things annoying me lately
1) The incredibly pervasive meme that says that "healthy" foods are the same as "low-calorie, low-fat, low-sugar" foods, and that "unhealthy" foods are, like, a cookie or an ice cream cone or what have you. CAN THIS STOP? Because, okay, three reasons:
a) What's healthy for one body is not healthy for another; many many people need to eat high-calorie, high-fat foods because they have trouble keeping on enough weight to prevent them from feeling sick, or because they have mono or cancer or other such illnesses. Some people are fucking anorexic, and if you're 70lbs and 5'8" the healthiest choice may not in fact be a plain lettuce salad. Also what's healthy at one time may not be healthy at another time - if a diabetic person is having a sugar crash, then in fact a cookie and some fruit juice is the healthiest thing they can do in order to prevent, like, going into a coma. What's healthy for my body at 9am may not be healthy for your body at 9am, or healthy for my body at 10pm, or healthy for any body right before they run a marathon. IN SHORT, there is no such thing as universally healthy food. The only universally unhealthy foods are things like the licorice with the carcinogenic red dye or foods with trans fats in them or like radioactive pudding, okay?
b) Healthy and unhealthy are code words for thin and fat; this is all there is to it. This is a language that has been invented in order to make the shaming and hating of fat people socially acceptable (I'm just concerned for your health! That's why my clothing manufacturer doesn't make clothes in your size!) When someone talks about "healthy" food or "healthy" behaviour (which, again, exercise is not healthy behaviour for all bodies at all times, and it's ablist to assume that it is), it is nearly impossible to extricate that word from the context of shame and hatred in which it is constantly used in news programs, in ads for weight-loss programs, etc. Even if you are attempting to use the term in a neutral fashion, or as it applies to your own body - "I am glad I ate that healthy salad rather than getting a hot dog from the vendor" - you are still inevitably, to some extent, promoting the idea that eating fewer calories is always healthier, and that being thin is inevitably healthier and better than being fat. Which takes us to:
c) Even if I am eating sixteen cookies full of preservatives and transfats, even if I am eating pizza for dinner every single day and following it up with five beers and two packs of cigarettes (notice how those last two are more morally neutral), it is not your job to make morally-inflected judgments about other peoples' bodies and choices. "Healthy" and "unhealthy" implies not only "thin" and "fat" but also "morally good" and "morally bad" - look at the way that people claim to have been "bad" if they ate a fucking slice of pie and "good" if they ate some 30-calorie soup cup that has no food in it. Labeling certain foods or eating practices as healthy and other ones as unhealthy (especially when, as above, those terms don't actually have any universal meaning, because bodies are different) implies that people who eat "healthy" - which is, by the way, often allied with deprivation and self-denial, which, fuck off - are being morally upright while people who eat "unhealthy" - because they are enjoying or indulging themselves, heaven forfend - are morally bankrupt. Any time one person cajoles, shames, or bugs another person into eating differently or stopping eating, they are creating food shame. Let's not do that, okay? Let's remember that everyone gets to make their own choices about their own bodies - whether they want an abortion, whether they want their partner to whip them, whether they want to go skydiving, whether they want to take drugs, or whether they want to eat a cookie, people get to make decisions about their own bodies, and it would be nice if there were a world in which a fat chick could eat an ice cream cone in public without getting hairy eyeballs.
eta: I am reminded in comments that talking about vocabulary use and ideas about health is not very useful without greater cultural specificity and more care than I've taken in the preceding section; I'm sorry about that, I've gone a-ranting here without being thoughtful enough, which is a bad idea. I was thinking, as I was posting, that the kinds of self-denial=moral goodness ideas I'm talking about are very (though definitely not exclusively) American-protestant, Puritanical in feel if not in origin. I am talking about the kinds of messages about health that I've gotten living in various parts of Canada and America, and it is of course ridiculous to assume that these kinds of messages and equivalencies can be extrapolated to other countries, or even to all Canadians or Americans. I'm trying to be still more specific about the origins and locations of these kinds of messages and binaries (healthy/unhealthy, etc), but a problem I keep running into is the pervasiveness and spidering-out of these narratives within, especially, US culture; I would like to locate it to discourse about nutrition, fitness, eating, etc., but as commenters have already noted, this kind of thinking is also prevalent in federal government and doctor's offices and national-chain grocery stores and so forth.
Anyway, I'm still thinking about this, and may eta again, but I am sorry at any rate for the initial sweeping statement-ness of it.
Also, I feel like the preceding paragraphs have an accusatory tone (a reference to some amorphous and straw "you") that I wish they didn't have - if I were to rephrase, I would rephrase to say, even when we try to use these terms in body-positive and value-neutral ways, or in reference to our own bodies, we can often, if we are enmeshed in this American culture of paranoia and hatred about fat, find ourselves getting caught up in the valences that the terms already have. Similarly, if we're using them within that same paranoid American or Canadian cultural context, even if we aren't ourselves enmeshed in it, those terms "healthy" and "unhealthy" can take on those valences by the time they reach other peoples' ears, because they call to mind the way those terms are used on news programs and weight loss advertisements and Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign and the placards at the grocery store. And this is very frustrating for us all, especially if we want to find a way to talk in a value-neutral way about the benefits or detriments of various foods for various people! /eta
2) This thing I see everywhere in fandom, that kink stories are the opposite of plotty or plot-driven stories. WTF is this? Your 30000 word h/c story (which is TTLY A KINK BTW) is plot-driven, but my 30000 word story about a couple exploring D/s isn't? I seriously go red-eyed like a cartoon character whenever I see this, steam comes out of my ears, it isn't pretty. When you say "I don't like kink stories, I like plotty stories," perhaps what you mean is "I don't like kink stories," or "I don't like sex stories, I like gen stories," or "I prefer vanilla sex stories." But if I hear one more person tell me that kink and plot, or kink and good character writing, or kink and realism are oppositional and exclusionary terms, MY HEAD MAY ACTUALLY EXPLODE.
3) I have been following along with the whole "yet another profic writer doesn't understand what fanfiction is" drama, and being generally annoyed by that, as many of you have as well. But you know, while statements about how fanfiction = hamburger helper or fanfiction is immoral are annoying, what I actually find more annoying/infuriating are some of the statements from ostensibly pro-fanfic authors that I read on the fanlore Professional Author Fanfic Policies page. The condescending, paternalistic, utterly clueless "it's a great way to practice your writing" or "it will help you polish your use of punctuation and grammar" or "write it if you must" or "I guess it's the price you pay for having loyal fans" statements . . . those are just so insulting. I almost prefer the hamburger helper statements to the "it's not art, and you're a weirdo, but go for it I guess" statements, because at least the former are easier to make fun of. And at least no one in fandom ever praises the former, or gets excited about it the way that some people do about lukewarm and slyly insulting "permissions" to write fic.
4) Relatedly, I am annoyed by slash fans who get excited about male actors' homophobia. Like, okay, Michael Shanks doing limp-wristed lisping Jack/Daniel? Isn't funny to me. And PS, that's Michael Shanks making fun of you, and me, and, especially, gay people. It's not him going along with it or having fun or enjoying slash - or, if it is, it's homophobic and damaging at the same time. And there are so, so many examples of this - I always think of Paul Gross and Callum Keith Rennie fake-fucking in the due South blooper reel, or David Duchovny and Mitch Pileggi doing the same, for that matter. It's a joke to them: slash fangirls are a joke, and gay men are a joke. (this isn't to say that enjoying those performances is necessarily a bad thing to do, and certainly it's ripe for appropriation, but . . . I just get so annoyed when people are uncritical about it.)
THESE HAVE BEEN SOME THINGS THAT ANNOY ME. What sorts of things are currently annoying you? Feel free to chime in and be annoyed as well.
(click to comment at dw || there are
comments right now)
a) What's healthy for one body is not healthy for another; many many people need to eat high-calorie, high-fat foods because they have trouble keeping on enough weight to prevent them from feeling sick, or because they have mono or cancer or other such illnesses. Some people are fucking anorexic, and if you're 70lbs and 5'8" the healthiest choice may not in fact be a plain lettuce salad. Also what's healthy at one time may not be healthy at another time - if a diabetic person is having a sugar crash, then in fact a cookie and some fruit juice is the healthiest thing they can do in order to prevent, like, going into a coma. What's healthy for my body at 9am may not be healthy for your body at 9am, or healthy for my body at 10pm, or healthy for any body right before they run a marathon. IN SHORT, there is no such thing as universally healthy food. The only universally unhealthy foods are things like the licorice with the carcinogenic red dye or foods with trans fats in them or like radioactive pudding, okay?
b) Healthy and unhealthy are code words for thin and fat; this is all there is to it. This is a language that has been invented in order to make the shaming and hating of fat people socially acceptable (I'm just concerned for your health! That's why my clothing manufacturer doesn't make clothes in your size!) When someone talks about "healthy" food or "healthy" behaviour (which, again, exercise is not healthy behaviour for all bodies at all times, and it's ablist to assume that it is), it is nearly impossible to extricate that word from the context of shame and hatred in which it is constantly used in news programs, in ads for weight-loss programs, etc. Even if you are attempting to use the term in a neutral fashion, or as it applies to your own body - "I am glad I ate that healthy salad rather than getting a hot dog from the vendor" - you are still inevitably, to some extent, promoting the idea that eating fewer calories is always healthier, and that being thin is inevitably healthier and better than being fat. Which takes us to:
c) Even if I am eating sixteen cookies full of preservatives and transfats, even if I am eating pizza for dinner every single day and following it up with five beers and two packs of cigarettes (notice how those last two are more morally neutral), it is not your job to make morally-inflected judgments about other peoples' bodies and choices. "Healthy" and "unhealthy" implies not only "thin" and "fat" but also "morally good" and "morally bad" - look at the way that people claim to have been "bad" if they ate a fucking slice of pie and "good" if they ate some 30-calorie soup cup that has no food in it. Labeling certain foods or eating practices as healthy and other ones as unhealthy (especially when, as above, those terms don't actually have any universal meaning, because bodies are different) implies that people who eat "healthy" - which is, by the way, often allied with deprivation and self-denial, which, fuck off - are being morally upright while people who eat "unhealthy" - because they are enjoying or indulging themselves, heaven forfend - are morally bankrupt. Any time one person cajoles, shames, or bugs another person into eating differently or stopping eating, they are creating food shame. Let's not do that, okay? Let's remember that everyone gets to make their own choices about their own bodies - whether they want an abortion, whether they want their partner to whip them, whether they want to go skydiving, whether they want to take drugs, or whether they want to eat a cookie, people get to make decisions about their own bodies, and it would be nice if there were a world in which a fat chick could eat an ice cream cone in public without getting hairy eyeballs.
eta: I am reminded in comments that talking about vocabulary use and ideas about health is not very useful without greater cultural specificity and more care than I've taken in the preceding section; I'm sorry about that, I've gone a-ranting here without being thoughtful enough, which is a bad idea. I was thinking, as I was posting, that the kinds of self-denial=moral goodness ideas I'm talking about are very (though definitely not exclusively) American-protestant, Puritanical in feel if not in origin. I am talking about the kinds of messages about health that I've gotten living in various parts of Canada and America, and it is of course ridiculous to assume that these kinds of messages and equivalencies can be extrapolated to other countries, or even to all Canadians or Americans. I'm trying to be still more specific about the origins and locations of these kinds of messages and binaries (healthy/unhealthy, etc), but a problem I keep running into is the pervasiveness and spidering-out of these narratives within, especially, US culture; I would like to locate it to discourse about nutrition, fitness, eating, etc., but as commenters have already noted, this kind of thinking is also prevalent in federal government and doctor's offices and national-chain grocery stores and so forth.
Anyway, I'm still thinking about this, and may eta again, but I am sorry at any rate for the initial sweeping statement-ness of it.
Also, I feel like the preceding paragraphs have an accusatory tone (a reference to some amorphous and straw "you") that I wish they didn't have - if I were to rephrase, I would rephrase to say, even when we try to use these terms in body-positive and value-neutral ways, or in reference to our own bodies, we can often, if we are enmeshed in this American culture of paranoia and hatred about fat, find ourselves getting caught up in the valences that the terms already have. Similarly, if we're using them within that same paranoid American or Canadian cultural context, even if we aren't ourselves enmeshed in it, those terms "healthy" and "unhealthy" can take on those valences by the time they reach other peoples' ears, because they call to mind the way those terms are used on news programs and weight loss advertisements and Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign and the placards at the grocery store. And this is very frustrating for us all, especially if we want to find a way to talk in a value-neutral way about the benefits or detriments of various foods for various people! /eta
2) This thing I see everywhere in fandom, that kink stories are the opposite of plotty or plot-driven stories. WTF is this? Your 30000 word h/c story (which is TTLY A KINK BTW) is plot-driven, but my 30000 word story about a couple exploring D/s isn't? I seriously go red-eyed like a cartoon character whenever I see this, steam comes out of my ears, it isn't pretty. When you say "I don't like kink stories, I like plotty stories," perhaps what you mean is "I don't like kink stories," or "I don't like sex stories, I like gen stories," or "I prefer vanilla sex stories." But if I hear one more person tell me that kink and plot, or kink and good character writing, or kink and realism are oppositional and exclusionary terms, MY HEAD MAY ACTUALLY EXPLODE.
3) I have been following along with the whole "yet another profic writer doesn't understand what fanfiction is" drama, and being generally annoyed by that, as many of you have as well. But you know, while statements about how fanfiction = hamburger helper or fanfiction is immoral are annoying, what I actually find more annoying/infuriating are some of the statements from ostensibly pro-fanfic authors that I read on the fanlore Professional Author Fanfic Policies page. The condescending, paternalistic, utterly clueless "it's a great way to practice your writing" or "it will help you polish your use of punctuation and grammar" or "write it if you must" or "I guess it's the price you pay for having loyal fans" statements . . . those are just so insulting. I almost prefer the hamburger helper statements to the "it's not art, and you're a weirdo, but go for it I guess" statements, because at least the former are easier to make fun of. And at least no one in fandom ever praises the former, or gets excited about it the way that some people do about lukewarm and slyly insulting "permissions" to write fic.
4) Relatedly, I am annoyed by slash fans who get excited about male actors' homophobia. Like, okay, Michael Shanks doing limp-wristed lisping Jack/Daniel? Isn't funny to me. And PS, that's Michael Shanks making fun of you, and me, and, especially, gay people. It's not him going along with it or having fun or enjoying slash - or, if it is, it's homophobic and damaging at the same time. And there are so, so many examples of this - I always think of Paul Gross and Callum Keith Rennie fake-fucking in the due South blooper reel, or David Duchovny and Mitch Pileggi doing the same, for that matter. It's a joke to them: slash fangirls are a joke, and gay men are a joke. (this isn't to say that enjoying those performances is necessarily a bad thing to do, and certainly it's ripe for appropriation, but . . . I just get so annoyed when people are uncritical about it.)
THESE HAVE BEEN SOME THINGS THAT ANNOY ME. What sorts of things are currently annoying you? Feel free to chime in and be annoyed as well.
(click to comment at dw || there are
comments right now)