Just Say No to Permanent Make-Up

The New York Times has a trend piece on "permanent make-up" aka GETTING YOUR FACE TATTOOED!!! I'm sure that they've run a hundred pieces about how awful tattoos are, but permanent make-up, no that's a harmless (nay, convenient) TREND. Ugh, ladies, remember, make-up styles and trends CHANGE DRAMATICALLY OVERTIME. What is "standard" today may look as out-there as pencil thin eyebrows from the 1930's or the seriously over-exaggerated fake eyelashes from the 1960's.

Feeder Fetishist Try to Go Mainstream, Go to Daily Mail, Naturally

So, Donna Simpson belongs to the feeder fetishist sub-culture and she's trying to get famous by become the world's fattest woman as recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records. She makes $750 per week via her feeder website in order to pay for the 12,000 calories a day she must consume in order to reach her goal. Her 150lb hubby is also part of the community. She is currently the record holder for fattest woman to give birth four years ago.

I read the Daily Mail piece, which you can read here and I read Jezebel's short take down, which the comments are way more interesting and indepth than the article itself, here. The Daily Mail, which never fails to take the most grave issues and turn them into some sort of parody of chattering biddies, once again is sensationalist and limited in its ability to dig one teaspoons depth into what really is going on here.

The comments section of Jezebel is for the most part remarkably sensible and thoughtful. That this behavior is certainly part of the ED spectrum is apparent and that it is not about basic rights for fatties is certain. If she were trying to become the world's thinnest woman and she had a pro-ani site, most would certainly say she is sick. The same is true for Ms. Simpson, but anti-fat bias has the comments on the Daily Mail in an uproar.

Feeder fetishist have been around for a while, but this piece is bringing them out of the shadows. I don't know how I feel about that. Its a dependent/codependent relationship gone to extremes and it preys on mentally and physically ill or at least compromised individuals. If mental health treatments can be designed to help out individuals engaged in this destructive behavior (which is a dubious option considering that binge-eating is only recently being classified as an ED in the latest DMV). For now, it looks like the media (for the most part) is much happier as showcasing these sub-cultures as freaks to be looked on and ridiculed rather than as mentally ill people in need of treatment.

The Right to Bare Arms

The Right to Bare Arms

I don't yet know how to embed video at blogger.com, but check out Sarah Haskins at the link above its either there or HERE (if that video doesn't work out). She's talking about all the coverage of Michelle Obama's "bare" arms--and thankfully she points out that 49% of Americans don't care whether she "bares" arms or not.

I think that its fairly clear that I'm a big Michelle Obama fan, but this obsession with Michelle Obama's arms is really disturbing and it serves to fetishize the 1st Lady in a way that I think, quite frankly, is racist and as with Hillary, anti-professional woman. She's being reduced to her body parts in a creepy and back-handed compliment/insult kind of way.

If people don't get it yet, remember, she went to Princeton and then Harvard for Law School, then she was Barack's BOSS, an exec at a major Hospital, etc. Now, she's doing many traditional 1st Lady type activities and only slightly challenging that role, yet in a clever way that allows her to keep advocating for things she care about (like school nutrition, gardening, literacy, girls of color and self-esteem...did you not see her visit that all girl school in England? It was so beautiful. Etc. ). Hillary, who I love, tried to do policy and stated as much and she got taken down by the right-wing media (think Hillary Care, which if it had passed would have prevented 50% of all bankruptcy in American households since 1994 to the present--after all 50% of all bankruptcy cases are CAUSED BY MEDICAL BILLS). Anyway, not to slam Hillary, because I'm not, I just think that Michelle is benefitting from the lessons Hillary had to learn as the 1st progressive and professional woman first lady (yes, Elenor Roosevelt was fabulous, but she was a Socialite, not a professional woman, who did good work, but didn't have to work; same for Jackie).

Anyway, reducing Michelle down to her parts, which at first they tried to talk about her posterior, but luckily that didn't last long; then her height, its still around, but not so remarkable; but the Bare Arms thing seems to have staying power (ugh).

Anyway, I guess that this is a lesson in how inane the media can be, but did we really need to learn that lesson again?