The most frustrating part.

Mean people are awful but their meanness is actually the second most frustrating thing about encountering them.  The most frustrating thing is, for me, the inability to comprehend WHY they are mean.

It's kind of silly to call a major media outlet mean.  So many people contribute content that it really is impossible to asses whether they intend to be hurtful.  Perhaps some do but I don't think CNN would be one of them.

CNN did frustrate me today though, and it was due to a mean girl encounter sooo the two aren't ... what's the term?  Mutually exclusive?  Unrelated?  I don't know but I think you get it.

For the past several Fridays, CNN.com has posted stories about body image and perceptions of beauty.  Miss American's anorexia recovery was one of them.  There was also a story about FATshion.  My heart did a little woot woot when I read that one.

Today, I read this story by Shanon Cook who is incredulous that a man found her pregnant silhouette attractive.  She used so many fat slurs it was like someone played a tape loop of my past.  I wanted to crawl under my desk and induce puking into my trash can.

For obvious reasons, acceptance, tolerance and kindness are high on my wish list for society.  My story is not uncommon.  Because I am fat, I was brutally bullied from 6th grade until I graduated high school.  Even in adulthood I have been called names in public, humiliated and physically assaulted over my weight.  That's probably why my blogs don't have a lot of range.  They're either completely shallow fluff or they're about the things that hurt me.  Write what you know.  ^_^

Being treated like a piece of subhuman shit due to my appearance hurts me.  Wouldn't that hurt almost everyone?  So when I see news pieces, TeeVee shows, movies, pictures, etc. that are size positive or even size neutral, I do a mental cartwheel because it means that maybe history will stop repeating itself.

But then I read Shanon Cook's piece and I think it will never get better.

Here are some examples of what she said:

"And then there was the belly -- a massive dome of a thing, so immense that Lennox looked like a wee Scottish lass beside me. Jessica-Simpson-on-the-cover-of-Elle, no. Sexy, I was not."

"I didn't tell him that excitement doesn't really register when it takes a forklift and three bodybuilders to raise you out of bed in the morning."

"This dude thought I was hot. But how could he? I mean, I looked like an upright hippopotamus."

Wait, though, it gets really confusing and that added fuel to the frustration fire.

She says pregnancy allows women to not be neurotic about their size for a moment, so she enjoyed it by eating "truckloads" of candy and feeling good in spite of herself.

What?

Did I miss something?  Is she saying that only when you are pregnant can you love your body if it's big? And CNN published it?

Why?  Why can't we love our bodies always, regardless of how big or small?  And why does CNN give us an entire series about diverse beauty and body image then turn around and run another tired old fat = gross story?

Seems like every publication goes balls out when it comes to fat hate stories yet they'll print an anti-bullying story on the very next page.  What message is this?  Is it intentional?

Hate totally bums me out.  It hurts; it causes me to ask all these questions and the absolute most frustrating part is that I will never know the answer.

There's a reason they call 'em private parts.

O hai Boycotting Girl Scout people,


I saw a video on Jezebel.

Is this a case of bigoted parents having bigoted kids? Regardless of how she arrived at her fear of penises and her obsession with dressing how she wants in a group, she'll make a hell of an attorney someday if she can find an all-bigot-females-born-with-vaginas-only country where she can practice law.

And you know what, Honest Discriminating Girl Scout (that's a factual term, she's being honest as fuck about her feelings) I ate a fat ton of Girl Scout cookies the past couple weeks and Imma finish my box of Thin Mints tonight. Maybe I'll throw down s'more cash on Thanks A Lots tomorrow. And maybe I'll do it for the sole reason that GSUSA allowed a transgender (meaning no longer male but FEMALE) GIRL into the group.

Here's the deal, Uptight Robot Child, USE YOUR BRAIN. If an evil, plotting, ill-intentioned boy is trying to get into GSUSA because he thinks he will score some poon, have a little more faith in the adults around you to catch on to his game before he gets his slimy man parts anywhere near your pristine white cotton briefs.

Do your parents sleep in separate beds in your creepily perfect Reese Witherspoon in "Election" kind of home and have they raised you to be scalded-dog scared of anything that isn't All American Cream Cheese Sunday School White Linen Napkins?

Am I advocating child molestation here? Again, if ya use yer inferior lady brains, you'll see I am clearly NOT. (You said it yourself, girls need all-girl places to feel like it is 'easier' to do thinks like fart or talk about how frustrating it is when you only get an A and not an A+ on your calculus test.)  (Quickie question tho.  If it is easier to talk about badges and swimming with ONLY GIRLS BORN WITH VAGINAS then why is it hard to talk about these things in mixed company?  IF it is indeed harder to do this, then is that a boy's fault or is it yours?)

Check this out because it is an absolute truth.  You do not and can not know everyone's situation. I don't know your situation other than what you shared in your video and I'm asking you questions about it although I realize it's unlikely, in the massive soup of the interwebs, that you'll ever see them or even answer.


The fact remains.  It's impossible to suddenly know a person's intentions because you have one piece of information about their body. IMPOSSIBLE. Trust me. It is not possible.  Can we agree that this is an honest fact?

How would you feel if you had all your same emotions, all your same spirit, ethics, your entire personality, your whole life was all exactly the same but you had a boy's body?

Would YOU want to live in a world that respected you, treated you fairly and allowed you the same freedoms everyone else enjoys?

OR

Would you want to be the one single solitary You-With-A-Penis in a world filled with other Yous-With-A-Vagina who treated you like a rapist just because you had a personal physical issue with which you were dealing?

If we're being HONEST here (you clearly conveyed how important honesty is to you) then I feel safe in saying you would indeed pick the fair treatment and respect. So if you'd pick it for yourself, why would you deny it for someone else? That doesn't sound like a very GSUSA thing to do, does it?

Makes me think you're not the stellar representative of GSUSA you set out to be. Which would mean people should actually boycott YOU and NOT delicious GSUSA cookies. And on that note, your argument is invalid.

Ohkay, bye now. I'm off to share my Girl Scout cookies with big, bad, scary different people.