LITERANISTA Dialogue on Multicultural Books, Tech & Life

Literanista April 17, 2014

So like every other Bride-to-Be who’s had to grapple with reality versus the crippling weight of pressure of a perfect wedding day and looking amazing in the most expensive dress she’s ever owned, I have started dieting and working out in hopes of losing 25-30 lbs by the end of this summer when I have my first dress fitting.

Elaborate wedding dress from 1929. (Photo: Wikipedia)

The initial 2-4.5 lbs came off pretty easily and felt amazing. You see, readers, I’m only 5’2.” My frame is small and not meant to carry a heavy load. I lost only 4 lbs and already my Fiancee noticed a difference in my waist, my brother remarked on my cheekbones, my coworkers told me I looked skinnier and my suit’s slacks felt roomy at the waist. My body felt amazing again. I felt at peace with this treacherous outer shell that been uncooperative so many times.

For those of you who don’t know Roxanne Gay, she is an amazing writer whose Tumblr I follow weekly. She recently wrote an xoJane post about the Biggest Loser, “MY BODY IS WILDLY UNDISCIPLINED AND I DENY MYSELF NEARLY EVERYTHING I DESIRE,” which Ta-Nehisi Coates commented on “Wow. It’s so hard to get naked on the page. It’s one of the hardest things to convey in my essay classes. You must be naked. You must understand that clothes are the illusion, and  your readers are naked too. Humans are at war with themselves. Once you can accept this, your own wars become less shameful. I don’t mean exhibitionism. I mean honesty. The clothes are the illusion.”

And here is what she exposes to world:

Part of disciplining the body is denial. We want but we dare not have. To lose weight or maintain our ideal bodies, we deny ourselves certain foods. We deny ourselves rest by working out. We deny ourselves peace of mind by remaining ever vigilant over our bodies. We withhold from ourselves until we achieve a goal and then we withhold from ourselves to maintain that goal.

My body is wildly undisciplined and I deny myself nearly everything I desire. I deny myself the right to space when I am public, trying to fold in on myself, to make my body invisible even though it is, in fact, grandly visible. I deny myself the right to a shared armrest because how dare I impose? I deny myself entry into certain spaces I have deemed inappropriate for a body like mine—most spaces inhabited by other people.

I deny myself bright colors in my clothing choices, sticking to a uniform of denim and dark shirts even though I have a far more diverse wardrobe. I deny myself certain trappings of femininity as if I do not have the right to such expression when my body does not follow society’s dictates for what a woman’s body should look like. I deny myself gentler kinds of affection—to touch or be kindly touched—as if that is a pleasure a body like mine does not deserve.

Punishment is, in fact, one of the few things I allow myself. 

This excellently written post goes into our fat shaming culture, where getting thin is equated with happiness, it goes into the discipline required to actually lose weight, self-entitlement and denial, and the fact that “there are so many rules for the body—often unspoken and ever shifting,” and it seems like society is dictating them.

La fiancée du Nil (M. Moukhtar, IMA) (Photo: dalbera)

Most people are shocked when I tell them my weight loss goal, that’s too much they say or they ask why, explaining they don’t think I need to lose so much. But what they essentially misunderstand is that it’s my assessment to make. I know my body best. Because of my small frame, according to the BMI scale, I am under the “overweight” category and no one would ever be any wiser. Sometimes I fit into a size “4.” Buy I know, I know myself.

You will disappear, they warn, but what they don’t understand is that when you put on weight the world no longer see you anyhow.

It’s not your place to tell me how much I should weigh.