Big Ambitions

For those who missed it in the comments:

While fat activism has disrupted many dominant discourses that causally contribute to negative judgments about fat bodies, it has not yet penetrated the realm of competitive bodybuilding. 

Savour that sentence. Let it roll around your mind.

According to its author, Richard Baldwin, fat bodybuilding should be a thing that exists. Specifically, “a fat-inclusive politicised performance… embedded within bodybuilding,” in which the “assumptions” and standards of the sport would be “destabilised,” with the result that “everyone” can be “taken seriously,” regardless of their girth and athleticism. Competitors, we’re told, would “showcase fat through poses… that display fat in a body-positive way,” while wearing whatever commodious garments are deemed to enhance the, um, aesthetics of their gyrations. And hey, showcasing fat is what sport’s all about. 

It takes time to make a fat body. It takes even more time to make a politicised fat body. This is precisely the message fat bodybuilding should convey: the fat body is a body built by time and work and deserves to be respected.

These are the dizzy heights of Fat Studies scholarship.  

Unlike Mr Baldwin, I make no claim to being “dedicated to fighting oppression and promoting social justice,” but actually, it occurs to me that a fat body, by which the author seems to mean an ostentatiously obese one, is quite easy to arrive at, as it generally involves the abandonment of self-denial, succumbing to temptation by default, and a tendency to shun any avoidable exertion. Basically, torpidity and a lack of care. A point somewhat underlined by the unremarkable fact that the number of fat people exceeds by orders of magnitude the number of bodybuilders.

Via Darleen. 

Comments

[Joan]

Competitors, we’re told, would “showcase fat through poses… that display fat in a body-positive way,” while wearing whatever commodious garments are deemed to enhance the, um, aesthetics of their gyrations.

*invests in deodorant*

[Tim Newman]

Competitors, we’re told, would “showcase fat through poses… that display fat in a body-positive way,” while wearing whatever commodious garments are deemed to enhance the, um, aesthetics of their gyrations.

So basically a British nightclub with prizes at the end of the evening.

[R. Sherman]

So basically a British nightclub. . .

Dude, that was cold. Hilarious, but cold.

[David]

[ Slides fancy cocktail towards Tim. ]

On the house.

[Liam]

Reaching for that second helping is *work* dammit.

[Burnsie]

Who are they to judge?

Have at it then. If you want flabbybuilding competitions, go right ahead and organize one yourself.

Be careful though. Those pose routines burn up a lot of calories. You could exercise yourself out of the running.

[David]

Related: Feminist of girth says not being fat makes you complicit in her oppression.

[WTP]

Can we just get on with The Apocalypse, please? All this buildup is giving me angst.

[David]

Can we just get on with The Apocalypse, please? All this buildup is giving me angst.

A scoop of hump fat should lift your spirits.

Dig in. It’s comfort food.

[Killer Marmot]

And a professional hockey league for those who skate on their ankles. Why should the talented get all the glory>

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

...it occurs to me that a fat body is quite easy to arrive at, as it generally involves the abandonment of self-denial, succumbing to temptation by default, and a tendency to shun any avoidable exertion. Basically, torpidity and a lack of care.

From the other thread, "She adds that this incident shows why the body culture needs to change."

Indeed, you and your attitude toward this bodybuilder is what needs to change, not her and her (cough)"curvy"(cough) contemporaries.

[DrD]

It would seem Kurt Vonnegut's short story, "Harrison Bergeron", once viewed as satire by some, has now become an instruction manual for the left.

[Liz]

poses… that display fat in a body-positive way,”

The smoke machine's going to get some heavy use.

[WTP]

A scoop of hump fat should lift your spirits.

Yeah...Amazon says “currently unavailable”. I swear, if it was raining tits...

[David]

The smoke machine’s going to get some heavy use.

I’m still trying to imagine what these flattering, fat-affirming poses might be. I’m not sure that the examples here, for instance, found via this, will do much to “destabilise” the notion that obesity is suboptimal and probably best avoided.

[Sam Duncan]

Somewhat related (weightlifting, rather than... er, “bodybuilding”), news from the Commonwealth Games which may have passed under our American chums' radar. This should make the 2020 Olympics entertaining. Unless...

“Can we just get on with The Apocalypse, please? All this buildup is giving me angst.”

Not long now.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

A scoop of hump fat should lift your spirits.

Indeed, and given we ar going with a desert diet and what better to wash it down with ?

[David]

and what better to wash it down with?

I hate to sound unworldly, but I’m struggling with the words “traditional camel urine drinks.”

[PiperPaul]

"[insert-loopy-cause-here]-inclusive politicised performance"

Is that a good description of modern leftist activism?

What is it the kids used to say?

Oh yeah... "I can't even" or something like that.

[David]

Is that a good description of modern leftist activism?

As we’ve seen many times, the world of ‘fat activism’ attracts people who will tie themselves in knots trying to avoid reality.

[TheTooner]

"...I’m not sure that the examples here, for instance, found via this,..."

Pro tip: At the content warning page, select "I do not wish to continue."

[Hopp Singg]

Hungry lions are very fat-accepting. Pretty sure that's always been true.

[R. Sherman]

...found via this...

The passive voice in that clause is doing a lot of, shall we say, heavy lifting.

And while we're at it, how about some competitive displays for people who smoke three packs a day or who sport crap dentition? Why limit the Oppression Olympics to the mere corpulent?

[Rob]

Bring it on. It will be absolutely hilarious.

[PJH]

The author "is a professional bodybuilder with more than 50 years of experience in the sport.."

I'm not sure essay-writing on the benefits, or otherwise, of excess bodyweight in the profession he retired from is a good use of his retirement time...

[Squires]

Fatbody building, the building of a better, crazier fatbody:

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

I hate to sound unworldly, but I’m struggling with the words “traditional camel urine drinks.”

Alas, you are just not Woke™ enough, #allculturesareequal.

[Steve E]

Hump Fat
made from the humps of wild camels

You can really tell the difference. Domestic camel just doesn't taste the same.

[David]

You can really tell the difference.

“I wouldn’t be caught dead with an inferior spread.”

[pst314]

'and what better to wash it down with?'
I hate to sound unworldly, but I’m struggling with the words “traditional camel urine drinks.”

You're just resising the sublime wisdom of the Profit Muhammad:

'Some people of Ukl or Uraina tribes came to Medina (in Saudi Arabia) and the climate did not suit them.
'So the Prophet ordered them to go to the herd of (milk) camels and to drink their milk and urine (as medicine).
'So they went as directed and afterwards they became healthy.'

[Steve E]

the notion that obesity is suboptimal and probably best avoided.

Practical tips for optimizing the fatty love-making experience:

Tip 1. Roll them in flour and look for the wet spot.
Tip 2. Be adventurous, each night try a different crack.

[ Accepts time with the scold-o-matic ]

[Hopp Singg]

"Would you like some more camel piss? We've got lots."

"No, no! I feel great now. Please don't bother!"

[Spiny Norman]

These are the dizzy heights of Fat Studies scholarship.

Dizzy? Why am I reminded of the meme-in-the-making Tranquilized Bears Falling From Trees?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1pIO4_lUY

[David]

What is it the kids used to say? Oh yeah... “I can’t even” or something like that.

Oh come now. Sports enthusiasts are always telling me that the problem with, say, diving, hurdling or gymnastics is that they don’t “showcase fat in a body-positive way.”

Because showcasing fat is what sport’s all about.

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

Apparently, sumo porn (link is just a search engine spitting out the actual NSFW links) is a thing.

[David]

Apparently, sumo porn… is a thing.

I’m waiting for someone to ask how you stumbled across this development.

[Darleen]

news from the Commonwealth Games which may have passed under our American chums' radar

Awesome news in the short term. Still the long term issue of having simulacrum compete with women needs to be dealt with. Harshly.

[David]

Still the long term issue of having simulacrum compete with women needs to be dealt with.

Apparently, the credo of the Commonwealth Games Federation is “fairness, non-discrimination and inclusion.” And yet their decision is clearly unfair to the other competitors.

The analogue that comes to mind is of me challenging my sisters-in-law to an arm-wrestling competition. (Let’s say there’s a large bottle of Bombay Sapphire at stake.) We’re of broadly similar ages and, so far as I’m aware, none of us has any great expertise in the realm of arm-wrestling. I’m hardly burly, but I’m fairly confident I could beat them, say, nine times out of ten.

[Pogonip]

Pfft. If my fat was active it wouldn’t be there. It’s another scam. People will do anything except eat less and exercise. Everyone, and I’m not exempting myself, wants a quick and easy fix. And what’s quicker and easier than pretending the problem doesn’t even exist?

[Pogonip]

https://qz.com/1249126/a-new-study-on-increased-snowfall-in-antarctica-shows-the-dramatic-pace-of-climate-change/

Global warming. Is there anything it can’t do?

(I hope you get “ The Simpsons” over there or you won’t get the joke.)

[champ]

A great excuse to dust of this link...

https://www.google.com/search?q=caleb+luna&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrg87Fjr3aAhXqz1QKHWHLBm0Q7AkIPg&biw=1366&bih=637

[Pogonip]

Damn the calories, full speed ahead! We had porcupine balls + green beans for dinner. Although since porcupine balls are made of tomato soup, rice, hamburger, and a little milk, I guess they’re not all that fattening per se, just carb-y. (I use 90% lean hamburger, 95% if I’m lucky enough to find it, as neither of us likes greasy meat dishes.)

What did everyone else have?

[Pogonip]

P.S. Son of Pogonip snorked down rice like it was about to be outlawed. Does he know something I don’t? Are the Woke going to buy up all the rice so cultural appropriators can’t eat any more?

[Johnny Caustic]

"showcase fat through poses… that display fat in a body-positive way"

The author learned physiology and advanced his field by developing examples of such poses, right???

No?

What a shocking surprise that a postmodern academic would suggest somebody do some work but be too lazy to do any himself.

[Steve E]

What did everyone else have?

Homemade special fried rice with bbq pork, chicken and shrimp. Sons of Steve E did similar damage had to slow them down so their mother and I could also eat. I buy my rice in 20 lb bags for just such emergencies.

[Sam Duncan]

“Apparently, sumo porn (link is just a search engine spitting out the actual NSFW links) is a thing.”

Rule 34, man. No exceptions.

[R. Sherman]

No exceptions.

Cough. Cough.

[pst314]

dizzy heights

More dizziness:
http://thepeoplescube.com/current-truth/celebrate-socialism-success-story-with-nancy-pelosi-t6406.html

[pst314]

And from the same page, a poster that embodies the soul of modern Progressivism:

[Pogonip]

I opened the desk drawer, noted the objects within, and started googling.

There is pencil porn.

There is Tarot porn (I suppose I should have been able to predict that).

I was going to try “stapler porn” but feared the ads I would get after I googled it would be too much for me.

Moving on to something safer, I found round cards are still in print, 40 years or so after I declared them the silliest fad ever, next to pet rocks.

For those who have not been to a carnival, Renaissance festival, or Halloween party in a while, each Tarot card has a different scene on it. The meaning of the scene is different if the card falls upside down. So round cards (invented by a couple of American feminists, incidentally) sort of defeat the purpose of card reading!

If anyone’s brave enough to google “pet rock porn,” let us know what you find.

[PiperPaul]

"pencil porn"

From an early age my artsy, stationery shop manager grandfather gave me pens, pencils, markers, etc. to the point where I'm now a writing utensil afficianado (and eventually became a draftsman).

But I don't think I'll be Googling pencil porn because it's probably not what I'd hope it'd be.

[Pogonip]

😄

[Pogonip]

Do they sell Prismacolor pencils over there, Piper Paul? Used to be such wonderful pencils; now, like so many things, they’re Chinese crap.

[PiperPaul]

I'm more of a technical pencil guy (Rotring, Pentel) and fairly colourblind so I stick to easily discernible shades. And my blogging thong collection looks atrocious since my fashion coordination is bad as a result of my disability.

[Hal]

. . . each Tarot card has a different scene on it. The meaning of the scene is different if the card falls upside down. So round cards (invented by a couple of American feminists, incidentally) sort of defeat the purpose of card reading!

Major Poker: Playing poker with a tarot deck.

With tarot game playing decks, the cards are like regular playing cards in that all the cards are printed so that they will read the same regardless of which end is up. With a regular divination oriented tarot deck, the cards have only one orientation, letting them be placed face up but upside down, which is called "reversing". When a card is so reversed, there are variations in meanings, but the meaning of the reversed card is almost entirely the opposite of the card placed upright. Such reversing of cards is a very important matter because with both majors and minors, most of the meanings of the cards are basically benign when upright. Reversal of most of the cards can give the bad news of the reading and thus guarantees requiring the possibility of card reversals in all readings. After all, in all circumstances and not just divinatory, fantasizing that bad news is just not relevant usually proves guaranteed to bring disaster in any circumstance.
. . . .

When playing poker with a tarot deck rather than a regular card deck, three issues come into play;
1) The major arcana cards are counted as three additional suits; The first majors---0 and 21, the second majors---1 through 10, and the third majors---11 through 20.
2) Any reversed card beats the same card when upright.
3) Any hand with any major arcana card beats any hand with no major arcana card.

Hmmm. David?

Where do you want the casino set up?

And are the henchlesbians up to ferrying the free drinks to the gaming tables?

[Hal]

. . . each Tarot card . . . is different if the card falls upside down. So round cards . . .

So there is placing a card.

And then there are reversed cards, because they're upside down.

Soooo . . . what is the meaning for a round card that winds up sideways?

[Darleen]

Just when you think academic scams can't go any lower, behold this flimflam

What are the hesitations, dangers, and potentialities to inviting students to peruse my body? What possibilities arise from centering and leading with the body in the teaching/learning process? What risks and possibilities does this enactment pose to a Black lesbian educator? This auto/ethnography journeys through and reflects upon my experience enacting what I have coined “embodied vulnerability” as a pedagogical practice. Within this essay, I explore the interrelationship of race, gender, and embodiment (or, the performance of self). In addition, I reflect upon the pedagogical exercise—enacted over the last seven years—of asking students to see me and name what they see to illumine how social identities are read alongside context/location, as well as in relation to other assumed identities.

[Pogonip]

That’s not quite right—plenty of the 78 cards can give you not-so-good news when upright. In no particular order: a 5 from any of the 4 suits; the one time I ever had the 7 of Cups fall upright was for a person lapsing into mental illness; the 8 of Cups can be a bad-news one; the Seven, Nine and Ten of Wands; in the Major Trumps the Tower, the Devil(obviously) and The Moon are almost always bad news when upright, and the High Priestess almost as often. (She is actually intended to represent the maybe-mythical Pope Joan, and in most languages is called The Female Pope; in Spanish, or instance, she’s the Papisa.). Then we have the Two, Five, Seven, Nine, and Ten of Swords, all of which are bad news upright, as is the Eight of Swords unless you have a kinky client, for whom it may be good news.

Whew. Maybe we should just stick with blackjack.

That Seven of Cups incident was what caused me to give up a reasonably lucrative part-time job on a 900 line. I knew instinctively that I was tapping into problems too big for me to try to help solve.

[Pogonip]

There is a game called Tarocco that’s been played with Tarot cards for centuries (not the same session, or the same deck). Maybe we can add a few tarocco tables if blackjack revenue slumps.

[R. Sherman]

@Darleen

In other words, she's a flasher.

[Pogonip]

When a round card ends up sideways, the Oracle is telling you you should have bought a normal deck of cards.

As long as we’re roaming the carnival, has anyone tried the Chinese fortune-telling system, I Ching? I had the book out of the library, and it’s fairly simple, but I couldn’t get answers that made any sense. Maybe it works better in Chinese.

When American fundamentalists want to peek into the future, they close their eyes, open a Bible, blindly put a finger on it, then read whatever verse they landed on. I’ve seen fundamentalists get good results with this system, but it never worked for me. I ask something like “Should I take this job I’m offered or keep the old one?” and I’d invariably get a verse like “Thou shalt make the ark sixty cubits long, forty cubits high, and forty cubits wide” or “John begat George, and George begat Paul, and Paul begat Ringo...”. etc. just had no luck at all with it.

[Darleen]

In other words, she's a flasher.

Not just that, but she gets to keep a diary for seven years and turns it in as an academic paper while receiving taxpayer money.

The mind, it boggles.

[Hal]

. . . or “John begat George, and George begat Paul, and Paul begat Ringo...”. etc . . .

That's what I never understood about a recent pope and the very, very clear inspiration and guidance offered by his predecessor.

Everyone could see that the obvious successor to Pope John-Paul was clearly going to be Pope George-and-Ringo . . .

[Daniel Ream]

One of my many bizarre hobbies is divination systems from various cultures.

The thing about Tarot is that there's no standard symbology, although there are two large families of imagery that many decks fall into (Rider-Waite and Crowley). Many decks have different symbology systems, or their own unique symbol sets (I'm a big fan of the Rohrig Tarot). Many decks don't even have the standard suits, or 78 cards. So the fact that round cards can't be reversed doesn't really invalidate their use as divination tools; the point of divination has always been that the diviner's own occult talent is what affects the card draws, and their skill at interpreting the drawn cards is informed by but not determined by the images themselves. The orientation of a card is simply an additional piece of information the diviner has to work with and isn't strictly necessary; there are fortune-tellers who use regular old Bicycle card decks.

The I Ching is a fun little system. It has the benefit of not needing any special equipment, although memorizing the trigrams takes a bit of work. Like just about all of these draw-random-text-fragments-from-a-corpus-recombine-and-interpret systems, though, it's all about the Forer effect.

she gets to keep a diary for seven years and turns it in as an academic paper while receiving taxpayer money

Reading New Real Peer Review has convinced me that "autoethnography" is code for "I conned the university into paying me for blogging."

[Alice]

but actually, it occurs to me that a fat body, by which the author seems to mean an ostentatiously obese one, is quite easy to arrive at, as it generally involves the abandonment of self-denial, succumbing to temptation by default, and a tendency to shun any avoidable exertion. Basically, torpidity and a lack of care.

You'd never make it as a postmodern academic, David.

[David]

You’d never make it as a postmodern academic, David.

I suspect my Clown Quarter career would be lively and short, and would involve a mysterious, and quite devastating, electrical fire.

Re the paper above, I suppose there’s the crumb of a barely interesting idea, in that maybe there’s a glib comparison to be made between the indecently obese and heavyweight competitors who’ve enlarged themselves to the proportions of the proverbial brick shithouse. Both are unusual, and somewhat bizarre, compared to the rest of us. But bodybuilders must exert enormous discipline, acquiring mass, ‘bulking’, and then ‘shredding’ to resemble some cartoonish ideal. Whatever its merits, it doesn’t look easy. However, there’s no analogue, no discipline or self-denial, in simply being fat. Quite the opposite.

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

I’m waiting for someone to ask how you stumbled across this development.

Earlier, you wrote:

Because showcasing fat is what sport’s all about.

So I immediately thought of sumo and figured somebody had to have made porn involving it. Rule 34 and all.

[David]

So I immediately thought of sumo and figured somebody had to have made porn involving it.

[ Points to the Stool of Shame. ]

[R. Sherman]

Sort of related: Via Ace's sidebar, Jordan Peterson discusses how intersectionality is the fatal flaw of identity politics and the current state of Leftism.

[Meir]

Can’t believe this hasn’t been quoted yet in the thread:

“Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.” (Steven Wright)

[TomJ]

To be fair, the author of the bodybuilding piece is simply ahead of his times.

I am increasingly disturbed how prescient some aspects of 2000AD seem…

[Sam Duncan]

“Cough. Cough.”

Heh. :)

[Daniel Ream]

I am increasingly disturbed how prescient some aspects of 2000AD seem

Demolition Man tried to lampoon PC, 'elf-n-safety culture and ended up being a devastatingly accurate prediction of the future.

[Richard Cranium]

Well, Taco Bell hasn't won the restaurant wars yet, so there's still hope.

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

[ Points to the Stool of Shame. ]

No refunds; credit note only.

[David]

No refunds; credit note only.

By the way, the Stool of Shame isn’t the kind you sit on. It’s the other kind of stool. It comes with an elastic band and is worn as a hat.

What?