the thin edge of the wedge (a work in progress)
I was reading a particularly vile article
in Teen Vogue
the other day.
It was called
"competitive dieting: is your circle doing it?"
or some such, cutting it
razor fine
on that thin line
between
hand-wringing
and instructions.
"oh girls you wouldn't want
to
*monitor each other
constantly*
because that would be
so bad
and think of how thin would you get."
and, like, in the first paragraph
they talk about the
weight-loss benefits of cocaine
this, i remind you, is TEEN Vogue...
And then they drop
the kicker:
"all girls lie about what they eat"
they will be starving
and they will say:
"this is just what I like to eat"
and all of a sudden I see the
bomb blast
that has torn through us.
What are we doing?
--------------------
the come on is
dead simple:
"it couldn't hurt"
which means:
doctors instructed to recommend
weight-loss,
regardless of apparent health
and careless
of the potential consequences
as in "it couldn't
hurt you
to lose a few pounds"
words which
roll off
like it's nothing...
and the knife is sharper
with family
&friends.
but usually,
a nastier come-on:
"you can have it both ways"
and
"i don't want to know"
-----------------
in both cases,
the practices of
weight-maintenace
are silenced,
their consequences
taboo.
When was the last time
you heard on the news
that unhealthy dieting
and all forms of anorexia
subject you to horrible
risk of heart attack?
--------------------------
Don't you get it?
If you deploy
self-hatred to
make yourself beautiful
you undermine
and deny
the very premise of beauty.
The anorexic
splits the notion
of beauty in half.
"Think I'm beautiful
all the time?...
you don't know the
half of it, buddy,
what I go through
to look this way."
in practice,
the secrecy is as
important as the
not eating.
Guys -- steer clear
you don't want
to end up shackled
to that suck-hole...
you can both be a good friend
and lie about food.
you can have an anorexic body
and another one.
you can be "involved"
and self-obsessed.
--&self!--
how hard are we expected
to be on ourselves to
shed a few pounds?
DON'T UNDERESTIMATE
THE EFFECT
OF THE SELF
UPON THE SELF
self-censure
is like
a hot wire
on an ice cube
cut you
kleen thru
----------
JUST A NOTE:
self-hatred
is a soft blow
that one day
explodes your heart...
BETTER TO DIE EARLY
THAN WALK AROUND DEAD FOR YEARS
-------------
===================
===================
this is the point, people:
or we're really interested
in something else
There's
Posted by Sam at September 3, 2004 03:21 AM