I'm taking part in a series of telesummits called Body Love Revolutionaries, about fat culture and community, organised by Golda Poretsky, which runs more or less weekly from 31 January to 28 February 2012.
On 23 February I'm going to be talking about fat and queer and, more than likely, femme with gorgeous gussies Bevin Branlandingham and Jessica Jarchow. We'll be online at 7pm GMT (use a Time Zone Converter to find out what that means for you).
What's a telesummit? I've never participated in one before but I think it's like a conference phone call where anybody can ring in but where there are invited guests who will say their piece and who will be available for questions and discussion. This particular series of telesummits is accessible via Skype, and possibly other free internet telephony applications, which means that people participating internationally and long-distance needn't rack-up huge phone bills. The downside for people outside North America, where the telesummits are being organised, is that the time difference can be quite brutal. Recordings of the telesummits will be available free for 24 hours after they take place, as long as you register, and then for a fee on a sliding scale.
Register for access details at http://www.bodyloverevolution.com
Here's the schedule for the rest of the telesummits, with a whole mess of links. All of the times are in Eastern Standard Time, use the Time Zone Converter link above for local times.
Tuesday 31 January, 8pm EST
Activism
Peggy Howell, Amanda Levitt and Marilyn Wann.
Thursday 2 February, 7pm EST
Health
Linda Bacon and Ragen Chastain.
Tuesday 7 February, 8pm EST
Fatshion
Marie Denee, Rachel Kacenjar and Yuliya Raquel.
Thursday 9 February, 8pm EST
Sex
Hanne Blank and Virgie Tovar.
Thursday 16 February, 8pm EST
Blogging
Marianne Kirby, Margitte Leah Kristjansson, and Brian Stuart.
Tuesday 21 February, 8pm EST
Fitness
Jeanette DePatie and Anna Guest-Jelley.
Thursday 23 February, 3pm EST
Fatness/Queerness
Bevin Branlandingham, Jessica Jarchow and me.
Tuesday 28 February, 8pm EST
Politics/History
Paul Campos and Amy Erdman Farrell.
You can add yourself to the Facebook Event and tell all your friends, and Tweet about it with the hashtag #blrev if you're so inclined. Golda's got it all covered.
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Talking about fat and sexual harassment
Twice in the past few weeks I've been grabbed in the street by strangers. The first stranger grabbed my arm and whispered "Ohh, big girl" at me as though he was sharing a sexy secret. The second, last night crept up behind me and as he walked past brushed his dick against my hand, grabbed my waist and said "Hello gorgeous" quietly in my ear and walked away. Apart from these incidents it's been a while since I've noticed anyone harassing me when I'm out and about, I felt that I could walk down the street like anyone else.
In both cases I pulled myself away and told the strangers to fuck off. Nobody is allowed to touch me without my consent, it's a relief that I know this deeply. But I've also found myself following a disturbing line of thought: how have I attracted this attention? Is it my clothes? Something about how I walk? Why is it happening now? What have I done? It's depressing how easily I fall into the belief that I must be responsible for someone's unwanted intrusion.
I am a catch. There are good reasons why someone's head might turn to look at me. This knowledge has been hard fought for over decades, and continues to be a battleground of sorts, and maybe always will be. I am also an ordinary-looking dyke in my mid-40s. Neither my beauty nor my everydayness makes me safe. I find it grotesque when men grab me in the street when I am going about my business and not hooking them for attention, there's a disturbing mismatch between how I am and how they misread me. It feels as though they have picked me out and are trying to put me in my place by forcing me to see myself on their ugly terms. It reminds me of the ways in which my sexuality was treated as a joke in the past because I am fat and, although this is different, I find it humiliating. A fat dyke being sexually harassed, it almost feels like a joke in itself, who would anyone bother with me? How can it even be real? I must be secretly flattered and titilated that men still want me, that anyone is remotely interested.
Other people have written about the visibility and invisibility of fat people in public spaces, and it's no secret that street harassment is a daily reality. I think an understanding that harassment can be sexual tends to be missing. There are things to be said about the sexual harassment of fat people and, in my case and others, the interplay of gender, homophobia, racism, ableism and other types of oppressive behaviour on that harassment.
I would like more fat people to break the silence around this stuff, if they feel able to, and for people to develop stronger ways of addressing it. Whilst they don't ruin my day, these brief impositions upon me nevertheless raise many difficult feelings about fat, sexuality, being out on the streets, and claiming my space in the world.
In both cases I pulled myself away and told the strangers to fuck off. Nobody is allowed to touch me without my consent, it's a relief that I know this deeply. But I've also found myself following a disturbing line of thought: how have I attracted this attention? Is it my clothes? Something about how I walk? Why is it happening now? What have I done? It's depressing how easily I fall into the belief that I must be responsible for someone's unwanted intrusion.
I am a catch. There are good reasons why someone's head might turn to look at me. This knowledge has been hard fought for over decades, and continues to be a battleground of sorts, and maybe always will be. I am also an ordinary-looking dyke in my mid-40s. Neither my beauty nor my everydayness makes me safe. I find it grotesque when men grab me in the street when I am going about my business and not hooking them for attention, there's a disturbing mismatch between how I am and how they misread me. It feels as though they have picked me out and are trying to put me in my place by forcing me to see myself on their ugly terms. It reminds me of the ways in which my sexuality was treated as a joke in the past because I am fat and, although this is different, I find it humiliating. A fat dyke being sexually harassed, it almost feels like a joke in itself, who would anyone bother with me? How can it even be real? I must be secretly flattered and titilated that men still want me, that anyone is remotely interested.
Other people have written about the visibility and invisibility of fat people in public spaces, and it's no secret that street harassment is a daily reality. I think an understanding that harassment can be sexual tends to be missing. There are things to be said about the sexual harassment of fat people and, in my case and others, the interplay of gender, homophobia, racism, ableism and other types of oppressive behaviour on that harassment.
I would like more fat people to break the silence around this stuff, if they feel able to, and for people to develop stronger ways of addressing it. Whilst they don't ruin my day, these brief impositions upon me nevertheless raise many difficult feelings about fat, sexuality, being out on the streets, and claiming my space in the world.
Healthy Lives, Healthy People and the fat activism that really moves me
I'm slow to respond to the Department of Heath's latest report on obesity, Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A call to action on obesity in England. It's difficult to distinguish this report from any of the other obesity policy documents produced by the British government since it got caught in the grip of fat panic, since its prime objective continues to be the elimination of stupid, burdensome, poor fat people.
Newspaper reports have focussed on the report's pathetic proposal that people eat fewer calories, but what interests me more is how this work is to be funded. The ConDem government wants to spend as little as possible on obesity, which sounds good initially because it means that the tax I pay can go towards more pressing things, like rescuing banks and funding weapons and wars. If they had any sense they would ditch projects like Change4Life, the anti-obesity initiative that will not die, but they realise that the country needs scapegoats and it makes them look good if they can be seen to be doing something about The Problem of Us. What worries me about the resurrection of Change4Life is that placing it in corporate hands makes it much less accountable and instead of seeing less of this type of nonsense, its profitability will likely make it more ubiquitous. Curse them!
Obesity policy is not the thing that inspires me to do fat activism. I understand that engaging with it is important, it's the type of thing that makes some people come alive and motivates them to do extraordinary things (Lynn McAfee and Sondra Solovay are two fat activists whose work springs to mind) but I do it reluctantly, it is a chore.
Over the past couple of years, as I've been researching fat activism in more depth, I've become more able to articulate what it is in particular that does excite me. In general terms it's work that is anti-assimilationist, queer, experimental, creative, imaginative, 'irrational.' I live for fat activism that embraces risk, wildness, playfulness, prankishness, and which does not require people to be on their best behaviour, though egalitarian doing-no-harm ethics count. The fat activism that touches me is the work that emphasises hope, agency, sparkiness. Banner-waving, petition-signing, rational debate and collective action are valuable kinds of activism, but I also like things that push the limits of what activism can be.
Here's an example. I went to the fantastic Sex Worker Open University (SWOU) this week. This is a grassroots project by and for sex workers and allies that engages with the complexities of sex work and its many related issues. The SWOU offered workshops, presentations, discussions and hang-outs. On Saturday night the organisers produced an absolutely fantastic programme of films and performance. It's hard to put into words what made it so good, I'm still working it out but it had a lot to do with people presenting ideas and experiences that are generally unallowed or unvoiced; glimpses of people, their unashamed embodiment and sexuality; a lot of strength and defiance presented with amazing smartness and good humour, friendliness, warmth. Such a tonic. The night ended with a performance that involved a sequence of spectacular arse-shaking and lots of wobbling flesh. My eyes are still on stalks. The performer had such confidence and moves, the whole thing was beautiful, nuanced, intelligent and deeply bawdy. It made my heart pound, I couldn't believe what I was seeing, it was a one of those visual treats that makes you feel so glad to be alive. I went to bed thinking about bodies, flesh, pleasure, sexuality, freedom, abstractions that somehow fill me with hope, which is an important function of activism. I found out later that the performer had fat politics of her own, and it showed in what she did. When I think about the fat activism that moves me, this is along the lines of what I'm thinking about. Healthy Lives, Healthy People can suck it.
Newspaper reports have focussed on the report's pathetic proposal that people eat fewer calories, but what interests me more is how this work is to be funded. The ConDem government wants to spend as little as possible on obesity, which sounds good initially because it means that the tax I pay can go towards more pressing things, like rescuing banks and funding weapons and wars. If they had any sense they would ditch projects like Change4Life, the anti-obesity initiative that will not die, but they realise that the country needs scapegoats and it makes them look good if they can be seen to be doing something about The Problem of Us. What worries me about the resurrection of Change4Life is that placing it in corporate hands makes it much less accountable and instead of seeing less of this type of nonsense, its profitability will likely make it more ubiquitous. Curse them!
Obesity policy is not the thing that inspires me to do fat activism. I understand that engaging with it is important, it's the type of thing that makes some people come alive and motivates them to do extraordinary things (Lynn McAfee and Sondra Solovay are two fat activists whose work springs to mind) but I do it reluctantly, it is a chore.
Over the past couple of years, as I've been researching fat activism in more depth, I've become more able to articulate what it is in particular that does excite me. In general terms it's work that is anti-assimilationist, queer, experimental, creative, imaginative, 'irrational.' I live for fat activism that embraces risk, wildness, playfulness, prankishness, and which does not require people to be on their best behaviour, though egalitarian doing-no-harm ethics count. The fat activism that touches me is the work that emphasises hope, agency, sparkiness. Banner-waving, petition-signing, rational debate and collective action are valuable kinds of activism, but I also like things that push the limits of what activism can be.
Here's an example. I went to the fantastic Sex Worker Open University (SWOU) this week. This is a grassroots project by and for sex workers and allies that engages with the complexities of sex work and its many related issues. The SWOU offered workshops, presentations, discussions and hang-outs. On Saturday night the organisers produced an absolutely fantastic programme of films and performance. It's hard to put into words what made it so good, I'm still working it out but it had a lot to do with people presenting ideas and experiences that are generally unallowed or unvoiced; glimpses of people, their unashamed embodiment and sexuality; a lot of strength and defiance presented with amazing smartness and good humour, friendliness, warmth. Such a tonic. The night ended with a performance that involved a sequence of spectacular arse-shaking and lots of wobbling flesh. My eyes are still on stalks. The performer had such confidence and moves, the whole thing was beautiful, nuanced, intelligent and deeply bawdy. It made my heart pound, I couldn't believe what I was seeing, it was a one of those visual treats that makes you feel so glad to be alive. I went to bed thinking about bodies, flesh, pleasure, sexuality, freedom, abstractions that somehow fill me with hope, which is an important function of activism. I found out later that the performer had fat politics of her own, and it showed in what she did. When I think about the fat activism that moves me, this is along the lines of what I'm thinking about. Healthy Lives, Healthy People can suck it.
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