I am not a violent person, but every once in a while I really want to swat someone upside the head with a large chunk of wood. Now is such a time. There is a woman I know who bends my ear occasionally. She has recently gotten out of a really bad relationship. Somewhere toward the end of it, her boyfriend said some really vicious things about her physical appearance. He said it calmly and rationally, making it much harder for her to see the sheer anger behind the statements. Something said in a screaming fight can be dismissed; it’s harder to spot the same sort of destructiveness couched reasonably. The result? She’s fighting a serious physically self-destructive problem now, because she took him seriously when he called her fat. As usual in such situations, she’s not fat and he’s a manipulative bastard. He set out to destroy her self-image, and has damn near succeeded. It’s going to take a long time for the damage he did to heal, if ever it does. I hope he stays away from me. I’ll give him a piece of my mind no matter when I see him, but right now? Lacking a chunk of wood, I’m liable to kick him someplace painful. And yes, I’d use the cast.
Okay, so, what he said woulda been fine-just-fine if she WERE fat?
The other way to help women avoid this crapola is to end obsession with fatness-as-badness.
No, of course it wouldn’t have been fine, and I think you know me better than that. I was only pointing out the obvious: that reality and perception have usually diverged when eating disorders arise. And of course the long-term way to end it is to end the “food = sin” and “fat = evil/ sinful/ lazy/ bad/ pick your negative term” obsession. I and other friends are working on that with this woman, but it takes time. Meanwhile, societal attitudes are such that she was vulnerable, and he took full advantage of it. And for that, I would like to eviscerate him.
The importnant point that should *not* get lost here is that the ex-boyfriend wanted to get in a low blow and with malice aforethought went for what he knew was a vulnerable spot. Societal attitudes aside, if I ever catch him alone in a dark alley, only one of us will leave it with everything intact.
On that we are entirely in agreement. Just be careful about cleaning up after.