Webs II (Part B?)
Why does this issue bother me more than other people? Do other people just not see it? Or tuck it safely away so it can be ignored? Or just accept it and move on?
One of my best friends from high school is now acting in a play in Chicago called "Fat Pig," which is one of the few plays/shows/movies of any kind to actually DEAL with the whole body issue out in the open. It's getting good reviews, from what I can tell, but each reviewer also suggested that it just makes the audience very...uncomfortable.
Well then, if that's the case...this entry and maybe even a few to come after it will make anyone who reads them uncomfortable. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I remember one of the most depressing things I ever read in my life. I was a senior in high school, and had borrowed a friend's Psych textbook. I just started reading in the social psych section, and found this series of studies that showed that "pretty" or "attractive" defendants got much lighter sentences than those defendants who weren't. And I thought...that's not justice. But no one ever brings this issue up. More studies. Attractive people get hired more easily. Earn more money. Are considered better people by those around them. And on and on and on. Why?
Or, I suppose my real why is--why is this not a major issue like discrimination based on rase, gender, or religion? Isn't it every bit as arbitrary? Every bit as unfair? Every bit as undeserved? If I give higher tips to "cute" bartenders and waitresses, no one gets up in arms. But what if I only gave really good tips to white waitresses? Or to Catholic ones? And I haven't even begun to think about the question of why I give much higher tips to waitresses than waiters. Is that right? Is it fair? Is it just?
And if you say no, it's not fair, but that's just the way life is...well why is that? And why don't you say the same thing if I discriminate based on some other totally arbitrary physical characteristic? What's the difference?
And what I get hung up on is this--it's not just natural. It's not just life. I remember when I first opened up and started talking to girls, thinking about asking them on dates--that sort of thing, after a lifetime of shyness. Two of the first ones I asked out were very...plain. And no, it wasn't because I lacked the confidence to go after someone "better." It was because I liked them. They were fun, interesting, intelligent, and a lot of other things. But I remember the constant badgering that came afterward. The teasing. The insults thrown around. And I felt embarassed. Ashamed. Humiliated. And over time, I must have internalized that somehow...because after awhile people that OTHER people found unattractive, I started finding unattractive as well.
This whole modern thinness thing is a completely socially fabricated phenomenon. It's not natural. For most of history voluptuous people were considered "better looking." No, I'm not saying that sort of thing would be BETTER or any less arbitrary. And either way, it is so wrong to treat HUMAN BEINGS as objects in any way. Be it for race, sex, physical appearance...a million things along those lines.
And yet...what does occur in all of us is this need to feel wanted, loved, accepted...and yes, desired physically as well as all those other things. And yet we live in this sort of hierarchy of those that are desired and those that are not. Sure, people do a lot of work to move up or down that hierarchy based on the norms of the place and time. But it's always going to be mostly arbitrary.
This has turned into this long, disconnected rant. For that, I apologize. But I just can't get over how differently people are treated based on something as STUPID as just their physical appearance. I changed everything about my appearance in high school--from what I wore to getting contacts to trying to get in shape--and I did it again in college after I gained a lot of weight one year and then worked it all off over one summer. And it wasn't just this bullshit thing about "oh, I felt better about myself" after doing it. That's total b.s. You feel better because other people start treating you like a human being again.
And I know what it feels like to not be treated like a human being. Going all the way back to that time in the 6th grade. And it makes me so ANGRY that by nature and later nurture that I have this compulsion to treat other people less kindly, less humanly than others based on what they LOOK like. For someone who believes, as I do, that the fox's secret, that "what is essential is invisible to the eye," it is the gravest sin one can commit. And I commit it all the time. And have it committed against me. And it just feels like such a STUPID design, a stupid world, an idiotic web of bullshit we've fallen into and helped perpetuate.
How do we change it?
Or do we just crawl on?
One of my best friends from high school is now acting in a play in Chicago called "Fat Pig," which is one of the few plays/shows/movies of any kind to actually DEAL with the whole body issue out in the open. It's getting good reviews, from what I can tell, but each reviewer also suggested that it just makes the audience very...uncomfortable.
Well then, if that's the case...this entry and maybe even a few to come after it will make anyone who reads them uncomfortable. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I remember one of the most depressing things I ever read in my life. I was a senior in high school, and had borrowed a friend's Psych textbook. I just started reading in the social psych section, and found this series of studies that showed that "pretty" or "attractive" defendants got much lighter sentences than those defendants who weren't. And I thought...that's not justice. But no one ever brings this issue up. More studies. Attractive people get hired more easily. Earn more money. Are considered better people by those around them. And on and on and on. Why?
Or, I suppose my real why is--why is this not a major issue like discrimination based on rase, gender, or religion? Isn't it every bit as arbitrary? Every bit as unfair? Every bit as undeserved? If I give higher tips to "cute" bartenders and waitresses, no one gets up in arms. But what if I only gave really good tips to white waitresses? Or to Catholic ones? And I haven't even begun to think about the question of why I give much higher tips to waitresses than waiters. Is that right? Is it fair? Is it just?
And if you say no, it's not fair, but that's just the way life is...well why is that? And why don't you say the same thing if I discriminate based on some other totally arbitrary physical characteristic? What's the difference?
And what I get hung up on is this--it's not just natural. It's not just life. I remember when I first opened up and started talking to girls, thinking about asking them on dates--that sort of thing, after a lifetime of shyness. Two of the first ones I asked out were very...plain. And no, it wasn't because I lacked the confidence to go after someone "better." It was because I liked them. They were fun, interesting, intelligent, and a lot of other things. But I remember the constant badgering that came afterward. The teasing. The insults thrown around. And I felt embarassed. Ashamed. Humiliated. And over time, I must have internalized that somehow...because after awhile people that OTHER people found unattractive, I started finding unattractive as well.
This whole modern thinness thing is a completely socially fabricated phenomenon. It's not natural. For most of history voluptuous people were considered "better looking." No, I'm not saying that sort of thing would be BETTER or any less arbitrary. And either way, it is so wrong to treat HUMAN BEINGS as objects in any way. Be it for race, sex, physical appearance...a million things along those lines.
And yet...what does occur in all of us is this need to feel wanted, loved, accepted...and yes, desired physically as well as all those other things. And yet we live in this sort of hierarchy of those that are desired and those that are not. Sure, people do a lot of work to move up or down that hierarchy based on the norms of the place and time. But it's always going to be mostly arbitrary.
This has turned into this long, disconnected rant. For that, I apologize. But I just can't get over how differently people are treated based on something as STUPID as just their physical appearance. I changed everything about my appearance in high school--from what I wore to getting contacts to trying to get in shape--and I did it again in college after I gained a lot of weight one year and then worked it all off over one summer. And it wasn't just this bullshit thing about "oh, I felt better about myself" after doing it. That's total b.s. You feel better because other people start treating you like a human being again.
And I know what it feels like to not be treated like a human being. Going all the way back to that time in the 6th grade. And it makes me so ANGRY that by nature and later nurture that I have this compulsion to treat other people less kindly, less humanly than others based on what they LOOK like. For someone who believes, as I do, that the fox's secret, that "what is essential is invisible to the eye," it is the gravest sin one can commit. And I commit it all the time. And have it committed against me. And it just feels like such a STUPID design, a stupid world, an idiotic web of bullshit we've fallen into and helped perpetuate.
How do we change it?
Or do we just crawl on?