dialogue at the mirror, Value World

[fflo]

Me (to the woman looking on curiously as I regard the reflection of myself in a funny fringed Native American-ny decorative shoulder thing---sort of a cross between a collar and a shawl): Kind of a strange item. Don't know where I'd wear it.

Woman: Do you ever go to rock concerts? You could wear it there.

Me: True. Hmmm....

Woman: It has a slimming effect.

Me: Oh, well I wouldn't want that. (turn decisively, walk away, that-settles-that)

tee hee hee

I love when I have something at the ready on such an occasion.

Comments

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

I can't believe someone would say that. Esp. a stranger. (Would expect it from a family memeber, but that's another issue.) Sort of the societally allowed female policing of other females....

[fflo.livejournal.com]

oh, it's quite common. people really do assume that fat people are trying to lose weight or at least look less fat than they are. and i suppose there's not a whole lot disrupting that idea. i certainly have experienced many indications of such an assumption without doing anything to protest or object---and at one point i shared the opinion that it was patently obvious that i should be trying to lose weight or at least look less fat than i am.

some people, of course, still feel that way, and think that way. but it's one thing to think it about yourself, and something else entirely to think it on somebody else's behalf.

i guess any more the mass media treatment of fat (i think there's a war on it/us, as there is on "drugs" and "terror") is worse --- the relentless, large-scale assault, vs. the occasional woman at the mirror in value world. part of the ickiness of the media thing is knowing that it gives ammunition and the belief in the cause to both fat people and other people who have the power influence our quality of life more than most fat people's fat does. if you follow that convolutedness.

more succinctly: how one is treated when fat is more destructive/unhealthy than fat itself is.

i bet you've had other women say out-of-line things to you about your appearance, though. just not for being fat. (pardon me for assuming that you've never been fat; i confess i do assume that.)

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

Just the other week, a neighbor of mine told me I "look like [I] lost weight." I was taken aback by that, because yes, the assumption was that it was good, and I found that to be irritating and an overstepping of boundaries. Not that I myself haven't ever been guilty of same, however. [NOTE: I actually weigh more now than I have ever weighed in my life.]

[fflo.livejournal.com]

laying by the lake yesterday shmizla & i talked about the verboten nature of toplessness here, and how bare breasts are scandalous sexual things that people daren't be exposed to. it's funny that the possibility of people seeing your breasts from a distance when you're minding your own business is such a dire thing, but commenting about someone else's physiognomy from some implied general assumptions about what it should or shouldn't be like, or how it should or shouldn't be presented, is not considered a crossing of boundaries at all.

i suppose the two go hand in hand, in a way, but right now they both seem ridiculous, and there seems to be some irony in what's considered generally accepted, as i think about these things this monday morning before the coffee kicks in.

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

of course it's because female breasts are sexual objects. A man could have the exact same breasts as I have, and he would be seen as gross looking, but her would be allowed to walk around topless in public. Am rading "Self-Made Man" right now. Many annoying things about its writer, but it is interesting.

p.s.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

you know, i kinda like how you sometimes comment a little later than others reading these entries, and we have what feels like a more private conversation herein about whatever the subject at hand is. since most folks reading read as they go by on their friends pages (i assume), and not many would be likely to read these later discussions.

it feels kind of intimate, i guess. and i like touching that feeling with you here that way.

Re: p.s.

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

like sitting quietly at a party after the other guests have gone home. (ah, sometimes it would take me that long to "get into" a party, but that's a different topic entirely.)

i'm working at home on mondays, as you know, and i finally have internet access at home. am in the land of the undead today, as i drank caffeine for the first time in a long time yesterday (it was only "half-caff", but 4 cups) and i ended up staying up til 2 am. reading that book by norah vincent, of course. got up at 7 today--thank god for work at home day. interesting, but john howard griffin and barbara ehrenreich, she just ain't! have to meet with birdie's dogwalker now.

i just read black like me for the first time a few months ago, and it blew me away. perhaps more on my own page if i find the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Griffin

Re: p.s.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Do post about it. I've never read it, and couldn't have told you his name, or even picked it out of a multiple-choice line-up, before. But I have heard of the work, anyway.

I didn't know about Self-Made Man until now. I see Wiki-p says Norah is "known for being a conservative lesbian," citing a broken link at the (kinda creepy-lookin') indegayforum.org (which I also didn't know about). I also see that she co-wrote the (to my mind) "whatevah"-inspiring Instant Intellectual: The Quick & Easy Guide to Sounding Smart and Cultured and How to Sound Smart: A Quick and Witty Guide.

Did you get any euphoria with that caffeine?

Re: p.s.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

oh, and i do like that after-party party atmosphere, and, yeah, it's kinda like that