An Open Letter to James, Who Lives In Christchurch

James, first things first, I want to say that I'm not writing to reminisce about all of the hormonal and opportunistic sex we had in the summer of 2007, or the sex in 2006, or the sex in the more desperate university holidays in 2008. I don't really want to talk about it, mainly because you never made me come and you also kept a cum towel by your bed, which you would hand to me after you were finished with it. I am now concerned about whether or not it was the same towel over a three year period and also about the spelling duo of cum and come, and I can't seem to bring myself to write the word 'cum' for orgasm, because it seems obscene and also ugly and it always reminds me of jizz, which I don't have any of, and I hope that this isn't because of some kind of deep seated sexual issue. I also hope you have washed the towel.

What I am writing to talk to you about is a group that you joined quite recently on Facebook. I don't know if you've noticed, but I like to over-analyse what other people do on the internet, mainly because I'm fascinated by this global and public and intending-to-be-social forum as well as liking the fact that it gives me hard evidence to copy and paste into my blog, rather than just having to recount offensive conversations I have with people in the real word. You mightn't have noticed because although we're friends with each other on Facebook we never really talk, not because things are awkward or anything but mostly just because we never really had anything to talk about in the first place. The sex we would have, usually at your flat because I was home for the holidays and my family is liberal but not that liberal, it was just mostly based upon convenience and inebriation and low self esteem and a similar sexual appetite, so I think it's pretty normal for us not to talk anymore, especially now that it's 2010 and I have a girlfriend and you have a jet-ski. But the page that you liked recently, I guess I found it kind of offensive. If you don't know what one I mean, I have helpfully labelled it for you here, just in case:

You liked Curvy Girls Are Better Than Skinny Girls, along with 1,772,675 other people. And like, that's cool. On the surface, this group seems like it might be trying to be progressive, in some way, like that movie with America Ferrera, because the title is size-positive and it makes a statement about how thin bodies are valued over fat bodies. (Although curvy really is a problematic euphemism for fat, because curvy should just mean having curves on your body, and if the word fat wasn't used as as a death sentence and a humiliation maybe people wouldn't need to clutch onto their curves so tightly). But while this group might technically be size-positive, it isn't body positive. It isn't woman positive. It's still rating women against each other, it's still making bodies a competition, it's still body surveillance culture. (Consequently, there seems to be a whole lot of surveying going on on that website.) Fat acceptance isn't saying that fat bodies are better. Fat acceptance isn't saying that everybody should be fat. It's about accepting bodies because they are bodies and they are attached to people with thoughts and feelings and it's about self esteem and it's about how everybody deserves respect, no matter what they look like. Fat acceptance is not body snarking on thin women, and it is not saying that real women have curves. A hip to waist ratio does not make anyone any more 'real' than anyone else. Curves do not a woman make. Criticizing thin bodies is actually just validating sizeism. Celebrating one thing by tearing down something else isn't really very celebratory at all.

And James, if you really want to publicly announce your sexual preferences, there are heaps of groups that you could join to proclaim your love of T&A, without hating on any other kind of body type. Not any of these ones though, because then I would probably have to write another blog post about you. You could just become a fan of Curvy Girls or of Boobs or of Tits and Ass or even the misspelled, but straight to the point, I Love Curvey Woman. (I noticed you are friends with your dad on Facebook though, I hope he's into it). Although really, it still is kind of problematic to reduce what you like about women to their body parts.

I think that part of the reason I felt so uncomfortable with the group you joined, is because I have fucked you. Multiple times. With my curvy body. Should I be pleased that I fit into this so easily definable category of women that you like? Is the Facebook page some kind of compliment? Do I even get to say anything about the way that these Facebook groups turn women into commodities, when I just had sex with you because I was 19 and drunk and horny? Am I allowed to complain when I have sent you a pxt of my tits? Am I allowed to complain when I knew that you would probably show it to your friends and that I didn't mind? Do I have an argument against objectification when I showed all my cellphone pictures of your cock to the other waitresses I worked with at the time, to make a long shift go faster and to show off that I was getting some? In the words of the Shortland Street theme song, is it you or is it me? Do I get to complain about raunch culture, when sometimes I like the raunch? It's confusing, when you start thinking about it. Let me know what you think.

Kind, and now somewhat confused, regards,

Ally Garrett.

Some thoughts about being honest, and some thoughts about taking actions on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Last night while I was drinking a glass of red wine and my friend Sylvie was having a beer we started talking about how I am writing this blog. We talked about other things too, like how she had been on a writing retreat and she hadn't spoken to anyone in ages and how sometimes when something really good happens in your life, even like making a delicious dinner, you have to be able to talk to someone about it or it doesn't seem like it happened. My friend Scarlett was there as well, and she is moving to Japan in less-than-a-handful-of-sleeps-time, and her and I sat in the seats we have always sat in, talking about what is going to happen next. We were contemplative.

Sylvie asked me if I ever felt burdened, in a way, by trying to constantly subscribe to the moral high ground that this blog often navigates. I thought it was a really interesting question. I mean, I agree with her that some of the stuff I write about probably comes off as hiking up the most sanctimonious, altitude sickness inducing, head-in-the-clouds high ground. I don't know how I feel about that. I said to Sylvie that I hoped it came through in what I write here that I know I am not perfect, and that maybe this blog is ultimately about my quest to be a better person, and a morally higher person, and a more feminist person; probably with a significant dash of wanting to be a more interesting person. I don't want reading this blog to feel like you have accidentally got stuck in a corner at a terrible incense filled party talking to an hysterical harpy (although to be honest, I think I really like talking to hysterical harpies). Or for reading this to feel like you are being told off by your mum. Or for reading this to feel like a chore.

Lately I have been thinking quite a lot about Lesley Kinzel's writing over on Fatshionista, and how in this article here she says she doesn't identify as a feminist, but that actually she is a really big fan of feminist actions. And while I get really pissed off when women don't use the word feminist, because so many people are scared of it and not using the words perpetuates the fear, I really like the sentiment of what Lesley is saying. The sentiment that it is what you do that counts. Sarah at Feministe wrote about this recently; this idea of action and this sense of purpose. She said:

"It’s what makes me like bell hooks’s statement that instead of saying “I am a feminist,” one should say “I advocate feminism.” It changes it from an identity to an action. Otherwise anyone can declare themselves a feminist and then have to do nothing to help women. One can say “I’m not racist” and then get angry when called out on a racist action. It becomes not all that much different from claiming to help women simply by being a woman in the race. Maybe on some level it helps to have more women calling themselves feminist, more women in office, but we need more than just words and presences. We need action."

And I think that is a really important thing to think about. Dressing up as a Nazi or making a joke about a fat woman doesn't mean that you have to spend the rest of your festering away in a special, segregated hut for racists and sexists and sizeists. Putting on the swastika was a racist action. Making the joke about a family of Japanese people eyeing up the fat black woman for dinner because she looked like a whale was a sizeist and racist and possibly anti-feminist action. Calling your friend a faggot and heckling the lesbians and and saying that your marketing lecture was gay are all insipidly homophobic actions. By writing about this I don't want people to be forever branded as racist, whorephobic, sizeist, homophobic, misogynist, xenophobic, ableist, classist, transphobic, shit for brains assholes until the end of time. Because if nothing and nobody could ever change, what would be the point of talking to anyone, ever, in the world? Why would anyone ever write a blog or a book, or stage a protest, or make a film or sign a petition? The reason that some people do is because sometimes some people change.

Possibly the most significant and magnanimous thing that I have done for my own feminism has been making the decision that I will try to no longer say anything negative about other women's bodies. For a whole pile of reasons, but mainly just because I didn't see how saying this stuff was helping anyone and FYI, I really like how Ragen Chastain talks about this in her article Things I've Heard about Thin Women. Sometimes, this body snark elimination has been hard. It is hard to resist rating the contestants on America's Next Top Model, or to choose not to engage in a debate about whether Lady Gaga really is a butter face, and if Kelly Osbourne said that, what does it make her? Just the other day, I looked at a girl in a tiny pair of shorts and told my friend that I thought she had a good body for them. And I was horrified with myself, because I didn't even really know where this comment had come from, and what did I mean that she had a good body? Did that mean that someone out there had a bad body? I rationalised with myself that nobody has bad legs because legs are something that we use to walk around on and swim through water with and dance in the gay bar on, and then I realised that my inner monologue had independently taken on some ableist train of thought, and did I really think that someone in a wheelchair had a bad body? God, I thought, I am meant to be a feminist, how does this shit just permeate into my brain? Then I felt sick, because I felt like I couldn't win. But maybe, nobody can ever win. We just have to keep trying to say good things and making good choices and when we slip up, we can just talk about it and why we might have said that thing and then we can just move on. Move on to something better.