The Truth About Fat Activism: Fat Satan, and Segways made of cake
I have a devastating reality to share with all of you. This will be painful, but we will get though it together.
It’s about fat acceptance. You know, all that bullshit about how diets don’t work, and self love, and intuitive eating, and being healthy regardless of weight? Yeah, it’s all an elaborate ruse. And I am here today to rip down the shimmering curtain hiding the truth and expose fat acceptance for what it really, really is.
In fact: fat acceptance is a masquerade, a blind for the true purpose of all fat activists - the purpose that rules us all, that finds us and brings us all and in the darkness… um. You get the general notion. Fat activism is, in reality, a secret fraternal organization of like-minded individuals with one unerring mission in life. I will rip apart the hideous web of lies surrounding this terrible secret and foist the reality upon the world even as it screams and blocks its ears and screws its eyes shut in horror!
The hidden true purpose of fat activism, the secret club to which we have all sworn a blood oath, is…
Scoring souls for Fat Satan.
That’s right. FAT SATAN.
“But Lesley,” I hear some of my readers sheepishly inquire, “I have never heard of this before. Who is Fat Satan?” Ah, it has been Fat Satan’s will that he should remain unknown to you until now. But I shall tell you. Fat Satan is the evil deity to whom all fat activists heartily pledge their undying loyalty. Fat Satan is bubbling gaily at the bottom of every glass of full-sugar soda being imbibed by an innocent child. Fat Satan smiles darkly every time a fat-punishing gym rat thinks, oh, I am so tired, I will skip Advanced Misery Thigh-Shredding Step Aerobics III today. Fat Satan lives in a castle made entirely of butter rendered from the fat that Oprah Winfrey has gained and lost over the years. Fat Satan’s beady eyes gleam with delight at improved plus-size shopping options, because - of course! - every new plus size clothing line makes it Totally And Universally Okay to be fat, and wipes away all existing cultural body standards with a majestic sweep of overpriced polyester hems.
You are dubious, dear readers. I know. I can sense your discomfort. You are worried that I’ve lost my mind. But Fat Satan is real. Fat Satan is the reason why Kentucky Fried Chicken tastes so good even when you know it will wreak holy havoc on your intestines the next day. Fat Satan is the voice in your head that whispers, “Take the elevator! Why disdain 150 years of hard work on the part of elevator engineers? Take the fucking elevator, you pulley-hating Luddite freak!” Fat Satan invented the hangover, and every time it’s 3 AM and you’re thinking, “Wow, a pizza would taste really fucking good right now,” Fat Satan is there with you. Fat Satan is why Judy from Accounting drops by your desk with a box of donut holes on Fridays. JUDY IS A TOOL OF FAT SATAN. All donut-lovers are. She knows you’ll take a donut hole or two even if you’d valiantly refuse a whole donut as Too Much, and sometimes we must focus on winning a battle rather than winning the war.
Fat Satan has a great plan for us, for all of us, and we, as his disciples, are willing agents; our objective is to secure the souls of once-thin people - of noble dieters and impassioned worker-outers! of committed butter-deniers and ardent carb-avoiders! - and turn them fat, such that we can deliver them to Fat Satan’s gaping, slobbering maw, liberally-oiled with the fat of those who have passed that way before. This is why we nod knowingly or shake our heads with barely-restrained smugness at the latest tale of failed weight loss (or successful weight gain, if you’re a glass-half-full sort of minion). When this happens, we are thinking, YES, FAT SATAN WILL BE PLEASED. (We get big points from Fat Satan for every soul turned. I’m saving up to trade mine in for a rocket-powered Segway made entirely of self-replicating cake.)
Our latest point in Fat Satan’s column: Kirstie Alley, who after a few years as a shill for Jenny Craig, is magically, remarkably - dare I say miraculously? - fat again. Evil laughter emanates from the flabby midsections of fat activists nationwide, because the souls of famous people who have become fat are the most precious of all. Famous gainers illustrate the inability of paid-for diets (and even “lifestyle changes”) to permanently recreate a thin body out of a fat one. The failure of weight-loss culture is writ large. Literally.
Oh Kirstie, we know why you went on Oprah’s show - because you both know what it is to have your newly-refatted soul in debt to Fat Satan. You knew Oprah would understand, even when no one else could. And I hope you both met up with Carnie Wilson afterward and all three of you had lunch together, an unholy trinity of the physical, palpable, jiggling evil that is… unrestrained fat people, eating.
Readers, I am sorry to foist this revelation on you with no warning or preparation. I didn’t even ask you if you were sitting down first (though you probably are, lazy fatties). But think about it. Think hard. Deep in your fat hearts, y’all had to know this all along, right? You knew Fat Satan was looking out for you. That in the times when there was only one set of fingerprints in the bowl of raw cookie dough, those were the times when Fat Satan was feeding you. That fat acceptance couldn’t possibly be about loving yourself for your own good, about treasuring the awesome machine that is your body and loving it and taking good care of it and listening to it, by nourishing it with delicious and healthful foods and by using it to do cool active things (as your physical ability permits) - fat acceptance could not possibly, in all seriousness, be making the case that all these things are worthwhile for their own sake, whether they result in weight loss or not. It couldn’t be that fat acceptance advises shedding self-hatred and disassociating body size and shape from morality and character because it’s the right thing to do, and because universalizing standards of bodies and health that discourage bodily diversity are harmful to every single person who has to confront them, no matter what that person may look like. It isn’t about respecting difference and body autonomy and trusting individual experience.
No. Of course not. Fat acceptance is about scoring souls for Fat Satan. Now you know.
ALL HAIL FAT SATAN.
(And an aside to Kirstie Alley: don’t you worry about Valerie Bertinelli. She can only slip out of Fat Satan’s clutches for so long. We’ll get her back. MWA HA HA.)
That in the times when there was only one set of fingerprints in the bowl of raw cookie dough, those were the times when Fat Satan was feeding you.
OK, I was laughing all the way through this, but that almost made me pee.
This gives a whole new spin on the whole “fishers of men” thing from my Baptist childhood. AN AWESOME SPIN.
OMG YOU GUYS I thought I sold my soul to Fat Santa! You tricked me!
“That in the times when there was only one set of fingerprints in the bowl of raw cookie dough, those were the times when Fat Satan was feeding you.”
I love this line SO MUCH. Now I have something to substitute in my brain every time I see those footprint posters.
Perhaps we are all just serving Tubby Jesus of Ken’s Guide to the Bible, who is “often depict[ed]…as eating and encouraging others to do likewise…”
That cookie dough line is still making me laugh!
omg, lol
That’s seriously all I can muster in the face of this satiric greatness.
“That in the times when there was only one set of fingerprints in the bowl of raw cookie dough, those were the times when Fat Satan was feeding you.”
I. LOVE. THIS.
Kathleen
OMFG I LOVE YOU SO SO SO MUCH
I would also like to note, for the record, that I also love you when you are wearing outfits, or whichever love you accused me of withholding, I forget.
You know, though, aside from the funny, this:
That fat acceptance couldn’t possibly be about loving yourself for your own good, about treasuring the awesome machine that is your body and loving it and taking good care of it and listening to it, by nourishing it with delicious and healthful foods and by using it to do cool active things (as your physical ability permits) - fat acceptance could not possibly, in all seriousness, be making the case that all these things are worthwhile for their own sake, whether they result in weight loss or not. It couldn’t be that fat acceptance advises shedding self-hatred and disassociating body size and shape from morality and character because it’s the right thing to do, and because universalizing standards of bodies and health that discourage bodily diversity are harmful to every single person who has to confront them, no matter what that person may look like. It isn’t about respecting difference and body autonomy and trusting individual experience.
Is actually a really, truly, exceptionally lovely summing up of what fat acceptance is (not) all about. I want it on a t-shirt. As my Fatifesto.
WOW. You just knocked my on my satanic fat ass.
THANK YOU.
“wipes away all existing cultural body standards with a majestic sweep of overpriced polyester hems.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The sad thing is, this is probably what MeMeMeMe R. actually thinks!
I am absolutely fucking dying of laughter.
Please tell me, where can I find this self-replicating cake?!
@Dreamy - I think I accused you of only sharing your feelings during times of high tension or drama, so this is an improvement!
@Peggy - Thank you, I was hoping to sum up our [fake] goals in a satisfactory way. ;)
@Deb - You can only get it by pledging your immortal soul to Fat Satan! It’s a nice perk.
i read this entire article as “Fat SANTA” until “ALL HAIL FAT SATAN”
im a goober.
Killer. Totally killer. In fact, so killer that I nearly choked on my diet root beer (which, Fat Satan will be glad to know, I was drinking along with my full-fat tortilla chips) when I read the cookie dough line. This one belongs in the Fatosphere Hall of Fame.
OH, crap. I knew the baby donuts were just too tasty not to come with strings attached.
This should come with a warning to not read it in public. I’ve just caused a scene in my local Panera–yes, I was paying my respects to Fat Satan by eating. lol
I bloody love you, this was a great post. I love your writing.
Lesley - Marianne is right, you need to be writing the next book. Because THIS IS SO AWESOME it practically made me choke on my #twowholecakes!
OMG…so brilliant. I almost died of teh laughter.
Ha HA!!! I *knew* Kirstie Alley was Beelzebub. Carnie Wilson’s Baal, but Valerie Bertinelli’s just a minor demon.
Love your writing. You just gave me an idea for my next pottery project. Fat Santa, I mean Satan! How sad is it that Kirstie Alley has to go on Oprah and apologize as a way to shame herself into self-deprivation…again. It must suck to be inside her head.
Hooray for Fat Satan! All Fat Satanists are welcome at the Church of Bacon (Facebook)!
Great writing!
Have any of you seen this ad? It was made for a particular tv show in Oz and caused so much controversy they won’t even list it on the website of the tv show it was made for. I actually thought it was well done myself, it makes a point, in a very “in your face” kind of way.
http://www.antiprejudicead.net/landing.asp
100% total win.
You fool, what if the Evangelists hear of this. It might spark a movement… they might go after my cupcakes!!!
All Hail FAT SATAN…. SAVE ME SOME BACON!!!!
Too funny!
You’re not wrong about Judy in Accounting, though. A couple of years ago, one of my coworkers and I decided that instead of trying to lose weight anymore, we would bring baked goods to the office all the time to make everyone else fat. Muah ha ha!
This is my single favorite thing I have ever read on the internet.