Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Beach Party for Every Body

Image by David Shaw from Pixabay

What I have been wondering for a long time is this.

Why is it that when you have a bunch of stupid guys on a beach and a person with the “wrong” kind of body walks by, and they yell terrible and mean-spirited things at this person who is minding their own business,

Why is everyone’s response to ignore and even justify their behavior rather than shouting them down?

Why shouldn’t everyone be allowed to relax and have fun at the beach or the pool?

Why is it only fun for those whose bodies have been deemed attractive enough?

Why shouldn’t fat people and skinny people and people with scars and stretch marks and ladies with saggy boobs and men with round pot bellies and hairy folks and scrawny scarecrow guys and gals with arms and legs like Betty Spaghetti have a nice time too?

I think it’s rather boring when the only people who can go for a swim without feeling self-conscious and like they must keep covered up are young people with the “right” kind of body.

Shouldn’t we have gotten past the idea that the only people whose bodies should be seen are sleek, unblemished, photoshopped visions of pornographic “perfection?”

Shouldn’t the beach be a place where everyone can cool off, not yet another spot where only the hottest hotties are allowed?

Beach parties are fun

For those with the right body

Not so much for those

Whose bodies have been deemed wrong

Ignoring not an option

~Cie~

FOAD Thursday: Boycott Pourtions: Clueless Encouragement of Eating Disorders At its "Finest"

Macy's got dragged for selling this atrocious, body-shaming product and they pulled it from their shelves.

Here is what "Pourtions," the company that manufactured this overpriced, size-policing shit show had to say

As the creators of Pourtions, we feel badly if what was meant to be a lighthearted take on the important issue of portion control was hurtful to anyone. Pourtions is intended to support healthy eating and drinking. Everyone who has appreciated Pourtions knows that it can be tough sometimes to be as mindful and moderate in our eating and drinking as we’d like, but that a gentle reminder can make a difference. That was all we ever meant to encourage.

Well, sit down before you hurt yourself, you sanctimonious schmuck, and let Big Mama school your entitled ass.

"The important issue of portion control."

A lot of big people do have an issue with "portion control," oh Sanctimonious One.

It's called "being food insecure."

That's right, a lot of large folk do not have enough to eat, let alone to buy your overpriced crap designed to encourage them to hate themselves even more than they've already been taught to do all their lives.

I, for one, only eat one or two meals per day. Neither of these are large meals. I eat like this because I can't afford to eat regular meals. Even though I have diabetes and should be eating regularly, I can't. Yes, I have a problem with "portion control." I can't control the fact that I'm not able to eat enough because when you're disabled you're forced into poverty. Therefore, as I have wisely said to many fat-shaming asshats, "fuck you."

"Pourtions is intended to support healthy eating and drinking."

Yes, if you call encouraging eating disorders "healthy eating and drinking," I guess this crap is doing it right.

"It can be tough to be as mindful and moderate in our eating and drinking as we would like."

You know what, Genius, if you're hungry all the time, you're doing it wrong, and I swear to the goddess, anytime I hear that fucking phrase "mindful eating," I just want to puke on somebody. By the way, I spent a good number of my years forcing myself to puke after eating. I started doing that when I was twelve, so I could, you know, fit into "skinny jeans." Because after all, only horrible bloated land whales wear "mom jeans", whatever the hell those are. Because after all, there's nothing ickier than the body of a mature woman. Seriously, ewwwwww! If you don't have the figure of a pre-teen girl, you're doing it wrong!

Never mind that there are healthy fat people and unhealthy thin people. Never mind that there are thin people who can shovel in food by the truckload and not gain weight and fat people who practice "mindful portion control" to the point of starvation and are still fat.

In short, fuuuuuuuck you.

"A gentle reminder can make a difference."

Yes, "food coma" is a high-larious "gentle reminder" to all you ham planets out there that you need to mindfully restrict your portions lest you end up wearing the horrible Mom Jeans. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is worse than that.

In closing, may I gently remind you:

FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!!!!!

Thank you to "The Mighty" for sharing this cluster fuck.

I will share some better plates for you to put on the table at the end of the post. Because you deserve good things, whether you are a slender reed indeed or large and in charge. You deserve plates that you can eat off of which won't have shitty messages written on them needling you to hate and deprive yourself.

Love,

Cie

Deep Thoughts With Cheesy and Barack

I wish there wasn't so much onus placed on being perfectly healthy. Nobody's perfect. Everyone has shit that goes awry, even those people who have supposedly "perfect" bodies. For instance, my cholesterol readings are actually stellar. You could frame that shit and put a blue ribbon next to it. But my endocrine system is a fucked-up mess, and my triglycerides are elevated. 

None of this shit says anything about my mind, my soul, my work ethic, my devotion, or anything else that I think is truly important. But a lot of people act like shit like blood sugar levels, abnormal labs, or a number on a scale defines a person on a moral level. It doesn't and can't.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: My Resolution to Minimize Body-Shaming Psychic Attacks

Per my resolution to minimize the amount of toxic, ignorant, psychic attacks negatively impacting my life, I kicked the radio station which had been my primary choice to the curb following an onslaught of weight loss surgery ads and the afternoon DJ making the inane remark that "exercising makes you feel thinner. This is especially true for women." 

I now have the radio in the Forester permanently tuned to the publicly funded jazz station. I have satellite radio in the Fusion, which tends to be on one of the 70's or 80's stations or the Underground Garage. They don't blather on and on about bullshit calculated to offend and shame people with non-optimal appearances: bigger people, older people, women who aren't conventionally attractive.

 It's a huge relief to be able to do my job and have some music to keep me from dying of boredom without some stupid advertisement or idiot remark from one of the DJ's raising my blood pressure multiple times during my shift. I've thought about writing a letter to the radio station, but I doubt it would do any good.  

I hope one day we will have a world where a radio station playing such toxic advertising would be flooded by emails rebuking them. 

People deserve to live their lives without being constantly reminded that they are seen as undesirable thanks to the constant brainwashing by mega-corporations hell-bent on taking their money.

Advertising is usually a form of attack rather than an informative medium.

It's time to stop kowtowing to the Frankenstein monster which was in no small part created by behaviorist John B. Watson. Watson was a bit of a shit in any case. He was unscrupulous in his experimentation on vulnerable subjects. 

We need to learn to think for ourselves rather than allowing advertisers to mold our beliefs.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Never Enough

I'm a hard worker, but it's not enough. You also have to be pretty, cheerful, tidy and physically active. If you are a woman, you are to be just sexy enough, never frumpy or slutty. If you are a woman, you are not to look a day over thirty, no matter how old you are. If you have psychological glitches, you are to either hide them, deny them, or medicate them away. You will always be perfectly compliant. You will not weigh more or less than the number determined for your height on the arbitrary chart. You will exercise in the prescribed manner each day, never mind if your ass just worked your fifth twelve hour shift of the week and you've only had two or three hours of sleep every day.

Should you fail to comply with these edicts, it does not matter how hard you work or what good you do in the world, you are a lazy, worthless piece of shit, and you will be shamed until you either comply or commit suicide because you feel so fucking worthless.

This is why larger people avoid going to the damn doctor. Because medical school teaches doctors to treat a chart, not a patient.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~