Just in case you weren’t sure.

    I don’t care what your opinion is, but I think you need to look carefully and see if you’re actually giving the full impression that that is your opinion. An editor might help with that.

  21. I am fat, a lot smaller than Lindy, but fat nevertheless. And I am ashamed of myself even though its not entirely my fault. I contracted a disease that forced me to take medicine to live that helped me pack on and lose 100 lbs over approximately 20 years. I don’t know what Lindy has tried, but I’m pretty sure she hasn’t tried hard enough. I know a lot of obese folks and if you’ve been that way for a lifetime it’s so much easier to accept the status quo than change your life. You love what you’re eating and it gives you sustenance beyond nutrition and meeting your basic needs. If you’re fat and you haven’t been to a doctor, a nutritionist, a personal trainer or in a program you literally have not tried as hard as you could. You need to stop lying to yourself and everyone else. Now all that said, I don’t have a raw hatred for fat people. And I think it’s wrong to discriminate against people. Isms are absolutely odious. Still, being fat is unhealthy. Its not a natural state of being, and people can change their bodies to reach a healthy weight. It happens everyday. Fat acceptance is a joke. I do not believe in fat acceptance. I believe in people acceptance.

  22. Let’s work to stop bullying!

    …By bullying fat people.

    Oh, and someone look up anorexia clinics in Baltimore, to help out poor ol’ Rib… I mean, Rob.

  23. Dan
    I love you and your column but as a former fat teenager who was bullied, my heart is with Lindy. I would be really interested to read a column of yours in which you discuss not so much fat but the current fascistic standard of beauty which all of us, male female, gay straight, whatever, are subjected to. Come on Dan. Stand up for us not-pretty-people.

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