Gaining, Culture, and Reality
In case you hadn't notice, people get really pissy about obesity. There are two extremes:
Western Culture Has Little Sympathy for Fat
Surprise, a culture with a narrow view of beauty isn't going to praise you for your love handles and overhang. Searching for "ideal male body" yields this as one of the results:
Your Body is Your Body: Pros and Cons
"It's my body," is an old refrain of cultural liberalism. This view comes with some upsides and downsides. The upside is you can do what you desire with yourself provided it doesn't harm other people. This gives us all the opportunity to experiment with tattoos, gaining, bodybuilding, abortion, euthanasia, and whatever other ethical issue you can imagine pertaining to the human body.
The downside is you are taking responsibility for your body. Medically induced exceptions aside, you retain a degree of responsibility for how you look.
Society making overweight people feel shitty about themselves is hardly a pleasant phenomenon, but there's danger in the opposite perspective. The current iteration of the fat acceptance movement risks the disassociation of responsibility from the status quo. Declaring everyone needs to validate your opinion with praise is unrealistic at best, damaging to freedom at worst (but this is perhaps a different discussion). Speaking of reality...
Reality Beckons
We all know reality can be a bit of a party-crasher.
It does us no favors to ignore reality to create a vapid utopia of fat acceptance. There are health risks associating with being obese. There are physical limitations. Some people may find you less attractive, and you shouldn't blame someone for their own tastes. That is the very courtesy we desire of others.
It is my contention that the consequences of weight gain can be overcome, and balance can be achieved. It fruitless to hold the that whole world is wrong, and just needs better opinions (our opinions). Science isn't an opinion, alas. I, an adult, must decide at what point I am putting myself excessive risk, just as someone who smokes, drinks, or rides a motorcycle must do the same. Stopping these activities would technically be safer, but life isn't about being as safe as possible, nor should it be.
It is only by facing the bleakest facts that my opinion can be informed to the extent required to form a complete gaining philosophy. Or at least, that's what I think. And those who disagree should form their arguments to provide the world with a more complete view of the spectrum of opinions on the matter.
A Conclusion of Sorts
After a lot of semi-cohesive ranting, I want to leave you on a positive note. Gaining really can be awesome. I am personally happy I made the decision to leave skinniness behind. And the moments of uncertainty or regret are outweighed by outweighing one's former self.
If I had to boil all the hooha down to one statement it would be don't take gaining for granted. Don't let other people, myself included, dictate your opinions about gaining, romance, and beauty. It's difficult to mentally break free from a world giving you judgy-eyes for getting fatter, but with focus and support, we just might.
Best of luck to all of you as you find your way. I wish you all every measure of the fullness of life!
- fat acceptance is stupid please get on a treadmill you fatass
- fat acceptance is absolutely perfect how dare you disagree with me go read my Tumblr
I'd like to elucidate a view between these two extremes from the perspective of someone who finds overweight men attractive.
Western Culture Has Little Sympathy for Fat
Surprise, a culture with a narrow view of beauty isn't going to praise you for your love handles and overhang. Searching for "ideal male body" yields this as one of the results:
 |
| Such body diversity, so wow |
It doesn't take a social anthropologist to realize this may not encompass every possible version of the ideal body. But in Western Civilization, we've reached a place where the above is ideal to a lot of men and women, if certainly not all of them (as you and I, dear reader, are evidence enough). The paradigm in our culture is clear: thin and fit is attractive, fat is not.
Many kindhearted people will understand when you bring up a dissenting opinion, but society at large does not provide a framework in which the average person would praise your taste for the larger side of things, or praise obese people for accepting their body size.
This has many effects on gainers and encouragers: self-loathing, a lack of self-acceptance, romantic frustrations, wasted emotional energy, and on and on. Those of us who have reached the point of acceptance, whether in part or in whole, have realized that we hold a minority opinion and cannot allow the majority to dictate our behavior.
Many kindhearted people will understand when you bring up a dissenting opinion, but society at large does not provide a framework in which the average person would praise your taste for the larger side of things, or praise obese people for accepting their body size.
This has many effects on gainers and encouragers: self-loathing, a lack of self-acceptance, romantic frustrations, wasted emotional energy, and on and on. Those of us who have reached the point of acceptance, whether in part or in whole, have realized that we hold a minority opinion and cannot allow the majority to dictate our behavior.
Your Body is Your Body: Pros and Cons
"It's my body," is an old refrain of cultural liberalism. This view comes with some upsides and downsides. The upside is you can do what you desire with yourself provided it doesn't harm other people. This gives us all the opportunity to experiment with tattoos, gaining, bodybuilding, abortion, euthanasia, and whatever other ethical issue you can imagine pertaining to the human body.
The downside is you are taking responsibility for your body. Medically induced exceptions aside, you retain a degree of responsibility for how you look.
Society making overweight people feel shitty about themselves is hardly a pleasant phenomenon, but there's danger in the opposite perspective. The current iteration of the fat acceptance movement risks the disassociation of responsibility from the status quo. Declaring everyone needs to validate your opinion with praise is unrealistic at best, damaging to freedom at worst (but this is perhaps a different discussion). Speaking of reality...
Reality Beckons
We all know reality can be a bit of a party-crasher.
It does us no favors to ignore reality to create a vapid utopia of fat acceptance. There are health risks associating with being obese. There are physical limitations. Some people may find you less attractive, and you shouldn't blame someone for their own tastes. That is the very courtesy we desire of others.
It is my contention that the consequences of weight gain can be overcome, and balance can be achieved. It fruitless to hold the that whole world is wrong, and just needs better opinions (our opinions). Science isn't an opinion, alas. I, an adult, must decide at what point I am putting myself excessive risk, just as someone who smokes, drinks, or rides a motorcycle must do the same. Stopping these activities would technically be safer, but life isn't about being as safe as possible, nor should it be.
It is only by facing the bleakest facts that my opinion can be informed to the extent required to form a complete gaining philosophy. Or at least, that's what I think. And those who disagree should form their arguments to provide the world with a more complete view of the spectrum of opinions on the matter.
A Conclusion of Sorts
After a lot of semi-cohesive ranting, I want to leave you on a positive note. Gaining really can be awesome. I am personally happy I made the decision to leave skinniness behind. And the moments of uncertainty or regret are outweighed by outweighing one's former self.
If I had to boil all the hooha down to one statement it would be don't take gaining for granted. Don't let other people, myself included, dictate your opinions about gaining, romance, and beauty. It's difficult to mentally break free from a world giving you judgy-eyes for getting fatter, but with focus and support, we just might.
Best of luck to all of you as you find your way. I wish you all every measure of the fullness of life!
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