[Blarg]

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"I'm fat because I don't want to get raped!!!"

Wow...I'm speechless.

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Heh. That's a new one. I never even considered that, putting on weight so I wouldn't get raped. That quote kind of makes women look stupid.

Has anyone noticed that Blarg is a little obsessed with physical appearance? Hm, maybe all men share his feelings and he's just brave enough to say it out loud. Blarg, why does it offend you so if women are a little over weight? I couldn't care less myself if men are a few pounds over weight. What's it to me? Does it just gross you out? If so I would caution you to never ever go to Cincinnati's Beach water park. You would not believe the number of obese women who strut around in a swimming suit there. Ridiculous. They have no shame.

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Almost all men prefer it if women are in good shape. It's like preferring it if they brush their teeth regularly. It's just one of those things you're not going to get around and you'd do yourself no favors even trying to get around.

I've spent a lot of my time as a very physically active person, even to extremes, and I value physical fitness and see it as a cultural strength unfortunately vanishing from American culture. It's still active in a lot of Asian cultures. Where I grew up, you'd see Asians and micronesian islanders who were 60 and 70 years old still scurrying up coconut trees at an astonishing pace, running on the beach, going on long hikes up mountains, etc. A whole lot of them were very active, and by and large they looked great for their age. It wasn't uncommon. Now I see plenty of Americans who look worse at 20, and by 30 and 40 many are moaning about their bad backs, moving stiffly, walking like weebles and looking and acting like lost causes.

I just don't respect that in our culture, and I don't respect it in a person, either. I can still love and respect that person, but as to that part of the choices they've made and continue to make in their lives, I can't support it and don't find a single worthwhile thing to recommend it. To the contrary, I find everything to recommend about staying in shape and keeping active.

By the way, I don't think women should worry about scales and weight per se either. They should worry about being healthy and having a reasonably vigorous command over their body. We are animals, and however we got these bodies, they were given to us as a trust that deserves to be maintained. Especially if you have kids. If you aren't smart and disciplined enough to take care of your health, ability, and appearance for your own sake, you still owe it to your kids to do so. Any way you slice it, staying healthy and capable is the smart and self-respecting thing to do.

That applies equally to men and women too. I think many women are more used to being bullsh*tted and bullsh*tting themselves than guys are, though, so many like to take any direct or implied criticisms, even of the human race as a whole, as simple sexism they can brush off without thinking about any troublesome or unflattering issue further. Unfortunately, this is so common it's perilously close to a norm.

So it's not other people's problems in perception, or sexism, or any ism that makes not being healthy and capable a good thing. Those things are simply valuable in and of themselves, without qualification, without reference to sex or age or anything else. It's simply the human reality. If we lived as heads in jars instead of in animal bodies, things might be different, but we don't, and they aren't.