Fat talk

Murky waters, here, but I've been hearing a lot of annoying, misinformed and poorly worded comments on fat people lately. Cases in point:
1) Discussion with an acquaintance. She is very slim and barely 5 ft tall, and I am 5'10. She was telling me that she could only find cute clothes that fit in vintage shops since she is so petite. We shared horrible shopping experiences, and then she said: I never understand why some shops sell XXL miniskirts or sequined jackets. I mean, why would fat people emphasize their body?
What really got me was that she had just as much difficulty finding nice clothes that fit than fat women! NO empathy there.

2)Discussion with my track and field group: my coach was telling us to have a healthy diet while training, and I ruefully admitted that I eat lots and lots of candy, chocolate and consume litres of lemonade. The coach then said: Oh, as long as you don't get fat, you're OK.
Hmmmm...so health means being thin, right?

I am a recovering bulimic. I know what it means to hate your body, to treat it like crap, to punish it for existing. Did shaming myself transform me into the thin person I wanted to be? No. Yet this is what we try to accomplish with fat people, shaming them into becoming acceptable in our eyes.

The way we talk about fat, the way we treat people who are fat is disgraceful and wrong. Better people have said it much better than I could, but fat discrimination in terms of health care or travel or anything really is an infringement of human rights.

And I want to talk back.

Rape culture in France

I'd like to talk about the way rape and sexual assault are perceived here in France, and how it effects the people I know. I'm not a counselor, or a sociologist, so this will be about my experience of rape culture.

Rape has been recognized as a crime in France since 1980 (you can get up to 15 years in prison). The legal definition is as follows: "Any sexual penetration (otherwise it's categorized as assault and not as rape) imposed upon another person through violence, constraint, threat, or surprise, is a rape."

Marital rape was legally recognized in 1992. These dates tell their own story.

In the media, rape has two different contexts. "Rape in the suburbs" and "City rape". Suburbs in France are not middle-class havens: they are what I think Americans call the projets, or ghettos. Young people who come from the suburbs (especially the Parisian ones) tend to describe themselves as "ghetto members". A few years ago, gang bangs became the subject of many an investigation. Young Muslim girls who would not wear a headscarf had been raped by several young men (usually men they knew socially) or set on fire. This brought about the idea that only immigrant religious extremists would rape. Rape was the product of alienation and misinformation.

On the other hand you have the City rape. This is defined by walking home late at night and being assaulted in the street. Victims of City rape are mostly pitied, but sometimes you'll read an article describing how drunk/skimpily dressed they were.

This is what I would call mainstream rape. Everyone agrees it's rape. Voilà. You don't go alone at night in some areas, it's a fact of life. As a runner I avoid some parts of Paris if I'm running at night. It's automatic. You go against the rules, you will be punished.

Much more problematic is date rape. I'll take the Polanski example, not because I'm not tired of that polemic, because I am. Yet the reaction of French intellectuals to the rape was scary and illuminating. It wasn't a rape because the mother of the girl entrusted her child to a known womanizer to do nude pictures. (So she pimped out her kid, basically). It wasn't a rape because the girl was not a virgin. You get the idea.

If you know your rapist, good luck to get your rape recognized as such. You egged him on. You sent the wrong signals. He was drunk. You were drunk.

As a French girl, you're taught how to flirt, that is, how to go far enough without going too far. If you go too far, you might end up in a situation beyond your control. This will be your fault. Rape education is focused on girls. We can avoid rape. Little is done to prevent rapists from raping.

Do I feel afraid, threatened every day? No. Am I bothered every day by some random person in the street? Yes.

"Hey pretty girl, want to come over tonight?"
"No, thanks."
"Have a good day then!"

This would be the nicest version of the typical exchange. Usually it goes along these lines:

"Hey pretty girl, want to come over tonight?"
"No, thanks."
"You fucking slut, just die already."

When I complain about this, I mostly hear people telling me that I'll miss it when it stops. Middle-aged women sigh wistfully about how they enjoyed being complimented, how they feel invisible now. The same women who tell me that I would be asking for rape if I went to a man's apartment alone. That I'd be sending out the wrong signals. To me, rape is less about sex than it is about violence. When I ask these people if it would be my fault if I were beaten up by a guy in his apartment, they usually say no. Yet rape would be my fault, somehow.

What I can tell you about French rape culture is that regardless of how "good" I am, someone will blame me for being raped, if this terrible thing happens to me one day. It will always be partly my fault. If I'm not drunk, it's because I wore a short skirt in a dangerous area. And why was I out in the middle of the night, anyway?

One day I was explaining to X, who's Australian, that I was afraid of travelling on my own because of violence and assault. He looked at me as if I were crazy. I realized how much I had internalized the French message that I had to restrict the way I live in order to be protected.

It's my responsability never to be assaulted. Even if it means living less of a life than if I were a man.

Singledom, swingers and cultural differences.

I am wary of general statements, expecially concerning America. I lived in the Midwest for a year, but apart from that I have no idea about how most of Americans live. Yet when I was in Chicago, I was flabbergasted by some of the things I learnt there.

So, dating. In France, we know about American dating, but we don't understand it. To us, when you date someone, unless you discuss it beforehand, it's understood that it's exclusive. Even in the tentative first weeks. Once you've slept together, if you decide to continue to see each other, you are considered to be a couple. These are general guidelines.

In America, people seemed to be OK with seeing more than one person at a time. Going to movies, having dinner, all that stuff. It was completely foreign to me. In the same way, casual sex is far less taboo for Americans than for us.Naturally it happens, but you wouldn't discuss it with your girlfriends. It's not something to celebrate, or to bemoan, it's a fact of life.

So when you say you are "single", this is French for "celibate". In America, "single" could mean celibate, but it could also mean other things, like "enjoying life".

So when I am asked if I have a boyfriend and I answer that I'm single, I get pitying glances from the French (because it means I now lead an immaculate life) and high fives from the Americans in my study program. The reactions go from "I'm sure there's the right guy out there for you..." to "Go get 'em girl."

I am amused by this. I find it funny that French people, with the most ouh la la reputation in the world, are so much more prudish than puritanical America.

I read blogs written by swingers, and I'm also struck by the difference in mentality. In Paris, we have many famous swinger clubs. Famous people are outspoken about their swinging habits. It's not a big deal.

So I guess we are more comfortable with cheating politicians and swingers, but less with the idea of American dating.

Funny, no?