General

Munchies:
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Please offer your insight! Don't waste your time and energy on responding with completely useless, to the conversation, memes!

I'm just calling a spade a spade.

Beauty is subjective as well as a social construct. But that doesn't mean it's not real.

Fat - especially fat bellies - are stigmatized. Women have it worse, but the general public sees them as disgusting. This leads to a lot of mental health issues that can spill over to physical health issues. On top of that, people perceived as gross and ugly are far more disadvantaged over those perceived as beautiful or even average. There's tons on stories in the forums alone about those denied medical care or encouraged to engage in dangerous, life threatening things all in the name of losing weight. Some have been abused for their soft middles.

So saying "all bellies are beautiful" is more than a platitude. It is a radial statement of reclaiming power and control. To be beautiful is to be valued. And when you know have value, you aren't going to accept the discrimination a lot of people force on you. Because boy howdy do a lot of people internalize fatphobia and think they deserve the abuse they get.

This shouldn't be reality, but it is. And it's like this pretty much everywhere - even within the fat fetish community.

So, once again:

I'm a black woman born and raised in the American South. We appreciate thicker bodies, but we also experience discrimination for not achieving Euro-centric standards of beauty. And a lot of these people standards were made with with anti-black racism in mind.

And before you say "well, there are different beauty standards in other places", might I remind you of colonialism and the internet?

I'm flabbergasted you've never heard of fatphobia. Have you never gone outside and talked to people? Have you never heard of fat activism? Fat discrimination? Never knew someone denied medical care because the doctor thought their health issues were due to eating too many Twinkies only for them to have cancer?

Tell me you don't talk to fat people without telling me you don't talk to fat people.

If you think that empowering a marginalized group comes at the cost of another group, then you are not as progressive as you think you are.

Fun fact, buddy. I'm not fat. I've never been fat. I've been underweight for most of my life before becoming muscular. Fat people loving themselves and feeling empowered does not strip me of anything. If anything, it improves my life. Because when we uplift marginalized people, we as a society are better off.

Would you say that about racial minorities? Women? LBTQIA+? People with disabilities?

If you would, you are not a progressive person.

Two people are in the middle of a deep pool. One can swim, but the other can't. Would you help them out of the pool the same way? Or would you do it differently? If you really want unity, you'd meet people where they are.

Happy to hear that, love.

I live my life as I see fit. But I do not have the luxury of not caring about this. Do you not understand how racism works?

This thread is about appreciating bellies. I do not need you to "well actually" me about my lived experiences or how I just need to power through discrimination.

This is how racism comes in:


Just because you don't understand how systemic oppression works doesn't mean it's not there. Oh to live your privileged life of ignorance.

All bellies are good bellies

Have you ever had depression? Have you ever been told that your body is bad? That it's a direct reflection of your moral character?

Because I have. And that hurts like hell. You're right. No one can make you love your body. But I promise you that if people didn't reach out to me, uplift me, and tell me that my body isn't bad or gross, I don't think I'd have learned to love myself.

You're right in that one person cannot right all the wrongs in the world. But one person can make a huge impact. And if we get together and collectively push and create change, we can have an even bigger impact.

And that's how activism works.

Okay! Now I can work with this a little bit better. So, what you write here is basically a materialist explanation of how this came out to be! The way i interpret it at least!

My question is, Is this the best we can do? To pretend that our bodies are beautiful, (instead of beauty living in the ideological space) in order to counter the discrimination? But it would require the same level of mental energy, or less to explain that everyone has different views! That's a much tougher ideological argument to make, instead of the "No, im beautiful", which is really only a reactionary move to the discrimination. It tries to prove it wrong, without proof which makes it a toxic and not a constructive argument! And I'm criticizing precisely that! And in fact i provide an alternative, precisely because i do understand that discrimination does cause harm! It is stupid! It is irrational! But the way to counter it is not with more of the same! But with something that will render the logic of the discriminator obsolete!

Also a few more points,
I never implied, and i see that it might not have come across clearly, that beauty isn't real. Beauty is purely ideological. It resides in the domain of ideology,each one of us has! And our ideology constructs our reality! Here I'm not saying that beauty isn't real, but precisely *how* it is real!

Secondly, i didn't understand how beauty is a social contrast at all. Beauty standards absolutely are (in any kind of civilization) i can see how perceptions of beauty can affect society, and how society can affect the perception of beauty people have, but that, again is something elde. I'd really appreciate it if you explain this point further, because i cant see how beauty could be a social construct!
And lastly, I'd actually appreciate it If you also provide constructive criticism to my previous post too!