What Was Your Stepping Stone?
I really enjoyed re-reading Kate’s recounting of the key events in her journey toward fat positivity. Here’s my favorite one:
11. (2007) Vowing to myself that I will only buy clothes that look fabulous on me, and if something doesn’t look fabulous, I will blame the item of clothing instead of my body. This completely transformed my last shopping experience. I tried on about 20 tops, only 3 of which looked good, with no drama whatsoever. It doesn’t look good on? NEXT. [Note: I imagine this being said in the voice of Anthony from Sex and the City. "Hates it! Move on." --mo pie] It was that freakin’ simple. And then I bought those three tops without beating myself up for paying full price–instead of compromising on adequate but non-fabulous sale clothes, my usual m.o.–because I know I’ll feel good every time I wear them, and that’s absolutely worth paying a premium for, when I can afford it. Best shopping day ever, entirely based on that one decision: if it doesn’t fit, I will not fucking blame myself, and I will not fucking buy it.
One of my key moments was one I’ve written about before, both when it happened and when I we talked about fear and fat, when I let a date drive me around on the back of his Vespa.
I always thought I was too fat for certain things, such as horseback riding, sitting on the back of a motorcycle, or anything requiring me to wear a wetsuit. But I must have gotten over that, at least to some extent, because I spent last night riding up and down the hills of San Francisco on the back of a Vespa.
In hindsight, that was a rickety machine, and the guy was kind of wild in a heavily tattooed bartender kind of way, and maybe he was drunk, and I’m glad I didn’t die. But I remember that ride vividly. I remember going through the Broadway tunnel and feeling terrified and exhilarated and alive and not too fat for that, not too fat for anything. So that was an important stepping stone on my “journey,” I guess. What about you? Did you ever have something happen that made you think about yourself in a new and better way?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Fashion, Fat Positive, Meta, Question
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I hate to go the “adult” route right off but a fair amount of my time is spent talking about sex with girlfriends, boyfriends, family and co workers. I’m the “not embarassed by anything” friend.
I think for me it was when a past lover told me about a year ago how he had been ‘thinking about that p*ssy’ since he’d ‘had it’. Although this was a totally crude way to say it and not romantic at all, he followed that by going off on how he couldn’t wait to do it again and thinks making love to me all the time. I dont know that I want to sleep with him again (I definitely don’t want to date him and I’m at a point where i want sex with love) but it sure made me feel ridiculously sexy. And I realized that I was fucking hot to him and it had nothing to do with what size I wasn’t or was. He enjoyed sex with me because I enjoyed it. I realized I must be at least a little over my fat fear because I let myself go…..and come turns out:)
I’m in a musical right now, rehearsing once a week and learning the numbers that I have to dance and sing to. I am feeling really good about myself these days, because dancing and singing at the same time is really hard, but I’m doing it! I’m keeping up with everyone else! Awesome.
My biggest stepping stones involved realizing the physical abilities and capabilities of my body. When I was a kid I had those parents that signed me up for every activity imaginable, including soccer, which I absolutely hated at the time – I was too fat to be seen running around on the field, and wasn’t as fast as the other kids. It was always embarrassing to me, and I’d hold back, not wanting to be seen as trying too hard, because eek…just too embarrassing.
Anyway, in college I made friends with a bunch of fellow bio majors and we started a biology club (geeky, eh?) which was basically an excuse to go hiking and botanizing on the weekends and take road trips. I went on my first-ever backpacking trip with them, and that was an absolutely liberating experience. I could carry everything that I needed for several days – food, shelter, clothing – on my back! I could hike 15 miles in one day! Uphill! And I could keep up with my skinny friends!!! It was so empowering to me – to be independent and self-sufficient, as both a woman and, more specifically, as a fat woman.
Similarly, after graduating, I joined the AmeriCorps, working on environmental projects involving lots of outdoor physical labor – trail-building, wetland restoration, etc. Putting in long physical days, seeing what my body was capable of, testing myself against both the work and my skinnier male and female teammembers, and realizing the power I had in my body was amazing!
Weight lifting! I’m not a muscle type, but a few years ago I did learn to do this pyramid-style free weight routine and it made me feel fabulous! I really got used to thinking (during the actual workout) about the power that nature has built into my body, and forgot about who might see me doing it. Very rewarding!
Seeing my first fashion magazine in junior high was my major stepping stone. I looked, saw what the standard of beauty was, and decided not to focus on my weight or try to change into that ideal because it clearly wasn’t going to happen. The standard did not apply to me, and I was free from it.
Reading Jane Eyre helped too, because it was a love story involving Unbeautiful People. It taught me that a person can be somewhere in between ugly and beautiful (“plain”). It taught me that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that intelligence and creativity are as good as looks and more reliable over time.
Starting in seventh grade I had a five year unrequited crush on my arch enemy’s best friend who frequently saved me from the brunt of Evil Scott Odren’s cruelty. I couldn’t help loving him, and when he didn’t love me back I was able not to blame myself. It was unfortunate, but I never once thought it was due to my weight.
A (fat, male) relative took up wrestling.
Up to that point, both he and I were always criticized by other Well Meaning Relatives about our weight. Suddenly, his weight was not a disadvantage but an advantage. Lo and behold, you could be a fat athlete. Lo and behold, other people paid attention to accomplishment rather than appearances.
It helped me ignore the criticisms that came my way with even more determination than I had before, because, obviously, the criticizers had no clue what they were talking about. It took a few more years until I got myself to a gym and started lifting for the pleasure of lifting, but that’s when it began.
I’ve had various stepping stones over the past few months, but one of the big ones was at the beginning of this year. I did a “retreat” with a lot of coworkers at the boundary waters (border of MN/Canada) and we did a whole group sauna-and-polarbear jump. I’m normally very terrified to appear in my swimsuit in front of other people, but I didn’t want to miss out on either sauna or jump. Naturally, none of my coworkers died of seeing me in my swimsuit, and I had a blast.
With that, I started wearing it more often — swimming at the Y, where I encounter many people, some smaller than me, some larger than me, comfortable in their own bodies doing things like swimming and running and lifting weights, too busy taking care of themselves to stare and judge me. Once I remove the imagined stares and glares, I can more easily ignore assholes who would stare and glare at me.
Lol. I supposed that sending you my email was the stepping stone. Having so many wonderful responses and great advice really made me rethink things. (Oh and I do read that post over and it makes me smiles every day :) )
I think it was when I started a new job about 12 years ago, and began to work with people who appreciated me for my mind and my abilities, rather than simply judging me on sight. Up to that point, I’d been working with some folks that had not really developed past the high school mindset, and could be cruel and small. When thrust into a multicultural environment where appearance, accents, etc. meant little, and intelligence, originality of thought, and wit was prized, I had a real feeling of homecoming. I started to realize that there was a place in the world for me and that size was not the only thing that mattered.
When I was 19, I survived a roll-out car accident in which I was thrown half way out of the car and crushed under the chassis. I was walking again two weeks later – after dislocating a hip and breaking my pelvis in three places. I weighed around 190 at the time. After that, I decided that my body wasn’t “bad” or “unhealthy.” It was actually very healthy and tough, and I wasn’t going to start a life-long war with it over the size it wanted to be.
It feels strange and wrong to be writing this, but my turning point came when I decided to kick a poisonous friend out of my life. This girl was not bad about the size thing, but she wanted me dependent on her for love and approval. She had me believing that a good portion of our friends did not approve of some of my actions. It got me thinking that if I respect myself and want other people to respect me then I have to get rid of this friend. Of course, this means that I have to respect myself and treat myself the way I treat others, which has been harder than one might think. It also lead me to the FA/SA movement and the movement lead to me making a big stink about the conditions in the dorms, with my family’s support.
Oh, Anon. 14-yo, how I have such high hopes for you!
This may seem completely silly but my moment was when the bassist in the band that I absolutely love eyeballed me at the concert and continued to do so over the course of the evening. It was the moment I realized that my body wasn’t a source of pain, it was a source of joy, pleasure and beauty. His “admiration” caused me to appreciate my body. Like I said, silly.
Hahahahaha…I never blamed my body for clothes looking bad on me…I blame the *expletive deleted* designers that thing 1) all fat women have the same build or 2) to design for fat women you had to just take something for a thin woman and make it bigger….assholes.
My real breakthrough came just after I turned 35. I found a doctor who actually believed that I wasn’t fat because I overate. He understood the metabolic issues I had and worked with me to treat them and to be as healthy as I could be. That was a huge breakthrough for me. For once I didn’t feel guilty every time I looked in the mirror. It was so empowering. I told him the last time I saw him that he had changed my life.
I wrote a poem not long after that called, “What’s the Matter Fella, Don’t You Like Fat Chicks”. I’ve since lost it in a hard drive crash or I’d share it with you. It expressed exactly how I felt when i saw some guy looking at me with the look of, “I can’t believe she’s wearing that as fat as she is.”
To tell you the truth, I was born fat positive. I remember always liking my body, and refusing to diet as a matter of pride. No one was jumping thru hoops to gain my approval, why should I to gain theirs? I felt this way at a very young age. I also remember my grandmother’s friend talking about a woman who needed to lose weight. I immediately hated the friend. I think my last incarnation must have been in a very fat positive place. I briefly gave in to the diet brain wash as a teen in So Ca, but came out of it as soon as I started to study sociology in college. What really clinched it beyond any doubt though was a most bizarre experience I had before I left Cali. We sociologists have a concept called master status. It is something that eclipses everything about you. In Cali, weight is a master status. One could stand up to Satan himself and refuse to get sucked up in his vortex of confusion, and they would still only care how big your hips are. But before I left, I avoided a trap many other people fell into. It was so big, and so odd that the world was forced to look at look at me differently; it trumphed even weight (for about 5 minutes)! Of course, I’ll be dead before the whole thing comes out. But I know that fat acceptance was the best training I could ever have in being true to myself and refusing to go along with the crowd.
mo? youre amazing.
-When I was a high school senior and the junior class nominated me for prom court. Looking back, it’s rather silly, but for a 17 year-old fat chick, it’s quite an achievement!
-When I was in college, a good-looking young man approached me for a conversation, and didn’t care that I was fat.
-When I got back home after a walk and looked at the clock on the wall, it was an hour later. And people say fatties can’t exercise.
-And just last Saturday, I was in the Lane Bryant dressing room and realized my big fat ass looked pretty damn good in those Right Fit jeans.
Probably going to university, where I decided to join a women’s football (soccer) team. I would have been too embarrassed to do that at home, where I felt my reputation for being unathletic was entrenched.
I was never very good at football, but it was fun, and it allowed me to start seeing myself as sturdy and strong (I was a defender) rather than chubby and slow.
I found sports completely humiliating at school, but since then almost all my good feelings about my body have been prompted by teaching it new things to do. I am the same size as I was at school, but I’m a lot happier in my body. I needed to realise that you can have fun even if you’re going to be last!
It didn’t occur to me that this didn’t pingback. I answered it in-depth (and have gotten great comments).
Short version is: I was looking at some photos of myself as a toddler & realized that even when I was tiny, I was a big gal. Since I’m adopted, I didn’t have a mother to look at with a body type like the one I had (and she told me to “stop gaining weight” at age 12 when I was 118 lbs). So it was through looking at myself that I realized, “Maybe I should be who I’m supposed to be, learn to be happy with that and move up from there.” And it worked. [And when I found my birthmother, it turns out she's a happy, healthy size 18 as well :)]