BossMuro wrote:I hate to break it to you (actually I don't, but that's because I'm a horrible person), but fat isn't nice to look at. Therefore, fat people are automatically uglier then they would be without said fatness marring thier facial and/or bodily features. This isn't nessicarily true for everyone on earth, and there are some people who find heavyness attractive in a woman, but they fall more under the category of "the exception that proves the rule."
So, yes, being a she-beast does make Tharqa "the ugly one".
Sebastian wrote:
The problem is, Tarqua is not overweight, Karen was overweight, Tarqua is fat, I could add fat at a unhealty level. There is a point where fat=ugly and Tarqua is way beyond that point.
Okay, I think both of you missed my point. Oh yes, PHYSICALLY, I'm sure that when your weight gets to a certain point, you are culturally considered unattractive, unappealing, ugly. That's what our culture teaches us, for certain, that all beauty must be physical, that all attractiveness is limited to how you appear physically. I get that. Trust me, I get that message all the time. It's not a fun world for someone whose mental and emotional scars are shown on their body in the shape of fat. As soon as you get a LITTLE beyond the "standard of Beauty", it's okay to start adding insult to injury. It's considered okay to reject, belittle, degrade someone because of their size. Like Karen said once, "You're pretty. You get to say whatever you want".
I understand that too much weight is unhealthy. Not just for potential heart conditions or inducing diabetes, but also for all the pressure and weight it puts on your overall system, from skeleton to organs. Tharqa, like all people at that size, needs to lose weight. It's not, however, just as simple as losing the weight for some. Like I said before that mental/emotional scarring doesn't just disappear. It's hard to realize that it can be just as simple as doing more and regulating the diet. It takes a lot of support(which, if you notice, Tharqa is DEFINATELY not getting getting from her friends!), and a lot of healing.
The problem I have is not that you find being obese unattractive; certainly, it's a very limiting, undesirable quality. The problem I have is that you have completely and utterly labeled EVERYONE at that size as a "She-beast" or just plain "ugly". I know some very beautiful people "at that size", who are loving, warm, and honestly making an effort to lose the weight, but struggle because of the immense pressure on them, as well as pain inflicted on them for daring to appear different than the "standard". Honestly, it's comments like the above that make it harder for obese people to cope with who they are. They already despise themselves, already tear themselves apart, and then have outside input telling them that they are monsters, "She-beasts". It's not right, but they use food as medicine for that pain. It takes a lot more than people NOT addicted to food know to be able to pull the temptation out of their lives and work towards healing themselves.
It appalls me that you both missed my point before; that beauty should not be restricted to just the physical sense of the word. Sure, Karen is "pretty" now, but I'd hate to know her in person, because inside she's ugly as it can get(at least, as her behavior exhibited has shown). Aggie is "pretty", but I'd hate to know her, because she's certainly going through an ugly stage in HER life, too. Charisma is beautiful, but I can't imagine that the one affected probably the most by her lack of dedication, Marshall, sees her that way. "Beautiful" people can be some of the ugliest folks around!
In that sense, I actually agree that Tharqa is an ugly person. Like I said before, she's spiteful, vengeful, and outright mean. She'd stab her own friends in the back, talks nastily about them behind their backs, and delights in the idea of torturing someone else who WAS overweight but is uncomfortable with it. Oh yes, in THAT sense, she's certainly a monster, and it's probably even a result of the emotional/mental pain that guided her into being obese in the first place. Of course, that's a lot of analysis for a fictional character.
I'm not trying to defend "just" Tharqa here. I'm trying to point out that the standard that all that can be beautiful is in the material sense. This is a material world, I know. There's no need to tell me, "But that's how things are, that's how people judge what's beautiful, that's what *I* think is beautiful/ugly" or any of that. I'm aware of what the stigma is against fat people. I'm aware of what we're taught to believe is beautiful or ugly. I'm also REALLY sick of all of it.
.../rant.
