Getting Through

"God we fuck up teenagers’ heads. We tell them that biological conditions are moral punishments and..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:46:09 -0500

“

God we fuck up teenagers’ heads. We tell them that biological conditions are moral punishments and then we get all shocked when they don’t practice rational risk management of biological conditions. We teach them “sex is super desirable and all the cool kids do it, and it’s hideously shameful and will destroy your life” and we wonder why they act an eensy bit neurotic about it. If you tried to design a system for making sexually active kids confused and unsafe, you couldn’t do much better than the American media and school system.

And for once, the answer is relatively simple. Just talk about sex like it’s a part of life. Some people have sex and some people don’t, because people are different. STIs aren’t bad because they’re Dirty Crotch Rot; they’re bad because they’re contagious illnesses like strep throat or whooping cough, and you can ask a doctor to check for and treat them just like you would with strep throat. Unwanted pregnancy isn’t a scarlet A; it’s a mostly-preventable accident that sometimes occurs when people are going about their normal business of having sex. You can ask the school counselor about a variety of topics, including career planning, problems at home, questions about sex, or conflicts with teachers.

If we could just get the goddamn stick out of our collective ass and accept that sex is a human activity and teenagers are humans, maybe there wouldn’t be quite so many plaintive “I don’t understand my body and I’m confused and scared and I don’t know anyone I can ask in person” messages flying out into the world.

”

- The Pervocracy - “Teenage Panic.” (via klonazepam)

backlash-blues: internal-acceptance-movement: 10 WAYS WE BODY...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:24:35 -0500

backlash-blues:

internal-acceptance-movement:

10 WAYS WE BODY SHAME WITHOUT REALIZING IT:

1. Saying Things Like, “She Would Be So Pretty If…”

Have you ever uttered anything along the lines of, “But she has such a gorgeous face” or “She would be more beautiful if she put on a few pounds”? You are limiting your idea of beauty to a cultural stereotype. Beauty is not conditional. If you can’t say anything nice, maybe it’s time to learn how.

2. Judging Other People’s Clothes

While it’s fine for you to choose clothes any way you want, nobody else is required to adhere to your style. The person wearing that outfit is, in fact, pulling it off, even if you think she’s too flat chested, big chested, short, tall, fat or thin. And fat people don’t have to confine themselves to dark colors and vertical stripes, no matter who prefers it. And spandex? It’s a right, not a privilege.

3. Making It an ‘Us vs. Them’ Thing

The phrase “Real Women Have Curves” is highly problematic. Developed as a response to the tremendous body shaming that fat women face, it still amounts to doing the same thing in the opposite direction. The road to high self-esteem is probably not paved with hypocrisy. Equally problematic is the phrase “boyish figure” as if a lack of curves makes us somehow less womanly. The idea that there is only so much beauty, only so much self-esteem to go around is a lie. Real women come in all shapes and sizes, no curves required.

4. Avoiding the Word “Fat”

Dancing around the word fat is an insinuation that it’s so horrible that it can’t even be said. The only thing worse than calling fat people “big boned” or “fluffy” is using euphemisms that suggest body size indicates the state of our health or whether we take care of ourselves. As part of a resolution to end body shaming, try nixing phrases like “she looks healthy,” or “she looks like she is taking care of herself,” and “she looks like she is starving” when what you actually mean is a woman is thin.

5. Making Up Body Parts

We could all lead very full lives if we never heard the words cankles, muffin top, apple shaped, pear shaped or apple butt ever again. We are not food.

6. Congratulating People for Losing Weight

You don’t know a person’s circumstances. Maybe she lost weight because of an illness. You also don’t know if she’ll gain the weight back (about 95 percent of people do), in which case earlier praise might feel like criticism. If someone points out that a person has lost weight, consider adding something like, “You’ve always been beautiful. I’m happy if you are happy.” But if a person doesn’t mention her weight loss, then you shouldn’t mention it either. Think of something else you can compliment.

7. Using Pretend Compliments

“You’re really brave to wear that.” By the way, wearing a sleeveless top or bikini does not take bravery. “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful.” These things are not mutually exclusive — a person can be fat and beautiful. “You can afford to eat that, you’re thin.” You don’t know if someone has an eating disorder or something else; there is no need to comment on someone’s body or food intake. “You’re not that fat” or “You’re not fat, you workout,” need to be struck from your vocabulary. Suggesting that looking fat is a bad thing is also insulting.

8. Thinking of Women as Baby-Making Machines

One of my readers mentioned that her gynecologist called her “good breeding stock.” Also awful: “baby making hips.” Worst of all is when people ask fat people when they are due. As has famously been said, unless you can see the baby crowning, do not assume that someone is pregnant.

9. Sticking Your Nose in Other People’s Exercise Routines

A subtle form of body shaming occurs when people make assumptions or suggestions about someone’s exercise habits based on their size. Don’t ask a fat person, “Have you tried walking?” Don’t tell a thin person, “You must spend all day in the gym.” I have had people at the gym congratulate me for starting a workout program when, in fact, I started working out at age 12 and never stopped. I had a thin friend who started a weight-lifting program and someone said to her, “Be careful, you don’t want to bulk up.” How about not completely over-stepping your boundaries and being rude and inappropriate?

10. Playing Dietitian

If you have no idea how much a person eats or exercises, you shouldn’t tell her to eat less and move more or suggest she put more meat on her bones. (Even if you do know what she eats, don’t do it). How do you know she’s looking for nutritional advice from you or the newest weight-loss tip you saw on Dr. Oz?

Written by:Ragen Chastain

drunktrophywife: If you don’t think I’m cute that’s your problem not mine

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:03:10 -0500

drunktrophywife:

If you don’t think I’m cute that’s your problem not mine

malkatz: i hate when people vilify psychiatric pills as ‘mind-altering drugs’ like yes that’s...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:39:44 -0500

malkatz:

i hate when people vilify psychiatric pills as ‘mind-altering drugs’

like

yes

that’s exactly what they are

they are for mental illness

mental

if i had a kidney-related illness, i would hope to have kidney-altering drugs on the market

"I want to stress this again: In many, many parts of the country right now, if you want to go to see..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:57:45 -0500

“

I want to stress this again: In many, many parts of the country right now, if you want to go to see a movie in the theater and see a current movie about a woman — any story about any woman that isn’t a documentary or a cartoon — you can’t. You cannot. There are not any. You cannot take yourself to one, take your friend to one, take your daughter to one.

There are not any.

By far your best shot, numbers-wise, at finding one that’s at least even-handedly featuring a man and a woman is Before Midnight (on 891 screens) so I hope you like it. Because it’s pretty much that or a solid, impenetrable wall of movies about dudes.

Dudes in capes, dudes in cars, dudes in space, dudes drinking, dudes smoking, dudes doing magic tricks, dudes being funny, dudes being dramatic, dudes flying through the air, dudes blowing up, dudes getting killed, dudes saving and kissing women and children, and dudes glowering at each other.

Somebody asked me this morning what “the women” are going to do about this. I don’t know. I honestly am at the point where I have no idea what to do about it. Stop going to the movies? Boycott everything?

They put up Bridesmaids, we went. They put up Pitch Perfect, we went. They put up The Devil Wears Prada, which was in two-thousand-meryl-streeping-oh-six, and we went (and by “we,” I do not just mean women; I mean we, the humans), and all of it has led right here, right to this place. Right to the land of zippedy-doo-dah. You can apparently make an endless collection of high-priced action flops and everybody says “win some, lose some” and nobody decides that They Are Poison, but it feels like every “surprise success” about women is an anomaly and every failure is an abject lesson about how we really ought to just leave it all to The Rock.

”

- At The Movies, The Women Are Gone : Monkey See : NPR

The whole article is fantastic, as is pretty much everything Linda Holmes writes.

(via kdhart)

"If sexism is a gun, men hold it. And sometimes it recoils and hits them and that HURTS…but not as..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:47:39 -0500

“If sexism is a gun, men hold it. And sometimes it recoils and hits them and that HURTS…but not as much as getting hit with the bullet.”

- Laura, my perfect goddess friend (via eyesslightlyopened)

Photo

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:53:40 -0500

I love everything about your blog

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:27:26 -0500

I can tell by the notes! Haha thank you, that’s so lovely!

All of my messages are finally answered!

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 21:58:00 -0500

And I just want to say one little thing to all of my lovely new fitblr followers:

This fitness community has been very supportive of me, a formerly fat person, trying to become thin. That is awesome because that’s what I wanted for MY body, and I deserve support for whatever I want to do with MY OWN body, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Sharing my journey has helped me to heal and helped me to see myself in a different, more positive light. HOWEVER, if your body positivity does not include fat bodies, in every way, shape, and form, then fuck off. Fat people do not owe it to the world to lose weight, fat people working out are not doing it to “inspire” you-especially not through candid pictures of them at the gym, and every person is worthy of respect, even if their choices don’t align with your opinion of what they should be doing with their body. The health of someone else is only your concern if THEY decide it is. So if you have any desire to concern-troll fat folks, or if you just can’t stand to see someone who weighs 300 pounds enjoying their delicious food without obsessing about calories, then this is certainly not a space for you. Go away, you’re not welcome here.

Everyone else: Welcome, I like you! And you should ask me things and/or say hi in my inbox :)

I'm still working through all the messages in my inbox...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:34:15 -0500

Hi new followers! I’m still a little in shock that I gained 100 new followers in like a day…and that a picture of my progress has over 900 notes…but just to be clear, I’m really not a “fitblr” or a weight loss blog. It is something that I spend my time on irl, and it is occasionally mentioned on here, but it’s not exactly the theme around here.

I’m working on answering all of the messages, but I’m answering them privately so if you sent something anon…sorry, it probably won’t get answered. I certainly don’t mind questions though, so keep sending, just please attach your name with it.

Thank you for all of the support! There hasn’t been a single mean comment about my body posted on those pictures of me and I think that’s pretty incredible. Ya’ll are all amazing & so nice & I just want to kiss all of you on the forehead.

"People don’t wanna be compared to the teenage girl; the teenage girl is hated, teenage girls hate..."

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:08:27 -0500

“People don’t wanna be compared to the teenage girl; the teenage girl is hated, teenage girls hate themselves. If you listen to a certain kind of music, or if you express your emotions in a certain kind of way, if you self harm, you write diaries, all those kind of activities are sort of laughed at and ridiculed because they’re associated with being a teenage girl. Even just things like being cripplingly self conscious or overly concerned with our appearance, that’s considered like a teenage girl thing and therefore its ridiculous, it’s stupid, it’s not relevant or legitimate, and you know, what we needed at that age was legitimisation and respect and support but all we got was dismissal and “oh you’re such a teenage girl.””

- Feminism, Education, and the plight of the teenage girl (via grrrlfever)

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Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:29:40 -0500

"You were bullied, and you turned out fine. That’s great for you. But your experience is not..."

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:38:08 -0500

“You were bullied, and you turned out fine. That’s great for you. But your experience is not automatically everyone else’s experience, and people get to set limits for themselves. One of those limits can be not tolerating negative commentary on your body. Just because we might be able to tolerate and take the abuse, does not mean we should. Most people would rather not, actually. We didn’t all become ‘so sensitive’; we all realized that it is not actually okay for other people to treat us like crap for the way we look without knowing anything else about us. That is not sensitivity, that is standing up for ourselves.”

- Commenter Danielle at fatnutritionist (via gambitia)

200to130before2014: gina145: I do ;) I do the same with my...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:45:36 -0500

200to130before2014:

gina145:

I do ;)

I do the same with my boobs… But shh.

beforeandafterfatlosspics: sillysocialisthippie In January of...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:05:26 -0500

beforeandafterfatlosspics: sillysocialisthippie In January of this year, I decided I was sick of not liking what I saw in the mirror. It’s been a tough journey, but eating healthy and exercising has worked great for me. I didn’t take any pictures when I first started my lifestyle change because I was so uncomfortable, so this “before” picture is about 10 pounds down already, at 185.8. These pictures show a 48 pound difference, but I’ve lost a total of 57.2 pounds in just under 5 months. I’m almost there! SW: 195, January 15 CW: 137.8, June 11 GW: 120 pounds Height: 5’5”

sweetyunicorn: ~ pink ~ pastel ~ fashion ~ kawaii ~

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 19:40:23 -0500

sweetyunicorn:

~ pink ~ pastel ~ fashion ~ kawaii ~

annehathawillannehathaway: yaoipeen: imagine if you got paid to masturbate

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 19:39:52 -0500

annehathawillannehathaway:

yaoipeen:

imagine if you got paid to masturbate

I’m in my workout clothes and I have two hours before I need to pick up my kiddo from school....

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:05:36 -0500

I’m in my workout clothes and I have two hours before I need to pick up my kiddo from school. I seriously need to get off my ass and do this, but I’m feeling soooo lazy.

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Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:24:50 -0500

Photo

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:19:19 -0500