#desirability

[blckgirlacid]

I've been fat and black my whole life, I've long since made peace with not being a lot of folks preferences. I'm still loved. I'm still wanted. I'm still desired.

[hellyeahscarleteen]

There are so many messages out there that tell you that you need to be thin in order to be attractive or desirable. You’ve probably been told at some point that if you lose weight, your peers will look at you in a whole different light. This is all based on the idea that being thin is always better than being fat and that you can change your body at will. But in reality, 95% of diets fail. Trying to force your body to become a size that it isn’t is probably not going to work and in fact, may cause you to gain more weight (or stay the same weight and become unhealthy). So get rid of (or limit your exposure to) the unhealthy people, magazines, TV shows, and influences that are telling you that your fatness is a problem.

Erin McKelle, Navigating Sexuality As A Fat Teen

[spite-recoining]

desirpermasleepy & dissopermsleepy

desirpermasleepy: a desirdae term for when one wants / yearns / desires / feels like they should be permanently sleepy in some way

dissopermsleepy: a dissodic term that refers to a disconnect one feels, making them feel they are, or should be, permanently sleepy

recoining of: (tumblr, pinterest- the pinterest flag was too annoying so i found another one)

these terms are strictly anti-radqueer and anti-harmful transition!

tagging: @radiomogai @new-desirdaearchive @dissodic-archive @io-innerself

[bideogaymes]

i really loved the vulnerability and honesty with the thoughts and questions he’s exploring here. (i do side eye his use of “diet” as a convenient way to sidestep naming he’s looking for slim/skinny Black women, instead of just naming the fatphobia for what it is, but he’s not perfect and working through this out loud.) imo, this is kind of “programmed” into Black American people (& non-Black American people outside of our communities); these anti-Black/anti-Black American classist stereotypes we’re all either taught to look down on, be ashamed of, or avoid. it works in the way the notion of “Black Excellence™️” (the modern age Talented 10th) is strived for, just to condition professionally skilled Black youth and elders to extract their knowledge and gained resources outside our own communities, ours who would collectively benefit from their contributions the most.

I’ve dated outside my ethnic community before and have had crushes on nonblack and mixed people too, i still do, but as i grew up, and became cognizant of antiblackness as a system of marginalization and extraction, it made me more critical of the nature of my own attractions, or lack thereof. so, if in the end, this is what these dominant systems built on cis hetero white supremacy, misogynoir, capitalism, and exceptionalism coerce me and other Black people to do, how much of that is genuinely organic attraction/desire vs what has been conditioned into us to pursue?

Loving v. Virginia wasn’t exceptional, it was an inevitability and an uncovering of the salacious truth that White America wanted to kept swept under the rug to maintain the illusion of whiteness as a superior distinction against the lesser, animal Black person, that miscegenation had always been happening up until that point, just more often by force with no enforceable consequences for the white bodies involved, & continued objectification of the Black bodies being criminalized and consumed. The children of these pairings often being hidden, killed, or elevated. (The irony of this is we all know white people have a reputation throughout history for laying with and being attracted to animals, so them labeling us as such just adds to inevitability of this whole charade that whiteness is dependent upon.)

if you look at all the places the Black diaspora resides, especially in places with close proximity to the groups slave trafficking or colonizing us, through blanqueamiento, half-castes, creole, colored, and mulattos, etc. & their descendants have always been the goal. this the “kindness” white supremacy had devised for “solving the problem of the Black race”, where these mixed race populations serve as the positive potentiality of what Blackness should aspire to, & further function as a buffer/enforcer class, maintaining white superiority & extraction via mixed race people as an elevated racial class.

these are not happy accidents & incidental love stories like hegemony & their benefactors like to portray, there’s systems behind desire bc they aren’t shaped in vacuums devoid of context or social control. these thoughts are worth examining within the self and in others.

there’s definitely a deep, entrenched, unchecked classist bias involved in the consideration of Black American people, within our communities or outside it, as potential viable romantic partners. with wealth disparities being more stark than ever, it’s only getting more difficult to navigate a distinctly antisocial, antiblack, trans/misogynoiristic, homo/lesbophobic, ableist, fatphobic, colorist, classist dating scene for Black individuals.

these are some comments on the video from other Black people i really liked or made me consider further:

[ezraipsum]

Desirability: Do You Really Love Fat People When You Can’t Even See Us Beyond The Political? (2019) - Fat Liberation Archive

Our bodies take up more space than the world ever makes for us, yet desirability finds a way to keep us out. By Da'Shaun Harrison, from Wear

this is such a crucial read

[devonda81]

Why Black Girls Love Olandria

[laur3lbutch]

i'm so tired of people immediately counting me out as a romantic partner because i'm a fat black person. like before they even get to know me i'm just already not an option. not even worthy of being thought of in that manner.

and it's not even conscious, all the time. the media we consume and the jokes we all heard growing up created the underlying thought process that leads to fat people of color being demeaned, dehumanized, and desexualized (or in some cases, hypersexualized). when i read Zeba Blay's Carefree Black Girls, she had an essay talking about the fat black bff in sitcoms. and it really hit home.

i'm almost certain i wouldn't have as many problems getting dates or being flirted with if i were thin and white. the same barriers just aren't there when you fit into a privileged category. don't get me wrong: i do not want to be white, and i do not want to be thin. i just want to stop having these problems because i'm sick of it.

especially when i know i'm lovable and attractive. but so many people have treated me otherwise. for my entire life. it's hard not to backslide into hating my body, the way i did when i was younger