Dating with an Othered Body/Online Dating

"... by the way, I don't think you're fat..."
"No, I am fat. What I think you mean is that I'm not one of those fat people, the dumb, lazy, smelly ones..."
"...I'm not usually interested in fat chicks, you should take it as a compliment..."

"pretty, for a fat girl"
"but you've got such a pretty face"

Gee, thanks, douches. I'm so happy that you've overcome the horror of my fat body to grace me with your attention. Finally, some fucking validation, amiright?.

One of this week's reading that I found interesting and slightly mind-blowing was Alan Han's I Think You’re the Smartest Race I've Ever Met: Racialised Economies of Queer Male Desire’. I'm not sure I can do their ideas justice, but I'll try anyway as the article I've just linked to is quite mind bending. Han argues that desire circulates in an economy of queer male desire, and that this economy is racialised through the cultural capital that whiteness possesses. Cultural capital can be broadly defined as attributes that people have (education, knowledge, appearance, style of dress) that provide them with power, upward social mobility and status. Han draws upon other critical race and whiteness studies writers to inform their argument, which I will try to summarise:

• the Australian national identity (which values 'a fair go', mate-ship and egalitarianism) serves to concurrently dispossess Aboriginal Australians of their own history and sovereignty and unifying and masking the heterogeneity of white (Anglo-Saxon, Scottish, Welsh, Anglo-Celt) history. This serves to claim Australia as a white possession. Aileen Moreton-Robertson, 2005  
• Whiteness is itself a possession that is inherited, as part of a system of privilege, that affords control of public/social spaces. Ghassan Hage, 1998
• White skin, along with other visible aspects of whiteness, has become a defining characteristic of free human-beings through the practices and effects of colonialism. Whiteness is itself valuable property and inalienable ie whiteness is always, and can not be other than, on top of the hierarchy in any situation. Cheryl Harris, 1993

Han argues that when queer white men say "I think you're the smartest race I've ever met" to Asian men, put "no Asians" on their online dating/fucking profiles, and claim "there are only a few white men
interested in the small Asian dick", they are masking their own whiteness-as-capital, claiming desire as a possession and dispossessing queer Asian men of desire and agency. They are claiming queer white men as both the object of desire and the only desiring subject.

I would (and am) arguing that the same cultural capital as a possession; dispossessing, inalienable property, is at play when non-fat people express sentiments like the ones at the top of this post. Here are some other, equally uplifting examples:

• Six reasons why you should date a fat girl
• plain-slim-girl-v-pretty-fat-girl

Some actually uplifting examples of the response:

• if he could get a hot girl why would he want a fat girl?
• ive heard stories of ugly ducklings

Being not-fat has cultural capital, and discourse around fat sexuality shows this. These comments dispossess fat people of desire, or agency, of being both the subject and object of desire. Non-fat bodies are claimed as the only desiring/desirable bodies that exist, let alone matter.
And now, a word from our tumblr sponsors:

queensassyofthefatties:

chickenleggz:

overly confident fat girls are extremely annoying  

It’s a good thing I’m not here for your acceptance or approval.

http://queensassyofthefatties.tumblr.com/post/46958549176/chickenleggz-overly-confident-fat-girls-are

Innocent Power

One of the readings from week three was Donna Haraway's chapter "Situated Knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective" from Simians, Cyborgs and Women: the Reinvention of Nature. The book is listed under both philosophy and zoology, depending on the lister. In the prescribed chapter, Haraway critiques and adds to ideas of objectivity in science, ultimately suggesting that the only real objectivity is that of situated knowledges and partial perspectives, going past the anthropological tradition of reflexivity and baring the position and biases of the questioner. I think the essay ought to be categorised as philosophy rather than science texts as I doubt their practicality, but still thoroughly enjoyed the reading and agreed with much of what Haraway wrote. 

One argument that struck me was the critique of 'Innocent Power' as a doctrine of objectivity, in which the subjugated is positioned as the most credible source, offering a clearer perspective with which to transform the world. Haraway argues that this is not the case, not least because such positions are in themselves "God-tricks... ways of being nowhere while claiming to see comprehensively", ending up being as un-locatable and unchallengeable as the positions they are supposed to be an alternative to. At around the same time as I read this piece, some major drama was going on within the computer tech community. Violet Blue is a well known sex-positive, feminist advocate and educator within the tech community, and the cancellation of her talk on harm minimisation, sex, drugs and partying at a conference was not taken well. The cancellation was pushed by The Ada Initiative, a feminist organisation supporting women in open source technology and culture, based on the name of the talk "sex +/- drugs: known vulns and exploits", which is understandable if the content and presenter of the talk wasn't known, and you thought that someone was for reals going to give a talk about how to date rape.
The responses:

• Violet Blue's post about it

• What the Ada Initiative had to say

• The hackers' responses (a selection)

The situation naturally has a fair bit of history (feminism is still fairly new in tech and has naturally had a lot of  backlash and hatred thrown in it's supporters direction), but has opened up a space for some necessary discussions to take place. What I found most interesting about the situation, is the innocent power afforded to the Ada Initiative, an organisation that seems to position itself as the only one representing 'women' and one that can not be questioned because of this. It is an example of the very "unlocatable, and so irresponsible, knowledge claims" that can not be called to account for their actions. Having decided that tech conferences shouldn't not have any "off-topic" talks, and only to mention sex or sexuality in specific ways and having published a guide for how to do this, uses the innocent (and real) power they wield to shut down anything that they decide is harmful to 'women'. It is this dictatorial power, and the use of 'women' as a monolithic identity with a fixed locus, that exemplifies Haraway's words: We do not want our world represented by innocent powers.

SJ
Oh, here is the same talk given at an earlier conference:

EDIT: Oops, no it isn't! I can't find the talk I'm writing about, but the talk on this page is interesting anyway and at least explains why a non-tech talk is being given by a non-tech presenter at tech confereences.