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”

  1. @296
    “Rolls of exposed flesh are unsightly” is not a tame statement of fact; it’s a highly charged statement of opinion, really no different from “light skin is prettier.” It’s a judgment based on cultural prejudices–ones shared by a majority of Westerners, to be sure, but prejudices all the same.

    Of course it’s an opinion. Aesthetics are based in opinion. Fashion advice is always based on what’s “sightly” or “unsightly” in the eyes of the viewer. He was saying that a particular body type doesn’t look good in a particular garment (in his opinion, obviously).

  4. Dan, I think you are exactly right about her externalizing her self-loathing about her weight. If she really was as at peace with herself as she wants us to believe she’d just laugh you off.

  5. Epicurus @301 — do you remember when it was that the discussion of “get a job to get a date”? I kinda wanna listen! Not because I’m unemployed, but because I was and hit a dry spell

  6. Canuck@305 You delightfully avoided the other side of the argument…and the one I would rather see: Dan owning up to his bias.

    Where do you see the harm in owning up to one’s bias if you’re going to use language that belittles and shames a group of people and not apologize for it?

  7. Except, TheMisanthrope, that assumes there is a bias to be owned up to, which is exactly what Dan, in his own words, is trying to show isn’t the case.

    And just because some people are overly sensitive and insist Dan MUST be biased and therefore MUST own up to that bias, doesn’t make that in the least bit true.

  8. @290

    “Where do you see the harm in owning up to one’s bias if you’re going to use language that belittles and shames a group of people.”

    I’ll tell you where I see the harm in it. It seems to me that the real request here is for permission to ignore wholesale everything Dan has to say on the subject. ‘Oh, ignore him, he just hates fat people.’

    I can and do dismiss everything Dan says about the vagina’s attractiveness. Pressed ham or beautiful flower, his opinion on the subject is completely worthless to any rational woman. He’s a gay man. He can take it back and apologize for it or embroider it on a pillow, it couldn’t matter less. I thought the pressed ham comment was funny. I thought Celie’s description of a naked man in The Color Purple was as funny and I think naked guys are hot, generally.

    Same, possibly to a lesser extent, with fashion advice. I was pretty lean in my hip rider jeans that made me look like a whale. I appreciated his comments on the subject. They reassured me that it wasn’t me, it was the jeans. Still, his opinion on how women look in those jeans is ridiculously unimportant.

    If he’s commenting on one of the biggest heath problems this country faces, he should be careful about what he apologizes for. We should all be careful about how accepting we are of this. We should all be careful about the criticism we are willing to censor.

    Lives are actually at stake. For really reals. It’s different.

  11. I loved this response from Dan: It makes perfect sense, even if it is a bit long-winded. I enjoyed reading it, and agree with it!

    What’s really too bad is that some of the commenters here can’t recognize intelligent arguing when they see it (from both LW and DS), and learn from it. It’s so boring to read responses from those who cling to single words or phrases and bring ’em back up ad infinitum (“But you once said…!!!” “I’ll never let anyone forget what you said out of context a million years ago…!!” It’s so…Republican.

    I’d love to see a world where everyone wasn’t so offended and angered always by every little thought or comment that doesn’t match theirs perfectly. It would be so much more interesting than the state of “debate” now, where everyone is a perpetual state of being offended by having to share the planet with people who aren’t exactly like them. (Remember that bit about sticks and stones?) Nothing that has happened in the past has the power to effect how you behave in the present moment, unless you let it. In other words, buck up.

  12. I echo 7, a dance off is probably the only solution.

    To be honest my estimation of Lindy has gone down as a result of all this. I think her Hello, I’m Fat post was too confrontational and geared toward taking Dan down a peg or two. I really enjoy her reviews but I don’t think Dan was in the wrong in most of the examples she cited to justify her comments. The ban fat marriage was obviously not an actual argument for banning fat people marrying. It’s definitely within people rights and is their perogative to be as fat as they want to be. But expecting everyone to overlook the inherent health risks and cost to society of the obesity epidemic is ridiculous.

  13. In order to feel like you own the space you’re in (and a lot of women feel that they don’t–look at how people sit on the bus), you have to get angry and get political, Then, after a time, you get to a place of real acceptance. I don’t think Lindy’s there yet. It could take years. Sometimes we target people because otherwise our anger has no sting.

    I finally, after so many years, accepted myself and the space I take up in the world, when lo and behold I got diabetes. That shouldn’t have been a surprise, as my Dad and his dad and his grandpa and my mom and brother and several uncles and aunts also have it. I never stood a chance.

    But as many people love to say “eww, fatties gross,” they don’t know what it really means to have Diabetes 2. Not being able to see, having doubled-over pains, stabbing pain in the arms and legs, leg cramps at night, not being able to feel your feet. Getting ice-cold feet every day that can only be temporarily helped. Being really tired all the time. Getting cystic boils that don’t heal for weeks and weeks. Constant pain.

    Now lets add to that the health-care crisis. Trying to work decent hours in order to pay the rent. No metformin or insulin, even though it can be cheap with insurance. Having to stick to a diet that seems pretty easy–ask anyone whose tried to stick to a diet and exercise regimen. SIMPLE! EFFORTLESS! NO PROBLEM AT ALL! If you stray, just a little bit, you’re hit with those problems again only worse. You wanna run five miles every day in order to avoid trying to pay for medicine without insurance? Try doing it at 250 pounds.

    Having diabetes sucks, and it can kill you. It killed my Grandad.

  14. The bottom line: whether or not someone is fat is NO ONE ELSE’S FUCKING BUSINESS. It doesn’t mean the subject of SOCIETAL obesity should be off the table, but individual obesity is NOT YOUR PROBLEM. MYOFB.

    That being said, if you wanted a real equivalency to show the speciousness of the rationale being used to try to ban gay marriage (health issues, life expectancy, the “ick” factor), a much better equivalent would have been old people. Who has more health problems than old people (in general, not individuals)? Who has a shorter life expectancy? And c’mon, we all know the idea of old people having sex is gross – until you look in the mirror one day and realize that 50 is long behind you. So every argument they’re trying to use to justify banning gay marriage can also be used to ban the marriage of old people.

  16. TheMisanthrope, could you please be so generous to share with us your occupation?

    My guess is that being a writer is work in which thoughtlessness isn’t necessarily a drag on quality. Like how Paul Haggis could win the oscar for screenplay 2 years in a row, but casually refuse to verify for himself any criticism against Scientology for over a generation.

    You’re someone slick enough to have tried denying you were a racist, then deliver a “ching-chong” response to me. Now you’re going-on about Dan owning up to a bias. I’m wondering if you’re something like a writer.

  17. @318 – “But expecting everyone to overlook the inherent health risks and cost to society of the obesity epidemic is ridiculous.”

    I can’t agree with that. I’m not saying, as a society, that we shouldn’t encourage healthy habits, but that does not include societal shaming of individuals who don’t meet our standards of “healthy” living, whether it’s because they’re fat, old, gay, drink, whatever. Encouraging healthy living is not the same thing as deciding, as a group, that we can treat a marginalized group like crap because we have made a unilateral decision that they’re somehow costing us more money. A civilized society spreads the costs of all those people across everyone. No one costs more in health dollars than the elderly. I recently had two nephews born prematurely, and they spent more than three months in the newborn ICU. Want to talk about what THEY cost society?

    My point is that we cannot extrapolate from the general “cost to society” of any group in general to stigmatizing an individual who is in that group. EVERYONE has some habit that costs society money, whether it’s driving without a seatbelt, drinking too much alcohol, commuting on too little sleep, practicing high-risk sports, being obese, being old, unsafe sex, whatever. We’re all in this together.

  18. Dan, you’re a dick. And that’s okay. We usually like it when you’re a dick, because you’re being a dick to the people that we think should be treated dickishly. But sometimes you use your dickish powers in ways that we don’t agree with. And that’s cool too, it’s your blog. You have the right (nay the duty) to be a dick in any way you see fit. And we’ll just read you and either laugh or say, hey that guy’s a dick!

  20. I wonder how many people willing to shout Misogyny, or bigot have actually listened to a real scope of Dan’s podcasts. He gets paid for the snark, and he pulls it out and aims it any everyone because that’s part of what he’s paid for–to be entertaining. But what makes people really appreciate his adice is that he really really advocates for all sorts of people. MY GOD he is a huge an ardent advocate for women not being ashamed of their bodies and their desires and he calls sexist bullshit where others don’t even see it. He can turn the snark on so we all click our tongues (or laugh), and then he gets a caller on the line and turns into the kindest listener who oozes caring. Dan’s one of those guys who if you really listen to you actually believe more of the caring than the snark. So I don’t agree with him a lot of the time., SOmetimes I say tomayself he’s being a bastard today. But I gotta tell you he sure has convinced me that he profoundly cares about people. People who say he hates women aren’t looking past their own noses. Same for people who say he is bigoted. In my opinion.

  22. @ 320 – It wouldn’t have been a much better equivalent. It would just have been an equivalent. And then he would have been accused of ageism, as 321 said.

    No matter what example he picked, those who don’t get sarcasm (which, amazingly enough considering her reviews, apparently include Lindy West!!!) would have come down on him. He chose the most absurd example – since a majority of Americans have a weight problem, banning fat marriage is an obviously ridiculous proposition – and still, hundreds of people are hassling him for it.

    This whole debate tells us nothing about Dan, but it tells us an awful lot about the immaturity of the FAs who comment here, their total lack of personal responsibility, the total lack of capacity of many a slogger to understand sarcasm, and their generally unrestrained political correctness.

    Not discussing such a massive health problem (no bad pun intended) for the sake of protecting some people’s feelings is NOT a sign of sensitivity, it’s a sign of stupidity. And it’s very dangerous for the health of Americans as a nation and as individuals.

    Dan’s words (or mine, for that matter) cannot be construed as a call to take away anyone’s right to be whatever way he or she wishes to be as an individual. But if you want to be an individual, you should have enough maturity to take responsibility for everything that you are and everything that you did.

  23. Dan: I believe you. I don’t read vitriol into your intentions. But some people are hypersensitive (read: a tad irrational but not to be dismissed) because they feel like they get it from both barrels all the time. I know you know what that’s like. I know it’s annoying, but you might consider making more of the disclaimers I love to hear you make when you talk about being fat. You know, like when you say something like “angry bisexuals (not that I’m saying all bisexuals are angry — just these particular bisexuals)” or something of the sort. It makes it clear that you mean no shame towards people, is funny, and draws attention to the fact that people don’t necessarily need to be up in arms about everything all the time (which is helpful in this world of black-and-white statements).

    Now, I may catch hell for this and I am an anecdote not a study, but it seems to me that people who are overweight tend to be slightly more depressed than people who are thinner. I don’t think this is just because of being made fun of or seeing thin people on TV all the time. I think it is biochemical. Extra fat can mess with some people’s hormones, which can make people depressed the same way that being on birth control can make some women depressed. Also, if you are less inclined to exercise, which correlates somewhat with having extra fat, then that can make you depressed too. I’ve been there and it sucks. Depressed people internalize everything and are oversensitive to criticism because any criticism sucks them back down that hole. It’s a chicken-and-egg thing (which came first, the depression or the weight?) and it’s not for all people who have extra weight, but it is for many. I don’t have much of a point besides that I think this is what causes the minefield in the first place. And that I wish people would try to fix the depression and not specifically the weight. That alone will make you healthy and happy, and that makes everyone a joy to be around.

  24. I’d be curious to know how many of the people who are offended by Dan are overweight and have shame issues about it. Because some people seem to be taking it awfully personal.

  26. @323 I’m not advocating shaming people who are overweight, but there seems to be an implication in some comments that blogging about or posting links to studies or reports relating to obesity is a no-no because it incites shame. I don’t agree that those news item should be off the agenda because they make some people feel bad. I wasn’t suggesting that it’s okay to point out people in the street and call them fat pigs.

  28. Dan:

    You don’t understand the FA movement, and attribute thoughts, inclination and goals to it, that are not there. Read some more about it. Read studies about dieting. Read about HAES. Listen to some podcasts from two whole cakes. Then come back with an education opinion.

  29. Kim:
    You’ll be in my prayers. I don’t offer to pray for people (especially virtual strangers) often, but you seem to be a slogger who won’t mind me praying for you. And you’ve been a slogger that’s consistently increased the sense of community around here, for me.

  30. @315

    Right. So at best you can scrutinize with the semantics of what he said (he should have made it clear that he was talking about his opinion or an opinion common in culture, instead of “fact”).

    But insofar as advice mingles facts and values, he’s bound to speak on the intersection of both. And his comment wasn’t problematic in context. Agree?

  31. @Misanthrope: I’m not avoiding, I just don’t see it as a bias. He doesn’t personally want to look at naked women, that doesn’t mean he’s biased against women in general. He doesn’t want his husband to be overweight, he’s not against/hateful toward heavy people in general. I think people add “personal preference” to “concerns in general” and get “bias”, but I think that’s a stretch.

  33. I don’t understand the opinion that because someone makes an unhealthy choice you therefore have the right to be an obnoxious, self righteous, judgmental dick to them.

  36. It is so hilarious how all the sensitive white libtard “progressives” at Slog often resort to their favorite meme about red-staters, flyover-staters, Christians, and conservatives: that they are all a bunch of stupid fatasses.

  37. To everybody saying Dan’s a bigot or needs to tone it down: FUCK YOU!! This whole discussion is ridiculous. Lindy West is whiny, insecure, finger pointing, jerk. It’s great that she claims that she has accepted herself, but from her defensiveness, I would say she’s lying to herself.

    Dan is blunt and honest about how he feels, and he always has been. This is why I love him and why I thought everybody did! He’s clearly not a bigot. I’m sorry that people who perceive themselves as overweight are offended, but he offends a lot of people. I personally get slightly annoyed about his seemingly anti-monogamy discussions and then I stop and think about it and realize it’s just my own insecurities coming into play (I know, crazy, self introspection). You guys really want to start censoring him? Really? His lack of censorship is why we love him, go read other sex advice columnists that tip toe around every issue and are so politically correct they forget to take into account reality. That’s the majority of them, so it shouldn’t be hard. Seriously, go the fuck away. Enjoy people lying to you your whole lives and enjoy your denial about yourselves.

    Please Dan, never apologize. This country has just become so politically correct, they get offended about anything and take everything personally even though it wasn’t directed a them. This is when the left acts most like the right, when it comes to political correctness.

  38. I actually buy your explanation, Dan. I don’t think that the sum total of your writing reveals intentional malice that reveals an underlying hatred of overweight people.

    I do think, however, that when you’ve used the word “fat” as a lazy short-hand for “ignorant”, “lazy”, “Middle-American”, etc. as you did in the Iowa column, you might consider how it could be similar to when someone shouts, “Fag!” at the kid who doesn’t throw the ball very well on the playground. Words are words, but just sayin’…

  39. I think there’s a bunch of interesting stuff to say about fat and class, about who has access to decent produce and information about food, about food standards and how the political machinations of food manufacturers drive the discourse around food standards, but honestly I don’t tend to hear it from Dan. What I hear from Dan, because he’s a sex columnist, is stuff about bodies, and the stuff Dan says about fat people’s bodies is tinged with disgust. If a bunch of fat people say that to you, you might want to listen.

    Behaving respectfully towards fat people doesn’t mean kowtowing to the evil lies that food manufacturers promote. It just means treating people equally, not just in the workplace, but in terms of the language and attitudes you use. I doubt times one billion that Dan would put up with being employed by someone who treated him with politeness and respect in person, but wrote columns about how being gay was unhealthy, disgusting, etc.

    Yes, fatphobia is hate speech; yes, it matters what fat people think of how you write about them; yes, this is a bunch of wounded privilege denial. Man up, Dan. Next stop: biphobia. Anyone on-staff want to run with that?

  40. a. dan’s original post about iowa didn’t warrant lindy’s response, no. he was making an analogy, and then SHE asked him, if he’s going to equate “gay” and “fat” as stigmatizations, then does that mean he’s going to quit stigmatizing fat people. so, yes, she “missed the point” of dan’s post; she was making a separate but related point, and her subsequent post illustrated it more keenly. it’s also easily imagined that she’s observed dan’s historic unease toward fat people, as we all have, and that’s what fueled her “hello, i am fat” post.

    (which, sorry, everyone in the universe has noticed, dan. the jig is up. go ahead and cry that you”re “just interested” in the obesity epidemic, but you sure are smug for being an innocent empirical student.)

    b. i don’t know that lindy was ever bragging about courageously standing up to her mean old oppressive boss–it seems to me that she just wanted to make the “you are the boss of me but not the doctor of me” joke. which was a quality fucking joke. worth it. also, dan is ssssort of her boss, and it stands to reason that he was probably her boss at one point over the years. regardless, i think folks have zeroed in on that line and attached more melodrama to it than she intended. which i guess is her ass–she’s the one who said it–but i think it’s probably safe to chill on that tip, kids.

    c. i’m a former intern and freelancer, and i can corroborate that dan has always been unfailingly polite to me in person. he is not this way in his column, however–he often sacrifices kindness toward fellow humans for jokes/sensationalism/snark. which, hey, that’s what sells his column, he’s a businessman, it gets clicks, i understand. but he should understand that his readers aren’t privileged to his in-person demeanor; all they know is what they read on the SLOG and in his column. and he’s a total bitch a lot of the time.

    d. WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT THE HEALTH OF FAT PEOPLE, DAN. WHY WHY WHY. why? what makes you so deeply concerned about a group you don’t belong to, so much that you find it’s your place to lecture them? if someone writes you a letter saying, “i am fat and having XYZ sexual problems because of it,” fine, you can care then. but i seriously doubt this happens on the reg, if ever. does it? i think you get more letters saying, “i gained weight and my partner isn’t into my body anymore,” et al, which has zero to do with their health. yes, obesity promotes health issues, absolutely, unquestionably, but it doesn’t necessarily, and it’s also totally off the table here, with regard to lindy and iowa. nobody asked you to worry about their health. you’re doing it out of your own volition and acting like it’s your job. and frankly, i seriously doubt that you sincerely care–i think it’s a bullshit excuse to justify your thinly (and sometimes not-at-all) veiled disgust.

    e. the overall nucleus of this shitstorm that you seem to be ignoring in order to save face here–and which is often ignored in the sport of Arguing on the Internet–is that these are human beings with feelings. so, yes, shut up. that’s exactly right. leave them alone. their health risks and their muffin tops are not hurting you. people are overweight for a million different reasons–first and foremost because they’re unhappy with their lives and they eat to comfort themselves–so have some fucking compassion and be kind to unhappy people, for godsake. whether they gained weight because they were unhappy or whether they’ve always been heavy and the vicious, superficial jackals of the world have made them unhappy, they’re by and large already unhappy. and if they’re not, leave them alone because they’re happy and they fucking deserve to be, because they’re human beings. they’re not statistics, they’re not cartoons. they’re people, for christ’s sake. what is wrong with you.

    P.S.: ams_ has it at #35. thank you.

  41. Actually it’s been proven that morbidly obese (or even significantly overweight) people have trouble absorbing Vitamin D and are deficient in it.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20850…
    What happens when you are vitamin D deficient?
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth…
    There are also links between not getting enough vitamin d and being depressed.
    http://www.livestrong.com/article/376918…

    As it says in the last article, yes, obviously research is still needed, however it is a really interesting theory.

  43. oops, i meant to say “. yes, obesity promotes health issues, absolutely, unquestionably, but it doesn’t necessarily CAUSE THEM, and it’s also totally off the table here, with regard to lindy and iowa.”

    meaning: being obese definitely increases your risk of health issues, but you don’t necessarily have them just because you’re obese.

  44. Oh, I suppose I should add a comment here since I added one on Lindy’s post.

    In my view, Lindy wrote a post that was mainly about pain, but Dan read a post that was mainly about Dan.

    To me, Dan is a powerful person and thinker and an inspiration. I’d love to see him be kinder when he talks about fat people. Michelle Obama is a perfect examplar: She is a problem-solver, acknowledging and working on the problem of obesity without stigmatizing obese humans.

    I can’t bring myself, like Dan, to regret Lindy’s post. In fact, the idea of it *not* existing upsets me. Lindy’s post helps hundreds of people simply feel better. It singlehandedly delivers health benefits. At the moment those health benefits are not being shared by Dan Savage. But they could be — because nobody’s actually demonizing anybody here.

  46. From the comments I’ve read, no one’s arguing that obesity is free of health risks. No one’s saying the health risks should never be discussed. It’s the attitude that often comes with it.

    I smoke. I’ve had plenty of people remind me that it’s unhealthy. I’ve had plenty of people tell me it’s a disgusting habit (I agree). I’ve never been called disgusting because of it. People don’t shout out “Smoker!” from their cars when they’re driving by. Last I heard, grade school kids don’t use “you’re momma’s a smoker!” as a taunt.

    There are a helluva lot of unhealthy behaviors in the world, but most of them don’t come with the same stigma. I have a poor diet. Not sweets or chips, but lots of nutritionally-impaired t.v. dinners (maybe a notch above Styrofoam slathered in gravy). But no one has ever looked into my cart and said, “you shouldn’t be eating that crap.” In fact, no stranger has ever given me any sort of unsolicited dietary advice while we’re waiting in the grocery store line. And yet people who are obese sometimes do receive that sort of treatment, frequently prefaced with “I’m only concerned about your health.”

  47. You go Dan!

    There’s nothing wrong with having an opinion and stating fact. some people just can’t stand the truth.

    By the way, “trying and failing” doesn’t mean “saying you’ll go on a diet but not doing it and saying you’ll go to the gym and not going.” It means “going on a diet and going to the gym and not seeing any improvements.”

  48. @344, you forgot to call Lindy “a bitch.” I think that’s the term the Dan Fans prefer here.

    “Never apologize!” is a stunted way to live your life. I hope you weren’t serious.

  49. I had a lot to say about this before Dan’s comment, and all I can say is that he’s hit the nail on the head. Lindy is either stupid (doesn’t understand a reductio ad absurdum argument) or evil (she knows the difference but doestn’ care–she’s trying to impugn Dan’s reputation just the same). I wrote a blog post on the topic at: http://thinking-it-through.tumblr.com/

  50. I agree with Dan. I admire Lindy, but I found her post to be oversensitive.

    Of course, I recognize that like many other formerly “fat” people, I found that my weight was something I could change and control with a bit of effort and lifestyle changes. I don’t have the experience of having struggled for years to loose weight and just not managed it. To me, what he says about obesity and loosing weight just makes sense.

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