Oh hey..hi there.

So darling regulars and HELLO and welcome brand new homies.

My regular homies y'all know I was talking about a huge thing that my dear Marianne helped set up?

IT HAPPENED!

Thus my welcome of the new homies.

Through Marianne I was hooked up to do my first fat related media thing and I got interviewed at The Root. Seriously don't read the comments. I've been warned. Now you have too.

Now I turn to you visitors from The Root.

I am technically on a vacation right now but I'm taking some time to welcome you.

Welcome to my litterbox. If you want to talk about fat please understand that if you are rude or disrespectful I will not tolerate that. If you have questions about FA or the stuff I talked about in the interview COME ON DOWN.

No seriously. If you want to remain anonymous that's cool. If you are uncomfortable leaving a comment email me here: shannon -at- shannon-writes.net, you can (AHA I fixed my form) come right here and ask me stuff totally anonymous if you want it to be. If you ask me really nicely I might answer you privately although, I warn you I am the worst correspondent in the world.

You can ask me about fatness, gothness, fashion, queerness, all kinds of stuff. Give it a shot I'm pretty nice for one of those awful fat people.

In the meantime I really encourage you to browse my archives. I talk a lot about health beyond the scope of the interview.

If you want to know a little more about me read some of my most recent posts.

Here's the thing.

I'm not really a hard science/statistics type of blogger.

I am not good at that.

What I am good at is bringing these things to an intersectional personal place. I am good at helping myself and my homies and haters to see through a lot of the bullshit we see on a daily basis.

I'm also pretty silly sometimes.

I do honestly hope some of you visiting will come back. Fat politics are not just for fat people my friends. My flavor of Fat Acceptance is not just for my fat ass but it's for your not fat ass.

It boils down to the following though. Here is the quick and dirty.

1. Fat Acceptance and body politics are not about who you think is sexy. No one except the people you are trying to get naked with cares.
2. FA (I'll just use that from now on) is not about "making excuses", "spinning" or otherwise changing the actual facts about fatness.
3. FA is about the importance of fat people and to a greater extent ALL people deserve to be treated with basic human dignity.
4. FA is about being people who are fat and not walking buckets of fat disease and being treated as actual human beings.
5. FA is about learning to undo the decades of self hatred drilled into the Fat Us and the Not Fat us.
6. FA is about bodily autonomy.
7. FA is about learning to love ourselves enough to maybe want to take better care of our bodies or at least not abuse them with crash diets, eating disorders and self loathing.
8. FA is about learning and by extension teaching each other and ourselves that no, fat  is not an indicator of anything except the fact that one is fat.

What I'm saying here folks is that FA is probably not what you think it is or want to believe it is.

I'm saying that it's not unreasonable, or a disservice to the community for me to stand up and say yes I am a fat person. Don't abuse me.

It really is that simple. 

Don't. Abuse. Me.

That is directed at the doctors who refuse because of personal bias or wholesale belief in the Obesity Crisis to give us adequate or even basic health care INCLUDING preventative care which in the long term would make us Healthier.

That is directed at the people who threaten us with death, rape and maiming simply because we exist. Yes, I am absolutely speaking from personal experience there.

That is directed at the people who believe that they are better people simply because they are not fat.

That is directed at the diet industry that sells us pills that could cause heart attack, kidney failure or explosive greasy diarrhea. 

That is directed at the people who bully us into secluding ourselves, suicides, risky surgeries and self loathing that takes years to unlearn and for some of us we never unlearn it.

That is directed to the well meaning advice givers who want to police what we eat and what we wear.

Are these things really so hard to do? Is it really so radical (yes I'm being facetious I KNOW it is absolutely radical) to say no I don't want to do that?

And before anyone starts talking at me about what I may or may not have said, please go back. Read again. 

Also ask yourself a good question.

What is health?

Is it only looking healthy as in being thin?

Is it being able to run a marathon?

Is it being attractive to you personally?

Is your vision of health so narrow that it excludes the many intersecting parts of health? Culture, poverty, access to quality medical care at any point? Access to medication? Safe places for a woman or anyone who presents as female or vulnerable to go for a walk outside?

Is your vision of health one that says do not be fat at all costs including maybe your quality of life? Kidneys? 

Does your vision of health not include empathy or even an ability to look beyond your sexual attraction preferences and see other people as whole human beings not just a picture you say on the news that upset you?

This is where I'm inviting you into the life and thoughts of your resident fat homie.

Let's talk. I am deeply invested in you my homies. I care about your whole selves not just your butts, even though some of you...well I've seen your butts and oh yeah.

So my homies, new homies and haters.

What's good?

Did any of my homies do some homework?

Did you have to get rough with yourself this week?

Did you do something nice for yourself?

Tell me all about it.

Regular posting will resume on Monday I promise.

I love you intertubes.

Homo Out.

Oh hey..hi there.

How get through.

One of you intrepid readers (I am not quoting because they want to remain Anonymous) did your homework from this entry and now you need to know how I get through those Bad Times.

Sometimes people get the impression that my Self Love is bulletproof and always awesome. It's not.

There are days my homies, there have been entire years where there is nothing in the world I've loathed more than everything about myself.

For me these things usually manifest in me nitpicking myself. Hair isn't right, skin is fucked, teeth are fucked, everything about me is stupid and I hate it.

It happens. Sometimes a lot.

When I feel like I need to stop the spiral and work on it here's what I do.

I self care like a mother fucker.

I self care hard.

If I am feeling fucked up I tend to spin out. One little bad thing can quickly become ALL the bad things.

What I've learned is that I need to focus. I need to slow down and sometimes even just stop.

I groom my eyebrows, I give myself a facial, I cut my toe nails, I put on a face full of crazy Drag Queen Level make up.

I do that because in the long term those things are good for me. In the short term, they make me focus. I can't be pissed off and ranting about all the awful things about me while I am cutting my toenails I will hurt myself and I hate that.

Sometimes what I'm doing is putting a bandaid on something because I don't always have the time to be crazy or upset or depressed.

Those moments are what I talk about needing that punk rock ass kicking type love.

These are the moments when I need to say I do not give a fuck.

I often need my self love to be a big fucking stick with which I beat the proverbial shit out of everything because I have shit to do.

If I need to paint my face, put on a ridiculous or inappropriate outfit and stomp out of the house full of rage I do it because I know that for me that works.

Sometimes in order to love myself I have to look at the whole rest of the world and say No Fuck You.

I am an angry person. I am sometimes an aggressive person. Sometimes in order for me to survive myself I need to channel and funnel that.

Sometimes I have to just go to that Bad Crazy Love Place and put those pants on and walk around in them because I want to make it.

So there it is y'all. The secret to my survival and ability to keep moving.

It all boils down to me not giving a fuck.

The only fucks I have to give ever are to myself.

The only person I ever have to always make up with is me.

The only love that is real serious grounding life saving love is the kind I can give to myself.

Because I have learned how to love myself, as in my own special flavor of self love, I have learned to love other people.

I believe that it's been so important for me to define these things for myself because in America I have always known that I am not and cannot be the girl those things are written for.

What I mean by that is that I don't have money. I am not a White Lady. In terms of Western Beauty and goodness I am not in the picture.

And that realization all those years ago as much as it hurt saved my life because I understood that the only person who could make those feelings of self love and blossoming and becoming happen was me.

You see what I did there?

This is one of those tender intersectional places. This is the sort of thing that is hard to talk about because well, it really fucking blows.

However, it's so important because so many of us are just not the Saveable White Lady who is the archetype of the woman who is cared for and nurtured in our society.

Now your homework my homies.

I want you to think about this stuff and sit with it.

I want you to tell yourself that you too, yes you are this important. That you can define your own means of Loving Yourself even when Yourself is being kinda jerky.

I love you my homies.

I am off to feed myself like a growed up.

Homo Out.

How get through.

Body Love..as I see it.

There is a lot of talk around the internets of the concepts and problems of the whole Love Your Body thing.

My view isn't really one I see a lot so here we go.

First thing is conceptually the Love Your Body Campaigns tend to be a little vague to me.

Here's the thing. When we love something, not our bodies for the moment but say you love another person.

Do we only love that person if they are perfect or always doing what we want?

No.

Love as a thing as a changing breathing difficult thing is never perfect and smooth and wonderful. Not our relationships with our friends, not with our families, not with anything or anyone not ever.

What I don't understand is how so many people conflate this perfect love scenario when we talk about our bodies. Or that to love this thing, our bodies means that we won't ever have an issue with them.

I think that's fairly absurd and potentially a knee jerk DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO type reaction rather than a thoughtful one.

Now before anyone gets butthurt take a second to think about it.

I see it time and time again and I think that's a bit of a short sighted problem with the idea of Loving Your Body.

With my view of imperfect regular love in the context of loving our bodies it seems to me that a lot of these campaigns are not inclusive and deeply deeply rooted in the opposite of self love.

Much of the time we are presented with the supposedly wonderful idea to Love Ourselves but,  the examples put forth are the air brushed perfected images that uphold the Western Beauty Ideal. This Perfect Love Version of self love and acceptance is deeply hugely problematic because it's presented as a thing only attainable by the White (or White enough looking) able bodied few.

So yes, in that context it's flawed and often ugly.

This is also the view that tells us if we "Love" ourselves enough we will "Love" ourselves into dieting and thinness etc. Also gross and problematic.

Now in my view of a um, let's call it Realistic Love of Our Bodies this doesn't happen.

In my view of encouraging yes everyone to Love Their Bodies I'm not talking about only loving your body when it looks good and functions at an optimal level.

I am for Loving your body enough to understand that sometimes it's going to fail. Sometimes your body is going to be fucked.

Just like in any relationship, you're going to fight. Sometimes it's going to be ugly and really fucking hard. Sometimes, loving your body means accepting that no, you won't walk normally or that no, you won't be thinner or no, your skin won't ever be perfect.

Don't all of us at some point in our lives and loves, don't we need to hang on through the bullshit?

Maybe I'm totally off here but real love, honest love to me means that it's not always sunshine and being able to run marathons.

In my view the most Radical Self Love and Loving Your Body means that well, some days you have to look at yourself and understand that regardless of how mad at your body you are for whatever reason, you are not getting a new one.

Let's sit with that for a second.

No matter what issues you may have, illness, appearance whatever it is. This is the only one you get.

Now when I say love your body, understand that yes it may be flawed I'm not only talking about superficial flaws. I'm also talking about those of us who have various types and degrees of dysphoria. I'm talking about those of us who need to change or alter our genders in body, presentation and how we live.

Yes. You too can love your body. I feel like the key here is to accept and acknowledge that no matter how wrong your body is, it is still your body. In order to get to that place where you feel like your outsides can match your insides or how you were born or how you want the world to see you, you have to keep that body going long enough to get there.

I'm also talking to those of us who have eating disorders, who have the type of dysphoria where we can't see ourselves in mirrors. I'm talking to those of us who may have just found out that they might lose a body part, who are just finding out about an illness that could impact mobility and everything.

Here's the thing.

My Self Love is not fluffy and pretty and full of flowers and candy.

It's ugly. It's a fight. Sometimes I'm fighting the outside influences and sometimes the shit in my own head. It's hard. Some days it's the hardest thing in the world. Sometimes it's dysfunctional and if it was a domestic situation someone would go to jail.

When I tell you to love yourself I'm not telling you to skip through the pumpkin patch I'm saying fight for yourself because you deserve it.

I'm saying that it's okay to have bad days. To have days when you'd rather punch yourself in the mouth than love anything about yourself. It's okay for it to be Tough Love.

It's okay to love yourself when you're not perfect and the love isn't perfect because nothing is ever perfect.

It's okay to look at someone else and say, I kind of hate myself today. It's human to have those moments.

The important thing is that you make it through them. Make it through so you can get to that place that feels right. If that means you make it by faking it for a while that's fine. If you have to say I am going to make it so I can be the Boy/boi/grrl/girl/woman/boygirl/Queen/whatever I dream of being that is okay too.

It's okay not to worship or love your body all the time. It's okay to feel wobbly about loving anything including yourself sometimes.

It's okay.

All these things said, I say Love yourself.

Love yourself in whatever way you can because only you can decide what kind of love it needs to be. Maybe for right now it's an uneasy love. Maybe it's a love born out of realizing you survived a lot of bullshit. Maybe it's a love that looks forward to becoming or growing into who you want to show the world. Maybe it's a love that rides uneasily on your skin. Maybe it's a love that is huge and bright and sunny. Maybe it's a love that you're hanging on to with a fierce outfit and some outlandish lipstick.

My personal Love Myself is gangster. It's punk Rock. Sometimes it means I look at myself and say fuck you get it done. Sometimes it means that I have to have days when I hate everything and keep stepping because it is imperative to me that I make it through the bullshit.

My Self Love is rough. It's mean sometimes and it's how I need it to be.

What's yours?

Are you hanging in there?

Here's your homework. I want you my homies to look at yourself and say (bonus points for outloud) "Okay self, you are really fucked up right now because of (insert thing here) we're going to keep going. Fuck it."

Then report back. If you can't say that and mean it, think about it and report back.

So I love you my homies and haters. I love how fucked up you are, how your bodies may not be doing what you need or want them to do, I love you when you're depressed, I love you when you're happy.

I love you.

And your butts too.

Homo Out.

Body Love..as I see it.