Jay West Coast
Witness to the Thickness
What happened to the old Dimensions?
Lately, Ive felt like Dimensions is undergoing weight loss surgery. There are all sorts of sharp knives around, internal organs are getting messed up, and the website is bound to wind up half the size of what it used to be after its all through.
There was a time when Dimensions wasnt like this. There was a time when Dimensions was a retreat space from the fat-phobic world, offering an alternative way of thinking about the world. It was a collective of people who were willing to think differentlyat times almost revolutionarilyabout what fat was, what it meant, and what it could be. We were full of imagination, creativity, love, excitement and joyful self-exploration as a community of like-minded people.
Dimensions mattered. It was productive because it was honest, full, real and inventive. There was this acknowledgement that we all were coming at the fat question from different angles, and may even wind up in different places, but were inevitably in communion with everyone else on the boards simply by the fact that we were there. As more people logged in, the more FAs found they could confidently support the struggles of fat women and the more fat women could see that there was another narrative about fat bodies than the one they were told as kids. The stories were real, and the relationships inspired.
For me, it was the confidence and freedom of other older FAs that taught me to be the same. I learned from other FAs and from fat women how to live into being an FA. When you think youre alone in the way you think, you assume youre twisted and feel the compulsion to repress. But when you know that there is a community to hash out your best thoughts and craziest thoughts, you learn how to grow up handsomely. As messy as it sounds, its a beautiful intentional place for us to engage inclusively regardless of our vast differences and our inevitable social errors. It was in that place that I was willing to try my 21-year-old hand at participating in my own self-discovery and to the evolution of the community I was born into.
For a guy like me, the Boards composition worked marvellously well. They brilliantly combined fat sexuality with the political movement. The truth is that you cant have one without the other. Fat politics are inexorably about our bodies and body imagewhich is ruthlessly rooted in our individual sexualities. We are inevitably forced to address the depths of what fat sexuality is in order to truthfully address fat as a valid body form. Likewise, fat sexualitys health depends directly on the success of fat politics. The reason is two-fold: the legitimisation of fat attraction depends on the legitimisation of fat as a body type; and as you fall in love with a fat partner, you yearn to live in a world that treats her as beautifully as it would if she were thin. Fat sexuality and fat politics are co-dependant and benefit greatly from each others existence. And Dimensions did that so well that at one time it was the fifth-most active English forum on the web.
As we all know, eventually Dimensions began to suffer from recycled content. After a while, it seemed that the same threads started to pop up over and over. Ten years on the forums can do that. But after awhile, in that vacuum of fervour, there grew a general undertone of dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with all sorts of things, Im sure. But unfortunately this time these issues became about individual people, and the climate developed wherein it was expected that problems could be fixed by demonizing certain members.
This is gravely unfortunate for a number of reasons. Firstly, it allows our community to become introverted and lose sight of the potential we have in front of us. Secondly, it also is likely for us to say things that are untrue and hurtful about people who are probably wonderful allies. And above all, it divides us. In a world where we are already the quiet minority, we now exhaust our energies on criticising our fat brothers, sisters, and friends. People that would otherwise learn in love to appreciate fat as positive and share that way with the world are instead fighting for their self-esteem in the midst of recycled critiques. Suddenly, everyone is expected to be on one side or another. Its painful to see, because there arent really any sides. We are the convergence of ideas, we are co-conspirers in a vision, we are inevitably very much in the same boat. When one of us is demonized, were all demonized. When were impatient with one person, were short-changing the whole community.
What is more powerful than seeing a community that supports one another? What is better than the thin world looking in and seeing a diverse group of people using the internet to powerfully edify each other? We can and should be the model for why fat and fat sexuality ought not to scare the world. We are beautiful--we have to see that in each other, and to be that for ourselves and the generations that come after us.
In short, lets put the knives awaywe can be a beautiful community without the weight loss surgery.
Lately, Ive felt like Dimensions is undergoing weight loss surgery. There are all sorts of sharp knives around, internal organs are getting messed up, and the website is bound to wind up half the size of what it used to be after its all through.
There was a time when Dimensions wasnt like this. There was a time when Dimensions was a retreat space from the fat-phobic world, offering an alternative way of thinking about the world. It was a collective of people who were willing to think differentlyat times almost revolutionarilyabout what fat was, what it meant, and what it could be. We were full of imagination, creativity, love, excitement and joyful self-exploration as a community of like-minded people.
Dimensions mattered. It was productive because it was honest, full, real and inventive. There was this acknowledgement that we all were coming at the fat question from different angles, and may even wind up in different places, but were inevitably in communion with everyone else on the boards simply by the fact that we were there. As more people logged in, the more FAs found they could confidently support the struggles of fat women and the more fat women could see that there was another narrative about fat bodies than the one they were told as kids. The stories were real, and the relationships inspired.
For me, it was the confidence and freedom of other older FAs that taught me to be the same. I learned from other FAs and from fat women how to live into being an FA. When you think youre alone in the way you think, you assume youre twisted and feel the compulsion to repress. But when you know that there is a community to hash out your best thoughts and craziest thoughts, you learn how to grow up handsomely. As messy as it sounds, its a beautiful intentional place for us to engage inclusively regardless of our vast differences and our inevitable social errors. It was in that place that I was willing to try my 21-year-old hand at participating in my own self-discovery and to the evolution of the community I was born into.
For a guy like me, the Boards composition worked marvellously well. They brilliantly combined fat sexuality with the political movement. The truth is that you cant have one without the other. Fat politics are inexorably about our bodies and body imagewhich is ruthlessly rooted in our individual sexualities. We are inevitably forced to address the depths of what fat sexuality is in order to truthfully address fat as a valid body form. Likewise, fat sexualitys health depends directly on the success of fat politics. The reason is two-fold: the legitimisation of fat attraction depends on the legitimisation of fat as a body type; and as you fall in love with a fat partner, you yearn to live in a world that treats her as beautifully as it would if she were thin. Fat sexuality and fat politics are co-dependant and benefit greatly from each others existence. And Dimensions did that so well that at one time it was the fifth-most active English forum on the web.
As we all know, eventually Dimensions began to suffer from recycled content. After a while, it seemed that the same threads started to pop up over and over. Ten years on the forums can do that. But after awhile, in that vacuum of fervour, there grew a general undertone of dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with all sorts of things, Im sure. But unfortunately this time these issues became about individual people, and the climate developed wherein it was expected that problems could be fixed by demonizing certain members.
This is gravely unfortunate for a number of reasons. Firstly, it allows our community to become introverted and lose sight of the potential we have in front of us. Secondly, it also is likely for us to say things that are untrue and hurtful about people who are probably wonderful allies. And above all, it divides us. In a world where we are already the quiet minority, we now exhaust our energies on criticising our fat brothers, sisters, and friends. People that would otherwise learn in love to appreciate fat as positive and share that way with the world are instead fighting for their self-esteem in the midst of recycled critiques. Suddenly, everyone is expected to be on one side or another. Its painful to see, because there arent really any sides. We are the convergence of ideas, we are co-conspirers in a vision, we are inevitably very much in the same boat. When one of us is demonized, were all demonized. When were impatient with one person, were short-changing the whole community.
What is more powerful than seeing a community that supports one another? What is better than the thin world looking in and seeing a diverse group of people using the internet to powerfully edify each other? We can and should be the model for why fat and fat sexuality ought not to scare the world. We are beautiful--we have to see that in each other, and to be that for ourselves and the generations that come after us.
In short, lets put the knives awaywe can be a beautiful community without the weight loss surgery.
