Fat Fashion 12

Just a quick OOTD, my camera was a little wonky, sorry about the quality.

Cardigan:  Avenue

Tank/Skirt/Leggings: Old Navy

Shoes:  Marshalls

Jewelry:  JC Penney

I love these open-front cardigans, they are so great to wear over just about everything.  The skirt is kind of hard to see, it actually is more a-line than it looks, the tank just kind of pressed it down.  I like to wear this skirt with a tucked in shirt as well and a cardi over it to show off the skirt more.  I'll try to get some better quality pics for the next one!

Have a great weekend!

~Mrs. Sprat

20 Things You Can Do To Love Your Body

In honor of Love Your Body Day, here are 20 things you can do to love your body everyday!   Feel free to add more in the comments.

1.  Wear clothes based on how they feel, not (necessarily) how they look.
2.  Get as much sleep as your body needs.  (8 hours is a general rule, some people need more, some less.)
3.  Get a new haircut (or shave your head!)
4.  Dance!
5.  Eat foods that you love (no guilt!)
6.  Get a massage
7.  Soak your feet
8.  Buy a new outfit that people your size "aren't supposed to wear" and wear it proudly!
9.  Go swimming (or play field hockey or do yoga or take a long walk and look at the leaves change colors)
10.  Have dessert!
11.  Take up belly dancing (or swing dancing or square dancing or pole dancing....)
12.  Snuggle in your favorite chair with a good book
13.  Show off your scars, they are a part of who you are
14.  Tell the face in the mirror that you love him or her
15.  Have sex!
16.  Cook a meal from scratch
17.  Go without makeup for a day
18.  Take a long, relaxing shower or bath
19.  Masturbate!
20.  Thank your body for all the amazing things that it has done in the past and all the amazing things it will do in the future.

Have a great Love Your Body Day!

~Mrs. Sprat

Fats in Action

Hi everyone!

I am going to be participating in a charity walk for Lupus in a couple of weeks.  I know October is Breast Cancer month, but if you have a little bit left to give, it would be greatly appreciated.  Lupus affects thousands of people and has no known cure.  My husband's mother passed away from lupus-related complications when he was a boy.  Anything you can give would be great and would also be supporting a fat walk participant!

http://www.active.com/donate/lupusloop2011/KGainor1

Thanks everyone!

~Mrs. Sprat

Fat Fashion Friday 11

Finally, a return to fatshion!

Hat- J.C. Penney's

Poncho- Fashion Bug (Loop 18)

Long Sleeve T- Old Navy 

Jeans- Old Navy

Boots- Rainbow

Earrings- Claire's

First off, the poncho.  Not my colors, not even my style but this shirt is made of such a soft sweater/sweatshirt kind of a material that when I tried it on I loved it.  That being said, it's pilling already after two wearings!  Fashion Bug now carries a junior plus section called Loop 18 which has some great pieces, definitely worth checking out.  And speaking of soft, the long sleeve T I am wearing is from Old Navy and again, it's super soft and comfy and comes in lots of colors.  I bought this in the "straight" sizes but they have similar ones online up to 4X.  

The boots.  I have never had knee length boots, ever.  I went to Avenue a few weeks ago and tried on a pair of their wide-calf boots and they STILL weren't wide enough for my giant calves of DOOM!  But on a whim I went into Rainbow, after falling in love with these in the window and low and behold, they actually fit.  Sadly, they too are deteriorating after only a few wearings, but I will wear them until they are THREADS, since I've never been able to buy boots like these before.  

Happy fall, everyone!  Have a great weekend!

~Mrs. Sprat

Women as Gatekeepers

Sorry for the lack of posting, school has officially started and the way my classes are structured means a lot of work now, but a lot less after Nov 1.  

In class a couple of weekends ago, one of my fellow students brought up a study that indicates that men in committed relationships live longer than their single counterparts.  She "proved" this to be true by telling us what her boyfriend wants to eat vs. what she makes him eat.  

We have seen this a lot before:  Hillary Clinton was blamed for Bill Clinton's weight gain during his presidency and charged with getting him to lose weight and eat "better."  Michelle Obama not only puts her children on very public diets but also has to control the President's eating as well.  Even in my own family, my in-laws make comments such as "she feeds you well" while looking at Mr. Sprat's protruding belly, etc.  

Let's take a step back and remember that these are grown men we are talking about.  Grown men do not need women to "feed them."  Plain and simple.  Men are just as capable at making food choices as women are.  Granted, because of the diet culture in this country, neither are really fully equipped, but that still proves my point.  A man who eats nothing but pizza is no worse off than a man who's wife makes him eat nothing but salads.  

But this is not new ground, we've discussed this before.  Women are seen as gatekeepers.  As with sexuality (delaying intercourse), women are socialized to believe that they have to take care of a man and make sure that he doesn't do anything reckless, in addition to taking care of herself.  

What really got me angry though, was the assumption that it was dietary choices that led the married men to live longer.  Again, we see the conflation of eating and health.  A person who eats certain foods will not live as long as those who abstain, and since it is the wife's job to control these eating habits, she is charged with his life.  

Maybe the reason the partnered men lived longer is because of the effects of love on brain chemistry.  Maybe it is because routine is comforting or somehow safer.  Maybe (though I personally find this dubious as well) it is because they are less likely to contract an STD.  Maybe the study was poorly conducted and all the partnered people in it also shared similar socioeconomic backgrounds or other factors.  Or maybe, men who live longer are more likely to get married and not the other way around.  Any way you look at it, diet is just one possibility in why the study turned out the way it did. 

I don't know.  I haven't read the study, though I've heard it mentioned a number of times, always to prove a different point.  I only know what I heard, which was more conflating weight and food choices with health and more affirming of women as gatekeepers, who must protect men from everything from sex to food, while simultaneously protecting themselves.  Those roles are not good for men and they certainly aren't very good for women either.  Couples need to support each other in however they choose to eat and single people should not be shamed into relationships to prevent death.  If everyone were more confident on how to feed themselves, the diet industry would have much less of a hold on people and that would be a wonderful thing.  

This Cannot Happen

I have been watching this story for a few days now in disbelief.  A loving family, torn apart because the parents and children share fatness as one of their traits.  There are so many children already in foster care and up for adoption who will NEVER FIND PARENTS and rather than seeking out a home for those, people are removing children from their families because of weight stigma.  This is a disgrace.  If you would like to do something about this here are the links to some of the officers involved in this case.  It is only a matter of time before this starts happening right here in the US.

Dundee County chief executive David Dorward: david.dorward@dundeecity.gov.uk.

Dundee County public relations head Les Roy: les.roy@dundeecity.gov.uk

Dundee County education director Michael Wood: michael.wood@dundeecity.gov.uk

Dundee County Social Services direct Alan G. Baird: alan.baird@dundeecity.gov.uk

Fat Sex Tip #9- Erogenous Zones

You've just put your kids to bed for the night.  The dishes are done.  The homework and schoolwork and projects are done.  You actually don't feel tired, for once.  Suddenly you understand that you and your partner are having sex, come hell or high-water--or hopefully--you.  So what do you do?  Make a mad dash for the genitals and hope none of the kids wake up before you both finish?

It happens to everyone.  We get to know a partner and we know what turns them on and how long we need to do it before we both have an orgasm and can go to sleep.  Sometimes there just isn't time for exploring.  Sometimes exploring can be frustrating when it doesn't work or embarrasses someone or takes precious minutes away from the act.

It can be important, therefore, to remember that the penis and the clitoris or vagina are not the only things that feel good when they are touched.  Even the so-called "erogenous zones" can be limiting.  Ears, feet, inner elbows and knees and necks are the more common areas associated with erotic touching.  However anywhere, when touched in a certain way (and depending on the person), can feel delightful, just as delightful as a nice blow job or eight minutes of intercourse.

Fat people have a special advantage, in that we have an even larger canvas for sexual expression.  Extra fat on arms, knobs on knees, thick, full thighs:  All of these can be erogenous for some people.  Spots under fat, such as under your belly roll or under breasts often have thinner, very sensitive skin that feels amazing when touched, stroked, tickled or licked.  Even fat rolls on a persons back can feel amazing when sucked, and can be a great experience for the person doing the sucking as well.  (As a side note, heads can also feel amazing when touched, especially recently shaved heads, wink wink.)

If a person loves you and/or is sexually interested in you, they are interested in all of you.  Pretending that your fat isn't there doesn't make it go away, so you might as well use it to your advantage.  When my husband and I first started sleeping together, we didn't talk about my belly because it made me uncomfortable; we mostly pretended it wasn't there.  What I didn't know was that it turned him on and he wanted to explore it in the same way that he explored the rest of my body.  Once I was able to let go of belly shame, it became another way that we could express our feelings for each other.

Sex shouldn't be about limiting yourself to one area or one position or one act.  It should be about safely exploring all the wonderful things your body can do for itself and for others.  So next time you are in bed, take a minute to try sucking on a fat roll or groping a belly bump.  Great fat sex can only be accomplished if you can learn to let go of your hang-ups and take hold of your fat.

Poem from NAAFA

(Dedicated to my mother, who has come a long way.  Her journey means so much. )

Home

"Why don't you cover those up?"
My mother says.

She means my arms- a shawl
She means my scars- concealer
She means my chins- long hair
She means me.

She means her.

But I will not tack aluminum siding on my house.
I will not devalue my body.

Because this is my home.

This is the scar from the chicken warmer,
The scars from a thousand bug-bites,
The scars from knives and screws
     and yes, the scars from you, mom.

This is my fat from living
My fat from genetics
My fat from Dad and Grandpa
   and yes, this is my fat from you, mom.

This is my landscape:

My freshly cut lawn,
My patterns and shapes,
My additions over time.

New rooms, new room.

This is my home.

You laid my foundation, mom.  Yes, I know.
But you have to let me take it the rest of the way.
To let me build walls and paint and decorate.

Because this is my home, and I
like living here.

Because of my past renovations
and in hope of my future.

NAAFA Convention Day 3: Advocacy and Poetry

Thank you all for sticking with me through my journey to NAAFA and back!  Day three kicked off, for me, with a workshop about child advocacy.  NAAFA has created a Child Advocacy Toolkit (available here)  to help educators and other professionals shift from "fighting childhood obesity" to teaching HAES based principles including intuitive eating and joyful movement.  In the workshop, we heard from several presenters about how the so-called "war on childhood obesity" started and what is and isn't true about it.  The first part of the presentation was particularly well-executed in that it summarized the facts and fictions surrounding this war in a simple, non-threatening way that I think would be really useful for people who are new to fat acceptance and may have some reservations.  The panel also reviewed what the consequences are for a weight-based approach, both in terms of health and in terms of bullying.

Later in the day, I attended a poetry workshop called Fat Poets' Society.  I have to admit that I wrote a lot of poetry when I was in high school and as an undergraduate, but after I left Cornell, I pretty much stopped writing altogether.  There are a lot of reasons why (too busy trying to make ends meet, not angsty and love-lorn anymore, etc.) but I always wanted to keep writing, I just felt that blogging and creative non-fiction were more my strong suits.  But I decided to go anyway and I'm really glad that I did.  We talked about using poetry as a means of being an activist and how writing body-positive poetry can be a radical thing to do.  It is easy to forget that poetry isn't just about love and pretty-sounding words, but that it can also have political goals.  We read some poetry and then we had some time to sit down and write, and then share what we had written.  It was such a moving experience, getting to hear different women's experiences with their bodies and with each others' bodies.  And it made me realize that my relationship with poetry is not over yet, so somehow, I'm going to find the time to start writing again!*

That evening was the NAAFA Talent Show!  Before we could get up there and show off our various talents, we did some karaoke to get us all warmed up.  It was great seeing fat people up in the spotlight--willing to put themselves out there--because they felt so brave, confident and safe.  I don't think I've ever done karaoke before, but I couldn't resist with a crowd so accepting.  The talent show was just an extension of that safe feeling.  People sang, performed poetry and spoken word pieces, and of course, the classic fortuneteller act!  I was fortunate enough to be convinced by a friend to recite some of my own poetry, including a piece I had written that day at the workshop!  It was great seeing how talented all my new friends really are, and how comfortable they were sharing their work with us.

The talent show was followed by a film festival.  I only caught the first film, The Fat Body (In)Visible, but it was a great piece that followed two women who had met on the Livejournal Fatshionista community, so it was exciting to get to see the blogging community represented at the conference.  The movie also contained pictures from the Adipositivity Project, which was great to see put to music up on the big screen.

Monday morning, I had to head back to the real world (sadly) but several members of NAAFA stayed on to lobby on Capitol Hill for the inclusion of bullying based on weight to the current anti-bullying legislature going through Congress.  Members of the board gave a press conference that was covered by C-Span and the story was also picked up by CNN's website.  Please check out both links to see NAAFA in action trying to end weight-based bullying in our schools.

All in all, my first NAAFA conference was a huge success.  It was so empowering to be surrounded by smart, talented, dedicated fat people who want to make the same change in the world as I do.  I feel much stronger in my beliefs and much more confident as a blogger, activist and fat person than before I went.  Best of all, I made some great new friends to share the journey with me.  Thank you NAAFA, see you in San Francisco next year!

*You can purchase the first publication by the Fat Poets' Society at amazon.com. 

NAAFA Convention 2011: Day 2 Sex and Fashion

Day two of the NAAFA convention started, for me, with a workshop about fat admirers. One of my classmates was on a panel discussion about both men and women who find they are attracted to fat partners.  First, we talked in separate groups (all the males and all the females) and then came together to share what we had learned.  It was interesting to hear everyone's take on the concept of being an FA and to really talk about the elephant in the room for much of the conference: The thin, male FA's who mostly attended the evening social events.  There was enough in that workshop to generate an entire blog post, which I will do at some point but for the sake of telling you about NAAFA I will try to keep it short.

It seems to me that two types of FA's emerged.  One group were the men who attended the workshops, talked to the women and seem to support our cause.  The other group consisted of basically silent men, who did not attend the workshops and made a lot of the women feel uncomfortable when they were hanging around the dances.  It's a shame the second group didn't come to the FA workshop, I would really have liked to hear from them.  I think the same two categories can be applied to the so-called "normal" men who like thin women.  Some of the FA's were there because they really support our goals and maybe already have a fat partner or had one in the past and want to be a part of our culture.  The others were objectifying us and only wanted us for our bodies, or for sex.  Or maybe it is just that they are so shy from years of being told they were freaks by the other boys that they were too afraid to talk to us.  I hope if that is the case, that we can continue to have a workshop like this so that maybe they can feel brave enough to come and help us understand them.

It was also interesting to discuss the concept of a female FA, an idea that was new to me.  In our society, it is hard to imagine female FA's because being fat for a man and being fat for a woman is such a different experience.  Often the only time a fat character is on a TV show is the fat husband of a thin wife.  It is acceptable in a certain way so it doesn't have a name like FA's do (The "abnormal" thing is always named before the "normal."  Homosexual came before heterosexual, trans came before cis, etc.)  With women who like fat women, again, it is not seen as unusual because there is this idea of a different beauty standard among lesbians due to their (relative) freedom from the wants of men.  Finally, all of the women at the seminar were fat (not surprisingly due to the audience.)  so there is also this unspoken idea that a fat women couldn't be with a thin partner.  Of course fat women would be with fat men because "it's all they can get."  What would have happened if one of the women in the group said she exclusively liked thin men or women, I wonder.  Would she be a traitor, or just have her own taste like the FA's?  What do you guys think?

Following the FA/FFA workshop, I attended a diversity workshop focused on how to get other kinds of people to join NAAFA and participate in our events.  I liked the workshop because it was goal-oriented and involved us breaking into small groups and working together.  Being  randomly paired with some of the NAAFA members (including the chair of the board)  helped me get to know more people than my convention clique as it were, and get to throw some ideas out there.  Some of the material we discussed is already in the works!

Saturday night meant it was time for the fashion show.  It was a great experience getting to model!  What a thrill to do my big, fat turn on the catwalk, to the screaming NAAFA members, and in a VERY expensive dress by the designer Toula.  I also modeled for Ashaki Charles designs, a dress much closer to my own clothing budget.  It was so empowering to strut my stuff with all my new friends and help bring in some money for NAAFA by auctioning off some of the pieces.  I am hoping that SOMEONE took pictures so that I can post them here (850 dollar dress, how's that for an OOTD?!)

After the auction there was more dancing, including several men and women with limited mobility taking scooters and chairs up to the dance floor so they could join in on the fun!  I personally had used up all my moves during the fashion show so I had a nice, quiet talk with a new friend and then went to the pool party.

The last time I'd worn a two-piece bathing suit was probably my 4th birthday party so I knew it was time to get a bikini for the conference.  It was so much fun to wear what I wanted instead of what I was "supposed to."  And it was so nice to be surrounded by supportive people who all told me I looked amazing, instead of telling me how I can minimize myself.  It was also really inspiring to see other people, bigger than me, smaller than me, whatever, all wearing their bathing suits proudly and having a blast!

Talk about an empowering day:  Discussing sexuality, working with the NAAFA members on diversity ideas, strutting my stuff at a fashion show, watching everyone exercise their right to dance and sporting my two-piece with a bunch of rad fatties!  What a day!

NAAFA Convention 2011: Day 1 Boundaries and Booties!

NAAFA's 2011 conference took place from August 4-8 at The Westin Hotel in Herndon, VA.  The 4th was just a day for registration and mingling, so I won't cover it in great detail here, but suffice it to say, by Thursday night, I could already tell that I was going to make lasting friendships and maybe even change my life.  

Friday morning started early with a session of Water Aerobics with Melissa.  I had never done Water Aerobics so I braved 8AM to give it a try.  It was wonderful to be surrounded by fat women of all ages, all active and enjoying the use of their bodies.  It was also very refreshing to be with an instructor who encouraged us to test our limits but also to know our limits and take it easy when we needed to.  There was none of that "no pain, no gain" mentality and it made the whole experience very positive.  Having a fat instructor was also helpful because she was sensitive to our concerns and had a lot of useful tips to adjust our workouts as necessary.  I just wish I could convince my apartment complex to do water aerobics classes so I can keep learning!

The next workshop I attended was called Tending Boundaries with the Fat Fitness guru, Kelly Bliss. Kelly taught us a basic three-step procedure for how to tend your boundaries with loved ones, doctors and other people who feel they need to make "suggestions" regarding your health.  The three steps are to say:

1.  I know you are concerned.

2.  I am already doing something to address your concern (HAES, self-esteem work, etc.)

3.  We can't talk about this or 

      you are not welcome to comment on ________.  

I found that it was a useful framework because it shows that you are listening to the person, it addresses their concerns (yes I am fat, thank you for noticing) and it stops the conversation from going any further, ie turning into a screaming match.  She also talked about how after an altercation you should speak out loud(even if it is only to yourself) all the things you wanted to say to the person.  Even if you only say it to yourself, it can be very helpful to get it out of your head and into your experiences.  We tried it with a few recent events in our lives and it really did make us feel better.  Kelly likened it to how when you watch a scary movie you still get scared even though you know it's not real.  You will still feel some closure by standing up for yourself even if the other person never hears it.  

The next workshop I attended was a social media workshop.  Mostly it was geared towards older people experimenting with social media for the first time so it wasn't especially useful to me but I am looking into Linkedin and Tweetdeck as a result so some good did come from it.  

Following the social media workshop was a quick meeting for the fashion show (more on that tomorrow) and then off to a lovely buffet dinner and dance party with all my new friends.  Friday night's dance was probably one of the most positive experiences of my life.  From small things, like getting back in the buffet line and not getting a glare from a single person at the table, to some bigger more life-changing events.  

When the dancing got underway, I was right there on the dance floor strutting my stuff.  I felt amazing, confident, happy and sexy.  As we were dancing, one of the women slipped on her shoe and fell.  We all stopped.  One of my good friends from the conference went over to make sure she was okay.  She said she was but that she couldn't get up without everyone seeing her underwear.  So B.  stood in front of her and spread her wide skirt out to block P. as she got back up.  

It may seem like a small thing, but I teared up on the dance floor.  In my mind, B. had committed a revolutionary act.  She used her size to protect someone else.  She didn't hide from it or try to minimize it or do it in a self-deprecating matter.  Her friend was in trouble and she used her size to help.  And no one judged either of them.  It was beautiful.  

After that I went to my first NAAFA pool party and then dragged my tired butt to bed, but there will be more to say about pool parties in the next installment!  Stay tuned for days 2 and 3! 

For more information about Melissa go to http://www.sizediversityandhealth.org/haes-expert.asp?id=97

For more information about Kelly Bliss go to http://www.kellybliss.com/main/index.php

Introductions

Hello Fat-O-Sphere!

I have recently been added to the Fat-O-Sphere feed, so I thought I should introduce myself again to any new readers out there.  My moniker here is Mrs. Sprat and I am a Human Sexuality Education student, a fat activist and a blogger.  To pay for those endeavors I am also a some-time retail grunt.  I have been married to Mr. Sprat for two years now and we live in the greater Philadelphia area where we are both in graduate school.

I discovered Fat Acceptance when I read an article by Kate Harding about fat women and rape for my work as a sexuality educator.  The material immediately clicked with what I think I had known on some level all along:  That there is nothing wrong with being fat, but a whole lot wrong with stigmatizing people for their body size.  Since then I have immersed myself in FA blogs, books and theory and most recently, attended my first fat conference, NAAFA's annual conference in DC this past weekend.

I try to cover lots of different issues on this blog, but certainly the intersection of sexuality and fat and body image is a favorite of mine.  I also have been known to cover fashion, food, sexism, current events and pretty much anything that tickles my fancy (or makes me very, very angry.)

Thank you all for reading and commenting, I look forward to working with all of you!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Sprat

Dear Max and Erma's

I will be heading to the NAAFA conference on Thursday so I only have time for a quick post, but expect a lot of updates next week about the conference!

I was in Pittsburgh this weekend and we went to a chain restaurant called Max and Erma's.  I've been there three times before and had the best chicken parm of my life so I wanted to go while we were still in the area.  Their menu had changed a lot in a year and one of the things I noticed was the burgers.  Under each one it said "Max size (x price) or Erma size (y price).  The Erma size was cheaper so I can only imagine it was smaller.

Way to be sexist and sizeist all in one!  Like it isn't hard enough for a woman to order a burger in a restaurant?  Now if she wants the big one she has to ask for the "man's serving"?  And men who don't want as much (or are on a budget) have to order the girl one? This is exactly the kind of thing that keeps women (and especially fat women) down.  If a woman wants to eat (let alone enjoy) the same amount of food as a man she becomes too much like a man and is considered a threat.

Some people, regardless of size or sex, eat more than other people.  And some people are hungrier at a given moment than others.  It is utterly humiliating to gender hamburgers in order to offer two sizes.  Shame on you Max and Erma's, I'll be getting my chicken parm elsewhere from now on!

Death Threats

*Trigger warning for discussion of heart attacks*

Last night, I had a dream.  I had a blood clot in my leg and I took some kind of medication, thinking it was something else, which caused the blood clot to move.  I woke in a panic, insisting to my husband that any second it would reach my heart and I would have a heart attack and die.

This is not the first time that I have had that dream.

Let me back up for a second.  I was never a squeamish child.  At the doctors I was always well-behaved.  Shots?  Bring 'em on!  I'd even watch them going in because I thought it was interesting.  (My brother on the other hand, was crying in the parking lot!)  Dissections in school?  Loved 'em!  Science class was always one of my favorites.  The only thing that scared me, and I mean really scared me, was discussing clogged arteries.

From the time I was a small child, I was taught that the fat I ate would end up in my arteries and kill me.  And that I needed to lose weight to stop this from happening.  Cheese was particularly demonized.  Since I was a little kid at the time and didn't really know how these things work, I would imagine the cheese actually in my arteries, coating the walls of my blood vessels.  (Even as I am writing this I have to stop and clutch my chest and take deep breaths.)

I now recognize these as the death threats that all fat people receive.  We are told that if we don't shape up, we are going to die and that's that.  I would routinely be threatened with "you're going to die of a heart attack by x age."  I think 30 was usually this magic age.  Guess I should get my affairs in order, only six more years!

I was also warned, within my family, about getting "fat around my heart."  I have never heard that expression from anyone outside my family.  What does that even mean?  It sounds kind of nice actually, like a cushion.  Protection from harm.  Also, even though I was only maybe 12 the first time I heard someone threatened with that, it seemed inherently sexist to me.  All women have fat around their heart because of breasts.  Why are manboobs the sign of an early death and womenboobs are, you know, all we're valued for?

For some reason, those particular threats have stayed with me.  Those images of clogged arteries I've seen remain burned in my mind.  I avoid hormonal birth control for fear of the "blot clot, stroke and heart attack" warnings.  I can't eat string cheese.  Ever.  And now, I have nightmares that my fate has been sealed.

When I was a kid, all the threats did was scare me.  I was afraid each slice of pizza would be my last.  I was afraid that if I helped shovel snow or ran around the block, that I would have that heart attack I had been promised.  Every gas pain was a sign I was going to die.  If someone used the expression "clogged areteries" I would have to leave the room.  All the threats did was prevent me from moving my body and enjoying my food.  And lately, all they are doing is making it so that I don't sleep through the night.  Why do people think these threats will help?  All they do is scare children into thinking they are going to die.  I can actually remember asking my health teacher how young the youngest person to ever have a heart attack was so I could figure out how much time I had left.

There is still so much healing left to do.

Fat Fashion Friday 10- Party Clothes!

Dress- Forever 21+

Shoes- Ross (Born)

Necklace- Fashion Bug

Earrings- Icing by Claires

Kind of an awkward pose, no I did not have an amputation!  This dress was such a great find at Forever 21! It's hard to see in the pic but it has a beautiful lace insert over the middle of the chest.  It's a delightful, light fabric (which is great because it's been VERY hot around here.)  I like the straps because they are not sleeves, but they are wide enough to cover bra straps, in case I don't feel like dealing with strapless bras.  I also really dig the length, a little shorter than I'm used to.  Look at those fat knees!

The shoes were actually my birthday present from my husband.  I had seen, and tried them on in Ross a couple of months ago and fell in love with them!  They are the shoe holy grail to me:  Born sandals (which are super comfortable), teal and with a flower between the toes.  But I thought they were too expensive so I didn't buy them.  Mr. Sprat snuck out the next day and got them for me!  Isn't that sweet?

Anyway, I had a great birthday and I'm looking forward to some more celebrating over the weekend.  Have a great one!

~Mrs. Sprat

CAKE!

Since my birthday is tomorrow and I'm in a whimsical mood, let's talk about cake!  After all, fatties love cake!

Summer birthday's have their ups and downs.  They are great because you often have off from school or work for them.  They are not so great because (at least when I was a kid) lots of my friends were away with their families or at camp, or later, looking at colleges when I wanted to have a party.  But they are great because you can do fun water-themed parties or go to amusement parks.

The thing I really didn't like about having a summer birthday was ice cream cake.

I don't care for ice cream cake.  I especially didn't like it as a kid because that was back when all they had was the vanilla-crunchies-chocolate variety.  (Now they make all those cool mint ones and all sorts of stuff I might be able to get behind.)  But every year, guess what I got?  An ice cream cake.  How hard is it to buy some damn Duncan Hines people?  Or just get a sheet cake from the supermarket.  They're cheaper than ice cream cakes, too.

But I digress.  Really, ice cream cake is the worst thing you can have in mid-July.  It's better in May or even in September or October.  In July, you have about thirty seconds to eat the cake.  "Oh my God, what's that giant brown tidal wave sweeping away all the children?"  "It's the ice cream cake, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"

My favorite kind of cake is yellow with chocolate frosting and nonpareils, though really good vanilla frosting can be even better sometimes.  Or Funfetti, which I never had until adulthood.  I also love all things lemon, though lemon cake with lemon frosting can be a bit much, as I've learned.  I don't really like chocolate cake, I find it too rich.

Lately, I've been getting this cake from Acme that has (no not exploding birdseed!) strawberry filling in it, whipped cream on top and real strawberries and blueberries as a garnish.  I guess it's like a strawberry shortcake cake, if that makes sense.

The point is, everyone has different tastes in cake as in all food, and just because someone happens to have a summer birthday doesn't mean they want a BBQ and an ice cream cake.  What kinds of cake do y'all like?  Any suggestions for tomorrow?  I'll leave you with a picture of one of my latest ventures in cake, rainbow cake for Mr. Sprat's (winter) birthday!

Fat Fashion Friday 9

My first OOTD sans hair!

Tube Top- Old Navy

Bermuda Shorts- Old Navy

Cons- Marshall's

Hat- Dots

Necklace- Forever 21

Earrings- Amazon

I bought my first two tube tops ever this summer.  (I've had tube dresses before but for some reason I feel like that's different.)  This one from ON is nice because it has a band at the top and the bottom to make sure it stays in place.  Also, teal is my FAVORITE color so anything teal is okay by me.  The shorts I have been living in this summer, because they are really stretchy and comfortable and don't ride up like my short shorts do.  The hat I got at Dots, moments after I shaved my head and I think it totally works!

That's me, with all my rolls and none of my hair!  Have a great weekend!

~Mrs. Sprat

Genetics is Not Child Abuse

I was blissfully away at the beach yesterday when the news broke about whether parents should lose custody of obese children.  Most of what needs to be said has already.

When I read things like this I can't even describe the anger I feel.  Personally, I feel scared because I am a young woman (24 in less than a week!) who is planning on having children in the next 3-4 years.  Honestly, I'm not sure I am willing to put up with this kind of stuff.  From children's lunch habits being monitored in school, to forcing them to eat school lunches so I can't give them what I want (or more importantly what they want) to threatening to take them away if they are not the "right" size.  I want to teach my kids to have a healthy relationship with food and a positive attitude towards moving their bodies, and it seems like the ENTIRE WORLD wants something else for me.  A part of me just wants to give up now and not have children at all.

Professionally, I feel that this is an incredible waste of resources.  The foster system in this country is incredibly crowded.  There are thousands of children being bumped from home to home for all kinds of legitimate reasons.  To take fat kids, who suffer enough in this crazy society to begin with, and put them in this system that so often fails is criminal.  Honestly, the parents who force their kids on diets should be the ones deemed child abusers, but nobody sees Michelle Obama's children being taken away from her do they?

Instead of all this finger-pointing, maybe we should focus on healthcare for everyone and education in this country that isn't fat-phobic and disordered-eating-inducing.  Maybe we should teach parents to teach their children to eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full and eat what their body wants.  And maybe we should stop looking at physical characteristics as death sentences.  This obsession over fat children has to end, because the people who suffer the most, of course, are the children themselves.

Please check out Lesley at Two Whole Cakes and April at I AM in Shape. Round is a shape. for their takes on this nightmarish idea.

My Body is My Body

It's time for the profound statement of the day.  Ready?  My body is... my body.  Simple, obvious and yet no one can seem to get it.

I have been very lucky so far on the hair front.  Almost everyone has loved it, without question.  On my real Facebook, where I am not "out" about FA to most people, tons of comments have come in supporting me.  Even at work at ON, no one has even batted an eye.  That's pretty amazing for retail. I'm there to sell a product, so I could see if they disapproved of my looking very different from their customer base.  But all my managers loved it and treated it as though it was the most normal thing ever.

That being said, I have gotten a couple of not so happy responses, from family members, isn't that always the way?  Fine.   It's a big change all at once, with no real warning (I mean I've always been saying I wanted to shave my head but I guess people thought I was joking.)  I could see where they wouldn't immediately tell me I look great.

But here's the thing that really gets me.  Right after the "so what did you do that for?" speech, came this question.  "What does your husband think about it?"

To which I've been answering that he's the one who encouraged me to do it when I started to second-guess myself AND he's the one who took all the pictures of me while I was in the chair.  But I really feel what I should have said is "it's my damn head!"

Now, I love my husband very much and I would never make a big decision without consulting him first.  But at the end of the day, it's my head.  He doesn't own my head, I am not his property.  It's such sexist bull to ask me what he thinks (in a certain way, some of my coworkers asked nicely.)  My husband who loves me and supports me no matter what is going leave me because we both have short hair and of course women cannot be attractive if they have short hair?  Will I stop loving my husband when he goes bald?  Or if he gets a "bad" haircut or decides to go for a ponytail?  Of course not.  But men are allowed to do those kinds of things.  A woman shaving her head means she doesn't love her husband.

I love my new hairdo.  It makes me happy.  And that makes my husband happy.  And, oh yeah, not that it matters, but I look pretty damn good like this so I think it actually turns Mr. Sprat on more.  And he doesn't have to worry about putting his arm around me and pulling my hair anymore.  But that's not the point.  It's my decision and if you don't like it, tell me you don't like it, don't allude to the fact that my head exists solely for my husband's pleasure by asking what he thinks.

I also love my fat, it makes me happy and it is a part of me.  And my husband married me with all that fat there already.  So step off my body, it's mine and mine alone and the people who really care about me, will love it, no matter what.

Acts of Definance; The One Where I Shaved My Head

I want to start this post by saying that I LOVE my hair.  I love the color, I love the texture, I love how recently it's been drying wavy instead of straight.  I have never dyed my hair (well once, I did dye it pink temporarily, but nothing permanent) nor shall I ever.  I don't even blow-dry it because, well 1) it's too much damn work and 2) it's bad for your hair and I LOVE MY HAIR.

That being said, I have always wanted to shave my head.  Over the years, I've had many reasons for wanting to. First of all, I'm just not a huge fan of hair, ever.  On anyone.  I like my men bald, and I've often thought that I would like to be bald too.  I've always wanted to do it for feminist reasons, to prove that my looks were not my only value, or that gender roles blow, etc.

I've also always wanted to do it because of something my grandfather said to me, one time when I got a haircut. It was pretty short for me (maybe chin length) and I was a bit nervous about showing it off to the rest of the family.  Grandpa told me it looked beautiful but that it didn't matter, I would look beautiful even if I was bald.  It was one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me, the exact kind of thing family members should say to their children and I really believe he felt that way too.  Sadly, I won't know because he passed away in 2007, but I've always wondered what I would look like.

Lately, I have been thinking about doing it for body acceptance reasons. I knew a few people in college who did it for Love Your Body day (which is in October).  I also was inspired by Fat Heffalump when she shaved her head earlier this year.  I'm attending the NAAFA conference in August and I began thinking about doing it for then.  And then yesterday, when the temperature gauge in the car read 101 when we first got in it, I decided I was going to do it right damn now!

Here's the before.  Notice all my beautiful golden locks, but my hot sweaty face.  

Here's what she hacked off of me.  It was long enough to donate, which I was super stoked about!

And....
Here it is....
...................

The after picture!

It's been less than 24 hours but I LOVE IT.  It feels really nice and I think I oddly look more feminine, not less, at least head-on.  The side view is a little harder to adjust to but I'm loving it so far.  Mr. Sprat has been great through all of it and I think he really likes it too.  Besides now he won't find my hair everywhere!  No more clogging up the bathtub!  

A big thank you to the whole FA community and Kath in particular for helping me finally do what I've talked about for years and years!  Ba-ba-da-ba!   I have no hair!

Food Friday

I used to think that I didn't like butter.  We always had the fake-est of fake spreads in my house growing up.  And they tasted okay.  And whenever I was exposed to real butter at restaurants, it was so hard to spread and, I thought, it didn't really taste that good anyway.

I was never a huge dieter, but there were always certain things that I didn't like and I would argue to people who would try to convince me to like them, that they just added extra calories I didn't need anyway.  The best example is my distaste for condiments (ketchup, mayo, mustard, salad dressing).  My mom would tell me to "learn salad dressing" and I would ask her why she was trying to get me to eat more calories, when in general she would try to get me to diet.

Though no one was ever trying to get me to like real butter, I think I probably told myself the same thing.  "The fake spread is good enough and it doesn't have all those calories!"  But as I started reading more Fat Acceptance literature, it became clear to me that I might just be a hypocrite for using Benecol.  So I decided to try spreadable butter with canola oil.

I can't believe I ever thought I Can't Believe It's Not Butter was good.  This butter is so creamy and salty and delicious, it's like I've never had a slice of buttered bread before.  I literally close my eyes when I eat some on a roll, it's so good.  I think I used the spreading issue as an excuse not to "waste anymore calories," and I always preferred real butter, I just told myself I didn't.  I told myself that it was good enough.

What about you guys?  What foods did you convince yourself you liked in the name of dieting?  What did you tell yourself, wasn't good, but good enough?  What foods have you discovered since?

Speaking of TV

Speaking of TV, do check out this link..  Our very own Brian Stuart was on TV here in the Philly area, as well as my last home, Boston, talking about fat stigma/#thingsfatpeoplearetold.  Great to see the news actually interested in a story like this and I think they did a pretty good job with it.

Commercial

Just a quick post today to say that I saw a commercial I never thought I would last night.  I  was half-asleep so I didn't catch all of it, but it was definitely a commercial for the HCG diet.  For those who don't know/don't remember the Fat-o-Sphere's uproar about it, that's the diet where you eat 500 calories a day (well below the World Health Organization's level of starvation) and you take in pregnant woman pee in order to get HCG which serves as an appetite suppressant.  The diet is extremely dangerous and causes you to lose weight rapidly, sometimes more than one pound a day.  The commercial also seemed pretty shady because it was describing some way to get around getting a prescription.  The cost?  Three payments of 300 bucks.

Like the $60 billion-dollar-a-year diet industry needed more help!   It makes me sick that these companies can take advantage of poor, desperate people who are willing to do anything to stop the hate.  Why can't those companies try to fix the hate in people, instead of the fat?

Why I Stopped Watching my Soap Opera

Yes, I can admit it.  Until a few months ago, I watched... Days of Our Lives.  I can feel you all judging me.  A little back story:

My mother used to watch Days of Our Lives with her mother and then she started watching it with me when I was a kid.  Not the best family legacy ever, but I felt there was a sense of tradition.  I never knew my maternal grandmother, so I felt it connected me to the women of my family.  I've watched it on and off since I was a kid.

Days of Our Lives used to have a few fat characters.  One of them was the always-scheming Sami Brady, played by Alison Sweeney.  That name might sound familiar to you as the host of Biggest Loser.  Once upon a time, Alison Sweeney was a fat teenager.  And then she wasn't.  Now she's dedicated to "helping" people become like her.  I used to love Sami, because she had been fat.  She was fat and on TV.  If she could do it, I could too.  My mom used to use her as an example.  "She used to be chubby, you could be like her."

When she started doing Biggest Loser, I just ignored it.  She also briefly did Fear Factor, if memory serves, and I paid that little mind as well, I wrote them both off as part of the reality craze.  However, during Days of Our Lives, a show filled with thin people to begin with (The only fat woman character currently on is a black nurse who is desexualized and portrayed as a buttinsky, mothering kind of character.  Offensive on so many levels.)  they started showing more and more ads for Biggest Loser.  And I kept getting more and more fed up.

The last straw, however, came not from a Biggest Loser ad, but from a PSA by, you guessed it, Alison Sweeney.  In it she reads parodies Little Miss Muffet:

"What if Little Miss Muffet had been sitting on her tuffet eating fried foods?!  Then she would have been too unhealthy to run away from that spider"

I am not making this up.  Oh no!  Not fried foods!  THE DEVIL INCARNATE!  Guess what Ms. Sweeney?  Fried foods, are still--gasp-- foods.  Fried chicken still has protein and carbs and vitamins and all kinds of good things.  Mozzarella sticks, a personal favorite of mine still have calcium.  Oh and by the way, one meal of fried foods does not an unhealty person make.  The PSA is a "The More You Know" and it goes on to tell parents that they can teach their kids to eat healthy and be active.  Sure, villifying food, that's a great way to start.

I'm reminded of an article that bounced around the Fat-o-Sphere recently about how children as young as ten are vomiting to lose weight. .  The article presents the horrifying facts and then suggests the answers include making sure your kids get enough sleep and don't let them eat fried foods.  Nowhere does it suggest loving your child, telling them that they are beautiful no matter what or encouraging them to eat a variety of foods intuitively.  I mean unless they are just worried that fried foods are harder to throw up, since they seem to be encouraging this behavior, not trying to stop it.

Food is not the enemy here.  The diet industry is the enemy, the advertising industry is the enemy, Alison Sweeney is the enemy.  It took me a long time to realize it, but she had a choice, she could have chosen not to diet and been a role model for fat girls like me everywhere.  Hell, she could even have still dieted and been a role model to fat kids everywhere.  Instead, she chose to help add to the disordered eating and bullying of fat people everywhere.  The saddest part is, she didn't need to become famous on the backs of fat people, she was talented enough to do it on her own.  I wish someone would have told her.

Disordered Eating: No one is safe!

*Trigger warning for disordered eating*

I never really considered myself to have disordered eating habits.  I had been on several diets in elementary, middle and high school and once in college but they never lasted long and I went right back to eating the way I always had after they ran their course.  Occasionally, I ate out of boredom, I always liked to eat even numbers of things like cookies and I usually have to have something salty or savory after I eat something sweet.  But that's about it.  Or so I thought.

I've been trying intuitive eating a little bit since reading Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby's book.  Mostly I've been trying to really be present for what I eat and think about what I'm having before I eat it. I already feel that what I eat is very different from what I used to eat.

Lunch is a great example.  My lunch rule (if I was home, if I have work I bring leftovers or a sandwich) was two things.  I had to eat two things.  So if I had Hot Pockets, I also had to have a can of Spaghettios.  I had discovered that one thing (be it TV dinner or whatnot) would not fill me up.  So I would heat up one thing in the microwave and the other on the stove and then eat them together.  Often, I would get frustrated because what I had in the house didn't "match."  Soup doesn't really go with a TV dinner.  Hot pockets and a ham sandwich are basically the same thing, etc.  I would end up feeling over-full and sometimes a little sick.  But I had to make myself full, so I ate them anyway.

Now I think about what I really want.  If I want a sandwich, I'll make it and eat it and then think about if I'm still hungry.  If I want a TV dinner (which isn't happening all that much anymore for other reasons) I'll eat it and then check in.  I feel much better after lunch and I eat a wider variety of things.  I'm learning to truly enjoy sandwiches, which I have never really liked.  And I've started actually cooking my lunch instead of taking lunch as an opportunity to reheat instead.  I love to cook, why not do it more?

I know this doesn't sound like much, but a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Sprat and I weren't very hungry at dinner time.  It was really hot out, which tends to zap my appetite and we probably had a late lunch or something.  So instead of cooking dinner, we had sandwiches and pasta salad.  I would never have eaten that for dinner before FA.  Sandwiches aren't dinner food, I would only get hungry later!  Now I listen to my body and a sandwich sounded perfect:  Cold, easy to prepare and not too big.  Amazing!  I felt full when I finished but not sick and when we got hungry later we had some ice cream for dessert.

It was interesting for me to really see just how disordered some aspects of my eating were, considering the fact that I haven't been on a diet in a really long time or all that concerned with fat or calories, etc.  Some things are little personal quirks I guess (my rigid definitions of breakfast, lunch and dinner are my own) and some are the way I was raised or taught to eat.  But if I'm noticing these things about me, who has been pretty secure about what I eat for a long time, I can only imagine what goes through the minds of some people who have serious disorders.

Too often, we taking eating for granted, we fall into eating ruts, and allow ourselves to do some pretty serious damage to our bodies and our minds because we think we shouldn't "waste time on food."   Don't we owe it to ourselves to be present for our food and enjoy it?  Maybe we owe it to the food.  After all, it helps us do everything else.

Retooling, Reconsidering

Hello faithful readers!

I'm sorry that I've been MIA for almost a month now.  There are a lot of factors involved here.  One is that I am out of school, which is oddly making it harder for me to focus and continue to blog.  During school, I added blogging to my homework and treated it as such, something that had to get done.  Now because I'm just reading and relaxing, I'm having a lot more trouble staying focused.   Also, my husband and I are having some financial issues because he doesn't get paid over the summer, so that has taken a lot of my brain power. Luckily, we are on the verge of solving that crisis so I feel more equipped to start handling some fat issues again.

Another factor is that I started to resent the sex aspect of this blog.  I started this blog to talk about all things FA, but because in my "real" life, I study sex it became what my blog was known for or associated with.  I love sex.  I love to talk about it, to study it, to have it and to analyze it.  And that's why I went to school for it.  But it is not my whole life.  Right now I have plenty of people I can talk about what I learn and study but I have very few people that I can talk with about Fat Acceptance.  So while I want to continue to talk about sex here, I don't want it to be the main focus of my blog.

For now, I'm going to try to write shorter, more frequent posts.  Thanks for sticking with me, more to come very soon!

~Mrs. Sprat

NAAFA

Hey All,

Sorry I've been missing for a couple of weeks, but I've been thinking about re-tooling the format.  Also, Mr. Sprat and I are undergoing some seasonal money issues that we're trying to work out so I've been a bit preoccupied.

I wanted to just quickly get a poll of who is going to NAAFA this year in DC.  I'm thinking about going (I live about two hours away) but I want to know if it is worth it before I shell out money that I don't really have.  Let me know!

Mrs. Sprat

Fat Sex Tip #8- Don't Settle

I was looking through my old journal from the summer when I was 15 and I found this one section that I wanted to share with you:

"What guy would be interested in me?  I'm fat, ugly and loud.  Even a great sense of humor (and mine is only good, not great) can't make up for that.  I guess I was sort of hoping that because no one else in their right mind would like him, might make him settle, but I guess he has one ounce of pride.  He deserves better than me anyway."

One moment of introspection in an otherwise pretty boring journal.  (As I was reading it I kept wishing I'd written more about myself and less about him, but I was 15 so I guess I wasn't ready for that quite yet.)

Settling.  It's what all fat women are expected to do.  We're expected to go with whoever will give us a second glance, gay or straight, nice or not-so-nice, into us or using us, it doesn't matter.  Someone who stalks you is at least giving you attention, rape becomes a compliment.  It has to stop.

Don't settle.  Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby talk about this in Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere, which I finally read last week!  "You are not allowed to settle for someone who is not totally crazy about you and your naked body."  It can be hard to remember (and I think here is where an "It gets better" campaign for fat teens would come in handy) that once you reach a certain age, people will be interested in you for a variety of different reasons and one reason might impact the way they view the rest of you.  There will be people out there who will just like you.  You will have another boyfriend if you turn down the guy who won't be seen in public with you.  You will get laid again if you turn down the married guy in your office whose "wife just doesn't understand him."  You will.  There is not one single person who will complete your whole life, there are many who would share your life with you and make you happy.  You will find at least one of these people in your lifetime.

Don't settle for bad sex, either.  Again, it can be easy to say, "well he's probably the last guy who will ever be interested in me so I'll just not have good sex."  No.  Don't even think about it.  First of all, you have to remember that sex (despite it's being the "most natural thing in the world" hardy-har-har) or being good at sex, is not innate.  Every man is different and every woman is different, so you need to communicate with each other and be willing to seek information first.  That being said, if you have tried these things (or if he or she is unwilling or unable to talk about or consider them) you need to move on.  Bad sex is not your fault if you tried to work on it, even if you are the fat partner.  You will get laid again, by someone who knows what they are doing, so don't settle.

Kate and Marianne make an excellent point, however, that it is important to think about what you want and don't want in a partner and be willing to expand your horizons.  At first when I read this, I though "so don't settle but remember to settle," but they have a good point.  Why do you like only tall men?  Because society, the media, They, told you to.  Why rule out a short guy automatically?  It's the same as him ruling you out because you're fat.  It's important to remember that those messages that everyone else is getting (Be thin, white and straight and you're life will be great! Hey that rhymes, I should get into advertising!)  you got them for a long time, too.  And you internalized them.  And you may not realize it but the reason you are only interested in men who make more money than you is because someone else told you that good women want that.  It's crap.  Give them a chance, but reserve the right to say thanks but no thanks, if they turn out not to be compatible with you sexually, or otherwise.

I can still remember my mother's dismissive laughs when I told her about a guy I liked or that I thought the guy might like me back.  I can remember even more clearly the day that I called her to tell her I had started dating the guy who would become my husband.

Me:  "Mom, I have good news.  I have a boyfriend."
Mom:  "What, a real one?"

There is someone (several people in fact) out there for everyone, regardless of if you are fat or thin, have tattoos, wear high-heels, talk with a lisp, have a peg-leg, are crazy about baseball or HATE condiments.   You will get laid again if you pass up someone who will treat you wrong.  And if you have the confidence to know that and to go after what you want, it will be that much easier for you.

Love,
Mrs. Sprat

Fat Fashion Friday 8

Cardigan:  Fashion Bug 

Sleeveless Ruffle Top- Dress Barn

Skinny Jeans- Old Navy

Sandals- Kohls

Necklace- Pugster @ Amazon

I went into Dress Barn over the weekend because I had a coupon and I figured I'd see if they had anything that wasn't ridiculously expensive.  I tried on a whole bunch of stuff, but the instant I put on this ruffle top, I knew I HAD to have it.  It's really comfortable and it looks great.  I paired it with my lace cardi from Fashion Bug and dark skinny jeans, for a dressed up yet casual look.  

I love glass jewelry.  It's always colorful and unique, which is why it's my favorite!

Have a great weekend everyone and happy International No Diet Day!  

~Mrs. Sprat

Book Review: Shadow on a Tightrope

As part of my summer of freedom, I have decided to try to read as many books as I possibly can, probably a book a week until September.  I have a list started that includes my favorite authors (Paul Auster and Margaret Atwood), works of feminism, works about fat acceptance/liberation and maybe a few sex books, classics and new authors to consider.  I'm really looking forward to reading some of the literature about Fat Acceptance, since so far, all of my knowledge comes from blogs.

In terms of FA, I decided to start with a book called Shadow on a Tightrope.  I chose the book because it included both factual information and stories of fat women, so it seemed like a good way to ease myself into more heady, intellectual books.  As it turns out, it was a great place to start because it seems that it may the first Fat Liberation book published, or it is often where people start reading.

The book is organized into several different parts which cover:  Exposing fat myths, memories of fat women, the struggle to exercise or participate in sports because of ridicule, living with embarrassment and isolation, medical crimes, and fat women as survivors.  I thought it was well organized because it built some factual basis in the first chapter and then showed the grave injustices that fat women face and go more for the emotional from there, and then bring it back to more intellectual prose by talking about politics towards the end.

It was a very intense read for me, especially because it is an outdated book (1983).  I know that seems counter-intuitive, but I guess I had just imagined that FA was relatively new and that was the reason why I had just discovered it recently.  To find out that people have known about the dangers of diets since the 80's and maybe earlier and still all we see on TV is Jenny Craig ads and Michelle Obama's bullying is horrifying.

It was also really grueling to read about the many accounts of intestinal bypass, which for those who don't know, was done before gastric bypass and involved removing most of the intestine so that food passed through people without it ever being digested.  To read about what so many women went through, and what was considered to be "normal" healing from the procedure-- painful diarrhea, hair lost, pain, vomiting, nutritional deficiencies, infection, fever-- not to mention the complications which often arose, was staggering.  The worst part was that these women were healthy to begin with (it was often a requirement for the surgery) and they were extremely unhealthy and many died, after.  I can't think of  more obvious proof that thin and health are not the same thing!

In terms of sexuality, I thought it was interesting to note that most of the women in the book identified themselves as lesbians.  I suppose that it makes sense because these particular Fat Lib people had come from a feminism perspective and many feminists at that time were lesbians.  I was a little put out by it, to be honest, because I hate the idea that you can't be attracted to men and be a feminist at the same time.  However, it was also very interesting to hear of women who considered themselves lesbian feminists and then followed men's conventional beauty standards and how upset this contradiction made fat lesbians.  People can learn to be so critical about everything, expect fat hate for some reason.  Why this is was explored in the book but I think there is lots of room for more studies and theories about this contradiction.

There was one essay about fat sexuality, and the author identified that she was attracted to males.  The essay was painful to read.  It demonstrates how interconnected body image is with other aspects of sexuality and shows first-hand how dangerous fat-hate can be to all other aspects of a person's life.  The things that fat women are expected to sacrifice for sex or a relationship are mind-boggling once you really start to think about it.  There are always conditions that must be followed, or else you will wind-up alone.  You must learn to be grateful for any kind of attention, because you are not deserving.  Furthermore,  fat women are pushed into the Eve/Mary dichotomy perhaps even more than women in general.  We are either supersexual and willing to sleep with anyone or we are asexual, jolly, fat women who provide comic relief and little else.

Overall, the book was a great read and one I would definitely recommend for people new to Fat Acceptance or for those who would like to know more about the history of Fat Acceptance.  We need to educate people about this, it has been nearly 30 years since this book was written and almost no one knows about the truths it contains.  We need to end the suffering!

~Mrs. Sprat

Fat Fashion Friday 7

Cardi- Fashion Bug

Tank/Skinny Jeans- Old Navy

Shoes- Marshalls

Ring/ Earrings- Fashion Bug

Pin- I can't remember, I've had it forever!

I like this look because it's casual but cute.  The cardi is a nice, soft jersey, which is great in the spring weather.  I am also totally digging the pink and green combo, I've been wearing a lot of that lately, especially since I got these shoes!  

I hated working at Marshalls but I love shopping there!  They were 20 bucks and super cute.  

I like the idea of stretch rings because my fingers are pretty big so it is really hard to find rings that fit.  The problem is that they still seem to have a "standard" size, so I find my finger gets really itchy and annoyed after a while and I end up having to take it off, or rotate fingers throughout the day.  Would it kill them to make it just a little bit looser?  I did get one from Avenue last week that is a little better.   Maybe I'll show it off in my next OOTD.  Also, I recently found out that the Forever 21 near where I live has Forever21+  stuff in the store, so I'll have to show you some of my finds there as well!

Have a great weekend everyone!

~Mrs. Sprat

Message to Infants

Hello everyone!  I am done with my semester and back in action!

I was working at ON last week and a customer had a two piece set for an infant boy (I think the size tag said 3-6 months on it.)  On the front of the shirt it said "Professional Athlete."  Okay, that's kind of cute, I'm sure they don't make a girls one like that but I am sadly used to the separate sections of pink and blue throughout the store.  But when I flipped the outfit over to fold it, the back said "I only date models."

What's wrong with this picture?

First, we have the boy being an athlete.  As if it is the only thing that boys are good for.  What is the stereotype that we hear when a man finds out he's going to have a son?  Oh good, now I'll have someone to play ball with.  His girl children certainly can't do that, nor his wife or coworkers or anything.  The entire biological reason for having  a boy is to have someone to throw a ball around with.

Then, we have the "I only date models."  Do I really have to say how offensive that sentence is, even as a joke on an infants t-shirt?

Third, we have the conflation of the two.  What is the message here?  I am an athlete, so I am a fit man.  Because I am a fit man, I deserve a fit woman, who is a model.  Remember: Thin women are healthy and muscular men are healthy.  So they are each other's equals.  The really sad truth is that saying he is an athlete really tells us nothing about what he looks like.  There are plenty of fat athletes, and plenty of unattractive ones, but saying that he only dates models, we know exactly what she would look like.  It is the same old story, a man has to have a good job, and a woman has to look good.   I think that if the shirt just said "I only date models" I wouldn't have even minded so much, but the conflation of the two is what makes me so mad.

I understand that the infant doesn't understand what he's wearing, but do parents really want to make that message to others about their child?  "My kid is going to keep everything the same as it is now."  Shouldn't you want your children to change the status quo?  Shouldn't you as a mother or a father want something better for your child than what you had?  Or am I just overreacting to a cute shirt that parents buy their kids?

~Mrs. Sprat

Ithaca!

Here are a few pics from my trip to Ithaca!  Enjoy!

Dress- Ross (I think the label says "Snap)

Necklace- Kohls

Shoes- Kmart (Bongo)

In wine country with Mr. Sprat.  The dress is Kohls, but it's straight sized :(  I think they sell it in plus on the website though.  We got really lucky, the weather was gorgeous the second day, which is unusual for Ithaca in  April, usually it snows!  

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Love,

Mrs. Sprat