I want to talk about how the fat belly has become a reviled cultural object, in part, because it’s become a metaphorical representation of the refusal to discipline “base” instincts and non-empirical ways of knowing - that is, knowledge and behavior derived from “the gut.” 

I think the fear of fat bellies is connected to our cultural anxiety around trusting our “gut” - or instincts - because we have spent hundreds of years trying to suppress it culturally. More on that in a second.  

We obviously have actual guts (intestines and other viscera) inside our bodies, which you could easily find during a surgery or during a CT scan. When we colloquially refer to “trusting our gut,” however, we are talking about something we cannot measure or see. When we talk about the second kind of gut, we are talking about non-empirical knowledge or intuition. Somewhere along the way we as a culture began to locate that intuition within our gut - or belly. 

The fat belly, I think, becomes an outwardly visible "object" that represents an internal, invisible rebellion against a culture that values measurable outcomes and concrete ways of knowing.  

OMG! I bet you didn’t know your belly was doing all that. 

We live in a culture that expects us to suppress our “gut feelings” in favor of intellect and social mores. We also live in a culture that expects us to maintain a slender body - and a flat belly by extension. I see the anxiety around the size of a belly as connected to the anxiety around how much I allow “my gut” to determine what I choose to do - or not do - with my life. 

Following “my gut” often leads to me doing things that are frowned upon by respectable society. In fact, it was my intuitive sense that diet culture is unjust and violent that led me to stop dieting. My gut also led me to postponing marriage, becoming a feminist, leaving Christianity and all kinds of other things that girls aren’t supposed to do. 

If you know me you know that I’m ALWAYS talking about the universe, how my gut told me not to trust that one person that one time, ghosts, how I “had a feeling” that so and so was going to call me and they did, and all kinds of other stuff that places me firmly outside of the western narrative of progress or respectability. Girl, I’m Mexican. And Mexicans know that you shouldn’t trust no man who tells you to believe his books more than your own body. 

I’d like to talk about a time that I suppressed my gut in favor of "intellect." Ready? 

It’s 2010, and I’m in grad school. During the new student orientation, my gut hones in on someone who is the energetic equivalent of one enormous red flag made of tinier red flags that are made of tiny razors that carry tetanus. My gut immediately gives this girl the side-eye. As the orientation continues, however, I begin to throw the advice that my gut generously gave me to the wind. I’m a grown up grad student now, I thought! There was a lot of discussion from faculty about how important it is to be “collegial,” and presume that we are all working collaboratively. In short: that same old colonialist bullshit that lands people like me in Shitsville. My gut knew better, but now that I was in a fancy board room I decided to forsake her in the name of “success” and “self-improvement.” 

Well, girl. 

I won’t bore you with the gory details, but in short I made the wrong goddamn choice. 

Central to the building of an idea of western modernity was the notion that a superior species or race could be constructed through the denial and repression of our “primitive” instincts - for sex, food, love, fart jokes, etc. We can see the ripple effects of this violent history in modern day racism, sexism, classism and their love child - fatphobia. Dieting is all about the denial and repression of valuable instincts in the name of getting “exclusive” privileges meted out by the nation’s wealthy elite. 

This fear of actual bellies feels connected to this greater fear of our ability to access intuitive knowledge - or “gut” knowledge - and instincts. The impulse to force us to slim down is in many ways about the cultural terror of desire, the complexity of our own humanity, and what might happen if we actually (and metaphorically) just ate the damn cake. 

Ok, girl, time for a sandwich. 

xo

Today I think I made the best mental-health-in-the-Internet-age decision since deciding to de-install the Facebook app from my phone. 

I decided to permanently close the comments section on my blog. 

The decision was inspired by something that happened this morning. I realized I hadn't moderated my comments in a while, and I figured that I could tick something off the list for the day. So I got into the comment moderation section of my blog and saw dozens of comments on one post I had written on deciding to block this dude on Facebook because of a bad, unresolved feeling I had about our friendship a long time ago. Blocking people, last time I checked, is totally my (or anyone else's) prerogative. It is almost always harmless, and leads to the avoidance of unnecessary stress. And I'd guess that often the other person doesn't even notice that it's happened. Despite this relatively pacifist move, I managed to enrage about 3 dozen members of Reddit, where my blog had been re-posted, who invested in commenting through my comments interface (yes, they personally felt they had to come and e-lambast me when they could have just done it on Reddit). 

The consistent pathologizing tone of the comments was what disturbed me the most.

More than hurling epithets (though, yes, girl epithets were hurled) or commenting on my looks, these comments sought to destabilize my notion of reality, to position me as moronic, ill-equipped to handle the "real world," and entitled. Well, ok, maybe I'll grant the entitled part, though I tend to identify as "pretentious-light." 

More than anything I felt that these commentators sought to "put me in my place," arguing that I didn't have the right to block someone or have feelings about them. 

In short: totes weeeird, girl. And totes draining! 

The good news: 

These people absolutely inspired me to take care of my mental health! 

They made me realize something important: I need to invest only in the people who invest in me. People who aren't invested in me have no place in my comment section, my inbox, my thoughts, or my life. 

I realized that even though often I get super lovely comments from very supportive people (thanks lovely, supportive people!) that my time moderating comments could be better spent writing, reading, painting my toenails, contemplating my fat bitch takeover apocalypse, or otherwise investing in people (and pursuits) who nourish me. 

I'd looove to encourage you to invest only in the people who nourish you, the pursuits that make you feel stoked, and to have a conversation about stuff in person rather than online.

It's bye bye to comment moderation for this babe. 

xo,
Virgie