(To the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Boys Boys Boys”)

This TMI Tuesday post is all about Sex Toys! If this doesn’t interest you, you’d rather not know about my sex life or toy preference, or you’re at work and don’t wanna get in trouble, do come back tomorrow for your regularly scheduled random fatty talk right here on my blog-a-ma-thing. Thanks!

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On my recent visit to Good Vibrations for that fabulously fun Burlesque class a couple of weeks ago (oh how time flies!) I picked up a toy I’d been looking at online.  I loved the color and the feel of the outside of it and the length seemed fab, too! But then, like so many toys, it left me unimpressed and generally dissatisfied. I know, for $22 what do I expect?! Well, I expected something! Perhaps I had high expectations, but that $22 is hard won for me (more than a week’s worth of work/tips) and so I always have high hopes when spending my dough.

See? It’s perty!

The last toy I purchase was the Butterfly Kiss and while I have enjoyed it a couple of times, it’s length is problematic (the butterfly doesn’t actually do anything for my clit as it either doesn’t reach or is so weak as to be meaningless). I do appreciate the design of it though. And again, the price was great at $18.

Mine’s the pink one.

So compact yet powerful!

I mean it! Stop it right now. Choose to never lie again. Or better yet (and more realistically), try not lying at all, to anyone, for one day. It’s not as easy as you might think. We are so lost in a world of socially acceptable lies that we forget what the truth even feels like on our tongues. I mean real and full honesty here. I mean no more “Oh yeah, that looks cute on you!” when you feel other wise. Then there’s the caveat of not being mean/rude! You can’t do it! You can’t be honest and rude, it feels wrong! You find you start to explain things differently. You find that people look at you funny at first and then come to trust you like no one else.

I stopped lying when I got sick of being lied to. Simple as that, really. I started with the one-day challenge and then tried a couple more, until I realized that it had been three weeks and so on. It’s fucking liberating, too! I always say that when you lie, even if the other person doesn’t know, you know. It will build up in you, that negativity, that intent, and you’ll suffer from it.

To stop lying is to lift a veil from your eyes. You will stop lying to yourself, too! Because I don’t believe that you can be your true, authentic self while still putting out that kind of negativity in the world or towards yourself. We hide behind lies. We disguise ourselves with them. We stop seeing the world in it’s entirety and only through our own interpretation of it through the lens of those lies. Crazy-talk? Maybe. But it’s worked for me.

Fat Acceptance/Body Acceptance/Self Acceptance has made me change a lot of myself, but on my own terms. We go about our journeys differently. I am regularly impressed, amazed and surprised (all positive) by what the world and life has to offer. None of it even seemed possible or plausible before I stopped lying all together. It makes me use my brain for good rather than bad, ya know? I feel like I’m not able to express it, but it was sort of a lock I had to find the key to in order to get beyond that old baggage and truly enjoy life again. And to find that key was to break free of social and familial obligations. To rise above the hate and anger out there and to work on myself and do my best to rid myself of those things in my heart, too. I hope this makes sense.

Thanks,
S

Y’all I’m drawing a complete blank today. If you have any suggestions, lay ’em on me! If you’d like to share your own TMI stuff, please do! Only thing I really have to share is that I just bought some completely adorable tops at Target this morning and I am still giddy that I found them in my size (stock was limited and both weren’t in their proper place…fate much?). I also took it upon myself to once again fill out a comment card complaining about the women’s plus sections complete lack of signing as well as the fact that the entire section is crammed onto four racks so that if you touch one garment half of them fall on the floor. Also had to talk to management about a couple of negative ninnies working there standinga round talking shit about their co-workers. Inapropriate doesn’t even cover it, yo! Sometimes you just have to speak up and tell people they are wrong and sometimes you just have to go over their head. I know I did the right thing and I was satisfied when the manager seemed more upset about it than I was. Hey, I’ve been there, retail management sucks, but lousy employees are worse!

How are you today? What can I help you with? Lay it on me! I love you! <3

Over the course of a few years, I can honestly say, that Fat Acceptance/Body Acceptance has changed my life in every positive way imaginable. And what I’ve come to realize lately, is that it has also made me see other things differently, too! What sort of things? Well, a lot of social and political things. For instance, right now I have more female friends than male friends, for the first time in my life! And I love them all so much! It is a truly bizarre thing when you consider how I used to believe I couldn’t get along with other women. Now I see that that’s a bunch of bullshit.

There are countless other things I’ve been fortunate enough to be exposed to, or at least peripherally, that I now feel differently about entirely. Certain lifestyles and interests, I may have cast a suspicious eye upon a year or more ago, but now fully embrace. I am far more open to varying opinions so long as the dialogue is open and equal. You see, it’s the “I’m right and everyone’s wrong” game that I dropped out of. I said goodbye to that way of thinking and that way of being, too. This is so hard for people to grasp, let alone adopt, but once I did, there was no looking back.

I’m stubborn as hell, too. So I figure it had to be more difficult for me because of this, but I’m working very hard on this and try to remain open even when that stubbornness creeps up. I cannot imagine even just two years ago going to a burlesque class or a defiant Flesh Mob in San Francisco! Yet I am so fucking happy that I did! I am proud of these experiences and will cherish them always. I learned a lot, too! About me and people in general. And that is the real beauty in life, I think. When you can push passed your own life-lens and see the world as it’s own entity, outside of the context that is earth/planet/etc. It’s just a big, gorgeous thing!

And I say this on a Monday morning when I’m tired as shit from playing drunken Mario Kart with my three favorite people in the world…but I still believe it! Even if I don’t have the energy to do a song and dance for ya! There are so many things I took for granted, just didn’t notice, or didn’t give a fuck about. Now those things matter! And I care for them. I notice. I feel as though I pay attention more to things and people and words and life than ever before.

I often refer to this feeling or state of being or just participating in fat acceptance as equal to taking the red pill in The Matrix. You’ve chosen to see the world and live in it as it truly is. You’ve chosen not to take the easy route. You’ve chosen the harsh realities over the holograms. And so it is. And I am loving it! I hope that you are, or can soon, too! <3

My friend, who bought the book “Health At Every Size” by Linda Bacon PHD, came in yesterday asking me what a specific paragraph meant. While English is not her first language and she would generally call her use/understanding of it to be poor, on this I must disagree as I see no issue with it from her what so ever. With that in mind though, the paragraph in question suggested to the reader to give up the fight against fat/your body. To quit and to trust your body to know what it needs and to listen to it. (Sorry, I lent my copy out and cannot actually quote it.) This concept seemed so alien to her that she had me read it aloud to her and then explain it a few different ways until she fully grasped the concept. Good on her for truly wanting to understand. I am so proud of her, y’all have no idea!

Let’s think on this a moment though. To give up fighting that which our entire society has deemed bad? I can see how this could be confusing for just about anyone, honestly. And I think this is also something that many of us, even the fat acceptance veterans, still struggle with. TRUSTING YOUR BODY!!! We are told from an early age (many of us) to do exactly the opposite! Don’t “give in” or “cave” or “indulge” if you’re craving something. We’re never taught to look into the reason why we may have such a craving. The fact that many people (not just women) believe that deep down they would never stop eating? Wow! It really makes me see just how bad a job we’ve done in educating the public on nutrition. You know?

From a recent post about substitutions:

“One of the things I’ve learned from my own intuitive eating journey is that when I am craving something, there is usually a reason. Not just a “ooh that looks tasty” kind of craving. More of a physiological one. For instance, once a month I crave roast beef deli style sandwiches. Nothing will be a worthy substitute. I can try all manner of turkey or other sandwiches, but they will never be the thinly sliced loveliness of that roast beef sammie in my mind. I must have what I want or I will feel unsatisfied and try as I might, nothing else will do. Same thing for a nice and simple piece of good chocolate! Oh sure, you can give me a bite of your prized brownies, but it won’t fulfill that inner need for something smooth and rich and creamy. And there’s a reason I want those two things so consistently: I’m in need of iron and protein and whatever else is in that roast beef and chocolate is a mood lifter and when else do I need that most?!” (Quoting myself? Um, okay!)

We’ve become so inundated by marketing and diet industry jargon that we buy into it without question. And when you stop questioning things, well, they’ve already won, right? They prey on our fears and exaggerate if not outright fictionalize “facts” and “figures” and “statistics” all in the name of MOOLAH!!! Money, it doesn’t just make the world “go ’round”, no, it also feeds a giant systemic machine that keeps us all numb and dumb and ready to buy buy buy more more more! And it’s so fucking hard to step outside of that system. It is downright radical and extreme a concept to want to unplug from the matrix that is dieting. So what are we to do? It’s just easier to keep chugging along in misery (how they want us) going from one fad diet to the next (I don’t care if it’s called a lifestyle change, it’s still a fucking diet!) until we die! That is what they want, you see. They want us to fork over our hard earned cash, day in and day out, in the hopes of being happy/thin, until we die.

It is an interesting time in the world right now. People are waking up and realizing that they don’t have to live this way. They are speaking up and out and rising up against the powers that be in hopes of changing the world for a better tomorrow. I am in awe of them all! They inspire me so much. But in America? Eh, not so much (but thank the stars for the few who do). We’re lazy and jaded and tired and “no one will listen anyway” and any other excuse you can pull out of your ass. We have jobs to go to and mortgages to pay for or try to save from foreclosure. We have children to worry about and our elderly to care for. We don’t have time to think let alone stand up for our own health and well being anymore. We are slaves to a system and little else, I think. I don’t mean to sound so depressing, but when you step back and look at it? It’s pretty close to the truth. Why else would we require jobs but to pay for food and shelter? Yet how many people do you know have zero debt? Exactly!

So how could we possibly think we can trust our own bodies to do what is right when we’re never told this, we’re never allowed the luxury! We keep buying the next big thing, be it Louboutins or Special K milkshakes, in hopes of somehow improving our lives when all we need and have ever needed is within our own power and our own bodies! That trust is hard to find, too. Even when you begin to believe in the concept and try your best, it’s very difficult. I won’t lie! Even I have a hard time. I look at my portions and wonder if I’m eating too much. I know it’s bullshit and I fight these thoughts, but they are there. It’s nearly impossible to forget a lifetime of programming. But I am always working on it! I hope we can all find a way to escape the clutches of the diet industry. For our own sakes.

Thanks,
<3
S