Tag Archives: Virginia

August 1, 2011 · 2:28 pm

Dreams DO Come True

*GMP article about age gaps, Ramen, and internet formulas is up, but I will tell you about it tomorrow.*

Boy, oh boy, today I am peeing-in-my-pants gleeful about this post. Do you remember Virginia who writes at Beauty Schooled and Never Say Diet? I wrote about her here, and here, and here. She covers beauty culture, body image, health news and all things fascinating with sharp wit and insightful commentary. I have a big, fat blogger crush on her.

Today, in things-I-have-been-wanting-to-say-forever, I’m guest blogging over at Beauty Schooled:

From my online profile

“I’m online dating (pause for commiserative laughter) and last week, I received a lovely note from a potential suitor. He addressed things we had in common, complimented various portions of my profile, and concluded with this: Anyways, you do not strike me as someone who is curvy…would be nice to chat soon. Wait…what? You were doing so well! Let me get this straight, based on a written profile, I do not “strike” this guy as “someone who is curvy.” Hmm… let’s investigate.”

Read the rest at Beauty Schooled!

Related Post: I wrote a body-positive guest post for Emilie’s blog I Came to Run.

Related Post: I totally agreed with Virginia on this No Skinnies Allowed yoga.

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June 19, 2011 · 1:46 pm

Sunday Scraps 15 (Special Hamptons Edition)

Note: Nothing is really special about this Sunday Scraps edition except that I’m writing it from the Hamptons… because I’m cool like that. More accurately, because I have cool friends who are willing to share.

1. COMICS: Artist Megan Rosalarian Gedris is examining gender in comic books with a neat little illustrator trick. She’s keeping the ridiculous costumes, but replacing the bodies of the sexed-up female superheroes with male counterparts just to see what happens.

2. LANGUAGE/BASEBALL: Letters of Note has this excellent memo from 1898 instructing players on inappropriate language. On the no-no list “you prick eating bastard.”

3. BOOKS: The Guardian has a list of the hundred best non-fiction books. I have read a mere five. Pathetic.

4. SEX: My adoration for Ariel Levy knows few bounds. I very much enjoyed her essay in Guernica about her two first times. It’s a meditation on the meaning of virginity and intimacy in this day and age.

5. BODY WORDS: Great post by Virginia at Never Say Diet about the word “fat” and its many connotations. When did an adjective that describes a figure become such a derogatory term for all things horrible?

6. GAY: From the NYT, fascinating account of an “ex-gay” who went from editing a gay magazine in San Francisco to Bible school in Wyoming.

Related Post: So few posts since last Sunday (secretaries, Biggest Loser, Detroit demolition etc), but such is life! Vacation trumps blogging!

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Filed under Art, Body Image, Books, Gender, Media, Really Good Writing by Other People, Sex

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May 19, 2011 · 3:37 pm

No Skinny Bitches Allowed

I love yoga.  Some other time, I will wax poetic about all the reasons I love yoga, but not today. Today is for talking about a very good point that Virginia at Beauty Schooled brought up yesterday in her iVillage column. She wrote about a yoga studio that only allows “larger bodied” yoga practitioners. Virginia quotes the founder as saying “”When I tell 120-pound people they can’t come, they get very offended, which I find fascinating.”

Walking into a yoga studio with a “No ________ Allowed” sign is fundamentally contrary to the spirit of the practice. Instead of speaking to body sensitivity, a policy like this demonstrates either a profound lack of imagination or extreme laziness on the part of the instructor.

Every week, in addition to my official “studio classes,” I take a class at work. We range from age 22 to 60-ish, estimated size 2 ballet bodies to estimated 24s, yoga newbies to Mr. Gumby’s. We have an awesome instructor who is able to teach a class that, per the feedback we’ve received, challenges everyone. She is constantly voicing modifications to make postures more accessible to those struggling, and adding extensions that are available to the more practiced crew.

I am a “larger bodied” yoga practitioner, and I am occasionally intimidated by the tiny flexible people in class. But this is not solved by telling the “skinny bitches’ to stay away. It’s ameliorated by focusing on advances in my practice, by recognizing the progress I am making, and by instructors designing complex classes that aren’t stratified by size.

I’m all in favor of extending the reach of yoga by creating atmospheres that encourage people of all shapes and sizes to participate. I’m just not okay with creating weight limits on either end or turning people away at the door. Yoga is about acceptance, body love, physical and emotional growth, and deriving energy from those around you. Size really has nothing to do with it.

Related Post: Tyra labels plus size women “fiercely real.” Does that mean that thin women are less real? Or less fierce?

Related Post: Words matter. “Curvy” vs. “full-figured” vs. “voluptuous” as relates to sex drive.

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April 14, 2011 · 6:21 pm

Shout Out to Never Say Diet

Beauty Schooled writer Virginia has been blogging at iVillage about fascinating things like the FDA’s potential calorie-counting measures and the taco-eating beauty queen.

Today, she’s collected stories about earliest “bad body” moments, when the good body/bad body was first called out. I participated with a story about a sales lady pointing out my “bubble butt” while shopping for a dress to wear to my friend’s Bat Mitzvah. I was 11, which I thought was quite young.  Reading some of the other stories, however, I now feel blessed to have made it that long before somebody told me there was something “wrong” with me (which there obviously isn’t).

Related Post: Embrace:Me entry featured on I Came to Run. Instead of butts, let’s talk about thighs.

Related Post: Rosie Says on Beauty Schooled‘s weekly feature, “Pretty Price Check”.

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