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I wasn’t going to write about this.

Maura Kelly’s fat-phobic Marie Claire article “Should ‘Fatties’ Get A Room?” (in which she asks, in earnest, whether or not it’s appropriate for fat people to be shown kissing on television) has been covered extensively. The mainstream media, entertainment and feminist blogs and the fatosphere have dissected every phase of this trainwreck, from Kelly’s half-hearted apology to Marie Claire’s pageview-boosting attempt to “do right” by having fat positive bloggers “counterpoint” Kelly’s claim that fat people don’t deserve to be seen on television (as though this is actually a topic that merits serious debate). The issue has been picked apart by people who are more knowledgeable than I am, who are angrier than I am, who are stronger than I am.

I wasn’t going to write about this, but here I go.  Why?

Because I’ve just spent a bitchy, restless Halloween weekend hiding out and pinching my fat until it bruised (an old habit… something I haven’t done for ten years, or maybe longer.) It’s subtle self-abuse, a deeply-rooted and hard-broken habit I didn’t even realize I’d returned to until tiny black spots began appearing like rot in the same spots I pinched when I was eating disordered… my knees, my thighs, my upper arms, below my chin.

“When I was eating disordered”. I still speak past-tense, as though this disease isn’t something I wrestle with every day. Some of us speak  this way, people who’ve fought hard to overcome scary, destructive habits or horrible experiences. “Back when”.

Even though I’ve ostensibly been “better” for more than a decade, Kelly’s rant is weighing heavily on heavy me, and I have to own up to the fact that my initial resistance to addressing this had less to do with my feeling that it had already “been done” adequately, and more to do with the fact that I took the blog post prettty fucking personally.

Why?

Because I know Maura Kelly, and because I’m one of the “fatties” she’s talking about.

***

I’ve never met Maura in person. I was consulted as a sex & relationships expert for something she wrote several years ago. In the process of working on the articles together, we exchanged a flurry of friendly emails, facebook-friended one another, did the mutual twitter follow. I started reading and commenting on her blog. She invited me to use her name if I pitched any of her editors.

She was an online acquaintance at best, but I was proud to have had my advice included in her article. I’ve written sex & relationships for regional outlets for a number of years, but never anything associated with a big national brand. Even more exciting to me what how much this professional writer admired my advice and my talent. I’d earned the respect of someone who did what I wanted to do for a living, and I felt pretty great about it.

When another writer tweeted at me, “I think you know this chick… Have you seen this?” I clicked the link she’d sent, and read with a sinking heart Kelly’s comments on fat. In her sensitively-wrought (ahem) article, Kelly lets loose some zingers:

Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country’s obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it’s at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity!

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine (sic) addict slumping in a chair.

When I read Kelly’s article, disgust and anger washed over me, commingling with something darker and more familiar, something with deeper roots. I realized two things simultaneously: The first, that Kelly wouldn’t have respected me, my advice or my writing if we’d ever met in person. The second: that I used to be her.

***

Kelly’s words are obviously those of someone deeply disordered, and she has owned up publicly in the past to having battled anorexia.

As a former bulimic, her words and thoughts were so familiar to me that they were actually triggering. The article read like a laundry list of the self-abusive mantras I repeated to keep myself from eating, and her questions about whether or not fat people even deserve to be visible provided clear, sick-making confirmation that there really were people in the world who hated “fatties” as much as I’d been terrified they did back in the days of gagging over a toilet.

Pinching your fat is not the worst self-abusive habit one can cultivate, but for me, a return to it after so much time can only be seen as a relapse of sorts… a deeply frustrating experience after ten years of working daily to stay “better”. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve fallen back to old habits, and I don’t expect it will be the last, but I do know that seeing a glimpse of the person I used to be in Kelly’s writing is what set me off in this particular instance.

There are lots of people, Kelly included, who’ve suggested that her comments were ‘the disease talking’, and maybe that’s true. (Her responsibilities as a writer, and Marie Claire’s responsibilities as a publication for women, are an entirely different issue.)

I understand that body biases are extremely difficult to break down. They are, however, possible to identify and manage. My own hyperawareness of my disease and personal prejudices helps me question and challenge my own unkind thoughts. I’d love to be someone who always thinks generously of others, but the truth is that I have to check my thinking on a regular basis, pruning back assumptions until I get to the truth. This applies to people fat AND thin, to fiscal conservatives and free-hug hippies, to gym-rats and junk munchers, to annoyingly successful go-getters and seemingly lucky slackers.

In other words: I can be a judgy fuck, but I know it. I understand that the nasty little culture-wired voice in my head is wrong more often than it’s right. I understand that it’s powerful, but that it doesn’t always speak in my best interest, or the interest of loving and respecting other human beings.

So I’m sitting here, reading an article from someone who doesn’t know that her little culture-voice is wrong more often than right, someone who actually thinks that deeply critical buy-stuff-now voice is her own voice… someone who assumes that the nasty little voice is so widely accepted that saying “I don’t think I should have to look at fat people” won’t cause an uproar, or anger or hurt. And yet… I know this woman, and I like her, and in most of our past interactions, she has seemed reasonable, if a little socially clueless.

And now I also know that my advice would have seemed worthless to this woman if we’d ever met in person. If she’d lunched with me and watched my hips bump tables as I passed, or seen me eat fatty food in public (a repulsive experience for many anorexics), I know in my gut that I’d have lost all credit as an expert on love and relationships in her eyes, despite the fact that my experience is significant and my writing has been widely praised.

I know that none of that would have mattered, because of my weight, and because of her disease.

***

As fat girls go, I live in a pretty goddamn privileged corner of the world. I’ve got big curvy role models left and right in my life, representing fierce with a force that puts the Chelsea boys to shame. I take my clothes off, rolls and all, for money and applause. I am frequently told that I’m beautiful by strangers who have just seen me naked. I teach girls of all sizes to dance, and I get to shatter expectations about what a big body can do and look like. I’ve got loving, kickass friends of all sizes who defend my right to eat whatever I want as vehemently as I defend their right to add another gym day to their already-impressive bodybuilding regimes. I don’t worry about finding cute plus-sized clothing because I live in the same city as Re/Dress. I also have ridiculously talented friends who are kind enough to make amazing costumes and clothing for me.

Kelly’s article reminded me that my experience is rare. It reminded me that I’m lucky.

When I started writing this point, I was going to deliver a personalized “Fuck you” to Maura Kelly and Marie Claire. It was going to be scathing, too. But you know what? I can’t. I just can’t. So.

To Maura:

Your article ruined my weekend, and it encouraged me to self-abuse. I can only imagine it had the same effect on countless others. My actions are not your fault, but what you wrote was triggering and hateful and unnecessary.

Your lack of self-awareness is astounding and sad, and your article was deeply irresponsible. (Also: your apology wasn’t an apology. A few passive-aggressive statements strung together does not a retraction make, and if you’re wondering why people are still flogging you, it’s because your only published response to the controversy reads very much like a snide “I’m sorry you feel that way.”)

I’ve read your writing on anorexia. You’ve come really far, and you have a lot to be proud of, but it’s obvious that you still need help. If this experience has left you with nothing else, I hope it’s made you realize that the thoughts you shared on your blog are not universally accepted opinions, but are rather part of a powerful rhetoric that preys on women, like you, like me, who are already wounded.

What you wrote is a symptom, not the disease.

What you wrote was horrible, but it’s doesn’t mean you are a horrible person. It means you are part of a larger problem.

What you wrote would never have made it past an editor in a culture that did not accept and promote prejudice and fat hate. You’d never have asked whether fat people were worthy of airtime if you didn’t buy into an advertising rhetoric that promotes unhealthy weight and habits as ‘normal’, and equates abnormality with weakness. The  blithe advice you offered “fatties” about fresh organic veggies and personal trainers would never have crossed your lips if you’d been able to recognize your own incredible privilege. Obesity is a complicated issue that involves many physical, psychological and circumstantial factors, and by ignoring those considerations in favor of a “thin-good/fat-bad” binary, you’ve minimized the very real struggle millions of Americans face every day… with their weight, with their health, with their self-esteem.

Your article ruined my weekend. But more importantly, and more painfully, it also burst my bubble. I live in a small corner of the world where my fat is accepted. I’ve sought it out, because I believe that I deserve love and respect no matter the size of my ass. But sometimes it gets too easy to hide in this little corner. Your article, and the strong responses that have erupted from all sides, have reminded me that most people don’t have a space as safe or cozy or loving as the one I inhabit.

I know what you’re hearing from all corners right now is “Fuck you”, but to me, “Thank you” seems more appropriate.

Thank you, Maura Kelly, for reminding me how far I’ve come, as a woman and a human being.

And thank you for reminding me how far we, as a culture, have yet to go.

***

Late August, late nineties. I am thin. I am lying on the dock at the lake in a pink bikini.

***

“That body!” my mother’s friend Julie said last week when she saw the swimsuit. Her voice was half-friendly, half-hard, and she leaned into her afternoon margarita on the back deck, speaking to my mother loudly so that I’d overhear. “Where did it COME from?”

My mother shrugged. “Beats me.” She is slight, not busty, no ass to speak of. We don’t share facial features either, and she’s told me a thousand times that if she hadn’t birthed me, she wouldn’t believe I’m hers. Julie says something more softly. I can’t hear it but I’m sure it ends in “… out in public like that?”

Mom sighs and says “Beats me” again. Ice cubes clink, and the two of them resume their languid, deckchair appraisal of Scooter, the long-haired, so-tan twentysomething landscaper who’s pruning the bushes in the back of our house to look more like poodles’ asses than they already do.

I turn to go inside, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Julie lean in again, and this time she speaks even more softly to my mother. I’m sure it’s about my breasts, which have appeared, from nowhere, while no one was looking, high and huge. I know, because I’m told so, that they are fantastic breasts, “knockers”. But I feel vulnerable, my entrance to every room preceded by this set of unwelcome attention grabbers. I am the smart girl, the girl who had books flipped out of her hand and ripped in half by sixth-grade bullies. I don’t want attention, especially not THIS kind.

“I KNOW,” my mother says, not unkindly, but emphatically. As though I don’t get enough of it at school. At fourteen, I don’t know any better. It’s always been about my body, and this new body requires extra diligence to tame.

I’ve been following the diet my mother taught me (skinless chicken and steamed broccoli two meals a day, and a big green salad without croutons or dressing or cheese on it for dinner). She’s the fashionable form of anorexic… not so thin it hurts to look at her, but nowhere near healthful, either. My girlfriends think I’m crazy, but I don’t care. I’ve lost weight this summer, and even when I stray and have a country club hamburger, I can still drop three to five pounds in 36 hours with diuretics and a long workout before my 6am weigh-in with mom. And it will look like I’m losing weight, and there won’t be a fight, and she won’t make me quit the cheerleading squad because I’m “bigger” than the other girls. This is a constant threat, and the resolution of it requires me to prove that I’m getting thinner, ever thinner.

Often, I fail, and there is an awful fight and a few-days bout of me throwing up everything I eat before it simply gets too hard to maintain. I’ve never been a very successful bulimic, and the evidence of my efforts is obvious in swollen cheeks and broken blood vessels in my eyes. My mother sits me down and explains to me that throwing up will rot my teeth and insists that we can control our weight ‘through diet alone!’. She thinks that 600-800 calories a day is a reasonable amount for a growing girl, and I know from nutrition classes that I’m supposed to eat more, but it seems like whenever I do, I gain weight.

Of course it doesn’t help that by the time I’m fourteen, my metabolism is already fucked. This is because I’ve been starving myself since I was eight, (or, rather, I’ve been starving and then hiding in the garage, eating as many candy bars as my allowance will allow, and then starving again.) But now the battle seems more important than ever, and I’m losing it. Puberty hit me with a triple whammy – breasts, thighs AND ass, and at fourteen, a year after sprouting all of these bumps I find disgusting, I’m locked in a perpetual battle with the baby fat that clings to me. It will take me another decade to realize the curves suits me.

On some level, I know my mother’s approach to eating is “wrong”. But I like it. It makes me feel strong. It’s a test, and I’ve always been good at passing tests.

I also know it’s not her fault, and that stops me from hating her. She grew up in a time where girls built like me – even the thin me has thighs and tits – weren’t treated well. Girls like me couldn’t find husbands, because muscles were unattractive and big breasts were the provenance of sluts. I know she wants what’s best for me, and, at fourteen, I think she’s right that thin being the only thing that will ever allow a woman to be successful. I want to be successful. I want to be her approval. I want people at school to be nice to me, even though I’m almost two years younger than everyone else in my grade. Thin is the answer. It’s always been the answer.

“That curly hair!” my mother vamps softly in Scooter’s direction, and she and Julie laugh and clink again.

***

I am lying on the dock at the lake in my new pink bikini. I weigh 123 pounds, and I’m pretty sure it’s the end of the world.

Last week, I was lying on the dock at 118, thinking “fifteen more pounds” because somewhere deep in my messy-sick brain I remember having heard my mother moan that she weighed 105 before she got pregnant with the twins, and I am determined to do her one better. I run my hand across my hipbone and glance down. I remember, achingly, how last week this bikini stretched taut over my hipbones, not touching my sunken-in stomach at all. Because my stomach was flat then. Because I was thin then, or closer to it. I’ve been slacking on the diet and the exercise, and I had that glass of chocolate milk at Mary’s and that frozen gas station cappucino when we stopped to gas up. I think of the fat in the tall glass of milk and swirl it together with the melted, congealed coffee drink. In my mind, I watch the mess turn yellow and curdled and disgusting, and glob on to my stomach and thighs. I remember the five pound blob of simluated fat my mother showed me at a Weight Watchers meeting. I want to cry.

I go into the lakehouse and call Joey again. He was supposed to meet me here an hour ago, but there is no sign of him yet. He is older, and beautiful, and exactly the kind of trouble I like. His mom ran off, and his dad is an alcoholic, so the six kids (three of them teenagers) are left alone for weeks at a time. He stays out late when the party isn’t at his house, and when it is at his house, which is most of the time, he doesn’t go to bed at all. I am sure he’s still asleep or nursing a hangover or out with Cory and Ryan. Or Kristi, who is a senior like him, and who has a reputation for being fast and who has smaller thighs than I.

This diet is unpleasant, but there is no denying that I am getting slimmer. Or I was, until now. I know all about plateaus -I grew up listening to the gospel of calorie counting and carbs – but a five -pound gain seems too heavy a price for the sin of one fatty drink. Well, two. And who knows what else I’ve forgotten. I’m lazy that way, always pretending I’m sticking to it but veering away at the slightest temptation. I can hear the sharp note in my mother’s voice, reminding me when we go over our food logs that she saw me eat a Hershey’s Kiss and I have to include everything, even little treats, or my calorie count won’t be accurate and I’ll never lose weight.

My life is a string of events for which I must lose weight. A dance. A boyfriend. A particular pair of jeans. When these hips, these thighs, this ass, bumped me from a size six to an eight, I was devastated. I sat in my closet and cried. I considered cutting the tag out of my jeans. I even mentioned it to my father, the psychiatrist, who is distant but loves nothing more than a chance to opine in sound bite on my mental state. “That’s sick, you know,” he says. “That is not a sign of healthy thinking.” But the conversation ends there.

***

Lying on the dock, I can smell my skin baking. I finally get bored. I think about calling him again, but decide against it. I don’t want to seem desperate, even though I’m crazy about him. I towel off the salt and call Mary. She’s going out to eat. My friends are wary of my discipline. “Wanna join or are you still on that crazy chicken-n-broccoli diet?” Mary teases, her voice commingling jealousy and meanness. The thought of being near food sickens me. “No thanks,” I say. “Joey’s coming to meet me here in a little bit anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” she says. “We’ll be at Godfathers chowing pizza.” The thought of cheese, greasy pepperoni, all those carbohydrates. My stomach grumbles and then turns. Weak. I remember the slice of pizza I ate this week. Garbage. That didn’t even make it into my food log. No wonder I’m a tub of lard.

I go back down to the dock and straighten my towel. My disgusting  fucking stomach flops out over my bikini and I can’t believe my mother let me buy it. Is she trying to humiliate me into losing weight? Maybe this was part of the plan.

I lie face down on the towel, imagining how strangers are probably staring at my cellulite. 123 pounds. That’s ridiculous. I have no restraint, no willpower, no pride in my appearance. I deserve to lie here and feel ashamed. A few hot tears leak from my eyes and drip down on to my sunglasses. I let them puddle there. “Toughen up,” I can imagine my mother saying. “This is the result of decisions you’ve made.” I vow to make better decisions.

I lie on the dock until the sun fades and my skin aches with dry and burn. Penance.

Joey doesn’t call me back.

I am absolutely certain I know why.

When you take your seat on the subway, or in an airplane, I don’t want to crowd you. I don’t want to press my body against yours, to force contact, to ooze into your space.

I don’t want to feel the hot insistent pressure of your thigh against mine, or the jostle of your shoulder as you fumble with your newspaper, your iPod, your purse. I don’t want to feel your elbow dig into my belly as you jockey for space.

I don’t want to be in your way. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I don’t want to TAKE UP SPACE.

Do you know how terrified fat people are of taking up space? Of moving, slow and huge, like glaciers, through a crowd of nimble forest animals? Of bumping someone with our “monstrous” asses? Of being wedged, uncomfortably, into too-small movie theatre seats and after that, having to clamp our thighs together and cross our arms over our chests for two hours to avoid encroaching upon our neighbor’s space?

I guess I can’t really can’t speak for all fat people. But I can speak for me. I am terrified of taking up space.

That’s why I don’t sit on the subway when there’s one seat (three quarters of a seat!) wedged between two normal or even small-sized people. That’s why I stop and let you pass, the two of you chatting arm in arm, hogging the sidewalk at twice my width and then glancing pityingly sideways when you see I’ve waited for you to go by. That’s why I request a window seat on the airplane… so that I can lean away from you, so that I won’t offend you with my bulk (or be noticed by a cranky flight attendant who’s just dying to power-trip and happens to hate fat people.)

And I’m sorry. I am sorry that I take up extra space.

But.

The thing is this: I’m not THAT much bigger than you.

I don’t take up two airplane seats. I can buckle that belt and put the armrests down just fine, thank you. I shouldn’t be kicked off an airplane, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be. I don’t take up two subway seats, either, OR the entirety of the sidewalk. I shouldn’t be subjected to dirty looks or pitying frowns, but that doesn’t mean I’m not.

I’m really not that much bigger than you are. I’m just an easier target.

It’s acceptable to publicly shame fat people. People don’t think twice about exchanging meaningful glances and raised eyebrows when I have to scoot past their table in a tiny New York restaurant. (For every person who thinks strippers don’t have ears, there’s one who thinks fat people don’t have eyeballs.) It’s fine to make a big show of squeezing past that huge guy on the stairs and saying “Ex-CUSE me” loudly, because he’s disgusting, his fat is disgusting, his size is disgusting. No one blames you for your impatience or your lack of decency. We’re all in agreement that fatso over there doesn’t deserve patience or decency.

And when you’re seventeen subway stops from home after a long day of work, it’s fine to slump against the subway pole and roll your eyes and glare at the fat bitch taking up a seat that she could share with you if she’d just lose seventy-five pounds. It’s also easy to squish yourself into a spot next to the fat bitch

(next to ME)

when I’m already sitting on a bench, my belongings stacked neatly on my lap. And you ever feel justified in sighing dramatically and re-adjusting in your seat every twelve seconds because you lack the elbow room to dig around in your giant fake designer bag.

I get it. You’ve been taught that it’s okay to hate fat people. And there’s no guilt, because we all know fat is unhealthy, and we all know that fat people could get rid of our fat, if we’d only get off our asses and take a walk every once in awhile. But we CHOOSE not to (because everyone knows that fat people don’t exercise, and that none of us ever struggle to lose weight!).

We all make choices. And this is a free country, dammit. Our forefathers laid down our lives so that we could Buy Things and Do Stuff and Be Normal. Normal is the American birthright*!

(*if you’re white, healthy and rich!)

But we the fatties, we’ve CHOSEN to be part of the leper colony. We signed up for this when we crammed all those Twinkies down our throats. We’ve failed you, and we’ve failed ourselves, and we’ve failed society in general, and it’s gone this way because we’re weak and lazy and stupid. And who doesn’t hate the weak and lazy and stupid, and what’s fat but the outward manifestation of those characteristics?

Except.

The people who told you that my fat is a failing on my part? They were lying.

The people who told you that fat is the same thing as weak and lazy and stupid? They were lying.

The people who told you that morality has a place in conversations about mass? They were lying, too.

And the people who told you my size is your business, that you have the god-given right to judge me based on my shape, my dimensions? Liars.

All of these people lying to you… about me.

It’s weird, right? It’s strange to think that someone would lie to you, about my body, about my shape? I mean, what’s the point?

The point is money. The point is power.

They lie because they wanted you to buy things.

They lie to you, about me, about what fat means, because they want you to be scared of becoming me.

They want you to feel loathing and disgust for what I am, because that creates a hole in you, and then they can promise to fill it with lip plumper and thigh cream and slippery-sexy women’s magazines.

They lie because it’s important to them that we live in perpetual suspicion that we are unlovable. And they lie about what fat means, about how fat people should be treated, because if they make it okay to treat fat women like dirt, it will motivate the hell out of you to scurry around and do whatever it takes – whatever they tell you it takes – to avoid becoming one of us.

They lie to you because they want you — they NEED you– to believe that it’s okay for women to turn and snap and gnaw on one another like ravenous wolves.

They lie to you because fear is a multi-billion dollar business.

They lie to you because they need their women starving.

They lie to you, they tell you that my fat is a failing, because they need you terrified, ALWAYS terrified, that you might become me.

So.

I am sorry that you believe being me would be so terrible. (It isn’t.)

I am sorry that we live in a world of small seats that get smaller every day.

I am sorry that the North American standard for public transit is on par with the way we might treat cattle on their way to slaughter.

And, yes, I am sorry for crowding you. I truly am. I hate it when others encroach upon my space, too. When I see that my size is inconveniencing someone else, it’s one of the only times that I wish I could instantly become smaller.

And I think, in those moments, about seriously trying to become smaller, about losing weight and avoiding this awkward set of situations entirely. I daydream about not being judged for my bulk, about never being glared at for my choice to sit or lean or move.

But in those moments, I can’t change my size. And I can’t change the tight quarters, either. So I make a choice. I try to avoid inconveniencing you in whatever way I CAN control.

You have a choice to make, too. You can choose to be polite and cooperative, and make the best of a situation that is uncomfortable for everyone. Or you can choose to act, out of ill temper, out of prejudice, out of fear, like I’m less than you. You can act like I’m unworthy of your regard or decency or respect.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, and the truth is this:

I am a human being who has a body, and I manage that body the absolute best way I know how.

I’m sorry they’ve made that so very easy for you to forget.

“Do you have to go?” asks J., glancing up from his computer. I nod. It’s way too late to cancel, and I know that once I get there, I won’t have time to worry about my head anyway.

I fret over what acts to pack. The Slipper Room crowd is notoriously distracted, but I still want to give them a good show. My headachey displeasure oozes over my perception of everything, and tonight, none of my acts seem any good at all. After I’ve worked myself halfway to tears rejecting everything in my repertoire, J. calls helpfully from the living room “Take the bug! Everyone loves the bug!”.

He’s right. The lightning bug act is consistently a crowd favorite. I’ve been waffling on because the costume is heavy and awkward to carry. But It’s one of my favorite acts to perform, and I decide to bring it, hoping it’ll lift my mood. Factoring in the blazing head pain and the fact that I only have one set of arms, my Caravan number is the obvious choice for my second act. One big, sparkly number with a pain-in-the-ass costume and one pretty, classic number with a sheer, sexy costume I could carry in a lunch box.

***

9:30pm. I shuffle into the Slip, a prop-laden sherpa, to find a respectable crowd. They’re buzzy, a little chilly but warming up. There’s a crackle of naughtiness in the air… everyone’s come out to booze in spite of the Snowpocalypse we’ve been warned against. Twenty-five “excuse me”s later, I’m stageside. I smile up at the go-go girl and push the red curtain aside to slip backstage.

Per usual, it’s hot and a little crowded. Backstage is warm and familiar, and full of people I love. Everyone air kisses hello so as not to ruin our drag. The stage lights are on, shooting colour-gel beams of heat into the space. There is a fine mist of glitter drifting through the rays of coloured light. Backstage feels magical, beautiful. Like being in a snow globe, but with more tits and swearing. The air smells like hairspray and girl.

“We’re not starting RIGHT at ten, are we?” I ask the host. He shakes his curly head of hair affably. “Have I told you you look FANTASTIC lately? Because you do.”

I shrug. “I’m in love.” He smiles. “I can tell.”

I am starting to feel better already.

***

10:35pm. I’m onstage, behind the curtain, waiting to close the first set. The audience is attentive tonight, enjoying the show and their secret hideaway away from the storm. They’re warm and happy, co-conspiratorial. I think, from the way they’ve been cheering, that they’re going to like the lightning bug act.

I turn to face the mirror for one last look-see. My right wing flops behind me annoyingly, and I make (yet another) mental note to replace the wings. The act allows for a sort of silly, discombobulated feel, but it’s still not fun to turn around to face the audience, smiling seductively, and then get whapped in the face with a giant fake bug wing.

Out front, I can hear the host lightly heckling a bald guy sitting in the front row, and he’s getting the laughs he wants. I fidget with the straps attaching the wings to my back, trying to secure them. In a fit of genius or insanity, I loop the loose wing strap into the heavy necklace I’m wearing. This prevents the wing from flopping around, but it pulls the necklace slightly tighter than is comfortable. I look back into the mirror. The overall effect is an improvement. I test it, moving around quickly. Every time the wing would have whapped me before, it now chokes me a little. Great.

I can hear the host ramping up to my introduction, so I get into position, swallowing hard against the pressure of the necklace against my neck. I will not, I think, forget to replace the bug wings after THIS. Onstage, the host stretches my name into seventeen syllables, and little sparkles of excitement electrify my skin. I forget all about my headache and my broken wing and the choking necklace. All that matters is right now, and the curtain is opening, and there are so many people, and all of their expectant energy comes right at me like a wave of heat, and I try to mirror it, to reflect it, to give them back everything they’re giving me, and then I hear them start to laugh at the silly opening image of my piece, and I know they’re with me, and it feels good, and I dance.

***

12:25am. One last glance in the mirror before my go-go set. I am wearing a sparkling befringed bra and booty shorts to match. The getup is lipstick pink, with spotlight sequins and zillions of layers of four-inch fringe. If someone made a Muppet version of Britney spears, this particular trim might be involved. Three sets in, my hair is sagging, and I feel like a bit of a mess, but the mirror tells me that the glamour is holding up okay from the outside. I tuck a peeking pastie back into my sparkling pink bra, unhook a stray sequin on my booty shorts from my fishnets, stick a few more bobby pins in my wig and pat another layer of glitter around my eye area. (When all else fails, apply more glitter.)

Some nights I love these go-go sets, and other nights I struggle with them. Go-go can make you feel vulnerable, strange, a bit helpless. It is different from doing an act, because it’s so much more about being LOOKED at than dazzling the crowd.  There’s no plot, no prop, no clever costume to keep you occupied. It’s not about being a smart stripper, or a personality. It’s just you, in your underwear, giving the wandering eye something to rest on between sets. And at the Slipper Room, like so many other venues in New York, the quarters are so tight that you can see the audience looking at you.

Most of the time, people don’t look very hard. They understand that you’re a distraction, something to look at, so they smile up vaguely between grabbing drinks, texting friends, flirting. Occasionally, the front rows are populated by besuited bachelors or giggly bachelorettes who’ve wandered in with only the vaguest sense what ‘burlesque’ might entail, and they’re desperate to engage the performers, to leave with glitter on their collars, to be part of the show. Sometimes, they are so kind and enthusiastic it surprises even me. They go out of their way to tip the go-go girls and the bartenders, they avoid touching you inappropriately, they say “Hey, great job!” when you come around with the tip bucket.

Of course, there are good bachelors and bad ones. The bad ones poke one another with sharp elbows all night, ask you your cup size to get a laugh from their friends, or have loud, blustering conversation about whether or not they’d fuck the girls onstage or not. (This is a problem presented by burlesque clubs that men in packs sometimes seem unprepared to deal with – I think they assume it’ll be like a strip club, where most to all of the girls performing can be counted upon to exist inside a culturally proscribed bubble of attractiveness. When they see girls that are ‘unusual’ in any way, they scramble like puppies toppling over one another to let their fellow Brads know whether or not they consider the girl onstage worthy of their sexual attention, or their (crushing, boys, truly crushing!) rejection.)

I have heard, from the go-go box: ‘What the fuck, dude? We paid money for this?”, “That chick is SIGNIFICANTLY overweight,” and (most eloquently) “NO FATTIES. DO NOT WANT.” I’ve seen guys make puke motions to their friends sitting literally three feet away from me.

I’ve also had the alpha male of the boy pack come up, tip me respectfully, and lean in to say “You are fucking gorgeous.” Once, a guy in a jersey came up to me with tears in his eyes and said “You look so much like my wife and she won’t let me see her naked anymore because she hates her body, and you have to tell me when you’re dancing again so I can bring her back here and show her how beautiful she is.” All this, on the go-go box, with sixties soul tunes blaring and people spilling cocktails and fucking around with their iPhones right next to the stage.

And then there are the girls. Like the guys, there are well-behaved and nasty ones. It can be amazing to watch women watching women… you get everything from the eye-rolling, superior “I could do THAT, and I’m skinnier” girls to the goofy-grinning nerdcore girls who GET it, who sparkle right along with you. You get the gorgeous, magazine-glossy girls with immaculate hair who tell you, either condescendingly or kindly, that you’re “Really great. Seriously.” (I can’t tell if they’re defensive and super-emphatic because they think I need extra encouragement, or because they presume that I have a petty fat girl’s dislike for beautiful, skinny women. In either case, I think they’re being supportive the best way they know how.) You get the big-chested girls who come up to you and say “Where do you buy your bras?”, and you get the girls who whisper behind their hands and point, as though it’s somehow more polite to tear a girl apart if you cover your mouth while doing so.

Really, it’s a crapshoot when it comes right down to it.

The host finishes up his post-set schtick, one of the girls grabs the tip bucket, and I position myself behind the curtain. I hear a jangling, infectious beat rev up. God Bless Momotaro. I whip the curtains apart dramatically, and I’m onstage.

A few girls from the bachelorette party in the corner recognize me, and raise their drinks and yell “Woooo!” in vague salute.  There’s a group of bachelors in the audience, too. From my earlier tip bucket encounter with them, they seem benevolent – totally stoked to be here and totally comfortable with my fat nudity. Right now, they’re crowding the bar, and I can see Scottie moving a bottle over a row of shot glasses. Hangovers for all.

For some reason, there are also a lot of big girls in the audience tonight. I watch them watch me with a mix of expressions. One looks mischevious… like she, too, might shake it in her underwear if dared. Another looks uncomfortable… is she comparing her body to mine, and deciding that she doesn’t like how either looks naked (or is she just thinking that last G&T wasn’t such a great idea? Impossible to tell.) Still another looks sheepishly pleased. She’s obviously out of her element… she’s practically blushing FOR me, but every time I catch her eye, she shimmies along with me slightly, doing a miniature chair dance in solidarity.

I get into my groove, and pretty soon it’s pure love. I can’t help smiling, and I’m sweating like a fiend, patting my forehead with my opera gloves to prevent the sweat from running down to my eyes, where it will not only sting like a bitch, but also unstick my fake lashes. Momo segues seamlessly into something slower, and then I’m teasing, moving languid, biting the fingertips of the gloves and tasting the slight salt of my sweat. Half the crowd’s watching and half the crowd isn’t, but I’m totally engaged, I’m totally here in this moment, and my headache is forgotten and those earlier feelings of fear and vulnerability… I’ve shaken them off like a dog in from the rain.

I look down at the sparkly pink bra, the thick sheen of glitter on my skin, and then back up at the crowd, the smiling faces and heads bobbing along to the beat, and I’m thinking that I’m just about the luckiest girl in the world, that I have the best life I could possibly have, that things just could not get any better than they are right now.

And then the big girl who’s been grooving along with me in her chair finally stands up, and she doesn’t seem embarrassed anymore… actually, she seems as proud and happy as I feel, and she boogies up to me, shaking her butt in a ridiculously cute way, and she sticks a twenty in my underwear, and then she leans in and says “You are AWESOME”.

And, once again, I’m proven wrong.

But sometimes… I’m not that lady.

Sometimes I’m just me, and sometimes me is too tired to engage people on body issues. Sometimes I’m having a bad body day and feeling sheepish and weak.  Sometimes, I buy other people’s body lies. I let their doubts and criticisms permeate my hard, glittering, jerk-repellant “I’m Glamorous” shell, and in those moments, I see me the way they see me. It’s almost never good.

But you know what? I’m not perfect. No one is. And if there’s one reason I write these entries, it’s that I believe that women HAVE to take back our relationships with our bodies. We have to create space to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly… the ambivalent body days and the stone-sure confident ones. The creepy-crawly under the rock moments and the triumphant victories.

This isn’t a victory story, but I’m going to tell it anyway, because the low moments are every bit as important and valid and real as the high.

So we begin…

***

In the first two years I lived in New York, I moved no less than six times. I found that “disposable” belongings were an absolute necessity for my nomadic lifestyle, and this made me an avid user of the Craigslist section headed “Free”. Even though I’m no longer moving with the frequency of a hermit crab, I still take a spin through the Free section every once in awhile to see if there’s anything fabulous there.

A few weeks ago, I came across a post from a former makeup artist offering a stash of makeup textbooks and a pile of unopened stage makeup. I contacted her to get the info. All the makeup was good stage brand, expensive stuff – Ben Nye, MAC Studio, Smashbox.

“Unopened”, she says in her soft voice, bought for “some thing that never went off”. (I got the impression that she’d poured a bunch of money into learning makeup artistry and then abandoned it. She seemed peeved, so I didn’t ask too many questions.)

“I have maybe fifteen lipsticks, all shades,” she said. “Contouring makeup, a bunch of shading wheels, some brow stuff and eyeshadow, some special effects makeup, and some things for building prosthetics.” I told her I’d pick the stuff up the next morning. She made me swear I’d bring a suitcase. “It’s a lot of stuff,” she said. “A LOT.”

At the appointed time, I pressed the buzzer at her Upper East Side apartment. She hadn’t mentioned that she lived on the fifth floor, and I found myself struggling up the flights of steep, crooked stairs (I live in a fifth-floor walk-up myself, but trying to navigate my suitcase up the uneven staircase was more effort than I’m used to.)

As I huffed my way up to the last set of stairs, I pushed my hair out of my face and looked up to see her standing there, with the door open, watching me ascend the final flight. She had a curious look on her face… a friendly smile masking something like discomfort or pity.

This is one of the awful things no one ever mentions about being fat – the pity. When you do things that would make MOST people struggle or sweat, judgment still rains down. Any visible exertion of effort is met with looks that mingle pity, empathy and disapproval. Sometimes, you can almost SEE them thinking it: “It must be hard to be so BIG. But she’s done it to herself -  how bad can I really feel?”

And yes, you know what? Sometimes it is hard being so big. But I’ve got plenty of thin friends who’d be a bit out of breath after climbing five flights of stairs carrying a large, awkward object. I’ve got plenty of thin friends, lacking muscle tone or a gym membership, who I could beat in a footrace if it came right down to it.

The woman at the top of the stairs was blonde, thin, and a bit older than I’d expected. “Marion,” she intoned in her cultivated voice, extending a hand to shake. Her carefully plucked eyebrows did a dance above her somber grey eyes. I was obviously not what she expected. I suppose she’d imagined another makeup artist wanting the stuff, or at the very least, someone interested in appearances. Those of you who know me know in real life know that I have two fashion modes: “drag” and “off”. I wasn’t wearing a scrap of makeup. All those imperfections… the things she’d been trained to buff and powder to invisibility. I felt immediately sorry that I hadn’t dolled up.

I introduced myself, giving her my birth name, not my performance name (it’s always a toss-up in new situations, but I tend to lean away from “Jezebel” with conservative types).  We walked into the apartment. It was huge, light-filled, and evinced a Marthaesque obsession with coordination of details, fixtures, and knobs. She gestured to the corner, where a pile of Alcone bags slumped shamefully.

“That’s the stuff,” she said, gesturing limply.

“Oh, GREAT!” I overenthused, trying to mask the fact that I was still catching my breath. I felt incredibly self-conscious. She watched me fumble the zipper on my suitcase with thick thumbs. I finally peeled the case open, and started moving the contents of the bags into the suitcase, mumbling about how great this was, trying to get out of this airless, antiseptic palace as quickly as possible.

“If you don’t mind my asking…” she paused for a long moment, as though she was uncertain about the tastefulness of what she was about to say, “What do you need this stuff for?”

And it was so crashingly obvious in that moment, the way she saw me. She couldn’t conceive of a set of circumstances in which I would need this outlandish, expensive stage makeup. As soon as she said it, I saw myself the way she saw me: big, slouchy, acne-scarred. No tailoring to the clothes, no makeup, no hairdo, no pride in personal appearance. A girl who can’t even walk up stairs without breaking a sweat. Lazy. Slovenly. Unattractive. Certainly, no one would HIRE that girl as a makeup artist, or book her as an actor. Surely, nobody would put that girl ONSTAGE.

And never mind that I’d darted to her place on my lunch break from a workplace where EVERYONE dresses down, never mind that it was the day after a late-night gig and I was lucky I’d managed to scrape the glitter off my face before passing out last night. All of that information was blotted out, and all I could think was what she was obviously thinking, which was “Disgusting.”

She was staring at me with arched brows, waiting for my answer, and I was frozen, clutching a bottle of spirit gum in one hand. My mind was blank. All that registered was her disgust for me. And then I did something I’ve never done before.

I said, “I have a few friends who are into burlesque and I thought they could use it.”

I disowned my passion, my career, my family. I have a few friends who are into burlesque?!? This is some Peter in the garden shit right here, people.

Her face brightened immediately. “Oh! Cabaret!” she said, clapping her hands together delightedly. “Well, they’ll have lots of use for this.” She was instantly, obviously more comfortable for having identified me as the fat friend of some prettier girls. Girls who deserved beautiful makeup.

Hot shame crept from my gut up my spine. I felt like I’d made an irrevocable mistake, the way you do when you say something to a lover in a bitter argument that you just don’t mean but can’t take back.

I fiddled with the items in the suitcase, looking down so that she wouldn’t see how red I’d gotten, and offering polite interjections like “Oh, really?” as she made small talk about god knows what. I didn’t hear a word of it.

I told myself that I’d lied because I didn’t want to get into a discussion about body size and burlesque with this woman, and that was TRUE. There is nothing more frustrating and time-consuming than having a conversation about how all sizes are beautiful when you’re not in the mood for it, or trying to explain the burlesque aesthetic to someone who thinks that pretty only comes in one mold.

But it’s also true that I lied because I didn’t want to watch disappointment and confusion register on her face when I told her that I was a stripper. And it’s also true that I lied because a part of me, in that moment, wasn’t sure that I DESERVED to be a glamour goddess. I wasn’t sure that I deserved all that glorious makeup, or that I deserved to be able to say with pride that people pay me to put on a beautiful face and take my clothes off in public. I didn’t think she’d believe it was true. In that moment, I only half-believed it myself.

Suddenly, I felt a little sick. I zipped the suitcase, mumbling something about getting back to work, and lurched to standing, lopsided because of the weight of the case. “Thanks again,” I said warmly, but I felt like an impostor.

“Of course,” she said, opening the door and shepherding me out. I set down the suitcase in the hall to adjust my grip on it. I saw her glance down at the suitcase, her eyes flicking quickly to the place where my pants cut in to my belly fat when I bend over. I stood back up as quickly as I could.

“All right then,” she said, by way of goodbye. And then the strange expression I’d seen on her face when I was climbing the stairs returned.

She said “There’s an elevator if you need it, you know.”

I nodded. I was so humiliated I didn’t think I could speak.

She nodded back, graciously, and closed her front door. I waited an eternity until the elevator doors closed around me.

And then I started to cry.

Mr. Mackey:

Thank you for taking an active interest in your employees’ health. You don’t have to do that, and the fact that you do rocks.

Fuck you for doing it in an unnecessarily complicated, invasive, judgmental way.

Thank you for encouraging your overweight or health-endangered workers to make conscious decisions about their habits.

Fuck you for attempting to shame them into making those changes by separating them from the “ideal” workers and punishing them for not already being healthy.

Thank you for taking a strong stance on encouraging your workers to get and remain smoke-free.

Fuck you for implying that smokers don’t deserve to get healthy food as cheaply as the non-smokers on your team do. (If you’re actually worried about your “Team’s” health, you’ll  discount your immune system support supplements and free-radical eradicating tonics for your smokers, or provide them with some stress-management support.)

Thank you for trying to raise awareness about the dangers of high blood pressure.

Fuck you for setting an impossible-for-many blood pressure standard. 110/70 isn’t “good” blood pressure. It’s excellent blood-pressure, and it’s the standard you’ve set for the highest-level “Platinum” beneficiaries of your new health incentives program. The problem is that that standard is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many adults of good to excellent health levels, to achieve. (Have you ever heard of white coat hypertension? When people are stressed, their blood pressure elevates. Some people are stressed by clinical settings. Just think of how many MORE will be stressed when they’re having blood pressure readings attached to their paychecks.)

Did you know that there’s some formidable research out there suggesting that certain ethnic groups are predisposed to hypertension? (Hope you don’t get sued!). Did you know that the body fat composition represented by BMI does not provide equivocal measures of healthfulness across races? Will you be considering whether or not someone is South East Asian (a group for which a BMI of 23, not 25, is the “overweight” threshold) when determining the level at which that employee should be rewarded?

Finally, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you for charging fat people MORE for their vegetables than those who are within the desired fitness levels. Do you actually think this will actually be helpful? Making people who want to lose weight feel dejected about that bunch of broccoli because their coworker pays 10% less for it than they do? You think that will motivate them, kickstart their weight loss? Don’t you think there’s also a pretty good chance it will just make them feel frustrated and shamed and misunderstood?

Fuck you for holding out a carrot that lots of people, for genetic, circumstantial or other reasons, simply will never be able to chomp.

Fuck you for going out of your way to argue that the new discount isn’t a “benefit”, like your current discount cards, but an “incentive”. So, you’re “incentivizing” the people who have already met your goal and refusing to offer the same incentive to the people whose improvement you most desire?

Fuck you for going so far as to say “In offering further discounts to Team Members who choose to participate, we take nothing away from team members who do not choose to do so – they still get the 20% store discount given to all eligible Team Members.”

This, Mr. Mackey, is where you are wrong, and where you are missing the point entirely.

You ARE taking something away.

What you are taking away from the team members whose health could improve is their even footing with the healthier members of your staff. You are handicapping the people who need your support the most.

You are also taking away their dignity. People who need to lose weight, who smoke, who have health problems – they’re already being castigated and punished in a hundred ways. You have set down a policy that moralizes about health and fat in a way that praises those already preaching the Gospel of Spinach and pushes down those who are still struggling to embrace it. By rewarding only those people who are ALREADY doing their part to keep your company’s health care costs down, you are sending a strong message to those who don’t meet the company’s standards for health that they have somehow failed you and the company, when the truth is the other way around.

You, John Mackey, have failed your employees.

Fuck you for wearing that failure like a halo.

If you care about your employees, you will rethink this approach. Hell, even if all you’re worried about is about keeping your company’s heathcare costs down (and I very much respect the fact that you addressed the financial motivations for the program in your letter to your employees) you will make significant changes to this plan.

If you genuinely want to see healthier employees, Mr. Mackey, here is what you will do. You will pen a polite letter of apology to your employees, explaining that you’ve realized that your program might not achieve your desired objectives as successfully as initially thought.

And then you take that 30% discount that you *were* only going to offer to people with BMIs of <24 who didn’t smoke and had perfect blood pressure, and you stick it to a set of low fat, high nutrient organic whole foods for ALL of your employees. You offer an across-the-board approach that doesn’t shame employees who want to improve their health or create arbitrary divisions and resentments among your Team Members. You offer a solution that puts the health “haves” and “have-nots” on the same team, where they can support one another, and work (privately!) toward their health goals.

Just imagine, someone with a “Platinum” BMI offering his recipes for preparing this month’s healthy discounted foods to someone with a BMI in the “No Discount For You” range! Imagine your employees, both fat and thin, learning together about the virtues and benefits of the foods your company sells. Imagine those employees talking with enthusiasm, on equal footing, about health and food and fitness… trading tips, asking questions, supporting and teaching one another because, for the first time, they’ve got a common health touchpoint. (Who cares if that touchpoint is aubergine?) Imagine your employees negotiating their own health struggles with dignity, and with encouragement and support from their employer. That might actually CHANGE something.

Of course, that only matters if change is what you’re actually after.

You move because of that feeling in your gut that you just have to. You move to New York because you saw Fame when you were five.

Or you move to New York so you don’t end up married to your high school boyfriend, who is the kindest person you have ever known, and who bores you to tears.

You move to New York so you don’t have to spend the rest of your life watching him be a great husband, a great father, a great everything you never wanted and couldn’t tell anyone, anyone, or anyone.

You move to New York because your father or your brother or your childhood best friend has sneered faggot curled-lipped at you for the last time.

Or you move to New York because it worked out okay for a friend. Because you got a job there. Because it’s the only place you can do the thing you most love to do.

You move to New York because your spine can’t shake the drag of that class ring across your cheek, because you can get a good job and wear the right clothes and buy a cool car, but to them, you’ll still be weird or ugly or fat or loose.

You move to New York because it feels like the fucking apocalypse is coming, and, even in this nerfed-out post-Giuliani playground for tit-sucking rich kids, you know you’re better off here than anywhere else, because beneath the organic food stores and RayBans there is still a coat of dirt slicking everything and i mean everything. Because beneath the air-controlled condominium surface, at its crust, this city still has a heartbeat, and it isn’t afraid of the apocalypse because, hell, it’s BEEN the apocalypse. We’re even on good terms with the roaches.

You move to New York so you don’t have to listen to your mother catalogue all the ways you’re turning into a whore. You move to New York because you kind of like the idea of whoredom.

You move to New York because life is shit-scary and you’d rather be shit-scared here than anywhere else.

You move to New York to be proven wrong.

You move to New York because your family sucks, or because they’re perfect and that makes you feel like you suck.

You move to New York to study with people you just recently learned were REAL and not gods who dance up and down the spines of your favorite books.

You move to New York because it looked pretty damn good in the movies, or because you’re sick of having tampons ink-bled with red marker tied to the slats of your locker.

You move to New York because cutting or puking or getting trashed is the only thing that reminds you you’re alive. You move to New York because all you can think is

“What’s so bad about owning up to the fact that shit hurts?”

You move to New York because here you have reasons to hurt. You move to a city where everybody hurts, where the rent breaks your back and the girls AND the boys break your heart. You move to a city where a million people have drawn the same breath you took right there on that corner, where a thousand people have cried on that park bench you cried on after that big fight. And you’ll never know anything about any of those people, about who they were or why they cried or how they came to be sitting on that park bench like you. Hell, it’s New York, they might’ve been dating the same asshole you were.

But you’ll never know that. You’ll just know that you’re adrift and you’re in pain, but fuck, so’s half the city, and knowing that doesn’t stop it from hurting,  but it does make the hot red buzz of it sting just a little less, doesn’t it?

And when your ass is numb from sitting wood-slatted and your eyes are puffy from ashamed-wiped tears, you’ll grab the huge satchel of shit you carry everywhere because you work three trains from home, and on your trudge to the F, you’ll see a homeless guy rocking himself to sleep in a doorway with what might be piss leaking from what might have been khakis and you’ll think it’s cold enough, he’ll probably die tonight if he doesn’t get indoors.

And maybe you’ll call 311, or maybe you won’t, but in either case, you’ll make it home eventually (even if the F is running on the G) and when you get there, you probably won’t do anything stupid like fall so deep down the rotten pit of your pain that you try to off yourself. And New York will be one of the reasons that doesn’t happen. Because this place is terrifying in its size and anonymity, but also in its possibility. Because whether you like it or not, it’s a new city on every corner, and what it was yesterday is not what it will be tomorrow, and living here, breathing here, walking here, this city forces you, day after day, to hold close two gems of knowledge: that life will go on, whether or not you choose to participate, and that there are things worth bracing against.

You move to New York because life is overwhelming and tough and confusing, and because here, you have a million chances to feel overwhelmed, to GET tough, to chip away at the confused.

You move to New York to live on top of strangers, to be uncomfortable and exhausted and challenged.

You move to New York because here, your deepest personal tragedy is a drop in a big filthy bucket full of tragedies. There’s one for every yellowgold rectangle lit up against a brownstone in the middle of the night. And your continued ability to breathe, to move, to get out of bed in the morning, it yanks you along and it denies you the luxury of wallowing, of standing still, because someone is getting on the subway car behind you, muttering and breathing cigarettestink on your neck, and someone else who’s younger and smarter and hungrier is vaulting towards your dream job, and your Metrocard has expired and you have to keep your shit together enough to fumble for change in your purse or you’re going to be stuck in Chinatown inhaling that fish rot smell til you die, or at least til it quits raining.

And even when your world is splintering around you, you cannot escape the inescapable here: that you are part of a wash, a thrum, a  never-ending, everchanging stream of people. You cannot escape the fact that nothing here ever ends, really. People bicker on the street, film crews commandeer city blocks, taxi drivers crush their horns, the light at the top of the Empire State building flicks off at twelve-oh-four, glass shatters, a woman screams, the city breathes and the chorus of car alarms jolts us to sleep so we can wrestle through the next day of trying to make it, of working too hard, of cramming our things into too-tight spaces, of getting fired, of getting fucked, of getting pissed on, both literally and figuratively, and of shrugging it off, because this is worth fighting for, because the unbelievable can and does happen here, because the awful and the sublime not only coexist in this gorgeous grotesque metropolis, but they cohabitate, they bicker and raise voices and throw glasses and then they hatefuck until it turns into making up, and when they’re sticky and flushed and exhausted and starving, they go out to dinner, at Balthazar in flush times and Odessa in slim.

You move to New York because you know it is home, because you feel alive here without a razor blade pressed to your inner thigh or a toothbrush down your throat.

You move to New York because the city, like you, is always rising, rising, rising at the same time that it’s burning down.

Speaking of type, have you seen Jezebel Express lately?  I know, most of you men out there are too fucking proud to admit what you really like—that middle-school era bullshit wherein you only admit to being hot for the girls that everyone else you know has already said—out loud, in the cafeteria—“she’s hot.”  And most of you women are too kindly—and/or fearful of judgment—to admit when someone is NOT hot.  Unless she’s bangin’ the boy you want, dig.  So let’s be honest:  Jezebel is a Whole Lotta Rosie, and she’s not making any apologies.  But she’s totally, totally hot.  I’d love to test my theory—show of hands versus secret ballot: men, would you like to roll around with Jezebel?  Discuss.  BTW, J.E. pulled a simple high-concept holiday strip: wrapping presents, she wrapped her own clothes.

I don’t consider this a negative review. It’s obviously meant to be complimentary. But I see this pattern over and over… people use my performance as a springboard for talking about size issues, and never get back around to talking or thinking about what I actually DO.

On the one hand, I’m glad that the reviewer points out that our cultural attitudes toward fat are really damaged. On the other hand, I’m disappointed that the review, ostensibly of my performance and the show, devolves into a discussion about whether people will secretly admit to wanting to fuck me.

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems a bit heavy-handed to state that you think a woman is attractive (even though she’s fat!)  and then encourage your readers to comment anonymously (because she’s fat and guys are easily embarrassed by liking fat women!) on whether or not they’d “do her” (even though she’s fat!)

We get it. I’m fat. AND hot. And…?

Depressingly, the commentary ends there.

In the review, I’m an example of someone “most men are too proud to admit they want”. The reviewer is very clear about that being THEIR problem, not mine. But you know when it becomes my problem? When the discussion about my onstage existence ignores my performance entirely and becomes a discussion about what it MEANS when a fat girl is attractive.

I will tell you what it means.

It means that the quality of my performance merits one comment for every eight comments I get about my size. It means that people act as though I’m especially brassy and brave for doing the exact same thing the other, thinner girls onstage do. It means that other people foist their politics (fat-positive or otherwise) onto me and make ill-founded assumptions about my motivations for doing the things I do. It means that people use my performance as a chance to broadcast their own views on fat.

It means that comments about my beauty will always be qualified, as in “BUT she’s totally, totally hot.” As in, everyone knows that being “A Whole Lotta Rosie” isn’t hot. It is culturally understood to be the antithesis of hot. BUT  – guess what?- I’m an exception. I’m the exception to the rule that big women are unattractive. I’m so much an exception, in fact, that I get two “totally”s before my “hot”, just in case people think the reviewer might be anything less than genuine. Lucky me. The part that’s unlucky for me is that the analysis often ends there. I get to be ‘A Fat Hottie’, and the rest of this baby is thrown out, so to speak, with the bathwater.

I do not want to be the exception. I do not want to be a cardboard prop in your discussions about size. And I’m sick of people missing the goddamn point of what I do. In that review, my act is literally a “BTW”. I’d chalk it up to one reporter’s misplaced focus on the ‘doability’ of performers, but this is something I run into a lot.

And, you know what? That reporter is right. I make no apologies for being who I am. But there are things I love about how my fat affects my performance, and there are things I hate, too. And I HATE knowing that for some people, the performance that I’ve worked so hard to create is much less important than my physical size.

In the last few years, I have performed the same acts +/- 40 pounds, I know that my performance doesn’t differ very much based on my weight… but the way people react to it changes substantially. The compliments and comments on the exact same act are very different when I’m in a “normal” size range than when I’m bigger. They’re certainly much more “on topic” as far as my act/ costuming/ presentation when I’m shaking it in a smaller body.

Don’t get me wrong – I do expect people to comment on and appraise my body at any weight. I take my clothes off under stage lights, and in doing so, I am asking people to think about my body. But it is both frustrating and disappointing to me that the conversation becomes increasingly one-note as the numbers on the scale go up.

My body is outside the North American beauty standard, and that makes it worth mentioning. But it’s not the only thing that’s worth mentioning, and when you “BTW” the rest of it, you’re shortchanging both of us.

The way his wrist felt heavy on my hipbone while we watched noir movies last night felt good, too. My big, soft body on the big soft bed – I felt solid, present, here.

I do not feel bad about my body today.

***

Last week, I stood up in front of twelve women of all ages, shapes and sizes. Women who’d shown up at a beginning burlesque class, who blinked nervously and asked “Do I wear high heels or sneakers?”. Women who smiled tentatively when I introduced myself as the instructor, and then more openly when I took off my coat to reveal my form-fitting dance clothes… maybe because I have hips, or because I remind them of their best friend, or because the fact that I’m standing there looking pretty damn sexy gives them permission to imagine that, even though they’re not stick-thin glamour girls, they might be sexy as well.

I stood in front of twelve women, and I taught them something about the art form that I love. (Someone in class is always surprised to learn that bump and grind isn’t just an R. Kelly song.) I gave them feather boas and demanded that they jiggle their butts. We laughed a lot.

And I told them some things I wish someone had told me.

I told them “This is the thing. Sexy isn’t about the number in the waistband of your pants. Sexy is about confidence, and self-respect.”

I told them “You don’t have to love everything about yourself. You just have to find the things you DO love and luxuriate in them – just dive right in and roll around like Scrooge McDuck with a pile of gold coins.”

I didn’t say everything I wanted to say with my mouth. I told them through my movement, and my jokes, and my smile.

With my hips, I told them “There’s no body that’s attractive to everyone. Somewhere out there there’s a guy who thinks the Victoria’s Secret girls look like scarecrows.”

With my breasts, I told them “Look, you’re a woman. This is the body you were given. Enjoy it.”

And with my smile, I told them “Lighten up. It’s a body. Everyone has one.”

And these women, they are intelligent and they are beautiful and they are brave. They are willing to show up at a studio and say “I want to learn to tease”, even though women are constantly threatened and shamed and blamed for teasing. They are willing to take the risk of feeling silly when they want to feel sexy. And, most miraculously, they are open to the possibility that they might be sexy, as is – without a haircut, without a makeover, without dieting- and that, in this world, in this time, in this place, THAT is bravery. That is a fuck-you to Cosmo, to our exes, to the people who dig a world full of holes for women and prey on us when we fall into them.

Being able to stand in front of women who dare to think they might be desirable is a privilege. Being able to tell them “You’re damn right you are” makes me about as happy as I can possibly be made.

***

When I got home, I let the front door slam because my arms were full of boas.

“How was class?” he called from the living room. And I said “Great,” because it was.

There was pasta burbling on the stove, thick chunks of tomato and onion lazing in a peppery marinara, and I realized that I was starving.

He said “What did you teach them?” and I said “That the size of your smile is more important than the size of your ass.”

And he smiled, and said “Awesome”, and leaned in to kiss my forehead absently, resting his fingertips on my hipbone for just a moment before moving past me to check the sauce.

Sometimes, my body is not a thing to be critiqued or objectified. Sometimes it is a moving, breathing demonstration of possibility. Sometimes, it is exactly what the situation calls for.

Today, I love the curve of my hip.

I hope tomorrow will be the same.