NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 18 + April PAD Challenge 2020 Day 18: The Happiest Days of our Lives

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Saturdays of youth

a precarious respite

a week of struggle

hearing messages of hate

that stuck forever with me

~cie~

NaPoWriMo: Write an ode to Saturdays

April PAD Challenge: Write a message poem

It's time to stop behaving as if the scars on the inside are trivial.

NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 13 + April PAD Challenge 2020 Day 13: Taking It Back

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

no I don't feel bad about

crawling out from beneath the crippling doubt

you try to crush me with your cruel words

to destroy the purpose within with attacks from without

no I don't feel bad about

stealing back the resolve you tried to snuff out

you've made it your purpose to keep me down

I've made it my purpose to present with clout

you won't hurt me anymore

I don't care about evening the score

you won't keep me subdued beneath your scorn

I find your diatribe a bore

I'm becoming more

than you bargained for

I'm not your punching bag

you're rotten to the core

you're empty, shallow, and weak

no more will I seek

your meaningless approval

with purpose I will forevermore speak

~cie~

NaPoWriMo: Write a non-apology for the things you've stolen

April PAD Challenge: Write a purpose poem

NaPoWriMo 2020 Catch-Up Day 10 + April PAD Challenge 2020 Catch-Up Day 10: The Word That Destroys

you

say it's

just a word

but

it's a 

word that destroys

you

don't need

to say it

what

do you

gain from it

keep

your hateful

thoughts to yourself

just

maybe the

problem is you

~cie~

NaPoWriMo: Write a Hay(na)ku

April PAD Challenge: Write a the (blank) that (blanked) poem. 

About Me Monday: Ornery and Sly: Stop the Bullying and Stigma

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Today isn't FOAD Thursday, but "The Biggest Dickweed" and anyone who supports it can FOAD every day. Please read about and sign the petition to stop this horrible, hateful garbage from being resurrected.

If you're one of these people who are so indoctrinated into diet culture (I was one of those people for 33 years, and it never made me thin, it just made me miserable) that you believe that shaming and bullying large people "for their own good" is a great idea, here are some key points refuting that belief.

This show caused so much harm to the health of contestants and viewers alike by perpetuating weight stigma. Since the show went off the air, we have research related to how weight stigma and yo-yo dieting actually harms people in larger bodies. Additionally, there is research from prior Biggest Loser contestants indicating long term negative effects:

Participants not only gained the weight back due to a slowing of the metabolism but that participants had increased leptin levels that cause extreme hunger: 
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

From The National Association of Eating Disorders:
“Weight stigma, also known as weight bias or weight-based discrimination, is discrimination or stereotyping based on a person's weight. Weight stigma can increase body dissatisfaction, a leading risk factor in the development of eating disorders.” 
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/weight-stigma

From Abby's Kitchen:
DANGEROUS SECRETS FROM THE BIGGEST LOSER & MY PETITION TO MAKE IT STOP
“A study published in the Journal of Obesity suggested that watching even one episode of the Biggest Loser increased hateful weight bias among viewers! This is particularly concerning to me when there are children watching, as it’s easy to sense and duplicate the disgust for fatness when they see it in their peers or even themselves."
https://www.abbeyskitchen.com/nutrition-dangerous-secrets-biggest-loser-my-petition-make-i/

From Today’s Dietitian:
January 2018 Issue

The Health Impact of Weight Stigma
By Carrie Dennett, MPH, RDN, CD
Today's Dietitian
Vol. 20, No. 1, P. 24

“The health risks of weight discrimination are consistent with the observed effects of racial discrimination.”

Being the target of weight stigma increases the risk of poor mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and eating disorders. These associations happen regardless of BMI, so it's unlikely that body weight itself is a cause.”

“Harrison says. "The majority of the clients I've treated for disordered eating cite bullying or shaming for their weight by parents, peers, coaches, or health care professionals as the initial trigger for their issues with food."
https://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/0118p24.shtml

My reason for signing the petition is this.

Promotion of size shaming and eating disorders does not equate with "health."

I have had an eating disorder since I was twelve years old. I was not fat at twelve, but I was so terrified of becoming fat that I became bulimic. 

I never felt direct hatred for fat people, but I saw the way that they were bullied and shamed. I was already the target of bullying. I couldn't bear the idea of the bullying being stepped up if I got fat. 

I am fat at this point. Not the "I feel fat" kind of fat. (By the way, "fat" is not a feeling.) I am really, genuinely, truly fat, and yes, I am "that" fat. My size, like everyone's size, results from a combination of factors. The first and most important factor in determining a person's body type is DNA. 

One of the waitresses I worked with at the job I had eighteen years ago was a tall, sturdy young woman. One time in the break room she ended up telling me about her sister, who was bulimic and anorexic. She told her sister: "we're big people. We come from a line of big people. It isn't natural for us to be skinny." 

So, which sister was the "healthier" of the two? The one who accepted the way she was built and went on with her life, or the one who was so obsessed with the idea of becoming thin that she was going to extremes to manipulate her body to a perceived point of acceptable slenderness?

By the way, health is not a measure of personal worth. I am not asking which of these sisters was more worthy of being treated with common decency. They are both worthy of that.

I had a very difficult time during this past holiday season. My feelings of self-worth plummeted to the depths. I ended up starving myself. I also ceased my daily walks. I didn't feel motivated to walk, and I felt as if everyone was staring at me and judging me. Also, walking can be painful for me. No, not because I'm fat. I was fat back when I was waitressing. I was fat when I was working as a nursing assistant and later as a nurse. These jobs contributed to the spinal problems I now have. So did engaging in behaviors consistent with orthorexia, such as spending five hours a day at the gym on my days off from work. My size did not.

I don't know how people can fathom that it's okay to say whatever they want to a big person. Okay, I actually know how it happens. It happens because larger people have been othered and dehumanized. One of our neighbors saw me having trouble shoveling the snow off the porch. He came over to help. In fairness, he wasn't trying to be cruel, and I think he is in the early stages of dementia. But this is what came to his mind, and what society has led him to think is perfectly okay to say.

"My wife was built like you. She was obese. But at least you're trying. She didn't try, so she died."

If you think that "obese" is a harmless word, think again. Obese is a shaming, othering, dehumanizing word which leads to people being denied proper health care and even basic respect. Obese is a word that kills people.

I'm fat. I'm not stupid. I know when I'm being condescended to. I know when I'm being looked down on. I know when I'm being othered.

Sometimes my bad attitude prevails and I let the middle finger fly and go on about my life.

Sometimes I get broken and relapse into unhealthy behaviors (starving myself) and self-loathing.

I got broken over this holiday season. I starved myself, and I stopped taking my walks because I felt like I was being watched and judged and the walks weren't bringing on the almighty WATE LOOZE!!11!!! Which, of course, is the only thing that matters.

I am getting back in the saddle and charging back into action on my very large horse.

So, if you're one of those people who thinks it's okay to behave badly towards me and others who look like me because we don't fit your criteria of beautiful or fuckable or because we don't fulfill your criteria of perfect "health"...

Let's face it. It's never really about health. 

You may expect that this is where I tell you to FOAD.

Actually, I'm going to ask you to read the words above mine again.

Then I'm going to ask you to go read these blogs.

Big Fat Science
Dances With Fat
Heavyweight Heart

If, after reading those blogs you still think it's fun to ridicule fat people or concern troll fat people or you still think The Biggest Dickweed is good wholesome entertainment for the family...

Then you can fuck off forever.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

The last diet you will ever need.
 

The Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp's Come As You Are Party + Inner Champion Workbook: Chapter 1

Every now and then in the course of reviewing books, I discover a book that genuinely surprises me. This book has been on my list of potential reviews for a while now and I kept shuffling it down the list because I thought it was a workout book. I finally read the description and discovered that it was a biography written by a person who has dealt with a fair number of challenges, so I thought I would give it a read.

The book surprised me again, as I discovered that there is a downloadable workbook to accompany the ebook. I am doing the exercises in the workbook and will share them with you along the way.

The first chapter requests that we recall two major events that influenced us during childhood and then poses these questions:

What is the lasting effect? Is that effect helping or hindering you? If it has hindered you, how can

you leave it in the past and move forward? If it has helped you, how can you tap into that source

of wisdom and strength during difficult times?

Childhood Event 1:

This may seem like a very "nothing" event to most people, but it reveals what an alien I was very early on. While my father (RIP) and I were walking on a rainy day when I was three years old, I saw a dead butterfly on the sidewalk. I don't remember having ever seen anything dead before. My father tried to explain to me about death and I was very upset. To my naive and stupid three-year-old mind, it was impossible to conceive that butterflies, which I loved so much, could die.

When we got home, my grandmother (RIP) was on the phone and my mother handed the phone to me to say hello. I wailed "poor butterfly!" in the poor woman's ear and ran to my bedroom to cry. I don't know when I stopped crying. I don't know if I ever accepted the fact that butterflies die. I became stoic about it because there was nothing that I could do to change it. 

What is the lasting effect?

My reaction to negative events that I have no power to change is stoicism.

Is that effect helping or hindering you?

It hurts me in the long run, but it helps me continue functioning. If I acknowledge my pain, it will break me. I do not think that there is a way to leave it in the past. It isn't like I have a lot of support. I have to do what I have to do.

Childhood event 2:

Again, this may seem like a "nothing" event to those who are made of sterner stuff. There was a group of kids that I played with when my family moved from New Mexico into the faculty housing at the School of Mines in Colorado where my father obtained his job as a professor. I really liked them and I wanted so much for them to like me back. One day as I was running down the hill from my house to see if they wanted to play, I saw them walking up to the old gravel pits behind the housing development without me.

I took a shortcut and got to the pits first. They found me sitting in one of the pits and asked what I was doing there. I said I'd been coming to see if they wanted to play, but I now knew that they weren't really my friends, and I got up and left.

They followed me because they didn't want to get in trouble with their parents for ditching me. They told me that they (the brother and sister pair) just wanted to play as a family. I pointed out that "Marty" wasn't part of their family. The brother said, "yes, but he lives next door, so he's like family. But we want to play with you now."

I really wanted to believe them, but after a short time, they said they wanted to go watch TV. I said I wanted to come too. The brother said that they wanted to watch a show that I wouldn't like.

I said I bet I would like it. He replied: "No, you wouldn't. It's called 'mentally retarded.'"

He then repeated the words "mentally retarded" very slowly and pointedly.

I realized at that moment that my friends were not my friends. 

I was bullied and ostracized at school as well.

What is the lasting effect? 

I don't trust people. In fact, I tend to push them away before they can hurt me.

Is that effect helping or hindering you? 

It has hindered me and has destroyed relationships.

If it has hindered you, how can you leave it in the past and move forward?

I probably can't. I tend to form only very superficial relationships with people so they can't hurt me. Whenever I like someone, I always expect that they're going to hurt me eventually.

Well, that was certainly cheerful! But it illustrates how you can use this book to help you along your path. 

If you pick up a copy of Behind the Muscle through the link above, I earn a small commission from Amazon.

Free Use image from Pixabay

Ornery Literary Services

Will work for links and tips

Carpe Diem Field of Flowers: Honeysuckle

I can remember

the smell of honeysuckle

New Mexico night

~Cie~

Notes:

I recently completed and am about to submit my manuscript for the Insecure Writers' Support Group anthology contest. The genre is middle-grade historical fantasy/action.

I normally write for adults. I find writing for youth extremely challenging. I ended up opting to write a lightly fictionalized autobiography of myself between childhood and my pre-teen years which centered around my imagination and the fantastical fiction genres which inspired me. In writing about myself I ended up opening a lot of pockets of unresolved grief.

The place I lived between the ages of four and nine was a semi-rural pocket in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where people could have small farms and keep chickens and such. We had a very large yard, a half-acre. Unfortunately, the house was in rather a shoddy condition and cockroaches the size of school buses had a tendency to get inside. The bugs are huge in New Mexico, and I was not keen on that. But I did love the little skinks and horned toads and such. We also had many beautiful plants around such as the honeysuckle vines, and the cicadas would sing us to sleep.

I was a very shy child and did not have many friends. The characters I met in fantasy worlds were my friends, as were my pets and the animals in our yard.

Although I was born in the Western United States and raised in the Southwest for a number of years, my parents were both from New York. When certain relatives would visit, they would ridicule my accent. A New Mexico accent is a bit of an off-Texas drawl. To this day, I bristle whenever anyone askes the seemingly innocent question: "where are you from?" To me, that question is loaded.

NaPoWriMo 2019: Day 4: Unwanted Girl

Image by lisa runnels from Pixabay

Will you ever leave

Me alone you damn

Stupid girl who I

Once happened to be

Why won't you be gone?

Why must you come

Back into my

Psyche why don't

You remain dead

Little girl

Zombie girl

Girl I was

Why don't 

You stay

Gone

~Cie~

Notes:

The NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a sad poem.

Come on, y'all, that isn't even a challenge! I write two kinds of poems: dark and silly.

The form I used is a diminishing hexagram.

I really wish I'd done the A to Z challenge on this blog this year because I'm crushing it!

Oh, one more thing.

The effects of abuse and bullying last a lifetime.

I learned to hate myself long ago.

I still have trouble tolerating myself, still hear the cruel words admonishing me that I'm ugly, stupid, unwanted, and will never amount to anything.

It isn't like I'm eighteen and just out of school.

I'm fifty-four and the setbacks I've had during the past few years only reinforce the belief that I am nothing.

Cheesy Cinema Review: The Christmas Chronicles Would Have Been Better Without the Side Order of Size Shaming

I may be a curmudgeon, but I'm not unrealistic. I expect holiday movies to be trope-laden and sappy. Unless you're watching Santa Slasher 666 or, as Beavis would say, a "Christmas Classic" starring such fine quality thespians as Tiny Johnson and Bob Scratchit, you can expect either barf-inducing heartwarming romantic drama or family-friendly drama probably involving cute but weird elves somewhere in the mix. Knowing these things, I steeled myself for whatever extra helping of syrupy sweetness might be lurking in the Christmas Chronicles to raise my blood sugar levels.
First, the positives. The kids are adorable and the young actors performing the parts of Katie and Teddy did a marvelous job. Kurt Russell really hits the mark as a slightly grouchy, no-nonsense Santa. However, I was dismayed by the amount of size shaming and diet culture promotion.
Had it happened only once, I would have rolled my eyes and moved on. However, it happened multiple times, including a scene where the sleigh hits a billboard advertising Coke products with the image of a portly Santa enjoying a Coke. Santa shouts: "take that, Fat Man!"
Shaking my damn head. Not only was the size shaming not necessary, but the levels of at the very least subconscious vehemence and hatred towards larger people was absolutely uncalled for. Also, do the writers really thinks that Santa is so vain that all he cares about is being perceived as slim and sexy? I honestly find such people quite a bore and I would hope that if Santa were real, he wouldn't be a self-centered dullard.
As a curmudgeonly adult, I found the size bashing dismal and enraging. I can only imagine how it would seem to a big kid watching that movie. The inherent message they will take away is not "family needs to stick together," but "fat is the very worst thing you can possibly be. Even Santa hates fat people."
Hollywood really needs to stop with the lame-ass fat jokes whenever they find themselves at a loss for comic relief. If you can't include larger people in your story in a positive way, at the very least don't include them just to make them the butt of mean-spirited "humor".
Every kid deserves to feel like he or she is okay just as he or she is all year 'round, but I feel that a positive, family-friendly holiday movie needs to take a bit of extra care to make sure they aren't alienating and shaming certain already stigmatized populations.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: The Effects of Bullying Last a Lifetime

A response to a post on "The Mighty."

I'm now almost 54 years old, but the bullying that I endured all through school still affects me to this day.  I have always felt that I was hideously ugly. If I'm completely analytical about my appearance, I'm actually fairly ordinary-looking, but when one lives in a society which has a very narrow view of beauty and constant bullying is added to that, one learns to loathe one's physical appearance. I honestly don't like it when people compliment me on anything because my initial thought is that they are just trying to get something out of me.

When I was in the third grade, I was sexually assaulted by two of my female classmates. I was too ashamed to say anything.  Later, a boy in that same class pinned me up against the wall and told me that he was going to kill me with his pocket knife. I wet my pants, and when I went to the school nurse, she laughed at me and told me that I was being silly. This boy was very popular, and he was never punished.

Throughout school, the bullying that I endured often had sexual overtones. There were horrible rumors that I would have sex with any boy who wanted it. In fact, I was so naive that I thought a "bl*w j*b" was blowing in someone's ear, and I wondered why anyone found that sexy.  Boys would often grab my breasts or buttocks. The adults never did anything about it. In one math class, the teacher was sitting right there while my classmates said things like "she plays with herself" and "she'd play with her t*ts if she had any." Up until I turned 18 and realized that my breasts tended to get in the way when I was doing things, I hated my "flat chest." I actually have rather average-sized breasts, not that anyone should be bullying someone with smaller than average breasts.

I have never enjoyed sex, but once I got into high school, I allowed my boyfriend to take my virginity. He dumped me after that, and I ended up in the mental hospital over the weekend with a slew of unkind doctors and nurses looking down their noses at me. One nurse even told me that I was a freak and I would never be normal. To this day, I'm proud of my sixteen-year-old self who told her: "better a freak than a b*tch like you." I don't know how I found the strength in me, but I stood up to those jerks, and I tried to be helpful to the other patients who were in there with me. My roommate was a woman in her 50's who was so severely anorexic that all her bones were showing. She had trouble voicing her needs, so I tried to be her voice.

Remembering these things makes tears of anger come to my eyes, but they won't last long because the message that crying is weak was so deeply internalized. I have a lot of trouble crying. I didn't cry after the deaths of some of my close relatives. I didn't cry when I had to have my beloved rescue cat put to sleep on his sixth birthday due to kidney failure. It's not that it didn't matter. I've never recovered from it. There's a gaping wound in my heart that will never be filled. I get accused of being cold and uncaring because I don't cry, but I simply can't. Crying was a weakness that my bullies would exploit, so I never let them see me cry.

I have major mental illnesses (type 2 bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder which manifests as hoarding objects, not animals.) Any coping skills I have with these diseases have been developed on my own. "Mental health professionals" have only tried to medicate me into normalcy even though I do not respond well to psych meds. They make me manic and psychotic. Family members offer wisdom like "just stop being like that," "just stop thinking like that," "just stop looking for attention," and "just act normal."

I have been completely unsuccessful in life, and, if it weren't for my son, the honest truth is that I would have been long gone. My life has been a series of loss and disappointments. With the psych conditions I have, it would have been an uphill battle anyway, but with the self-loathing I learned from being bullied all through school, the battle became impossible.  

When my diabetes worsened, I became unable to work the difficult jobs and long hours that I had always prided myself on being able to work. I am now living in poverty. If it weren't for my son, I'd be homeless. I do not have hope for things getting better.

Bullying destroys lives, but all I ever heard is that it was my fault that I was bullied, and if I would just "act normal" and "ignore it," I wouldn't "bring it on" myself.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 14: Not Your Fat Joke

If

I

were

me

sooner

than

I

believed I could be

Then I would have

Followed my dreams

And believed in myself

In spite of people telling me

That people who look like me

Are only allowed to be

The butt of jokes

Fuck that shit

I refuse to

Disappear

~Cie~

Note:

I wasn't quite sure how to do it, but I think I made the basic shape of a certain gesture 

The Cheese Grates It: The Not So Great Unfriending and Empathy Deficits

PERSONAL:

TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTION OF WEIGHT LOSS, SUICIDE 

I recently unfriended someone that I had been online friends with for 12 years. I encountered him through blogging and a mutual love of the horror genre. He was the coolest guy until his life became all about weight loss. Then the cracks started to show.

I tried to give him a break, even though I found him becoming more and more confrontational. He wasn't friendly anymore, but I hoped maybe the characteristics that made me like him in the first place would resurface.

 I never could be his weight loss cheerleader, and he seemed to resent that. He was always posting pictures of himself next to a pair of his old trousers, announcing how much weight he'd lost, and want people to stroke his ego. 

The only comment I ever made on one of his weight loss pictures was that I thought he was a cool guy regardless of what size he was. He went off on a tangent about how much better he felt and looked and so on. I tried to be sympathetic because I knew he'd gone this route because he'd been bullied, and I didn't blame him.

The straw that broke the camel's back was actually not about weight loss. I was doing my thing, trying to raise awareness and end stigma where suicide is concerned. He wrote this long comment about how he didn't feel sympathy for people who committed suicide, he felt sympathy for the people they left behind. He felt that people who commit suicide are weak and cowardly, and then he went on a tangent about how he had been bullied and molested but he forgave his abuser and he never committed suicide, so why could these people not do the same and realize that whatever higher power they believe in has put them here for a purpose.

And then he went on about how he has lost 368 pounds and his health is sooo much better (except it really isn't, he still has the same underlying issues, he's just thinner so he doesn't get the same ration of shit from the doctor anymore.) I had to hold back from saying "ah yes, your weight loss. Great. What do you want, a cookie? Oh, I'm sorry, that's probably not on your diet. So, I'll eat it for you."

I said that I was sorry that he had endured such a hard life and it was good that he was able to overcome his adversities, but everyone is not wired the same and I was distressed that he seemed so unable to muster any sort of sympathy for people who were unable to go on. I said that I did not feel that my cousin was a weak person for committing suicide after many years of fighting severe depression with no relief. I said that some people are better able to withstand adversity than others, for a variety of reasons. I then said that maybe he was somehow superior because he had come through adversity without attempting suicide, but that doesn't mean that people who aren't able to do so are lesser.

Initially, I didn't unfriend him, but then I realized that I always dreaded interacting with him since he began his "weight loss journey." After about an hour of deliberating (okay, wrestling with myself) I made the decision to cut ties with him. I told him that I felt no animosity towards him but I couldn't be friends with someone who could not muster the least bit of sympathy for people whose despair led them to a desperate act. 

I opened up about a gruesome suicide scene which was burned in my mind and gave me years of PTSD. I said I never hated the person who caused this memory. He was autistic, had brain damage from an incident where he was so severely beaten by his bullies that he nearly died, and had other serious mental health issues, including severe depression. This guy fought on as long and as hard as he could, but eventually, he couldn't anymore. I was angry at him for a time, yes. But I never for even a minute thought that he was weak or selfish or cowardly.

I've lost several people to suicide. I'm willing to realize that people are ignorant about this issue and to educate them, but when you express that much vehemence towards a person who was obviously in a great deal of psychological pain, there is too much of an empathy deficit, and I can't maintain a friendship with people who hold such beliefs.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

30 Days of De-Objectification: Wrap-Up

Sheriff Buford Pusser

December 12, 1937 - August 21, 1974

30 Days of De-Objectification:

Wrap-Up

Back in 1981, there was a television show called Walking Tall, which was inspired by the life of Sheriff Buford Pusser. The real-life Sheriff Pusser fought corruption in McNairy County, Tennessee. He was due to portray himself in the sequel to the 1973 film about his life, but died under mysterious circumstances in a single-car accident. Many people believe that his vehicle was sabotaged.

One of the lines in the theme song for the television show was “sometimes right hurts you more than wrong.”

I was struggling with a lot of issues at that point in my life. I was sixteen years old and far from popular. I gave in to peer pressure in several instances because I wanted to be liked. Still, I tried to make sure that my core values didn’t change. I didn’t join in bullying kids who were even less popular than I was. I did, however, do some things that I’m not proud of, mostly minor acts of vandalism on school property.

I also allowed boys to do things to me that I really didn’t want to do, because I wanted to feel loved. Instead, I ended up feeling even worse about myself.

I haven’t had an easy life, and I haven’t always done the right thing. I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons.

Many years later, the line from the theme song of that short-lived television program that I loved still sticks with me. I still try to live by it, even though I’ll probably always fall short.

Doing what’s right isn’t easy, especially when you’re young and wanting to be accepted.

Sometimes the “cool” thing is the wrong thing.

Some people act like it’s cool to belittle other people for aspects of their appearance, such as their size and the clothes they wear.

Those who belittle others to make themselves feel big tend to be extremely insecure. They take their own self-doubts out on others. These are hardly people that should be emulated.

It seems to me that some people join in the trend of expressing lewd and objectifying thoughts about people like actors and musicians because those individuals don’t seem real to them.

They are real, no matter how remote they may seem to be.

Most people do not like being objectified.

I would be extremely creeped out if I were to discover that someone had been writing graphic sexual fantasies about me and perhaps pairing me with one of my associates in these fantasies.

It seems very disrespectful to me to objectify anyone, let alone someone markedly older than myself.

I’ve found people who are a good deal older than me attractive. I couldn’t imagine implying that these men were fodder for sexual fantasies, let alone broadcasting such fantasies for public consumption.

Nobody should be thought of as only a sex object, and people who have become vulnerable due to infirmity should be afforded special consideration in this regard. I say this as a person who is experiencing deteriorating physical health myself. The last thing I want is for someone to look at me and see nothing but a thing to be masturbated over.

I am unsure how anyone could fail to see it as anything but incredibly insulting to look at a picture of a person who accomplished a great deal in their life, and instead of thinking “I really admire what this person was able to do,” the viewer of the photograph thinks: “Damn, he was hot! I want him to ram his rod up my coal chute like a runaway mine cart!”

I sometimes wonder if younger people have been taught the concept of putting themselves in another person’s shoes.

Would the people objectifying older and dead musicians like to have others objectifying them in the same way?

“Your accomplishments are meaningless. Only your genitals matter.”

That’s pretty disgusting.

I’m fairly sure everything I’ve written in this series has made not one damn bit of difference.

I wrote it anyway, because, if intent means anything, I’d like to think it made a difference on some level to the people being objectified.

I want them to know that their accomplishments matter more than their sex appeal to me.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

30 Days of De-Objectification: Elvis Presley

This chapter deviates slightly from the previous ones in this series in that I have not seen a great deal of recent objectification directed at Elvis Presley. However, Elvis has long been objectified and dehumanized, and, thus, I have chosen him for the subject of today’s post.

This is not intended to be an extensive history of Elvis Presley. There have been plenty of works devoted to the story of this most iconic individual. The nature of this piece is to point out the ways in which Elvis was exploited and to humanize him.

Elvis Aaron Presley was born January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi to Gladys and Vernon Presley. He was a shy young man blessed with musical talent. He was very close with his parents, particularly his mother. When Gladys passed away on August 14, 1958, Elvis suffered a nervous breakdown.

As Elvis’ popularity grew, his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, became more and more involved in both his business affairs and his personal life. Over time, Elvis became dependent on more and more medications, many to calm his nerves or give him the energy he needed to perform. While Elvis may have had underlying health issues, the multiple medications exacerbated them. He died from cardiac arrest on August 16, 1977. He was only 42 years old.

I was twelve years old when Elvis died. I was sitting in the chair at the orthodontist’s office when his passing was announced. Even at twelve, I thought that it was very sad that he had died at such a young age. He was a little over a year older than my father.

I realized even then that Elvis had come to be viewed as something other than human. Some people looked to him as a sort of demi-god. There were women who saw him as a perfect specimen of manhood. There were those who refused to believe that he was dead and convinced themselves that he had gone into hiding and would one day re-emerge to bring joy to a troubled world. 

Then there were those who viewed Elvis as an object of ridicule. He was in poor health and had put on quite a bit of weight before his passing. The medications Elvis was on probably had a great deal to do with his weight gain, but even if they didn’t, there is no excuse for ridiculing a person’s physique. It’s simply a shitty thing to do, and we all have a duty to reject this sort of bullying, belittling “humor.”

Although Elvis came to be viewed as a caricature in the eyes of the public, he was still a human being. Alice Cooper recalled the time that he met Elvis. To paraphrase what Alice said, Elvis seemed lonely. He really wanted Alice to stick around and just hang out with him. He didn’t have that sort of connection in his life. His popularity had become a prison for him. He had enough money to have anything he wanted, but all his money couldn’t buy the friendship he really needed.

 Behind every carefully cultivated and marketed image, there is a real human being. The image of Elvis Presley the Rock and Roll God is a costume. Elvis Presley the Person became lost behind that façade. He deserves to be remembered too.

With Love and Respect,

Cie

 Elvis for your listening pleasure: