1/21/08

    Dearest Sexa,

    Before I say anything else, I want to tell you that you're one of my heroes.  "On Female Arrogance" basically changed my life.  I've spent a lot of time apologizing for either my looks or my intelligence, even though boys who are unabashedly smart and good-looking (obviously) make me weak at the knees.  No longer!  I'm a smart, sexy bitch, and people have had to deal with that since I read your essay.  More people probably gossip about me behind my back than before, but I'm also having really great sex with a really hot guy, so I'd say it's a net positive.

    I think you're a brilliant writer.  Part of that is just because your beliefs line up with mine pretty well for the most part, and you often express things in ways I hadn't thought of.  But part of it is because you've actually opened my eyes and changed my mind about a lot of things.  I delved into The 1585 real skeptically, because I don't like James Joyce very much, and my relationship with Camille Paglia is love-hate at best, and James and Camille are, like, two of your main bitches.  But you've sliced right through my skepticism and convinced me that BDSM and submission can totally be an expression of feminism.  And that bit in your latest essay about having sex because summer's ending and the world is beautiful?  That is so true, and I had never realized it.

    There's just this one thing that no amount of your staggering rhetorical prowess has been able to convince me of: that ugly fat girls are ruining everything for the rest of us.  I mean, I definitely agree that SOME ugly fat girls are ruining stuff, because I definitely agree that jealousy is one of the main factors that religion and feminism and society are all fucked up.  (My kid sister a few months ago: "Sometimes I get really mad at her, and I hate her, but then I remember that she's a total slut, so I'm just a better person than she is, and then I feel better.")  But I see a lot of attractive girls (like, for example, my sister) taking up this attitude, too, so it's not as if the ugly fat girls have a monopoly on incorporating jealousy into their world view and using it to the detriment of society.

    And here's the main reason for that, I think: Ugly is a REALLY subjective term. In "Men Are the New Women," you defined ugly women as "women who think they're ugly, who've bought into our national self-loathing, and instead of doing something about it, are looking to blame everyone but themselves."  And I can get behind that.  Your definition, though, also seemed to include "women who are not aesthetically pleasing," and that's where I stop understanding your argument.  Not aesthetically pleasing to whom?  Pretty much everyone out there appeals to SOMEONE.  There's more than just the Dita von Teese vs. Jessica Simpson versions of attractiveness laid out in "The Other N-Word."  Some people are quite taken with girls who make no effort to be attractive.  I have this one almost inexplicable friend who exclusively wears baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts, refuses to put on makeup or do her hair, but is constantly getting laid by, and having relationships with, decent-looking, moderately cool guys.  She styles herself the way she does partially because she doesn't want to have to conform to bullshit standards of beauty, but I have known her for years, and I've never heard her belittle women (like myself) who do make an effort to be beautiful, nor have I ever heard her use "slut" or "whore" as disparaging terms, like my sister did last paragraph.  This friend of mine is an "ugly" girl who isn't ruining it for everyone else.

    Because, I mean, aren't fashion-magazine standards kind of bullshit?  Don't get me wrong, I am all for making an effort to be attractive; it takes me a looong time to get ready in the morning, and then I have to bike to class wearing high heels, which is a total pain in the ass (but totally worth it).  But the women in those magazines go through hours of professional makeup application and hairstyling, and then they get Photoshopped all to hell.  My nose is always going to be wider than those girls' noses, but, then again, half those girls' noses have been sliced up by surgery or computer programs.  My nose doesn't conform to those beauty standards, but men seem to be attracted to me anyway, and I seem to get laid anyway, so isn't it bullshit that every time I look at a billboard or fashion magazine I'm told my nose should be different from the way it is?

    I know you're not saying that there is no non-conformist beauty, so I don't want to sound like I'm accusing you of that.  Obviously you esteem individuality and creativity in all aspects of life.

    But, dang, you hate on the fat girls!  "...'boys' can be taken to mean both actual boys as well as any girls who are both extremely intelligent and not fat"?  Harsh!  "...fat girls blame 'the media' for people not wanting to fuck them because they’re fat, when it’s simple aesthetics to prefer a well-proportioned and toned body"?  Is this really "simple aesthetics"?  I myself am a skinny bitch (and have the midriff-baring pictures of me in ridiculous slutty schoolgirl outfits to prove it), but I find lots of fat women attractive.  And lots of men find lots of fat women attractive.  And I find lots of fat men attractive, too, for that matter.  In fact, I think muscular men are nice to look at, but I find men who are either pudgy or faux-anorexic-hipster skinny much more attractive, and those are the men I fuck.  Maybe this is just an issue of semantics, because there are definitely folks who cross the line into morbid obesity, but I have no problem finding moderately fat people attractive.  And I don't like the idea that all fat people without exception are just hella shoving Cheetos down their throats and only exercising when they shift from one ass cheek to the other on the couch.  My sister is in WAY better shape than I am, but even though she exercises probably twice or even three times as much as I do, is stronger than I am, has better endurance than I do, etc., etc., etc., she's still about thirty pounds fatter than I am, and always will be.  As long as your weight isn't infringing on your health, I don't see a problem with it.  Women can be sexy and healthy at pretty much every size.  And I think it's fair that fat girls protest mainstream media beauty standards, because they ARE somewhat arbitrary and people ARE bombarded with these images and messages since birth, and most people are too stupid to ever escape ideologically from that bombardment.

    The same goes for masculine and feminine appearances.  You say that you "believe, strongly, in femininity and masculinity."  I basically do, too, and to a limited extent I agree that "physical strength and prowess is sexy" in men.  But don't tell me you've never wanted to fuck the guy in eyeliner and women's jeans, or the girl in the suit with the dyke-y haircut.  I find a lot of thin women and muscular men sexy, but there are so many other forms of sexiness, and I do think there is an element of "brainwashing, conservative media" that restricts a huge amount of people to only finding one type of sexiness attractive.

    Plus, doesn't someone become more physically attractive when their personality becomes more attractive to you?  You mention unattractive guys you've slept with who were kind and funny and good in bed...  didn't they become more aesthetically pleasing to you as you got to know them better and liked them more?  I think that the mainstream media teaches us overwhelmingly to judge people, especially women, by their looks only, and never address the fact that judging people by their personalities actually affects your perception of their attractiveness level.

    Maybe I'm misreading you, and I'm probably expressing myself imperfectly, too.  But sometimes ugly fat girls are sexy!  And certainly not ALL ugly and/or fat girls are tearing society apart the way you seem to think they are.  And sometimes pretty and/or skinny girls DO tear society apart like that.

    One more small point: I agree with virtually everything else you say about Bad Feminism vs. Good Feminism, but I want to ask you if you think Bad Feminism is as prevalent as it comes off in the essays on The 1585 site.  I spend, I don't know, probably an hour a day reading liberal (mainly feminist) blogs, and while they differ from The 1585 in that they emphasize the evils of patriarchy and media-approved standards of beauty, they are very much in agreement with you about the advent of the "sensitive" misogynist, the ills of slut-shaming, and the idea that sex is fucking rad and everyone should have as much of it as they want.  And they may not proclaim that liberals are smart and conservatives are stupid, but they do a pretty good job of viciously mocking specific conservatives (as well as stupid liberals) pretty constantly.  I am just a baby undergrad feminist, but the majority of my experience as a feminist has been what you call (and what I agree is) Good Feminism. I only say this because I want to tell you that there is hope for the feminist movement yet!

    In conclusion, this is a long email.  I am sorry about that, but I am a Creative Writing major who likes to hear herself type.  And I hope this email doesn't come off as TOO terribly critical, because I have only a teaspoon of criticism to offer in comparison to the voluminous floods of admiration I feel for you.

    So, that's all.

        Lots of love and kisses and stuff,
                            —Lauren O.

    Dearest Lauren O.:

    First of all, thank you so much for your incredibly kind words.  I really can't begin to tell you how much your response to the site and to my writing means to me.  Your description of the way in which 'On Female Arrogance" changed your life had me grinning all day.  I'm thrilled that you're now able to see that BDSM and female submission can be expressions of power.  And I'm superlatively thrilled to be in any way responsible for hot people having hot sex with one another.  Consider yourself officially part of my Pin-Up Army of Hot Girl Geniuses.

    I should also apologize for taking such a long time to get back to you.  These issues are both very important to and extremely personal for me, so I wanted to make sure my response did them, and your wonderful email, justice.

    My opinion on beauty and body image is something I've felt that I haven't fully or responsibly clarified in my writing on the 1585.  I'm grateful that your extremely well-expressed criticisms give me a chance to clarify my position on these issues.

    First of all, I couldn't agree more both that beauty is subjective and that the way models look in fashion magazines or on the runway has little do with what women look like in any day-to-day context.  People too often forget that fashion models are traditionally stick-thin not because the fashion industry is attempting to create and perpetuate a standard of beauty, but rather because the point of runway shows and fashion print ads isn't the models, it's the clothes.  Clothes hang best, their make and craftsmanship is best shown off, on a straight-up-and-down body.  A curvier model's body is more likely to pull focus from clothing not because a curvier model wouldn't necessarily look as good in the clothes, but because her body would do something to the clothes.  A designer wants to display their clothes as made and as rendered with as little external influence as possible.  It's the same reason painters generally prefer to display their paintings on white walls.  And of course a woman who has had technicians spend hours lighting her perfectly will not look in a way it's possible to look when going about your day, no matter how beautiful you are.  I have plenty of friends who are professional models, and they're all gorgeous, but they don't ever look in daily life the way they do in professional photographs.

    And of course beauty is incredibly subjective.  But one of the things we're protesting by using the words fat and ugly in the copious and “harsh” way we do at The 1585 is the idea that having a standard of beauty at all means stringently and without exception believing in fashion-magazine beauty.  The sweatshirts-and-sweatpants friend you describe sounds pretty awesome, and I know a fair number of girls like that.  It's understandable why you would assume that I'd put her in the category of "ugly girls who are ruining it for everyone," but I don't at all.  When I say "ugly," I literally mean unattractive.  I mean someone to whom people are not attracted.  Obviously, your friend isn't in that category.  People are attracted to her and, I'd hazard, the fact that she's successfully attractive and is getting regularly laid is much of why she doesn't belittle women who are making an effort to be beautiful—she doesn't have reason to be angry or bitter on that topic.  Therefore, the example of your friend in fact supports our oft-repeated thesis that attractive people are generally nicer than ugly people.

    The positive body-image movement in feminism is a fantastically well-intentioned thing. There's pretty much no way to argue with the idea that we should all be as happy with ourselves as possible.  As you point out, that's part of what I'm saying when I define "ugly girls" as "women... who've bought into our national self-loathing, and instead of doing something about it, are looking to blame everyone but themselves."  When we're happy with ourselves, we treat other people generally better, and so it's better for everyone that we all try to love how we look.

    But I believe this fantastically well-intentioned movement to have had unfortunate widespread negative results.  Hardly anyone yet talks about these negative consequences. With my writing at the 1585, I'm attempting to bring them to light in a way that I hope will help women struggling with negative body image.

    One of the reasons I use the word fat in the unpopularly harsh way I do is that the word's been made taboo by most feminists.  Because it's been made taboo, it now has a great deal of power.  You never hear anyone just throw around "fat" as an adjective or an insult anymore.  Body-image rhetoric tells us that no-one is fat and that we aren't allowed to call ourselves or anyone else fat.  At the same time, the part of body-image feminism that's engaged in a big make-out session with Dworkin/MacKinnon-influenced victim feminism tells girls that what's wrong with society is that everyone thinks you're fat if you don't look like a model.  So you get girls self-identifying as "fat" if they're anything other than stick-skinny.  You get women basing a significant part of their identity on the idea that "I'm fat because I'm not skinny, and that makes me angry and awesome."  One of the difficulties with feminism is that by talking up oppression, it encourages women to internalize that oppression even if it hasn't actually been perpetrated against them.  Unfortunately, body-image feminism often reinforces the very ideas it purportedly seeks to eradicate, specifically that of the skinny/fat binary (the idea that you're either rail thin or fat and there's no in-between).  Therefore, this kind of feminism is as much a cause of negative body image as the standards of beauty perpetuated by fashion magazines.

    As I think I've made no effort to hide in the scantily clad photos of myself included in every article, I'm not a skinny bitch.  I'm not fat, either, but I'm definitely too curvy to ever be described as skinny, and certainly don't have a runway model's figure.  Negative body image is something with which I struggle every day.  I don't dismiss these issues, nor do I talk about them lightly.  I was anorexic and occasionally bulimic between ages twelve and fourteen.  After that I gained back enough weight that I was the fat girl all through high school.  I hated my body either constantly or on-and-off until a few years ago when I started doing burlesque, which has changed my life in numerous ways, one of them being that it made me able to think of myself as attractive.  I've only quite recently realized it could be a positive, powerful thing to want to lose weight and get in better shape.  Now that I'm finally starting to love how I look for the first time in my life (yes, partially because of thinking differently, but also because I've been eating right and exercising and so actually do look better), I've been examining heavily what it was that created all this self-loathing centered on my physical body.

    You say you "find lots of fat women attractive... and... find lots of fat men attractive, too, for that matter."  You go on to mention liking "pudgy" men and "moderately fat people," and mention that this might just be an issue of semantics.  I think you're right that that's what it is, but this issue of semantics may be the crux of the whole problem.

    When I say "fat," I don't mean curvy.  I don't mean soft.  I don't mean zaftig.  I don't mean bouncy.  I don't mean pudgy.  I don't mean anyone who isn't rail-thin or purely muscular.  I actually mean fat.  I mean prohibitively overweight.  Your assumption that I condemn anyone not absolutely thin when I say "fat girls" is demonstrative of the way in which body-image feminism reinforces the thin/fat binary.  Words such as "curvy," "womanly," "bouncy," "zaftig," "statuesque" and, ironically enough, "healthy" are used to describe women who are just severely and unavoidably fat.  Therefore, when those same words are used accurately to describe someone who is not fat but legitimately curvy, the result is that the curvy girl assumes she's being called "fat."  Thin is different from skinny.  Slender is different from thin.  Statuesque is different from slender.  Curvy is different from statuesque.  I could go on for quite some time doing this, and none of these words means fat, despite the fact that they do mean not-skinny.  Precision of language might save the world if we could all commit to it.

    The "moderately fat" people you mention are people who I would likely never think of as fat, and who rightly shouldn't be described with that word.  But defending not-skinny people in this manner in fact reinforces the skinny-girl/fat-girl binary.  Such a defense shuffles everyone who isn't extremely thin all the way over into the "fat and therefore oppressed" category, by assuming they need to be defended against anyone attacking fat people.  I do make harsh statements about fat girls a lot, but I don't ever claim that only skinny girls are attractive.  You mention that your sister, despite her working out and being healthy and in fantastic shape, will always weigh more than you due to her natural body type.  But (I can't say this for sure as I've never met your sister) I'm pretty sure that I would never describe your sister as fat.  I object to a feminism that tells her that anyone would call her fat, or that there's any reason for her not to self-identify as thin.  Just because she's not skinny shouldn't mean that she should be called fat, or even "fatter."  The word fat should be reserved for people who are undeniably overweight, not someone who works out, eats well, and still might possibly be accurately described as curvy.

    You say you "don't like the idea that all fat people without exception are just hella shoving Cheetos down their throats and only exercising when they shift from one ass cheek to the other on the couch," but those are the people I mean when I use the word "fat."  I don't mean people like your sister, who may not be capable of ever being super-skinny, but are still in great shape and really hot if even they have a somewhat larger build.  I know plenty of women who are (in the traditional sense) curvy or soft, who wear larger sizes and whom I find devastatingly attractive.  I'd much rather fuck most of the burlesque girls I know, many of whom are beautifully curvy, than most of the women on America's Next Top Model.  I love the new Agent Provocateur campaign—their two newest lines each feature in the campaign one rail-thin model and one curvier model, and the contrast is incredibly hot, among other reasons because it points out how there's not one body type that's most attractive and in fact what's exciting about bodies is how different they are from one another.

    And the issue of attractiveness being about far more than just measurements certainly comes into play here.  There are some women who are so convinced that they're fat, and defined by feeling that way and not doing anything about it, that all you can see when you're around them is the idea of a fat girl.  Another woman who had the exact same body might make an effort to make herself attractive, to dress in a flattering way, to believe that she's sexy, and therefore you'd never think of the word "fat" when around her.  I've also often slept with people who didn't have ideal magazine bodies, but I never thought of them as anything but "sexy," because that's what they focused on and how they carried themselves.
 
    There is objectively such a thing as overweight, however, and while all people's bodies tend to settle at or around a different ideal healthy weight and shape, anyone who eats crap and never works out is going to look a lot better if they start eating well and exercising.  In order to combat the pressure to be skinny that is certainly to a degree exerted on women by the media, body-image feminists have gone all the way to the other extreme and now tell you that trying to change your body at all means that you hate yourself, and that the only "real" beauty is one where you never make an effort to change your body shape.  I understand why this rhetoric is appealing.  But what it potentially can do is lock women in a useless, paralytic cycle of endless regenerative self-hatred.

    Not being allowed to say "fat," not being allowed to think of any body shape as unappealing, means not being allowed to say "Ok, I don't like X, Y and Z about how my body looks.  What can I do to change this?"  When I tell most women I know that I want to lose 20 pounds, they tell me I look perfect the way I am and start questioning me about the psychology of my desire to lose weight.  But I don't want to lose 20 pounds as some equivalent to cutting myself—I want to lose 20 pounds in the same way I want to always talk like a 1930s screwball comedy and paint my eyeliner as expertly as Dita paints hers and write sentences as good as F. Scott Fitzgerald's: I am making an effort to be the ideal version of myself.  It's hard fucking work, and it's the most empowering thing anyone can do.  The fact that I work hard to perfect myself is what allows me to love how I look.

    In his essay "The Other N-Word," Grammaticus wrote about hotness as "art, not chance."  I like the idea of beauty being, just like intelligence and artistic or professional accomplishment, something for which you have to fight and therefore something of which you can be proud.  Part of the reason we're taught to apologize for being hot is that attractiveness is considered, or supposed to be considered, an accident, something outside of your control.  People base their resentment of attractive people on the fact that it's luck, rather than hard work, when, of course, it takes just as much time, sweat, and effort to be successfully attractive as to be successfully intelligent.  It's part of why I think high heels and make-up and decorative extreme femininity are, and should be recognized as, signs of strength.  It's like how you mention taking an hour to get ready, and biking to class in high heels (which I love, love, love by the way); these things are difficult but you do them anyway in order to be attractive, and that empowers you. 

    Body-image feminism paints self-esteem as an obligation to laziness.  It backs up that figuration by preaching the idea, which is supposed to help women accept their bodies, that not only is it bad to try to change your body, it's not really possible.  I can't tell you how many girls have told me "Well, you have the type of body that isn't ever going to be thin, no matter what you do."  Out of context, that's a total insult, right?  But these were well-intentioned feminists who meant their remarks to mean "you should love and accept your body."  I was amazed when I started working out and my body shape did in fact change quickly and noticeably—this was what I'd been told was "not possible" for me.  Just think: these people would probably have told the 1984 version of Madonna that she was "never going to be thin no matter what she did," but look at her a few years later (or, for that matter, now)!  This mentality is simply a matter of "misery loves company," no different from how an alcoholic's friends who are also alcoholics don't want him to get sober.

    So, in a way that may seem backward, I hate on fat girls in order to defend girls who aren't skinny.  I love skinny girls, too, and part of what I'm doing in trying to eradicate the idiotic skinny/fat binary is to get the majority of women to stop talking about and treating skinny women as though they were some foreign race of aliens.  But I also think that if more women could use the word fat to mean what it really means, then maybe nine out of every ten women I meet wouldn't hate their bodies and call themselves fat, because they'd understand that fat is an objective assessment, not some big secret, and doesn't mean them—plus, the women who actually are fat might be more likely to try and lose weight (which they really should do, even if only for health reasons), because they could no longer hide behind this denial-enabling "fat just means everyone who isn't a model" defense.

    As to your point about femininity and masculinity, I do believe strongly in both, and I also am most often attracted to "the girl in the suit with the dyke-y haircut" and "the guy in eyeliner and women's jeans."  The fact that both these aesthetics are successfully sexually compelling only demonstrates the power of femininity and masculinity.  Masculinity is compelling on a woman, and femininity on a man, because it's not what we expect to see, and therefore fascinates.  But I don't consider these things to be outside of a high standard of beauty, and by writing about aesthetic standards, I'm trying to demonstrate that the idea of having a classical aesthetic standard does not mean only wanting to fuck football players and skinny smiling blondes with big tits.  It's pretty much the same binary.  Too many people assume that there's only the absolute magazine picture mainstream, or crazy fat weirdos, and nothing in between.  I think the idea of classical beauty is corrupted when people assume it only applies to fashion models and male bodybuilders.  I find both fashion models and male bodybuilders attractive, but I think assuming anyone who talks about a standard of beauty, or about masculinity and femininity as real, powerful things, would only be attracted to these mainstream "ideals" is cheapening the idea of beauty.

    And lastly, I'm thrilled to hear you cite other examples of "Good Feminism" out there.  It's true that many of the problems we're addressing in feminism are well known as problems, and have a fantastically healthy amount of opposition already.  It's great that your experience as a feminist has so far been good, and I hope you can share that experience with as many other people who may not have yet caught on as possible.  Because that's what we're trying to help you do, and trying to do ourselves.

    Anyway, thank you again so much for your insightful questions and compliments.  Now all I have to do is get you to love James Joyce.  Seriously, how can you not love James Joyce?

        With Love and High Heels,
                —Sexa Rubelucia

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