New Year Same Shit- thoughts from the fatosphere

My new years resolution this year was to unfollow people who post about their diets on social media. It is going so well. I feel lighter, happier and less anxious. I don't feel guilty.

Examples
'Look how much weight I've lo-' *UNFOLLOWS*
'Been at the gym since 6am #eatcle-' *UNFOLLOWS*
'Look at this Jamie Oliver article about how poor people are fat and stupi-' *UNFOLLOWS*

Why am I doing this?
-It took me years to unlearn the idea that it's okay to judge other people's bodies. (FYI- you should never criticise people's bodies in the street, especially not around children)
-It took me years to learn that I do not deserve to be judged, ridiculed or bullied for my body. (Because of the normalised aforementioned public shaming I'd witnessed)
-It's an daily fight to treat my fat disabled body with compassion & love rather than hatred and fear.
-Some of us don't have have a middle ground to rest on. Diets lead us to crying over orange segments because we don't know exactly how many calories are in one. They damage our health even whilst making us look thinner.

Unfollowing people who aren't there yet isn't me not liking other people's desire to look or feel a certain way, it's me not being up for reading about how they strain their bodies to get there. Lets be honest, lots of people (even fat people) get feelings of superiority when restricting their food. Judgement becomes second nature and rather than making subjective reasonable decisions about what they feel like eating- they eat a meal that they don't enjoy in order to deprive their body into losing fat. Now sat, unhappy, at a table amongst the people they love, they are preoccupied with their second salad of the day. And of course, when other people begin to tuck into carbohydrates they get annoyed and resentful and judge the choices and bodies of those around them.

I know, I've been there. And I'm not a terrible person so I know it's not just me who falls into that kind of behaviour.

In real life situations this becomes more difficult. The other day I was in a local shop buying food for a night in front of the TV with my partner (don't tell Jamie Oliver guys, we know how much he dislikes working class people having TV's and junk food). The sales assistant separated my items into two piles pushed the first towards me and said
'This is not healthy' then pushed the second towards me and said
'This is healthy'.
I know. Fuck him, right? Anyway so I'm stood there looking at this man and I see my options as
a. Challenge him by trying to convince him I am not an evil fat but a good fat.
b. Challenge him by telling him that he is wrong to lecture fat people he doesn't know about their food.
c. Do nothing.

To my shame, I picked c. He took this as an invitation to explain to me that chocolate is bad for you and whilst I frowned at him, stood in silence and stonewalled him as he patted his flat stomach and said
'Look at me, nice and thin because I don't eat so much chocolate' it struck me.
The reason the social media resolution is so beautiful and simple isn't because I'm in denial. I know who I am, what I look like & what people think. I get told (sometimes literally told) everyday all day in situations where I can't simply walk away or ignore the person telling me.
So accessing a fat shame free social media space is the least I can do to take care of myself.

This isn't selfishness.
It's self preservation.

"I turn a lot of heads, I turn a lot of stomachs" what it's like when you're not the object of desire

A friend on Facebook posted this article by Sarah Einstein and my response to it feels bigger than I could reasonably call 'a status'. In the article Einstein talks about her experience of being an older, less physically attractive wife to a younger, more physically attractive man. The two speak freely about their situation- he is not attracted to her body and she is working through her negative feelings about this. He is however attracted to her mind and she feels good about this. 


Like Sarah Einstein '(...)beautiful has always been beyond me. If people find me so, it’s only after they’ve come to know me. (...) I minded this quite a lot in my teens, when it seemed that only beautiful people mattered, that it was a prerequisite for a good life.' But more than her writing about how she doesn't turn heads or has always been plain, I find I turn plenty of heads. I have always repulsed people (especially men) and can't walk down a street without an extended look. Hardly go a day without comments being made  about me. On my first day of my current job my boss gave me diet advice. I get comments about my unattractiveness online a lot (A LOT). And why is this? Well, it's not because I'm plain, I wish I was plain! Plain would be a godsend.


 By conventional standards I am deeply ugly (in part due to my being a fat person, in part a hairy mixed white/arab woman, I have a heavy brow, a giant chin and a strangely cartoonish look). I also have large disfigurements on my body. I can say these things. I can say them and know that they are true to society's standards but not absolute fact. I spent many years feeling like it wasn't my job to be beautiful, I rebelled against beauty, wore sexy clothes on Wednesday mornings without waxing my eyebrows. I took a few years out to readjust what I expected of my body and myself. 


Somewhere down the line I began to feel my subversion of norms was actually, very attractive. I am not easy on the eyes, my presence requires space and attention & work. It always has, but importantly I stopped trying to make myself smaller & I started occupying space in my own life.



When I was seventeen a (frankly mediocre) man once said to me 'I think about us being together. Usually I go for good looking women but you've got this intellect'. 
but you've got this intellect.
He's married now, to a beautiful woman, a friend actually. And I hope at least for her that he has let go of the abstract standard beauty he had decided it was his job to enforce on women. 

Though this statement stung (stings, even after eight years) I can see where he was coming from.I can see why she is his wife. I can see why I am not. I can see why Sarah Einstein is doing herself a favour by working through her feelings on her desirability.


I'm not Sarah Einstein. I'm a queer, fat, disabled and working class person. I'm also polyamorous. I work really hard to undo the messages society has taught me about myself (in the full knowledge that not everyone I sleep next to has bothered to do the same). I try my best to avoid toxic media messages, I look at myself naked in the mirror even on the days I don't want to. I read books written by other fat people. I shout at men who harass me in the street. I call out abusive behaviours in the queer scene (usually to my own exclusion and suffering). I take myself on decadent dates. I eat in public. I talk about sex. I care more about Janelle Monae than Jeremy Clarkson. I have several sexual and romantic partners. I cut toxic people out my life (where safe and possible to do so). I do most of my online interacting in explicitly queer femme spaces and the people whose opinions I listen to are mainly other fat working class femmes.



But something is rotten in the state of Denmark (my life). On a daily basis I feel my relationships (despite my attempts to work against it) have been/are still highly impacted by the thinking that my body is unsexy, undesirable and that my merit (smash merit tbh) is based purely in how much I can perform the role of funny fatty and clever prole.  I know lots of other people I know feel the same. And I want to tell you- it is not your job to fill in the deficit others consider your body to make with with, intellect or entertainment. Beautiful, thin, young people are allowed to be vapid & so are you.



The other day I was thinking about polyamory and the very real and harmful way in which people stack, hierachalise and demote their romantic/sexual partners. Polyamory is supposed to an alternate method of loving and dating to the typical white heterosexual nuclear family of Western economic creation. It's not a massive surprise that it ends up reinforcing a lot of the really shitty dynamics that already exist. I can't tell you how many times I found myself pushed out of relationships by people who were more conventionally attractive than me. You see in our relationships there's no need to break up, we can just invest more time in the people we think gain us more social capital. And slowly us uglies fade away.



And I'm sorry Sarah, but I'm just not as strong as you, I can't make peace with being the person who is the last resort date (or friend, femmerades, let's not pretend we aren't stuck doing the dishes whilst the cool andro and masculine people gain queer points by misquoting Marx). I can't make peace with my body being a barrier or a hurdle for people to love me. 



Me stating this doesn't mean it isn't something that effects me. If only acknowledging this shit meant it went away. I assure you, I'm well aware that all my relationships are subject to my partners not finding someone more attractive and thinner. And yeah, I spend a lot of my time stuck in scarcity mentality (warning on this link for discussion and take down of dieting).  Reading Einstein's article I felt deeply emotional at the passage 'In our early days, before my husband could articulate the ways in which he both did, and did not, feel desire for me, we sometimes fought about our sex life. I’m tired of always having to be the one who makes the first move, I’d say, and do you think I’m ugly, and of course are you sure you love me? (...) And we’d make love that night because he’d reach for me, and then not again—sometimes for weeks—until I reached for him.' because man, I know those feels. And it's not just about sex because as other people who are reminded daily by the behaviour of partners, friends and family- we all know that it's difficult to feel loved by someone who to all intents and purposes feeds our self-loathing. I feel like we (fat femmes, working class women) wake up every day and exist, fight through family meals and obnoxious men and horrible media messages about ourselves. We are strong. But your oppressive body politics are your issue and something you need to work through to be safe to date us. It's not about education it's about work. Your pseudo sex positive 'preferences' don't exist in an apolitical vacuum. 
 

A while back a friend who was having a difficult time read me this article by Derek Sivers entitled 'No more yes. It's either HELL YEAH! or no' (warning there for overly enthusiastic straight dude). We need to be 100% clear that being fat doesn't make you unsexy and being older doesn't make you undesirable and being attractive in a non-conventional manner isn't an excuse for a lack lustre approach to us or our bodies. Equally, the kyriarchal bullshit that slips out the mouths of your partners and family is no excuse for a half-arsed approach to loving yourself. It will hurt when the person you were filling in time for (shout out at this point to Samantha Peterson for writing this amazing poem) comes along and they are thinner, and funnier(although funnier is unlikely) than you. They are literally you lite. It will hurt and then it won't. It is not evidence. It does not confirm anything other than the person who pushed you aside is a grade A trumpet. You do not have to spend another moment being pushed aside or undesired. I could tell you that I will always find beauty in the piece of you that they recoiled from, and I will, but the most important thing is that we find ourselves worthy. Even when how we feel about ourselves is negated by someone we love. Sarah Einstein's article registered with me in several ways, and I know that what she is saying is important and true and sad and beautiful. But for me, it's not the end of the story. 

If nothing else- it is a lot of work to be the person holding up both (or all) sides of a relationship. Call me an entitled millenial (or whatever bullshit term people are using to describe young women who they disagree with these days) but I'm not willing to hedge my future happiness on an Ann Summer's catalogue & the hope that I find someone who tolerates my powerful, exciting body.


 You cannot validate yourself through other people. And if they leave you in the fruit bowl in hope of finding less bruised fruit, then- fuck them. Or rather, don't. They are not your safety.

Lately I have been writing things down to make sense of them, I have been reading more in order to improve my writing and in my reading I found these words. I repeat them to myself when ever I feel devalued by someone I love, or am invested in

'you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful something not everyone knows how to love.' 
-Warsan Shireh
For women who are difficult to love

This year my birthday present to me...IS ME

I know, I know, that sounds super cheesy and a bit hippie right? But there is definitive proof me and birthdays don’t get on well (*see at bottom of page for self pitying list) and I think I know why. It seems to me that birthdays are another front where my inability to surround myself with loving and respectful people, or (as suggested by my therapist) my inability to consider myself wholly worthy of (and demand) a decent level of respect sees me spending every August and most of September with a low sinking feeling in my stomach. The pressure is on to organise ‘A Thing’ or have ‘A Thing’ organised for me.

Suddenly Facebook events become a rite of passage for validation. Sentimental baby pictures taped up on lampposts are a necessity and ideally you have your own hash-tag. Because of this I am nervous. I am neurotic. I am 100% sure that everybody hates me and I am going to spend my birthday in another family's caravan, resented and alone. People like drinking, but I don't drink. Queers are supposed to be able to smoke weed and drink gin, but I have found myself deeply & unfashionably sober since the age of 21 (and constantly excluded for it). We're supposed to spend our birthdays being showered with gifts by our (presumably wealthy) families. But that's not really how stuff goes for me either. If nothing else we're supposed accept this yearly occurrence with grace and dignity. But I seem to be stuck with grace and dignity's working class cousins- money problems and anxiety. The resonating pressure of those two words 'supposed to' means that by early September I am a mess.I have only ever had one friend who seems to have the organisational skill and reckless determination to tackle me and my birthday phobia, who has listened to me cry from bed after being let down by friends, who has rang me up every year since I was 17 and said ‘So what are we doing for your birthday?', who made sure I was never forgotten never invisible on my birthday (it’s you, Lucy, in case you’re wondering) and whilst I truly love her for it, those aren’t very good odds are they? One person out of hundreds?

Don’t get me wrong when I say me and birthdays don’t get on. I mean there are good elements of all the birthdays listed below (I mean, who wants to speak to humans anyway, goats are way cooler) and I have had good birthdays. When I was little, birthdays were magical. I got to dress up in a BIG POOFY DRESS and wear a ribbon on my head. I got shiny toys and I got to see family. But most of all, the loving attention that was laid upon me made me feel replenished, special and capable. People being happy that you were born is like, a pretty nice indicator.But when you're not living the dream life (not even on instagram), when 'Suddenly I see' by KT Turnstall doesn't play as you walk down the street, when maybe not everyone is overly excited about the fact that you still exist, where does that attention come from?

I am a common, fat, womanish person with holes in my shoes and no postgraduate degree who doesn't take sh*t from people. Societal norms dictate that I am not first in line for loving attention. So what do I do? Well here comes the super cheesy idea- maybe I give myself that attention? (Not in that way, although maybe, I mean, self-love right?) Maybe you could give it to yourself too? After all, for those of us who are pushed out of spaces, spoken over in our social groups and sidelined at work is there really any other option?

Here is my action plan

1. Take it from Akua Naru “self love is the very first romance”
Everyday I am trying my best to remind myself that I am in a life long relationship with myself and that I am a gift that only improves with age. Every year I know more, try new things, meet new people, and achieve new things. Even if it’s getting out of bed, making it to work, writing this blog post. I am reminding myself that the aging process is not negative and that I am a worthy person all year round.

2. Forgiveness is a virtue
Forgiving myself for being imperfect in a world that demands an oppressive standard, forgiving myself for not doing enough work or forgetting to pick up milk. I am doing my best to look upon myself with forgiving eyes because like it or not, I am stuck with myself for the long haul. Forgiveness is difficult when you have no money and limited prospects. Forgiveness is difficult when you are unhappy with your place in the queerosphere, the workplace, the family and society. Forgiveness is a process, and it will probably take me the rest of my life, but guilt will ruin the rest of my life & I know which I'd rather be working towards.

3. Enjoying the ride
Everything I achieved I achieved in this body with this brain. When I am distracted by negative and toxic messages about my self worth I am being drained of my energy. Energy to be an attentive partner, energy to be a supportive colleague, energy to organise politically, energy to confront the trauma in my past. I have started looking at baby photos. I have started making lists of my adventures. I have started spending time with the old friends who I can laugh with at shared memories. But most of all I have started have started celebrating my life in its current state, no apologies. Being at war with myself is not sustainable. If I am working towards living & forgiving (as in points one and two) then this point to say that I must also work towards surviving and thriving. 

Me (far right) running whilst fat

This year I am my own birthday present. I am ensuring that I lavish myself with loving attention, that I feel replenished. This year I am fat, and worthy. Disabled and capable. Anxious and loud. Sober and entertaining. Ugly and beautiful. Serious and hilarious. Working class and yes, probably a little bit more intelligent than you.This year I am imperfect, my own little state of anarchy. It's not all planned out. I'm not looking forward to a holiday or a promotion, and it's highly likely that I'm not going to be 'achieving' things in the way that I'm 'supposed to'. But I'll make do with what I've got and what I've got has a lot of potential. This year I am wearing a BIG POOFY DRESS and a ribbon in my hair. And even if I spend the day on my own, or don't hear from family, or things don't go to plan, this day doesn't define me. It's not a test, not another chance to flaunt my social capital. It's enough to just get a year older and still be alive. I am taking responsibility for myself and that is scary, yeah. But god, the odds of getting through the month are so much better when I’m not at war with the person in the mirror.

*Self Pitying List 1. There was the year when I spent my birthday on a family trip in Wales with some family members, wandering lonely and only comforted by the presence of goats, stranded with a little family I wasn’t really a part of (seriously you wanna see the pictures from the disposable camera taken on that holiday, a picture of me with a dog, a picture of some rabbits, a picture of a pony, some more rabbits, the cloudy Welsh sky, a goat, two goats, three goats). 2. There was the year I spent my birthday in bed crying after being let down by a friend. 3. There was the year a parent forgot how old I was. 4. There was the year a family member forced me to have a ‘tea party’ against my will & when they then proceeded to get drunk and to flail around the house to a soundtrack of Bob Marley and my father saying (louder than he thought) ‘doesn’t she (me) have any friends?’. 5. There was the year I became '& co' at a joint party. 6. There was the year my foster mother forced me to spend my birthday watching her cry in a KFC car park, and gave me a box of chocolates & and old bottle of perfume in the gift bag I gave her some Mother’s Day presents in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not about the money or the gifts, but she got a bloody grant on my birthday. 7. There was the year all my ‘friends’ at my primary school didn’t come to my birthday sleepover because I was the fat kid with a single mum and we lived in a council house. 8. There was the year when I had the flu & a family member organised a meal in the local Italian restaurant & shouted at me for not dressing up enough so I spent the day half crying. 9. There was the year when I threw myself a party, had a panic attack and thought I was dying. 10. There was the several years I lost out to aggressive, careless, cruel or controlling partners, illness, self loathing. 11. There was the many years where my birthday was just a way to keep the electricity meter going, just a token from people who offered no further support during the rest of the year.

On women only train carriages

I often utilise women only spaces (officially ones or unofficial ones) to avoid harassment in public & at social events (toilets, gyms, kitchens at parties, clothes shops) and, you know what? It works. The issue of public transport is the issue of choice. Now, it would be real simple if you and your buddies could make the honourable choice to stop flexing your metaphorical members in a cat call-off on a Friday night, but my experience has concluded that you can’t. So the idea of women only coaches on trains and tubes (proposed for consultation with women by Jeremy Corbyn) is one simple (by no means 100% solve-all option to give women a choice to be in a carriage with no men in it. Now, whilst there may be problems with this idea (that would be useful  for women to discuss together) men have taken to twitter to air their disgust at this policy idea. 

I have been harassed on public transport since the age of 14. Telling me that this ‘could easily happen to men’ even though it doesn’t is telling me that I, at age 14 on the train from Southport to Appley Bridge deserved to be cornered and & have middle aged men interrogate me about body.

Because the truth of the matter is in the last eleven years I have grown to expect to be sexually harassed and assaulted on public transport with very little support from other passengers. And when that support comes it is usually from other women.

Every time I have been harassed on public transport it has been (to my knowledge) by a man 99.9% of these instances the man has been white 99.9% of instance he has been unchallenged.

-It was a man who repeatedly tried to touch me on an empty platform in Liverpool when I was 21.

-It was a man who harassed me on a weekly basis on the 395 bus from Ormskirk to Skelmersdale, who got annoyed when I refused to speak to him and followed me part of the way home when I was 19.

-It was a man who rubbed his genitals on my hip on the London Underground when I was 18.

-It was a man who intercepted another man who was drunkenly propositioning me at Ormskirk bus station only to then sexually harass me for the entire journey home when I was 22. Imagine that- getting sexually harassed whilst you’re being sexually harassed.

-It was a group of boys (age 12-16) who spat at me, threw food and drinks at me & chanted names at me every morning on the school bus in Shevington when I was 14.

-It was a man who touched my body without my consent on the 143 bus in Manchester when I was 23. And who got the funny looks when I shouted over to my friend  ‘Ew this man is trying to grope me’? Oh yeah, me.

-It was a man who rubbed his thigh against my leg and read over my shoulder on the bus last night.

-It was a group of four men who made comments about my fat body this morning at the coach station.

I am 25.

I have been spat at, cornered, followed, groped, shouted at, whispered to, blocked from moving, stared at, spoken about, had pictures taken of me, been called names, been coerced into conversation, been sexually shamed & had my belongings confiscated.

I have tried ignoring it, challenging, discussing it, reporting it, shouting back, glaring, asking other passengers for help & physical confrontation.

Any whilst it might hurt a few feelings for men who have decided that this is ‘segregation’ (which is not only pretty flagrant use of a racially charged word but just horrifically incorrect) or that ‘all carriages should be harassment free’ (yeah, they should, but erm, they aren’t & I don’t see you looking up from your copy of the Telegraph to challenge other men on their behaviour) I can’t help but feel cheated.

Yet again men’s views are privileged above women’s safety and autonomy. That same privilege that comes into play when a man decides his desire to touch a woman comes before her permission. Your feelings are hurt?  Your FEELINGS are hurt. Fine. That doesn’t make your beliefs correct. This isn’t Dawson’s Creek. This is the real world. And I have a life time of research called ‘Being a Woman on Public Transport’ to support my ideas.

So I’m sorry if the idea that women want to be safe from the daily barrage of crap you throw at us is hurtful. It seems so many of you are moved to tweet, maybe whilst on public transport, maybe whilst ignoring the awkwardness of a woman being harassed three seats down.

I am tired of pretending to be on the phone, pretending to know other women on public transport to defuse harassment situations and most of all I am tired of pretending to care about your feelings. Close your legs,  get your hand off my thigh, log off twitter and shut up.

Why I came out as disabled.

My journey to coming out as disabled started in 2007 when after a long struggle with severe symptoms of tiredness, weight gain, confusion and memory loss; I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. As many of you will know, tiredness when connected to illness canbea horrifically traumatic experience. It's not like yawning and deciding to sleep, it's like fighting sleep off day after day. It's sleeping for twelve hours, waking up and feeling exhausted again before you've brushed your teeth. Everything is greyer, further away, tiredness is like a blubber that separates you from the fun, from living.

When framed like that, it makes me wonder why anyone would ever put off seeking medical help for a year. But we all do. Why would someone allow themselves to be lost within a condition? Because that's what happened. I lost most of my personality inside those symptoms and the culmination of how I dealt with them, and if I'm perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure I got all of it back. Who can crack jokes when they can't remember the end of their sentence? Who can smile when every interaction is such an effort that you begin to resent those who speak to you?

It took a lot of thinking to understand why I subjected myself to this, but I reached a conclusion- internalised disablism.

See for the most part of my life I grew up in a house hold with my Mum, who supported both of us. My Mum has worked my entire life and I can't remember her having a day off, for illness,beforeI was sixteen. She couldn't get ill because her being ill meant being short on the rent, me being ill meant a baby sitter's billwecouldn't afford; ill meant failure. Illness was something to be powered through.

This survival technique coupled with disablism ingrained in ourculture (e.g. people with physical disabilities used as the butt of jokes, people who experience mental illness being represented as murderers) lead me to tell myself repeatedly that I couldn't be ill, because that would mean failing my A Levels.

So, the anxiety & depression over the prospect of failure (and the misery caused by the condition) lead me to find other ways to propel myself through my course and my social lifewithout 'failing'. Mainly narcotics & alcohol (and dangerous relationships to acquirethem).I was living with eight other young people in supported accommodation so there was never peace and quiet. I was out the house for twelve hours a day attending a college with the most unsupportive 'support staff' imaginable. I was using drugs to see me through the weekend and still managing to pass my course. And that was going really well until I started having to hide fainting fits, experiencing hallucinations and paranoia and was admitted to hospital with what was a series of 'accidental overdoses'. The culmination of this behaviour was a mental breakdown and I don't think I have the adjectives to describe that experience to you.

The last time I had to go to hospital for symptoms caused by drugs I finally saw myself for what I was; the same old girl but without the light, without anything but bags under my eyes, a hospital gown and nowhere near enough money to get home. I thought to myself 'I could die right now'. And because that scared me, I knew there was a spark of me left: a spark of me worth fighting to keep.

I'm still fighting for that spark today, I suppose. Everyday is a fight: Disablist external and internal voices telling me that being ill is failing vs. the truth.

To explain what that truth is I'll have to talk about another diagnosis. After being diagnosed with hypothyroidism, depression, anxiety, and seeking help for my addiction, I stilldidn't self- defineasdisabled.For me to claim that term, we have to talk about 2013. In my final year of university, I was seeking medical help for posterior uveitis and macular edema. I was losing vision rapidly and for the first time in five years I felt I was losing the battle with internalised disablism. It was then that I realised that one person isn't enough to fight disablism. Not even close. We each have our limits and our abilities and I wrote a statement about mine in relation to our Student union elections. This is probably the first time I recognised my limits as a disabled person.

Disability to me is not a special criterion, a measurement of ability, or a term reserved for those who are ill 'enough'. Because the truth is that there is no illness small enough to ignore and no role so important that health can be side-lined. Disability is the absence of abled privilege. I don't have the privilege of being able to control my body weight as others do, of being able to see properly, of being able to write and speak without mistakes, of being able to effectively usemy working memory, of being able to use substances recreationally,ofnotbeing depressed and anxious. The expectation thata person cando allof these things is socially constructed and maintained, and because of this, disability is a physical and political identity.

In the movement and activism against disablism and able normativity I found that self-care and peer support are essential. NUS Disabled Students Officer, Hannah Paterson, offered me support and understanding following me coming out about my condition, and I think that was the first time in a long time I wasn't scared to be seen as weak, because Hannah and other activists find strength in admittinglimits. What followed helped me to do the same. Other disabled activists rallied round to help with the things my disabilities prevented mefrom doing and I think the power of that network is a huge factor in me being here today, relatively unscathed. I need and deserve a network of people who share my rage, fight and principles of self-care.

Before disability I was just someone who couldn't see the PowerPoint, someone too scared to leave the house sometimes, someone whose life was a process of rebuilding, relapsing and ignoring. Before disability I was acting out of fear of 'failing' socially and academically but I was failing myself. Before disability I was losing myself, I was killing myself.

And now that I have claimed the word disabled with all its power, history and support?

Now I know that strength means asking for help.

Now I'm proud to be disabled.

5 problems with sex positivity

Although I am a sex positive activist, I don't believe subscribing to any tradition, political perspective or community, uncritically, is a good idea. The problems outlined below are things I've encountered in spaces that aren't explicitly feminist. But they are important, and they do matter.

1. Men dominating conversations on women's sexuality and bodies
I've found that in a spaces that aren't feminist the oppressive power dynamics found in any other place are reitterated and validated in discussions. The discussion is usually male centered, binarist, cissexist, heteronormative, etc. Some men use sex positivity and the discourse of 'preference' as a cloak to excuse their patriarchal generalisations. E.g. 'body hair (on women) is revolting'. Sex positivity should be about challenging patriarchal notions and normative, oppressive ideas about sexuality, and it saddens me that some men are accessing sex positive spaces to do the opposite.

Benjamin Rush, Carl Von Linné, Julien Offray de la Mettrie, Sylvester Graham, Richard Von Kraft-Ebing, John H Kellog, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, Claudius Galerius, Samuel Tissoflt- the discourse on human sexuality has been dictated by white men, some making progressive arguments, some scientific and some oppressive, but all men. Most people in the world are not white men. And our sex positive spaces should endevour to not silence those who aren't, otherwise it's just the same old shit, under a different name.

2. Shallow analysis of the roots of sex negativity
Sex is political, just like anything else. Sexual behaviour has been policed, villianised, or encouraged thoughout history depending on the political climate. There's definitely positives in addressing the symptom (the experience of sexual shame and repression) but the discussuon of the cause is important for true progression. Sex positivity in relation to capitalism, sex positivity in relation to disability, to patriarchy, to the nuclear family? These  dialogues are missing. Sex positivity cannot simply be a tool for self validation alone, but for ensuring we can break the the cycle of sexual repression.

3. Pressumptions
I believe a sex positive space should be one in which people aren't subjected to others making tired presumptions about gender, sexuality, or experience of sexual desire. When writing about sex positivity leads to relative strangers (all men) contacting me pressuming that I want to have sex with them, this reinforces the idea that a woman discussing the politics of sex is a 'cert'. No, I don't want a photograph of your sex organs. Thank you. No, talking about sex doesn't automatically mean I experience a high sex drive, or that I want to answer questions about my sexual behaviour. Thank you. No, talking about sex doesn't mean that I'm heterosexual. This dialogue is not another tool to service male pleasure, it's a tool to challenge the assumptions, not reinforce them.

4. Slighlty missing the point
Sex positivity is not about uncritically claiming that all sex is great.
a)Sex is not always positive
b)and it's not essential for everyone.
Many people have a strained relationship with sex, and their own body, they may have sexual triggers or have survived sexual abuse or rape. The sex positive movement cannot make progression if we simply plaster over the fact that sex can be a negative experience and a tool of oppression. We are failing at communicating the true purpose of sex positivity if we exclude people with sexual triggers. It's not about saying 'woohoo, sex is always fabulous' it's about recognising that human sexuality is diverse, complicated and often an emotive topic. It's about saying that there is no 'wrong' way for a person to express their sexuality, or asexuality. We shouldn't be silencing survivors of sexual abuse, we should be shaming institutions that normalise it, we should be discussing consent.

People may choose not to engage in erotic behaviour and still lead rich, fulfilling lives. Sex positivity should not be about interveining to educate people who choose not to have sex, to tell them what they're missing. Sex positivity should not be about forcing people to discuss their own sexual behaviour if they don't want to, or pressuming that those who don't are victims of sexual shame.

5. Body negativity
I cannot count the number of times I've seen or partaken in discussions that transcend into body negativity. Why? Because although it's essential that sex positivity and body positivity are linked, someone forgot to put that on the group email, or the general memo. Fatshaming, thinshaming, disability shaming, normative beauty standards, body policing= not sex positive. Body positivity absolutely has to be a part of this movement because if not, then we're saying 'you only deserve sex positivity if you fit these narrow critera'. Expressions of sexuality are not hierarchical, hopefully most people realise that penetrative sex is not the Golden Chalice of erotic acts? Body types and appearences should also be discussed in a non-judgemental, non-heirarchical manner, too. Otherwise we are  shaming the tool used for the expression of human sexuality, and therefore we are encouraging sexual shame.

Conclusion? My sex positivity will be feminist, intersectional, self-critical, LGBTQ inclusive, disability positive, and radical, or it will be bullshit.

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Mary Lambert- marry me?!

So Mary Lambert is a singer and spoken word artist who has worked with some guy you might have heard of called Macklemore? She's not single. We've never met. And she's not going to marry me.

But today I read something written by her that made me want to ask her to. In fact, it made me want to stand on top of a big hill and throw glitter around. Mary Lambert is...well...pretty fucking amazing!

I think a lot about how the media and music industry never produce people 'like me' or never show people like the people I know. And I know I'm in a comfortable little bubble. Most of my friends define into multiple liberation groups and are intersectional feminists, socialists, anarchist or just have genuinely shit hot politics.

So when I see celebrities and musicians who think rape jokes are hilarious and being fat is a crime- it shocks me. But not as much as it should. Because we get used to the idea that things like body positivity, self care, and working against the stigma of mental health are things we have to do. Things we have to talk about and things musicians & celebrities are so detached from that we stopped reading magazines and watch MTV years ago.

That's what I did think. Now I saw Lambert's performance of I Know Girls a while ago and posted it on facebook. Basically, I forgot about it because I thought it was a fluke. But tonight I saw what Mary Lambert had written and I was blown away. I read about her life. All I could think was 'this sounds like someone I could have an excellent feminist rant with' (basically the yard stick by which I measure friendships).

So, old me, you were wrong. There are successful people out there that have brilliant politics. They didn't have to dillute themselves or disregard their values to get there.

I'm not saying it's a war won. I'm saying it's a battle I had chalked up as a loss...reopened?

Anyway, I'll leave you with the a quote from the woman I'm not going to marry. But who I'd quite like to rant with. And who happens to be spreading this message to millions of people.

When you shame another’s weight (be it thin or fat), when you claim to call out someone’s body size because you “care” about their health, it is not a beneficial statement in any sense of the word, and in actuality is far more harmful to any progress a person might have with relation to their health. What right do you have to talk about someone else’s body or health? You are hammering a distorted ideology that they are not normal, that they are not worthy, and convincing them that they are going to die early. The reason that there is a body positive movement is because we’re celebrating our bodies for the magic that they are and the beautiful things they are capable of.