General Board
Re: Sort of a segue....
Date: Monday, 25 February 2002, at 2:57 a.m.
In Response To: Sort of a segue.... (Mindy)
Yes, Mindy, I remember that thread well.
I’ve already read Paul’s post on this, and I think he has quite a good perspective. In terms of the women there feeling just *how* they need to see themselves as attractive. By the way, I agree Cat’s site could never be seen as porn but instead as artistry. She goes from the serious exhibition of the bare fat female body to the delightfully impish.
But while I also agree with Tina’s take that the thread in question could have been seen as similar to a case of blaming a prostitute and not a john, there’s something else most in the SA community have chosen to tip-toe around. (Not that they haven’t tried before to address it.) It has to do with Paul’s comment about certain women not having *conventional* avenues to attract or at least interact with men.
As I see the situation, *that* has had much to do with their lack of social grace *and* their being provided no such REAL safe environment. Yes, for many of the women who post in that environment it really *is* their first acknowledgment of their sexuality. Still, they’ve jumped ahead of the game. And the men have seen to it. So, many women haven’t yet had a chance to learn bodily self-respect, and as Paul said in a post to Vickie, that "less (really) is more." The oldest female "weapon," if you will, in the book. That ol’ fashion female mystique. They still aren’t able to differentiate their unnecessary displays of overt sexuality from come hither (subtle) sensuality. Not to mention they have a willingness to discard what's important to *them* as women. In terms of their whole selves. And it’s *not* totally their fault…to a point.
The fact of the entire matter continues to be this. While we’ve all - or at least many of us over time have - struggled to recognize the SA culture as being just that, advocating of size acceptance, we’d need to agree that the environment as it has so far been set up is about fat acceptance, not size acceptance. And with that, then, comes into play an encouragement of women to be first - and sometimes pretty much only - sexual. Think about it. When one goes to the other web boards at the Dimensions site, there are few FAs discussing anything more than sexual. Some, but not many. Those who see themselves as FAs pretty much stick to the Weight Board for one reason and one reason, only.
And this is where I feel sorry for the women who wonder where FAs are in real life. And where I feel sorry for the ones who actually got bent out of shape because a MAN told another woman, there, the truth. Because no matter how they called him an idiot, an idiot he hardly is.
To be really fair, let’s take a look at *any* woman - fat OR average OR thin - who, having her own porn site, would take issue with a statement made like the one that particular male did. While SOME "porn queens" indeed have an education beyond high school, the greater truth is that there are FEW. The majority have had basic education at the most, and little opportunity to learn appropriate male/female social or work related interaction. It’s not one’s IQ that’s the determining factor for those who get overly and too quickly defensive too often. It’s their lack of social skills.
Now, with the truth being that this overall "size friendly" environment - from day one - primarily focused not on the civil rights and dignity of fat people (men as well as women) but sexual attraction to fat people (and it did, no matter who denies it), it was bound to (mostly but not completely) draw women who have had little real life experience. Women who in one way or other find themselves isolated from the greater environment of the larger world. And when, then, a male actually points out the truer reality in the way the man in question did, there really *is* also bound to be defensiveness based on ignorance about the "facts of life."
If you think about the whole circumstance, going to way back when, it never really mattered whether a fat woman’s site was one pay-for-porn, or not. What mattered is that so many who set up their web pages from the beginning felt it was a *good* thing to splatter their scantily clad bodies - of whatever version of large - all over their pages in suggestive ways. Because the men encouraged them to do so. All of them. And to this day most of those women don’t realize, for the most part, those guys who post on that site aren’t going to be meeting them in person anytime soon. Not to mention the ones whose wives are nowhere near those women’s sizes, so they come to enjoy and write factually or in weight gain stories of their fantasies. Both types misleading, therefore, most of the women who frequent sites like that.
Furthermore, some of those men are in prison, which is why they pick the screenames they use. Did you know that? (Just a side note.)
But in my book, Mindy, none of that means most of these women should be excused for not knowing what’s really up at this point in time. Because most have been regulars, there, too. And a handful of other good women have tried to point out the folly of going down a certain road in this environment which has liberally been called size acceptance but in reality is something else. So, until the day comes when women like this want to learn from other women, thus NOT splatter PICS of themselves in sexually inviting ways therefore giving their own "milk" away "for free," they’ll never be able to entirely blame guys for being the way they’ve become socialized to be. And I dare say they really WILL continue to find the online picking for true life FAs slim to none. Whether they give it away for free or make some dude "pay for it." Besides if they ALL were willing to take a healthier path, they might just realize they could change the tone of entire web domains.
Geeeeeeez, I’ve done some heavy duty writing here, in the last two nights. Didn’t mean for this to become so detailed. I need some sleep for the week ahead. Anyway, this has been a sampling of my onions about that past in question. So, there y’ go.
