When I was blogging under a pseudonym I did not have to do certain calculations, ask certain questions. Questions like, “Will this reflect poorly on me professionally?” If I came across something particularly enraging, for example, I could let fly with whatever – ahem – strongly worded, energetic, expressive prose might come to mind.

Not so here. So I shall try to be measured! And reasonable! Sober, and thoughtful, and professional. I shall use my polite words. I shall even try to use my inside voice.

This? Is vile, hateful, sanctimonious, and bigoted.

Oh, but let’s all watch as the mulm floats slowly, slowly to the bottom of the tank, shall we?

Today, I had lunch with a friend at Old Country Buffet. I ate more than I needed to, but less than I could have, resulting in a satisfied, not bloated sensation. As I negotiated my way back and forth between the food bars and my seat, I noted the morbidly obese appearance of some of the other patrons. And I thought about gluttony.

“I was at a restaurant! Eating! As one does, in a restaurant! And there were other people in there too, who were also eating the same buffet as I was! The difference, though, was that THEY have ICKY BODIES, as defined by me. Ergo, I’m allowed to go to Old Country Buffet and eat to fullness, but not they! If they eat in public, they may EAT ONLY SALAD. And don’t even THINK I won’t be checking, yo. I will be coming around with my salad inspector goggles, Missys and Misters! For I have no bloated feeling, and this keeps me light on my feet and ready for action!”

To quote the ever-quotable Snarky’s Machine: “Ab dab dab [holds up hand] Stop right there.” Dude, seriously? I mean, like, you say that out loud and everything? ‘Kay, well, couple things.

First, I’m not sure if you noticed, but… um, you seem to be under the misapprehension that people’s bodies in public spaces are any of your beeswax? Ha ha! Easy mistake, but even easier to clear up. If you can’t even manage to go to a restaurant without leering at the other patrons’ bodies and musing about your own moral superiority, the problem is with you. All better? Awesome.

Now, onto a subsidiary point: I must confess I’m a little confused about the precise nature of your sanctimony. Is it that you think you’re owed an experience of public space in which there’s nobody who strikes you as icky, inferior, or off-putting? (In which case, why stop at fat people? That’s so mainstream, Mr. Organic Fruits and Vegetables. STEP IT UP. For there is a long and proud history in this country of childishly insisting, in the name of rugged individualism, that one should never have to spend thirty seconds being decent to someone who does not meet one’s own moral or aesthetic or socioeconomic or cultural standards. Why not insist that you’re also owed a 24/7 experience of good-smelling able-bodied adults with good morals and proper grammar, who laugh at all your jokes, catch all your cultural references, and basically only do things that you personally like? Old Spice Guy! Only the Old Spice Guy is now allowed at the Old Country Buffet. Well, him, and this Mennonite farmer. BUT THAT’S IT.)

Or is it actually quite the opposite: do you in fact rely on there being plenty of icky, inferior, off-putting people around as foils for your own la-la-la-happy-wholesome-square-dance-good-good-goody-goodness? Is it actually the case that, if there weren’t a bunch of moral reprobates around to feel superior to, you wouldn’t have any idea what to do with yourself?

I ask because, see, there’s also this bit:

I always feel uneasy eating at a buffet-style restaurant. Their very existence seems an invitation to gluttony—both in personal diet and in wasteful consumption of natural resources. But then, one could say the same thing of bars. Their very existence tends to enable the alcoholism of a portion of their customer base. The fact of the matter is that people who lack self control are often enabled in their addictions by buffets and bars. But at least bars often have a policy of not serving obviously inebriated people. Buffets will let you eat until you explode.

Okay, but… SURELY you must be aware that buffet patronage is NOT ACTUALLY REQUIRED BY PENNSYLVANIA LAW. You need not go to a buffet! No one will force you! God bless America! In fact, you need not go to any commercial establishment that reliably makes you feel uneasy! I know this because there are commercial establishments which make me uneasy, and what I do is, I try to avoid going in them if I can. It’s a really good system.

I mean, true, if it’s a deal where your whole family has a standing tradition of going to Old Country Buffet, and you said “I can’t go anymore because the strangers’ bodies whom I leer at just MAKE ME SO UNEASY. And also there is just SO MUCH FOOD available that I’m scared somebody might go in there and devour the world!”… well, yeah, there might be some social costs. But there are often social costs to setting boundaries and making choices based on what we like and feel comfortable with.

And yet you persist, evidently, going into Old Country Buffet to leer at the gluttonous sinners. Because… you don’t hear them condemned enough at church! Oh, indeed, churches should really get more into the business of condemning and shaming groups of bad people.

As I contemplated the commonplace nature of obesity in South Central PA, and its prevalence among Christians and non-Christians alike, I remembered something about gluttony being one of the seven deadly sins. And then it hit me like a T-bone steak through my TV screen—that’s right up there with lust on the list of deadly sins. Here we were, slothfully chowing away in the richest nation in the world, in a mall a few doors down from Excitement Video, where we could later amble over to engage in yet another deadly sin if we so desired. But only one of those deadly sins would get us in any trouble at church.

Some questions:
1. Why does a Mennonite invest any special importance in the seven deadly sins?
2. What’s with the steak in your TV set?
3. Have you considered a career giving moral depravity tours? I mean, you know, people could pay you and then you could take them around in a tram and show them all the horrid folks who are doing things not precisely in the manner that you like. This seems to be an interest of yours; why not monetize it?
4. On what planet do you spend most of your time, that you do not hear fat people getting condemned enough, and you don’t find food to be enough of a proving ground for moral purity? Food is the new sex: a realm wherein, by exercising the TIGHTEST POSSIBLE CONTROL, even if necessary subsuming your entire life and all your relationships to this need for control in this ONE AREA, you can turn out to have been Good and Pure and Good Good Good. Of course, you may entirely forget, in the process, to actually care about other human beings… but meh to them, right?

All of that brings me to a reiteration: This blog is a fat-positive space. You don’t have to believe as I do, but neither am I required to provide a forum for any comment that says anything like “Ew, fat!!!” or “Ew, MY fat!!!” or “Health health health and also ew fat!!!”

Fatphobia is, among other things, a socially acceptable way for certain well-off crunchy fauxgressive white people (though not only them, of course) to be classist, sexist, racist, and ableist.

Also, no matter the collective snit we may whip ourselves into about the Obesity Epipanic, the fact remains: there is STILL no good and demonstrated and reliable and safe way to turn fat people into thin people, any more than there’s a good and demonstrated and reliable and safe way to turn thin people into fat people. AND EVEN IF THERE WERE, you STILL DO NOT GET TO LEER AT OTHER PEOPLE’S BODIES, SAY “EW,” AND THEN CONGRATULATE YOURSELF FOR YOUR HIGH MORALS. Other people, in public spaces, are not your foils, and nobody’s wronging you by being fat at you.

And if you whine about having to pay more because of the health risks associated with obesity… well, take a good long look in the mirror there, bub. Do you go skiing? Do you run marathons? Do you not get enough sleep? Are you male? Tsk tsk, don’t you know there are INCREASED HEALTH RISKS associated with all those things? Why do you hate public health, you selfish egomaniac?

Well, I mostly used my inside voice.