Showing posts with label fat positive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fat positive. Show all posts

There's more than one way to be a fatty! - Guest Post by Virgie Tovar

Author: blog xxx


I
was born into a world where fat girls are outlaws, living on the
outskirts of society: a band of lawless revolutionaries, fighting
against myopic standards of beauty and archaic forms of femininity.  A
world where we are like Thelma and Louise meets Che Guevara, the stuff
of fantasies and legend. We populate the masturbatory thoughts of
millions. We are corporeal anarchists. We are the sensualists, the plus
size queens. We are the flag-bearers in a turgidly anti-pleasure
society.



When
people talk about fat girls who are fat because they eat cake and drink
milkshakes, who refuse to cover up their cottage cheese and take up two
seats at the Broadway production of Rent, they’re talking about me.
When people talk about those brown girls who refuse to capitulate to our
“post-racial” political climate or those high femmes who love demanding
you take photos of them in various permutations of the same outfit or
those sluts whose cleavage makes more public appearances than Sarah
Palin, they’re talking about me. And, no, I’m not sorry.


I’m
a fat, smut-writing, high femme, Xicana fauxhemian with a breast fetish
and a story about Jesus’ cock you wouldn’t believe. And I need you to
know three things: first, despite everything you’ve been told about
260-pound women, people love eating my ass and thank me for the
privilege. That is, fat girls are definitely hot. Second, we fat girls
have a hard time closing our legs and that is the first on a list of
reasons that we are revolutionizing gender politics. And third, there’s
no wrong way to be a fatty.  


I’ve
learned about the power of my fat from a lot of different people - some
radical cunt-loving baby dykes at UC Berkeley, the scores of people
I've had the pleasure of fucking, the old dudes at my parents' church,
that hateful bitch on MUNI, femmes, queens and burlesque startlets. I’ve
learned that my fat makes some people happy and others bewildered, some
people horny and others erupt into full-on, nostrils-flared,
carrot-waving rage. I’ve learned that my body is my yummy conduit to
pleasure and I’ve decided that I am going to love my body come rain or
shine, through the dick rivers and the cock famines, though the days
when I want to wear my ugly mint green terrycloth nightgown and the days
when I want to wear my cheetah print platform heels. Body love is the
most real kind of love. Like real love, I’ve got to
fight to keep it. Like real love, I’ve got to believe I deserve it.
Like real love, I fuck up over and over, but I forgive myself and I try
not to make the same mistakes again. I’ve decided that the world is a
strange and arbitrary place. But it’s also a place filled with flowers
and kittens, carnitas and Costco, glitter and cheese. And a world filled with these things isn’t hopeless.


Being
a fabulous fat girl is not easy. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever
decided to be. I am chastised for my role in spitting on the shiny,
brown loafer of the man. People are jealous and passive aggressive. They
whisper. They haterade. But I strut my ass through the world with the
knowledge that no one can touch the secret part of me that knows I’m a
mother-fucken queen. 

--------





Virgie Tovar is a sex-educating, cupcake-eating Xicana high
femme iconoclast who lives in San Francisco. She doubles
as hitachi-wielding burlesque starlet Dulce de Lecherous. Crowning
achievements include Best Sex Writer (SF Bay Guardian, 2008), authoring
Destination DD: Adventures of a Breast Fetishist with 40DDs (Sexy
Advisors Press) and The Virgie Show on CBS Radio's 106.9 FM.
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Size Positive = Sex Positive: Big Burlesque Photos

Author: blog xxx
When researching photos to accompany Sossity's Guest Post last week, I came across images of some of the other women of Big Burlesque whom I had the immense pleasure of meeting in 2005.  Here are are four of my favorite photos of four incredible performers.  - Shilo

Ginger Virago - Copyright 2005 Shilo McCabe

Jukie Sunshine - Copyright 2005 Shilo McCabe
Sugar LaMoore - Copyright 2005 Shilo McCabe
Copyright 2005 Shilo McCabe

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Size Positive = Sex Positive: Our bodies are how we connect with others

Author: blog xxx
Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

I love my body. Sometimes I don't like it--sometimes I'm frustrated by the way it doesn't fit comfortably into theater seats or the clothes I want to wear, and how fragile and easily damaged it can be despite its sturdy appearance--but I do love it. I worship it, even, as I worship all bodies.

I'm not a spiritual person at all; it's the physical, the corporeal that I find sacred and holy. Our bodies are our interface to the world around us, and our physical experience of the world is what shapes the very way we speak and think. Our bodies are how we connect with others: our lips speak and share, our hands touch and create, and our feet carry us to the places where others are. Our bodies are all we have and the source of all we are, no matter what they look like, and I find that so beautiful that I can't help but love my own. - Rhiannon
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Dear Sweet Body

Author: blog xxx
Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

Dear Sweet Body,

You are a temple. You are pillars of past, walls of art, high arching doorways of history. You are a place of worship for some and a place to rest weary heads of others. You are for everyone who comes by you honestly and with intention and love.

You are the ocean, your great waves undulating seductively around massive wooden ships. You woo sailors with glints of shiny trick lighting and the sound of sirens in your shallows. You are massive and deep and salty at all of the right times. Your tide pools tremble with tiny discovery.

You are a journey. You are smooth brow and sunburned lips. You are saddle ass and sweaty thighs and hard memories wrapped in the finest swatches of silk under heaving breasts. You demand cartographers with years of experience simply to find the terrible softness in your hips, your lips, and your collarbone. You are unraveling miles of surprising shyness, teeth biting into pillows of lips. You are unending. Would be suitors shade their eyes on horizons of your equator.

You are a wild horse. You buck easily. You tame rarely. You run until you are sheen of sweat and lust. You toss your head at danger and leap over obstacles. You are youthful and old and always free. You belong to no one.

Sweet body you are a carriage, a mystery, a puzzle, a long road ahead of me. You support me and rarely protest when I make you do things you would rather not.

You are still glimmering after 4 wars. You are the dazed smile on my lover’s face when asked to disrobe. You are the sun singing against you in your racy red bathing suit. You are the truth of standing up straight like your Papaw always told you to.

Sweet body.
You are a beauty.

Love,
Alysia

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

You can read more from Alysia on her blog.
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Guest Post: Sex Radicals/Radical Sex by Sossity Chiricuzio

Author: blog xxx
Heather MacAllister was the first sex-positive size activist I met.  I had the opportunity to work with her when she asked me to take promotional photos for her Fat Bottom Revue burlesque troupe.  She made a lasting impression on me and was a huge inspiration.  I'm happy to present some images from our 2005 photo shoot, to accompany this guest post by the radically awesome Sossity Chiricuzio.         -Shilo

Copyright 2005 Shilo McCabe
Sex Radicals/Radical Sex
By Sossity Chiricuzio
I’ve had a long and complicated relationship with sex and my body. I’m sad that the same could be said by almost every person I've ever discussed that with. As a child, it was uncomplicated: my body felt good. The socialization of advertising, public school, and inappropriate adult men made it a place of fear, and shame. I quickly realized that only some bodies were the good ones, sex was mostly dirty, and the people deciding those things weren’t likely to change their minds. It broke my heart, and my spirit, for many years.

Copyright 2005 Shilo McCabe
After I came out as queer I began to meet people who were proudly sexual and persistent in fighting for information and healthy sexuality. I began to reclaim my power around sex - both in how I had it, and in my activism. I was studying Humanities and Women's Studies at the University of Arizona.  It was 1992, and penetration was often still considered patriarchal. Those of you reading this who don’t know what I’m talking about: hit up Wikipedia on terms such as ‘lesbian feminism’, ‘Andrea Dworkin’ and ‘separatism’. And then, for your antidote: ‘sex radical’.

The truth is, I have had a long and complicated relationship with feminism as well. I’ve had many arguments over the years with other feminists as to if I even qualify as a feminist. This usually happens after I’ve read one of my poems about fisting, advocated for polyamory or BDSM, or otherwise disrupted their idea of what feminism should include. I’ve also had many a long and satisfying conversation with like minded sex-positive feminists and am grateful for the ever-expanding activism and resources we are collectively creating. There is one person in particular that understood and resonated with me completely, and continually inspires me:  Heather MacAllister, aka Reva Lucian.

Copyright 2005 Shilo McCabe
Meeting her was akin to vault doors being blown open in a flood of fierce sunshine. She was determined to be shameless, and to drag the rest of us with her into that light.  Learning to love my body exactly the way it was, and for all it could do, was her challenge to me and so many others. Her magic was rooting those lessons in the body itself, through ritual, sex, dance and anything else that revealed the power inherent in flesh that is loved. We both approached that space as a way of embodying the sacred whore - for ourselves, and others - and considered that work to be our gift to the world and our own battle scarred bodies.

We met the challenge of being femme, fat and bold in the pursuit of our desire in similar ways. Refusing to apologize; reveling in running the fuck just as much as giving over to rough and tender hands; sharing the best revelations, and the best lovers; walking in that grace and power, visible and unashamed. We strove to set that example for others as well as ourselves in our art and activism. Protests and workshops, bordellos and play parties, burlesque and erotica … if it offered a chance for people to love themselves better, and each other, we explored it.  We lived thousands of miles apart more often than not, but our muses traveled the distance in a heartbeat.

Copyright 2005 Shilo McCabe
Heather’s legacy is widely known, and the ripples she spread continue to roll into waves of realization and revolution. One of those waves is the project that brings every skill I’ve gathered along the way into perfect overlap with our shared beliefs: Dirty Queer. It’s an X-Rated Open Mic and Fundraiser I’ve produced and hosted monthly for almost 5 years now at our local feminist resource center, and it’s entirely reasonable to say it wouldn’t have happened without her encouragement and faith in me. She was never able to attend, as it began the month before her death, but I feel her in that room with me every month: buoying me up with passionate conviction, smiling on the courage of people sharing their deepest selves, flirting her energy up against the sexy confidence everyone in the room takes on as we all witness for each other what it is to be so fully seen and appreciated. Sex radicals, radical sex - we hold that space for each other, we love ourselves, we inhabit our bodies from the marrow to the skin. Just what she wanted.

Heather, with the women of Fat Bottom Revue, 2005.

I’m going to close with some pieces of wisdom and inspiration she shared with me over the years - some of them paraphrased quotes, some of them examples she set, and many of them familiar to folks who knew her. Love yourselves better. Face that part of your sexuality that is scariest and own it. Get your parts checked, whatever they are, and however you feel about them. Respect your lovers, and yourself. Negotiate like you are in control of your own body, even if you don’t believe it yet. Make friends with the mirror, or break up with it. Court your friends as well as your lovers. Take yourself on a hot date as a first choice, not a backup plan. Tell a stranger they are beautiful. Be an ally, an advocate, an educator. Keep doing the work. Even when it’s hard, or embarrassing, or uncomfortable. It’s worth it, and so are you.

Heather and Sossity, photo courtesy of Sossity.
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Guest Post : Morgan Weinert, Entering an open, honest relationship with food.

Author: blog xxx
Morgan's guest post today resonates with me on a very personal level.   My own relationship with food is intimately connected to my sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Being able to embrace a positive attitude toward my own (and others') sexuality is extremely difficult, if not impossible, when the self-esteem is failing me.  I am so pleased to present Morgan's story.  You can follow their culinary adventures on their foodie blog, Chubb Gourmet, and they are a talented photographer to boot!     -Shilo


Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe
24 years into my life, I’m finally entering into an honest, open relationship with food.

I have been fat for all of my adult life, and most of my childhood. Around age 7 or 8, I started getting “chubby.” By age 12 I was all out fat. It was no fault of my parents. They fed me well-rounded, healthy meals. Junk food was sparse in our household. I was active as a child, too. I don’t blame anyone for being fat. It just happened. I am a great example of the result of a Punnett square with a long line of fat family members. It just happens to be a dominant trait in my particular set of genes.

When I entered my adolescence, my fatness started to impact my self-image and social interactions. It stopped being cute “puppy fat” and started being a “problem.” My first diet and gym membership began at age 12. At 12 years old, when I should have been thinking about school crushes and what I wanted my birthday party theme to be, I was worrying about being the fat kid and why my diet wasn’t working.

This is when my relationship with food really started becoming abusive and problematic. Up until that point, food and I got along just fine. We enjoyed each other’s company in moderation. We had occasional bouts of wild excess, but more often than not engaged in respectful, mutual appreciation. The instant I began calorie counting and thinking “low-fat,” I began binge-eating. I became ashamed of eating in public, began worrying about what people thought about my choices in food, and had to start rationalizing my choices to eat “poorly” by promising those around me that I would be exercising later to offset the calories. At home, my mom worked hard to ensure I was eating “right.” At school, or at friends’ houses, I ate all the junk food available to me in an irrational response to being forced to think about weight loss all the time.

My mom and I tried every fad diet that popped up. We got multiple gym memberships. We tried personal trainers. We bought diet food. At age 16, my doctor prescribed me phentermine, a habit forming appetite suppressant that caused me to feel strung out and anxious. Sometimes we lost weight, but no matter how much we lost, we always gained it back. By this time, I wasn’t fantasizing about growing up to be a politician or graduating top of my class in college; I was imagining how perfect my life would be when I was finally skinny.

My junior year of high school, I jumped on the low-carb diet fad with gusto. I stopped eating bread, rice, pasta and even “high-carb” fruits like apples and bananas. The diet was supposedly most effective if you could force your body into ketosis, a state that causes incredible stress to the liver. I ate nothing but protein for a solid month, and started losing huge amounts of weight. At one point, I lost ten pounds in a week. And my energy levels plummeted. I felt sick, couldn’t concentrate in school, and was always hungry. I began binging on carbohydrates. I felt terrible, both emotionally and physically. I felt like I was failing myself every time I gave in and had my sandwich on bread instead of in between two pieces of lettuce. When my mother realized how sick the diet was making us, we stopped. And we almost immediately gained all the weight back.

I didn’t know it then, but I hated food. I hated eating. I hated myself.

I chased weight loss goals and flirted with diet after diet for FOURTEEN YEARS of my life. It wasn’t until I was introduced to fat-positive and “healthy at every size” movements in college that I finally started to seriously examine my relationship with food. I realized that I was causing myself huge emotional and physical harm by constantly berating myself for not being skinny enough or eating well enough or exercising enough. I started to food as something that could heal and create community.

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe
And the moment I resolved to stop dieting and exercising for weight loss, my life changed. I started cooking for myself, and learning about amazing foods like quinoa. I started getting excited about vegetables and learning which ones were local and in-season. I became more connected to local and slow-food movements, and learning about the science of food and how our bodies process it.

And when I stopped thinking about exercise for weight-loss I learned that I really enjoyed yoga and bike riding. I started training for long distance bike rides, and talked with a nutritionist NOT about how to lose weight, but how to nourish myself as I became more active. I started discovering new whole grains that made me feel full and energized. I learned how to cook in ways that were exciting and different and most importantly NOURISHED ME.

In short, I came back to healthy relationship with food. I’m still working on strengthening things. I’m trying to slow down, learn to savor every moment with the food I eat and stop when I’ve had my fill. And no, the pounds aren’t melting away. This is not a story about how I lost 100 pounds and kept it off. It’s about discovering what foods power me or make me feel satisfied. It’s about how I’m building a healthy, sustainable relationship with the food I put into my body and how this new relationship is making me feel better, mentally and physically. This is a story about how as soon as I started loving food again, I started to love MYSELF again.
Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

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Featured Interview: Jukie Sunshine

Author: blog xxx
Copyright Shilo McCabe 2010
Jukie Sunshine is an amazing sex-positive and size-positive activist and performer with a contagious fun-loving spirit.  After spending the afternoon with Jukie, interviewing and photographing her for The Sex Positive Photo Project I walked to my car with a bounce in my step - she is one of those kinds of people that make you feel great just by being around her.  I first met Jukie in 2005 when I took some promotional photos for The Fat Bottom Revue, a burlesque troupe that she was a member of.  A self-proclaimed queer, alpha-femme glamour girl, Jukie has appeared in Time, Juxtapoz, Bizarre, New Yorker magazine and in Leonard Nimoy’s photo book The Full Body Project.   Last month, I sat down with “San Francisco’s It Girl” to get to know her a little better.


Shilo McCabe: So, who first called you San Francisco’s It Girl?

Jukie Sunshine:  I did. I felt like I was doing a lot of things... the things that I had done were coming to fruition in the public and I felt “San Francisco famous”. I called myself that and then I really got caught up in the notion of being an “It Girl” and what it means to be an “It Girl”.  I have actually purchased itgirlmagazine.com and I’m interested in creating a magazine because I know so many “It Girls”, so many people who, in one way or another, just have it going on and are really cool. And are out there and inspirational to other people and I’m interested in those stories and I’m interested in being one of those stories.  Kind of like Oprah, I imagine, I’m going to be on the cover of every issue.  (laughs)

SM:  You’ve already been on the cover of a magazine or two, haven’t you?

JS: I have two covers. Other magazine, with the “church & state boobs” photo and Size Queen magazine.

SM: Over the 10 years I’ve been living here in the bay area, I feel like I’ve come across your image over and over again.

JS:  I’ve lived here for a long time; I’ve lived here 20 years, and been a performer for 10 years now.  The first performing that I did was in Good Vibrations’ Voluptuous Vixens.

SM: That was your first performance?!

JS:  That was my first performance, a porn movie.  I had started getting into the Sex Positive scene and when a call came up for the movie, I just had so many people say “you HAVE to try out for this...”  So I did! I went and tried out for a porn movie. I took of my clothes and rolled around on a bearskin rug. 

SM: Wow. Do you have background in performance or theater?

JS: I do have a theater background; I was a Drama major in Los Angeles. I really got disheartened, because it seemed like acting was all about getting into commercials and being in soap operas. Even though I was already doing things that were activist and acting related, I didn’t see a way to put those things together until I moved to San Francisco. It just became really clear that all these things I’d been doing, like putting myself in a cage or wearing a doctor jacket and pretending I’m doing vivisection on an animal – when I was doing animal rights activism – or walking around Union Square on Black Friday in a bloody fur coat talking about being “Worth It” (laughs). I was just a crazy character, it was fun.  So I realized that this activism stuff is also performative and I was finding ways of putting them together.

SM: So you’ve been an activist for quite a while?

JS: My first activism was animal rights activism, specifically against animal testing, and more slowly I became a vegetarian – it was easier to give up leather than it was to stop eating meat.  And so now I have a big animal rights tattoo in my back and I’m a total meat eater and I love leather (laughs).  Oh well, it’s still where I came from. 


 SM: After Voluptious Vixens, did you then get into burlesque?

JS: I did the movie and there was a premiere on the big screen at the Roxy theater, I emceed the event.  Afterward, Heather MacAllister came up to me and said “You’re hot. I want you to be in my troupe. Come try out.”
     I was in that troupe (Fat Bottom Revue) for quite a few years. And when Heather got cancer, she was active in various degrees, so I took over in various degrees and tried to manage that. There was a lot of pain involved in doing the troupe, in not being the leader, and doing leading…. It was a good experience, it made for tough skin. It was hard on the inside, some of the getting along and not getting along, trying to be friends, and trying to be activists and trying to put on a show and have strong personalities.  So, it was difficult at times.  I kept in it as active as I did, because I really liked the message that Heather wanted to spread. Because I knew that I’d rather do this activism together then do it on my own. And it seems to mean more when we can do it in a group like this… that was amazing to have a huge audience on your side, there’s no fear: are they going to accept us, are they going to be rude?  Which, initially was a concern… is this going to be too much for someone to look at… it felt like a lot to show, because I didn’t see it out there… I only saw it in the mirror! (laughs) It’s not generally still part of the media to see positive images of fat people, and the ones that are out there are still questionable… like Dance Your Ass Off, or something… there’s some positivity there… some of what is going on there is awesome, but, ew… it doesn’t feel right.

SM: There’s still this underlying theme of non-acceptance…

JS: “Look at the freaks… aren’t you funny, bouncing around looking that way.”
But, I love being funny, bouncing around looking that way! Humor is a big part of what makes fat performance palatable, because it has a funny twist.

SM: In Hollywood, the fat actresses are always the funny sidekick, the butt of the jokes. They are just there for comic relief.

JS: I feel like if I can do that, be the comic relief, and be pretty I can take more control, more power with how I get seen… and that’s the image I am trying to present.  Pretty and funny and together and fashionable… I’m the “It Girl”, I’ve got it going on!  But, that’s only part of the story, that’s my performance persona.  I still have ugly days and days where l cry and I have close friends that understand that.  I’ve heard other activists talk about the difficulty of being on display and trying to be the best person possible and not always being able to be the best person possible, falling short of that yet still being able to have pride in yourself and not feeling like you’re a fake.

Copyright Shilo McCabe 2010
SM: One thing that strikes me on a personal level, is that when you are on stage you have this presence, this gleam in your eye, this… you’re strong and in control and hot and beautiful …and I just wonder… where did you get that?! Were you born that way?  How do you find it in you, or outside of you, to fight the dominant paradigm?

JS: It’s really has been a combination of outside and inside, kind of believing the hype. I think that what happened is that as I started feeling sexually confident… well, my story is that everything changed for me on December 31st 2000… I went to Queen of Heaven, a pansexual play party put on by Carol Queen, and met a new community of sex positive people.  With it being pansexual, and people of all ages and races and sizes, and as different as they could be and seeing what was hot to them, it really allowed me a space to find comfort in being comfortable in my own body and find comfort with a group of people who weren’t judging me.  I didn’t feel judged and kept on the outside, I felt like everyone here is on the inside and I get to be on the inside too! I very much like pansexual spaces; I prefer inclusion vs. exclusion whenever possible.

Shilo: How long after the Queen of Heaven party were you in Voluptious Vixens?

JS: It was within a year and a half, so I was now a gay divorcee and very excited, really blooming sexually in a way that I hadn’t been afforded in Los Angleles, or in a marriage with so many problems… so at 30 years old I found myself blooming.  I started feeling more positive about myself, I was getting a lot of positive feedback… so that created this monster you see now… where I feel positive about my sexuality.  I think that’s a lot of what it is; it has to do with sexual self esteem. Once people feel they have access to that kind of pleasure and freedom in that aspect of their life then life is a lot better in general and people, I think, face the world differently.

Shi: Do you think that this could have only happened in the bay area?

JS: I can’t imagine this happening in Los Angles… its very body focused, about looking a certain way.  Of course, it’s everywhere, but it’s more so in LA. So that was a place where I felt very drawn in on myself because I didn’t feel accepted.  I didn’t feel sexually positive. I didn’t feel like I was going to find people there that would be interested in me.

SM: You were photographed by Leonard Nimoy for The Full Body Project, what was that experience like?

JS: There was something strange being naked in front of Spock.  It’s just a weird situation…

SM: Really, you never thought you’d be naked in front of Spock?

JS: (laughs) no…
He was really kind, gentle and patient and soft spoken.  I expected him to be this huge man with a big hand that enveloped mine… and he was very normal sized.   (The Full Body Project) was something that he was trying to figure out too, it was clear that he was drawn to this and I don’t think he was necessarily concerned with how it was going to be taken. I know by looking at images of fat women that sometimes this is a lot to take, a lot to look at and there’s no way to erase what we’ve already been taught about the vilified fat body so there’s always that screen that you’re looking through.  And the media totally sexualized (The Full Body Project) and that was really interesting and hard to take sometimes. 

SM: The pictures were not necessarily sexual.

JS: I don’t think they were sexual at all.  They were naked... nude. People weren’t just able to look at them as nudes, as they would look at nudes of non-fat women.  I suspect that would be true even if they were not as fat as we were, that it would still be difficult for people to look at as just art - something that was not even supposed to be erotic.

SM: Were you disappointed in the media’s response?

JS: I didn’t expect it to be easy. I guess one of my fears was that it was going to be made fun of, that it was going to be on Jimmy Kimmel and it was going to be a joke; and it’s going to be on “The Soup” on E (network) and there’s going to be a fat joke.  And… I think it was on both of those and I think it was a fat joke and I didn’t crumple… it didn’t kill me. I was able to not take it personally because it is this separate image… it was me posing and doing specific things that he had asked for, down to facial expressions. The hard one was from The View. Joy Behar brought the book out and Whoopi was into it, she was all “I don’t know what you are talking about, these women are beautiful” – she was cool about it.  Joy said something to the effect of “I don’t know what makes these women think they can do this – don’t they know they are grossly obese and there is nothing beautiful about them”.  It was horrible!  I felt like I couldn’t leave the house. I took that really personally.  I felt exposed, and not in a positive way.  I felt like I wanted her to be a feminist and be positive about it, and she was a traitor and I was somehow put on the outside.  I like the way that Leonard dealt with it throughout.  I like what he said in interviews and what he said in the book.  He really acknowledged the beauty myth and the double standards and the dominant paradigm in our society and how fucked up it is.

SM:  I noticed that a lot of people assumed that he was sexually attracted to fat women, and that’s why he made this book.

JS:  And he was always very “no no no” but, whatever, I know he thought I was hot!   Whatever Leonard, I know you want me!  (laughs)

SM: Did you hesitate when you were approached to do this project, or did you jump at the chance?

JS: I was like, I don’t know… this means I can’t be a school teacher now, or… I can’t run for public office.  Not that I was planning on doing those things anyway (rolls eyes). I was certainly choosing a certain path in the direction of sex positivity, deciding okay, I’ll be a spokesmodel for this.  I knew that somebody would feel good about it. That’s ultimately what went on with both the porn and with Leonard Nimoy.  Someone is gong to say “Wow, she looks good; I look like that, if she can look good like that then I can look good like that!” There is an aspect of “if she can do it, I can do it”. That’s not just from a fat viewer, from anybody. Certainly, skinny women have issues with feeling ugly, and being not enough or too much, and needing to purchase products to make something better.  So I knew that most everyone would be able to relate to it in that way. And for the people who just wanted to say “ew, gross” they were going to say that.  I was really surprised about how much came out about how it was not okay to glorify something that was unhealthy.  That was an argument that was written about a lot online and a lot of people felt strongly that it was not okay to show pretty, fat women because fat is evil.

SM:  Totally the opposite of HAES, the Health at Every Size movement.

JS: Right, there are still so many people who don’t believe that’s possible, the media and the medical profession too. It’s really difficult also, for instance… I know there are a lot of health issues related to belly fat.  I have belly fat, so I watch Dr. Oz and he talks about belly fat being the enemy and it’s still something I’m trying to figure out.  How do I love myself the way I am and not see myself as evil or bad in some way and still have this knowledge that my belly fat isn’t the best thing for me.  I do believe what doctors have to say about the association between belly fat and some diseases.  I’m not going to hate myself in the mean time and think I’m evil and horrible and deny myself the right to have happiness. So it’s about finding the balance of those things and also figuring out how I can help other people feel good about their selves.

SM: I feel like, as someone who has been able to benefit from the positive role model that you are - seeing you out there being your persona, being happy with who you are, being sexual regardless of what the dominant paradigm is telling you and being a happiness activist… I know I’m not the only one who has internalized that message and benefited from it. So, on behalf of myself and the other people like me, thank you!

JS: I think it will be interesting to see how I handle it as I grow older, there will be the age activism that is automatically going to be involved too, that I dare to do what I do being at the age that will continue to increase… but that’s important too. So, yeah, I guess I am a happy activist and specifically for me I feel like the way that people will achieve happiness is through having a positive sex life and you have to have a positive image of your own body to have a positive sex life.

SM: Absolutely!


Soak up some up Jukie Sunshine in person at Hot.Fat.Femmes! a Fat Activist Panel  at Good Vibration 603 Valencia, SF on Sunday, April 25th 7-8:30pm – Free!  She will also be the co-Femcee at Last Call: The Very Best of The Kentucky Fried Woman Show, May 1st 9:30-12:30 at Velvet in Oakland, CA.

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