Chowing the Fat

I guess I'm going to have to start this post by confessing my love for Perez Hilton. For a long time, I'd suppressed any interest in celebrity gossip, but when I met my current lovethang, that faggy little tranny had a subscription to Us Weekly and was a regular visitor at PH, which gave me an excuse to check it out myself (I couldn't let him have all the fun). Anyhoo, while I hate that he's feeding into a national obsession that could easily be classified as (to say the least) unhealthy, and I think that some of the judgments he passes down are petty and perhaps unfair, I love that Perez himself is a kind of mockery of the ridiculousness that is celebrity. I also love him for what he is: a big faggy queer blogger. But what really won me over when I first started visiting his blog is the sweetness he posts about the wonderful magic that is Beth Ditto.

Self-indulgent, slightly stalker-ish bragging aside (I like to believe that when I saw her perform last year in DC, that it was my, slip-clad, gyrating titties that inspired her to dance right off the stage, straight at me, which would make for a better story if I hadn't panicked and stepped aside before she danced past, leaving me to wonder, forever, whether she might have indulged even the tamest version of one of my hottest femme fantasies, by rubbing up against me or something), I can't say enough about Beth Ditto or the Gossip. The music is bangin' and heart-felt and fresh--the Ditto herself a fierce queer feminist and fat activist. And, of course, hot as fuck. I'm especially excited about a few quotes from her recent interview with Spin Magazine:

On stripping onstage during shows, as a big girl:

"In the beginning, people were really uncomfortable with a big girl, so it was a radical political statement; and it's even more radical to not be objectified with your clothes off. Also, onstage, it's so hot we're dying. It just feels nice sometimes."

As a fat femme, I feel that my body at once scares and titillates (the degree to which it does each, depending I suppose on the inclinations of the observer/toucher) because it represents an appetite for two things--food and sex--an appetite that, in spite of the life-affirming wholesome nature of these things, has been vilified throughout history, and is particularly squashed by our fucked up media, and especially so for women. We're only supposed to eat to fulfill our nutritional needs, and by the looks of the women our society admires, maybe a little less--and we're only supposed to want to want to fuck to please, which is not altogether a bad thing to want to do, but nevertheless, if we're limited to it, well, it's ridiculously unfair.

Even a desire to warm or cool the body is judged, particularly, again, for women--one of my collage mentors once told me how she loved hot, muggy weather, and that I only didn't because I bought into society's idea that sweat is gross. And while I would say that some just really don't like the heat, I would confess to having felt unfeminine and rather disgusting on many an unreasonably humid day in New York and DC. Which is ridiculous--everybody sweats. But imagine if I'd stripped off my jersey-knit dress and continued striding down the sidewalk in my heels? How many construction workers would I have to tell to fuck off, because they felt entitled to express their fear and frustration by demeaning and harassing me? And yet, a man can sweat and ditch his shirt w/o trouble. At least, a bio-man could. A tranny, like my sweet thang? Not so much.

On Britney Spears (but in a roundabout way, on food politics)

"She's from Louisiana, I'm from Arkansas. When I go home, guess what's in those baby bottles? Mountain Dew. I'm not saying it's right, but it's just normal. People fail to see that regional culture is a massive part of a person's experience."

Now, I don't remember what my loving mom put into my baby bottle, but I do recall that we drank an awful lot of Coke when I was a little girl, and that there weren't a lot of vegetables or spices laying around the house. We weren't poor--in fact, my dad made enough as a railroad brakeman to make us think we were middle class, a mistake that keeps folks from recognizing that we're getting fucked right along with the poor, which in turn keeps us from revolting--but I'm getting off-track. The fact of the matter is that where you grow up, as the brilliant Miss Ditto points out, is part of what makes you who you are and greatly influences what you eat (or feed your kids). But the culture of Mountain Dew baby bottles, like the culture of teenage pregnancy, is a result of societal and governmental systems that are at once unhealthy and unfair, particularly for the poor, making it cheaper to fill up on Twinkies than salad (and much easier to talk to some Bible-thumping anti-abortion activist than get your coochie examined).

It's tricky to talk about this stuff--investigation and understanding leads to blame, and blame should be placed, but without losing one's sense of pride--I want everyone to have access to good healthy food, but I want to be able to say so as a proud, hot, fat femme. I also want to be able to strip down when it's hot without being hassled, but I also want to do so as a proud, hot, fat femme. It's tricky, but Beth Ditto pulls it off like it's simple, which is probably why I can't decide whether I want to do her or be her...which is why, I guess, it's better that I just sing her praises from out here in the Charm.