Zai Nisht Keyn Chazir: Jewish magnets on bodies and eating and other sordid affairs
an introduction to disordered jewish eating
"No Fressing," warns my bubbe's favorite refridgerator magnet, reminding us all not to (as per my personal favorite definition of the word) "stuff oneself at the table without shame." In contrast, noshing, what with its connotations of small quanitity is always permitted, even when it involves large quantities of UNWANTED food being consumed ALL DAY, providing the consumption is being done so that NO ONE CAN SEE YOU EATING. If you'll allow me this drash, apparently the primary issue with fressing is actually the "without shame" part, contrary to popular belief. So long as shame is in tact, consume, consume, awash with guilt and certainly never, god forbid, enjoy the experience of eating.
if i were a wealthy man - hey!
this body everyone seems to have something to say about
Honestly, dear reader, I think if I had a penny, yes one literal penny (shekl mamash!) for every diagnostic comment made about my ass, I would be a Rich Man. And truth be told, if I had a penny for every such comment made *this week ALONE*, I would be a fairly rich man. It is seriously unrelenting. It's probably a good thing I'm leaving this weekend, b/c my rising rage barometer and my high school agression regression (as evidenced at Shea on Wednesday) is a combination likely to start some serious fights while walking home at 3am.
Here is a humble sampling of the responses I alternately bite down or yell back at my unwanted analysts.
1) Oh really? You want to fuck me in the ass? That's SO GREAT! I was TOTALLY just wondering about that!
2) Thank you miss shikseh, for informing me that i have the "body of a black woman." I am so glad to see that your weird racist body standards and your complete obliviousness to jewish body stereotypes have combined into a fascinating bio-determinist analysis of my body. Welcome to New York, gentle goy!
3) So you like to have a little "something to hold onto?" So we'll work out really well together? How bout my fist in your face? (80s tough guy degeneration starts.....now).
4) I actually already know that I have a nice ass. But I am SO glad you affirmed that fact for me! I was totally hoping all day for this little affirmation. Maybe you can make an ass affirmations desk calendar for me. We're only a month from 5766 after all!!!!
Back to the Future: Slightly Disordered
In 11th grade I wrote an essay that changed my life. (For your entertainment strictly, and notably parenthetically, I'll let you in on the quasi-sectarian conclusion, something akin to "and until Capitalism falls...and the revolution comes...") I was trying to figure out a lot of things and it started with (somewhat resentful) self-interest: why don't my friends recognize me as eating disordered? and came into being with my burgeoning thesis: we live in an eating disordered culture, which is often masked by the pathologizing of individuals and the pop/psycho-cultural fascination with skinny white girls who have plenty of food but don't eat it because they tragically (and MISTAKENLY, of COURSE) think they're fat. The moral of that story is always "you're not really fat, we will make 2,866 Dateline specials about this shocking and inexplicable phenomenon and create recovery camp for you to learn that you're not really fat." The most important thing is to teach skinny girls that they're NOT FAT. OK. So what happens to those of us who are fat? Where did my pre-ED high school body fit into this ED-prevention scheme? Completely unintelligibly, that's how. Naturally I got in trouble for writing this essay because I was alleging that everything that was being done to "prevent ED", indeed the entire WAVE of ED awareness education and prevention that was sweeping the country was actually: ALWAYS REINSCRIBING FAT-PHOBIA. And thus, ALWAYS CREATING MORE ED.
The central tenets of our eating disordered culture, you know: fat-phobia, food stigmatization, shunning eating in public, etc. were of course, never questioned in our health class early-90s ED awareness education. Always fully intact, always producing idealized ED victims who looked nothing like me...
And then I read bell hooks' Bone Black in which she talks about how the white psych-self-help world is constantly concluding that black women have extremely high self-esteem, by measuring them on a white, middle class normative measuring stick. Completely ignoring how relationships to body and food are shaped not only by the much tauted "pressure to be thin like a model" but by racism manifested through skin color/hair texture/body shape hierarchies, books like Reviving Ophelia became bibles for middle class white parents...
bell hooks also tells a story about putting a hot iron to her arm as a girl -- this story stuck with me because of coming of age during a moment when self-mutilation became the dateline fixation for a few years... Like ED, the idealized self-mutilator was also a "pretty" white girl who needed to just realize that she was beautiful and loved. bell hooks' story of course technically constitutes 'self mutilation' by anyone's definition, but would never have been recognized as such in that cultural moment. Again the wave of recovery camps, sob stories from people I didn't identify with at all, and analysis that furthered the phenomenon took the place of any rigorous cultural analysis that would actually undermine the oppressive cultural norms encouraging self-harm of various kinds, most unrecognized.
the greatest irony of all
Then there was getting blamed for ruining the lives of girls who *did* meet the rigorous standards of Idealized Self-Mutilator/Anorexic/Bulimic.
I was 16 folks. 16, diagnosably "bulimorexic," an excessive self-mutilator. i was trying really hard to figure out what the hell was going on. Nomy Lamm changed my life, introduced the term 'fat-phobia' to my teenage revolutionary lexicon and catalyzed the falling into place of a small piece of my body fascism analysis.
Then my friend, the blonde, unassuming, waspy, stick-thin anorexic (who had just become friends with me a few months previous, come out and gotten all revolution grrrl style now, scaring her parents to death) got sent-away and hospitalized. when word came back that she was in recovery and switching schools, we also found out that her counseling process had helped her come to terms with the fact that everything that was wrong in her life was My Fault. She had the full support of her insane aerobicized mother in realizing I'd "led [her] down the wrong path" and she had a long road ahead of her to undo me. Sometimes I wonder what the hospital counseling sessions looked like. In what world does even the most oppressive counseler get trained to say "yeah, blame your problems on your loud fat jewish friend - she made you gay"?? This was the year from hell in which all the teachers would glare at me, there was graffiti about "Louisa's Cult" and my younger, newly-out friends got "warned" to stay away from me. Parents started meeting about protecting their daughters from me. Somehow there were these armies of guidance counselers and parents ushering other teenage girls around, putting bandaids on their self-inflicted wounds and urging them to stay away from me. What was it that made my self-injury so disgusting and different than theirs, my eating disorder an appropriate response to my body rather than a tragic misunderstanding of it? Why was I crazy and they were pathetic? Why was I an actor to their abject recipients?
back to jewish disordered eating
I'm leaving for the long catskills weekend in a few minutes. Returning to the site of much self-hatred cultivation, though also much affirmation. It's always the place that taught you to be loud and take up space that also shuns you for it. "You have no volume control, Louisa." "Thanks rational-dad." My bubbe is of course constantly forcing you to eat, constantly eating herself, and constantly talking about how we should all not be eating. No matter what, eating is an act we're obsessed with. We're all taught to be repulsed by ourselves, while also trying to get our fill before the nazis come and take all our food away. (the stockpiles of 'just in case' snack food are now augmented by 'just in case' back-up microwaves, toasters and coffee makers.) It's probably not a terrible thing for me to be reminded of where I was trained to fear eating in front of other people. I always feel sick at my grandparents' house. Claire and I recently discovered that carrying water around with us everywhere and maniacally drinking gallons of it helps a bit.
When my bubbe gave claire her new tankini (yes, my bubbe's new tankini) because it was "too revealing" and commented "it wouldn't be good for you, dear, you know" I said "you know bubbe, there's nothing wrong with having a big tuchus," and she said "you know, you're right. I've always thought it's good to have something to hold onto." I guess my various unwanted ass-commenters agree with her about that. Though it's much sweeter coming from bubbe.
"No Fressing," warns my bubbe's favorite refridgerator magnet, reminding us all not to (as per my personal favorite definition of the word) "stuff oneself at the table without shame." In contrast, noshing, what with its connotations of small quanitity is always permitted, even when it involves large quantities of UNWANTED food being consumed ALL DAY, providing the consumption is being done so that NO ONE CAN SEE YOU EATING. If you'll allow me this drash, apparently the primary issue with fressing is actually the "without shame" part, contrary to popular belief. So long as shame is in tact, consume, consume, awash with guilt and certainly never, god forbid, enjoy the experience of eating.
if i were a wealthy man - hey!
this body everyone seems to have something to say about
Honestly, dear reader, I think if I had a penny, yes one literal penny (shekl mamash!) for every diagnostic comment made about my ass, I would be a Rich Man. And truth be told, if I had a penny for every such comment made *this week ALONE*, I would be a fairly rich man. It is seriously unrelenting. It's probably a good thing I'm leaving this weekend, b/c my rising rage barometer and my high school agression regression (as evidenced at Shea on Wednesday) is a combination likely to start some serious fights while walking home at 3am.
Here is a humble sampling of the responses I alternately bite down or yell back at my unwanted analysts.
1) Oh really? You want to fuck me in the ass? That's SO GREAT! I was TOTALLY just wondering about that!
2) Thank you miss shikseh, for informing me that i have the "body of a black woman." I am so glad to see that your weird racist body standards and your complete obliviousness to jewish body stereotypes have combined into a fascinating bio-determinist analysis of my body. Welcome to New York, gentle goy!
3) So you like to have a little "something to hold onto?" So we'll work out really well together? How bout my fist in your face? (80s tough guy degeneration starts.....now).
4) I actually already know that I have a nice ass. But I am SO glad you affirmed that fact for me! I was totally hoping all day for this little affirmation. Maybe you can make an ass affirmations desk calendar for me. We're only a month from 5766 after all!!!!
Back to the Future: Slightly Disordered
In 11th grade I wrote an essay that changed my life. (For your entertainment strictly, and notably parenthetically, I'll let you in on the quasi-sectarian conclusion, something akin to "and until Capitalism falls...and the revolution comes...") I was trying to figure out a lot of things and it started with (somewhat resentful) self-interest: why don't my friends recognize me as eating disordered? and came into being with my burgeoning thesis: we live in an eating disordered culture, which is often masked by the pathologizing of individuals and the pop/psycho-cultural fascination with skinny white girls who have plenty of food but don't eat it because they tragically (and MISTAKENLY, of COURSE) think they're fat. The moral of that story is always "you're not really fat, we will make 2,866 Dateline specials about this shocking and inexplicable phenomenon and create recovery camp for you to learn that you're not really fat." The most important thing is to teach skinny girls that they're NOT FAT. OK. So what happens to those of us who are fat? Where did my pre-ED high school body fit into this ED-prevention scheme? Completely unintelligibly, that's how. Naturally I got in trouble for writing this essay because I was alleging that everything that was being done to "prevent ED", indeed the entire WAVE of ED awareness education and prevention that was sweeping the country was actually: ALWAYS REINSCRIBING FAT-PHOBIA. And thus, ALWAYS CREATING MORE ED.
The central tenets of our eating disordered culture, you know: fat-phobia, food stigmatization, shunning eating in public, etc. were of course, never questioned in our health class early-90s ED awareness education. Always fully intact, always producing idealized ED victims who looked nothing like me...
And then I read bell hooks' Bone Black in which she talks about how the white psych-self-help world is constantly concluding that black women have extremely high self-esteem, by measuring them on a white, middle class normative measuring stick. Completely ignoring how relationships to body and food are shaped not only by the much tauted "pressure to be thin like a model" but by racism manifested through skin color/hair texture/body shape hierarchies, books like Reviving Ophelia became bibles for middle class white parents...
bell hooks also tells a story about putting a hot iron to her arm as a girl -- this story stuck with me because of coming of age during a moment when self-mutilation became the dateline fixation for a few years... Like ED, the idealized self-mutilator was also a "pretty" white girl who needed to just realize that she was beautiful and loved. bell hooks' story of course technically constitutes 'self mutilation' by anyone's definition, but would never have been recognized as such in that cultural moment. Again the wave of recovery camps, sob stories from people I didn't identify with at all, and analysis that furthered the phenomenon took the place of any rigorous cultural analysis that would actually undermine the oppressive cultural norms encouraging self-harm of various kinds, most unrecognized.
the greatest irony of all
Then there was getting blamed for ruining the lives of girls who *did* meet the rigorous standards of Idealized Self-Mutilator/Anorexic/Bulimic.
I was 16 folks. 16, diagnosably "bulimorexic," an excessive self-mutilator. i was trying really hard to figure out what the hell was going on. Nomy Lamm changed my life, introduced the term 'fat-phobia' to my teenage revolutionary lexicon and catalyzed the falling into place of a small piece of my body fascism analysis.
Then my friend, the blonde, unassuming, waspy, stick-thin anorexic (who had just become friends with me a few months previous, come out and gotten all revolution grrrl style now, scaring her parents to death) got sent-away and hospitalized. when word came back that she was in recovery and switching schools, we also found out that her counseling process had helped her come to terms with the fact that everything that was wrong in her life was My Fault. She had the full support of her insane aerobicized mother in realizing I'd "led [her] down the wrong path" and she had a long road ahead of her to undo me. Sometimes I wonder what the hospital counseling sessions looked like. In what world does even the most oppressive counseler get trained to say "yeah, blame your problems on your loud fat jewish friend - she made you gay"?? This was the year from hell in which all the teachers would glare at me, there was graffiti about "Louisa's Cult" and my younger, newly-out friends got "warned" to stay away from me. Parents started meeting about protecting their daughters from me. Somehow there were these armies of guidance counselers and parents ushering other teenage girls around, putting bandaids on their self-inflicted wounds and urging them to stay away from me. What was it that made my self-injury so disgusting and different than theirs, my eating disorder an appropriate response to my body rather than a tragic misunderstanding of it? Why was I crazy and they were pathetic? Why was I an actor to their abject recipients?
back to jewish disordered eating
I'm leaving for the long catskills weekend in a few minutes. Returning to the site of much self-hatred cultivation, though also much affirmation. It's always the place that taught you to be loud and take up space that also shuns you for it. "You have no volume control, Louisa." "Thanks rational-dad." My bubbe is of course constantly forcing you to eat, constantly eating herself, and constantly talking about how we should all not be eating. No matter what, eating is an act we're obsessed with. We're all taught to be repulsed by ourselves, while also trying to get our fill before the nazis come and take all our food away. (the stockpiles of 'just in case' snack food are now augmented by 'just in case' back-up microwaves, toasters and coffee makers.) It's probably not a terrible thing for me to be reminded of where I was trained to fear eating in front of other people. I always feel sick at my grandparents' house. Claire and I recently discovered that carrying water around with us everywhere and maniacally drinking gallons of it helps a bit.
When my bubbe gave claire her new tankini (yes, my bubbe's new tankini) because it was "too revealing" and commented "it wouldn't be good for you, dear, you know" I said "you know bubbe, there's nothing wrong with having a big tuchus," and she said "you know, you're right. I've always thought it's good to have something to hold onto." I guess my various unwanted ass-commenters agree with her about that. Though it's much sweeter coming from bubbe.