Adipositivity Project!

From the Feministing Blog (see, told you I loved the site)...


The Adipositivity Project "aims to promote size acceptance, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather, through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that's normally unseen.

The hope is to widen definitions of physical beauty. Literally."

It's a beautiful thing. I think there should be more sites like this.

BLOGGING: Unbearable Lightness of Being Chubby

New column over at Rainbow Cincinnati!!!! A preview:

"I love how you look right now," the hottie said, stroking my stomach outside of the Serpent. He had not seen me since my recent weight loss, and the attention was welcome.

Never mind that I've been trying to lay him for years.

Later, when the alcohol faded and the self-respect returned, I realized just how sickened I was by the comment. After years of flirtation, hundreds of drunken nights and online conversations, it took this for him to finally perform this little song and dance to completion.

Click here for the rest, and click on the img below for the rest of the excellent site.

PERSONAL: Body Image/etc.

All right, so here's the deal:

I'm planning on going to the gym tomorrow. (Don't laugh, I have goals to manage)

The question, immediately, to my mind is: Why are you doing this?

I woke up with a really bad case of gastritis this morning (which I got an official diagnosis tonight), due to alcohol, but it reflects the bad heart burn and trouble I have breathing without coughing these days. I can, thus, justify it all and give the Queen Latifah excuse: It's about health.

But, really, it's about sexy.

I'm 99% sure of that. BUT! I'm such a proponent of LOVING THE BODY YOU HAVE, and not the body you want... am I a hypocrite?

No, I think my response to myself is simple: I do love the body I have, but I want to love more of the bodies around me, too.

PERSONAL: Body Image and Engendered Bodies

So there are two of me... there is me and "Mama Kristy."

Last night, I spent the evening at, essentially, a college party in Oxford and, drunkenly, discovered that what Kristy says is unacceptable by me. From Mama Kristy, it's fabulous and fun... from me, it's creepy and lecherous. I swear that is not hte intent.

Interestingly enough, it creates an interesting sort of dichotomy of gender stereotypes within the gay community. AS a full figured and fabulous woman, it is acceptable for me to be a little gross and flirtatious and make boys play games... it is desexualized. However, when people acknowledge that I am a male and have to see me as male, it becomes sexualized and it becomes less fun and more ... well, the word used last night was "creepy."

The interesting jusxtaposition of situations is that I am a 210lbs (that 25lbs lost in 6 months baby!), hairy, "cub" (mini-bear). I've accepted that as the image people have of me... more importantly, I apparently seem older than I am. At 24, people guess me to be somewhere in the range of 32-37. So, on top of being that atypical body type, I now come off as an old, fat, hairy, lecherous man.

I wonder, on the flip side, how much of this would appear creepy were I 50lbs lighter, less hairy, and looked a little more my age.

I have a theory, based on all my evidence, that the only people who are creepy are those that we don't want to be sexualized... old people, ugly people, etc. The young and the beautiful cannot be creepy or lecherous; they are "free."

My prime example: a dear friend of mine has interest in being in porn. People laugh when I suggest that I want to be in porn -- "of course you do;" on the flip side, when he suggests it, people say that he is "open" and "inspiring because he just loves his body and loves sex and accepts it."

Uhhuh.

Change yourself or change the world, I suppose.