Sunday, January 11, 2009

Detrimentality

Foolishly got myself pulled into a thread on one of the Dimensions boards this weekend. One of the board regulars, taking several WG fantasy images by two FA artists and posting them out of context, asked if these images were "detrimental to size acceptance." It's a loaded question, and it drew out the inevitable responses: posts by fat women and men who were offended by the images, slamming both their creators and those who find them appealing; expressions of "concern" for those innocent newcomers to the site who come upon these images for the first time; corollary statements about what mainstream America might think if they saw the images, and so on.

Some of this grew pretty nasty (and, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the original poster, a self-described "shit-stirrer," hadn't intended it that way), but it was also depressingly familiar. This isn't the first time that self-proclaimed size-acceptance advocates have taken umbrage over outlandish fantasy imagery, and it won't be the last. I do feel badly for those writing and drawing fanta-sizers who wander into this discussion for the first time. Ideally, all artists would be thick-skinned enough to withstand the nattering nabobs of negativism (to pull out an old Agnew-ism), but, of course, that's not the case.

My own belief is that fantasy shouldn't be bound by questions about "What's good for the movement," but, then, I would believe that, wouldn't I? I do think that the basic ideals of size acceptance run so counter to the mainstream (I'm writing this in the middle of the annual New Year's Diet advertizing blitz, after all) that even if there weren't the works of a bunch of active fanta-sizers out there, the Dimensions community of fat women & men and their admirers would be viewed as just plain aberrant . . .

Thursday, January 01, 2009

A Quick Thought from the Tabloids

Nope, don't believe that current Oprah is only 200 pounds.