Archive for the 'Body' Category

Pilates and perfomance anxiety: of penises and the pelvic floor

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 28, 2007
in Body, Men and Masculinity and Penis
. 16 Comments

Last night I did my regular Tuesday night Pilates workout. I’ve been working out with Stephanie, for my trainer, for nearly two years. Slowly but surely, I’ve gotten more and more advanced.

Pilates is all about training the body’s core. And while I’d spent years doing crunches and side bends, it was only when I started doing Pilates that I began to discover a whole set of muscles that I had never imagined existed. Until 2005, I never knew that we all have something called a “pelvic floor”. I didn’t know about my transverse abdominus, or my psoas. And I certainly didn’t expect my strongest muscles to become those below my navel, above my pubis, and between my pelvic bones. I can say that after a couple of years of serious work, I’ve developed some pretty strong lower abs.

As I was talking with Stephanie last night, we discussed how few men do Pilates (even though Pilates is named for its male founder.) Our conversation turned, and it occurred to me how very few men I know (particularly young men) feel a sense of connection with their own bodies. We are trained in American culture to think of the male body as a performance machine; men evaluate their body’s worth based less on aesthetics than on functionality: does the body have the strength to lift heavy objects? Does the penis perform on command? Men call their arms “guns”; they refer to their penises as “rods” and “pistons” that “screw”. It’s the language of war, of car repair, of carpentry.

Many men are intensely anxious about their bodies. Though an increasing number of men struggle with eating disorders and a culturally imposed pressure to have perfect abs, even more men worry about their sexual performance. We live in a culture of epidemic male anxiety about erectile “dysfunction”; three hours watching commercials during a football game or fifteen minutes reading the ads in the sports section will make it clear that the worry about “getting it up” is nigh on universal among sexually active men. (I posted a bit about erectile dysfunction in May of last year.)

But the paradox is obvious: we live in a society where there exists tremendous male anxiety about sexual performance (as measured by drug company profits alone). At the same time, very few men bother to connect their sexual function with the health, strength, and well-being of the rest of their body. It’s as if they think of the penis as quite literally “standing alone”, like a house without a foundation. And in the rush to seek medical solutions to impotence and poor sexual control (premature ejaculation, weak erections), they ignore the very basic reality that strengthening the muscles of the lower core, particularly the pelvic floor, can have a dramatic and powerful effect on one’s sex life.

There’s a line between candor and gross “TMI” (what my cousin Dinah calls an “over-share”), and I’m not going to cross it in this post. I will say, however, that my sense of myself as a sexual person has been radically reshaped by an intense commitment to Pilates! My wife (who has also beecome an active and advanced Pilates practitioner) has noticed the difference, and our intimate life has deepened and intensified as a consequence. Though we’ve both been athletic for years, like most Americans we didn’t connect our sexual lives to our entire bodies. Too often, we thought of sex as involving primarily the brain, the genitalia, the heart. Committing to Pilates has been revelatory in more ways than one.

My core exercise is running, and as long as my hips and knees hold up, I’ll keep doing that. But I’ve decided to drop the boxing component of my work-out rituals; I’ve been training thrice weekly at a local boxing gym since January 2006. I’ve certainly learned a lot about the sport. But while my upper body is stronger, and my shoulders broader, I can’t say I feel as if I feel fundamentally transformed by the discipline of learning to hit things well. (Heck, I’m pretty ambivalent about hitting things to begin with; my neo-Anabaptist pacifism makes me question the whole world of amateur boxing.) Working out on the “reformer” and on the balls and mats with Stephanie not only tones and shapes me, it teaches me about the profound interconnectedness of my body and my soul.

In developing my core muscles as they’ve never been developed before, I begin to understand that though my body is indeed mortal (as opposed to an eternal soul) it is not(as so many of my brothers believe) a “machine to be maintained.” It is not a bag of bones and muscles and fat that carries my brain around. In my younger years, and even until recently, I had a sense that my body was always betraying me. It would get sick at the least opportune time. It would fail to do as I wanted it to, particularly early on in certain intimate relationships. It would suddenly overwhelm me with its imperious demands for food, sleep, sex. I felt as if I alternately indulged and disciplined my body, as if it was some sort of hyper-active child who needed to be placated, monitored, and periodically spanked.

My spiritual growth, my commitment to doing “deep work” on masculinity and pesonal transformation, my adoption of a vegan diet, and my now two-year long commitment to Pilates are all connected. I’m a fierce (and to many readers, tiresome) proponent of the idea that everything matters. What we put in our mouths matters; what comes out of our mouth matters; how we make love matters; how we spend matters; how we treat our bodies matters. Every action we take, no matter how small, is a vote — it either builds a more just society and helps us become the person we are called to be, or it takes us further away from those goals. Pilates doesn’t make me a more generous person per se; it does teach me (like nothing else) of the profound interconnectedness of my physical, psychological, sexual and even spiritual well-being.

I write from a place of profound privilege. I can afford a vegan diet. I can afford private Pilates training. I am not smugly demanding that others do as I have done. But there are inexpensive alternatives, and I ought to do more on this blog to publicize those. And it’s worth pointing out that we spend a fortune in this country on pharmacological treatments for erectile dysfunction (I know men whose spending on Viagra or Levitra would pay for a number of Pilates classes). Only a fraction of the men pumping these drugs into their system have no alternative. Most cases of erectile dysfunction, particularly in otherwise healthy men, are connected to performance anxiety rather than a genuine organic malfunction. And a huge part of the problem for many, many American men is that they are ignorant of the reality of how their penis works. It rises up from a man’s core, and as I (and anyone else who does serious Pilates or yoga work) can attest, it functions in harmony with the muscles of the lower core and the pelvic floor. The link between strengthening the deep core muscles of the body and enhanced sexual pleasure for both parties in a relationship is obvious and dramatic. And too many men are fundamentally ignorant of this basic physiological truth.

There are some good books out there on male bodies: David Friedman’s fine A Cultural History of the Penis and Susan Bordo’s The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private. (I use both in my men and masculinity humanities class — I’ll be teaching it in the fall!) But as I advance as a Pilates student, my own sense of the male body is being transformed. And there’s a need out there for some good writing that synthesizes the wisdom of Pilates (and its companion discipline, yoga) with solid contemporary research on men and masculinity. Most men who lead lives of quiet desperation feel some of that despair because of the perceived failures of their flesh. Reaching them is vital.

“Do Hard Things”, but not that hard: a response to the modesty survey and the Rebelution

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 26, 2007
in Body, Christianity, Faith, Men and Masculinity, Modesty, Relationships, Sexuality and Youth
. 28 Comments

Last week, Jill linked to the results of a “modesty survey”. The survey collected responses from more than 1600 young Christian men, all of whom deigned to tell young women “what they really think” about dress and modesty. (Questions were submitted, anonymously, by more than 200 young Christian women.)

I’m not a social scientist, so I can’t vouch for the methodology of the survey. I am an evangelical, a gender studies professor, and a volunteer youth minister who works with teens at church, however. I’ve got a “dog in this hunt”, as it were, and I find the results of the survey disheartening, even appalling. If you browse the results, you find many gems (the best of which Jill has already noted in her excellent post). I found this one, written as a “final thought to young women” telling:

There are many Godly men out there, as I’m sure this survey will prove, that are dying to give you their utmost respect when you choose to follow God’s leading in this area of modesty in your life.

This is one of the most disturbing aspects of the sort of theology that seems so darned prevalent among the male respondents. One of the overriding themes of the gospel is that respect isn’t earned; Jesus embraces the very people (including women) whom the rest of society finds most disreputable, and he rebukes the very folk who assume that their lives and morals are above reproach. To say, as this anonymous lad does, that “we are dying to give you (our) utmost respect when you choose” to be modest is to misconstrue the Gospel message.

Christ reminds us over and over again that anyone can love the lovable; the test is to love the enemy. In the same way, we are called to respect and treat with equal human dignity those whose clothing choices we find most challenging. To paraphrase our Lord in Luke 6:

If you respect only those whose bodies and dress do not tempt you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ respect those who arouse no desire within them. . And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ do that.

In other words, the Christian life is about rejecting the notion that human relationships are quid pro quo. To live an authentic Christian life is to live out one’s commitments with those who (intentionally or not) challenge those commitments, not merely those who reinforce them.

What I find especially galling about the modesty survey is that it is hosted by some folks who call themselves The Rebelution. They explain it here:

The official definition of the ‘rebelution’ is “a teenage rebellion against the low expectations of an ungodly culture.” When you look around today, in terms of godly character and practical competence, our culture does not expect much of us young people. We are not only expected to do very little that is wise or good, but we’re expected to do the opposite. Our media-saturated youth culture is constantly reinforcing lower and lower standards and expectations.

The word ‘rebelution’ is a combination of the words “rebellion” and “revolution.” So it carries a sense of an uprising against social norms. But in this case, it’s not a rebellion against God-established authority, but against the low expectations of our society.

Oh heck, I’ll sign on to that. I’m all for challenging young people to lead lives of justice, of compassion, of hard work. I’m resolutely committed to the notion that young people today can embrace lives of service, of sharing, and, when called for, of self-restraint. But the bold rhetoric of “rebelution” is completely undercut by the modesty survey’s suggestion that most young men are, in fact, fundamentally weak and need their “sisters in Christ” to protect them.

To promote the idea that men’s sexual desire is stronger than women’s is not counter-cultural; it’s buying into a belief widely held in contemporary society. To promote the idea that young men’s lust is so powerful that it is nearly impossible to control without the active assistance of “modest” young women simply perpetuates one of the great cultural lies of our era: the myth of male weakness. The modesty survey, far from reflecting any true counter-cultural insights, simply reinforces two nasty untruths widely believed by Christians and non-Christians alike: first, that most young women do not themselves have a strong sexual drive; second, that male lack of self-control is at least in part due to female irresponsibility.

On the Rebelution site, they claim that their movement has a Viking battle cry: “Do Hard Things”! They write:

Here’s The Rebelution’s challenge: Do hard things. Learn a lesson from the Vikings. Do hard things and you will carry the battle every time. If you are willing to take on responsibilities that others delegate or neglect you will gain the benefits of that exertion.

Too often we delegate the responsibility for our education, our character, our future, etc. to others who hold far less of a stake in how things turn out. And more often than not a failure to perform in the areas of character and competence are due to a lack of past exertion.

Gosh, leaving aside the whole silly Viking thing, that’s a message I like. This distance-running, workaholic, over-committed, underslept, vegan professor and activist digs the idea of “doing hard things.” I’m a great believer that we are called to carry a cross, called to do the hard work of building a just and peaceable Kingdom. Whether his classmate is in sweats or a miniskirt, a young man’s responsibility to see her as a complete human being is always the same. When we teach young men that self-control is not contingent on women’s dress, then we really do teach them to “do hard things.” But such a message is clearly too radical for the folks at Rebelution.

UPDATE: Kate asks some excellent questions here. It’s a long meditation on the “theory of desire” (particularly the one articulated by the Modesty Project folks), and raises some interesting challenges to all Christian narratives of sexual desire.

Basketball and weightlifting: two women’s sports notes

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 20, 2007
in Body, Feminism and Sports
. 8 Comments

A couple of women’s sports notes.

So much for women’s college basketball being less competitive than men’s! That old lie got put to bed these past few days. The lowest men’s seed to advance to the Sweet Sixteen was number 7 UNLV; the women have already sent a pair of double-digit seeds (Florida State, a #10, and everybody’s cinderella, Marist, a #13), to the regional semifinals. This is great for the women’s game, even though it shot my bracket. (I was surprised that Stanford lost, but as a good Cal alum, shed no tears for them.)

I’m late to the story that I read about both at Feministing and Feministe: Florida Girls Lift Weights, and Gold Medals. In recent years, competitive weightlifting for girls (as well as boys) has become very popular in the Sunshine State:

Extracurricular club programs for girls have sprung up around the country since women’s weightlifting became an Olympic sport in 2000. But Florida, with 170 high school teams that have produced two Olympians and several dozen world team members, has “set the gold standard” for the sport, said Rodger DeGarmo, director of high performance and coaching for USA Weightlifting in Colorado Springs, the governing body that oversees Olympic lifting.

It’s a very positive article, and here’s hoping the sport catches on.

I have friends of both sexes who are serious lifters. The sport has never appealed to me, largely because I generally like to minimize my indoor workouts. But what I honor about lifting weights is its fundamental democracy: anyone, at any size, can become a very strong lifter if they work at it. There are few other sports in which “God-given natural talent” takes such an obvious backseat to persistence and determination. It’s much, much easier to make a weak young person into a strong lifter than a slow young person into a fast sprinter! This doesn’t mean weightlifting is easy: it is (not literally) often backbreakingly difficult; it takes time and effort and concentration; it takes mental toughness. More than most sports, doing it well involves intense visualization; it teaches those who practice it to see themselves completing the task before they actually attempt it.

One vital feminist task, of course, is teaching women of all ages — particularly the young — that their bodies belong to them. They are not baby-machines-in-training, nor are they objects to visually (or physically) gratify men. Building strength and muscle serves to undermine the ugly cultural fetish for young women’s bodies that appear emaciated, frail, vulnerable. Lifting ever-greater weights gives young women a tangible sense of physical success; they can measure their body’s progress in terms that have nothing to do with beauty or sex appeal or reproductive potential.

Leigha, the Spruce Creek senior, said she loved the competitive aspect of lifting.

“It’s a rush, it really is,” she said. “We have boards in our weight rooms with the names of all the record breakers, and you’re thinking about how bad you want your name on that record for everybody to see.”

I like reading that.

After all, “weight” is always a feminist issue. Since the 1920s, generations of young American women have desperately tried to lose it, even as we live in a culture that celebrates “weight” and “heft” as attributes of power and influence. We speak of folks “throwing their weight around”; we note that the words of someone we admire “carry a lot of weight.” To call someone a “lightweight” is never praise; it suggests superficiality, incompetence, immaturity. Outside of the discussion of women’s bodies, “weight” almost always connotes something positive and powerful.

Weightlifters, like dieters, are very concerned with numbers. But while the goal of the dieter is generally to become smaller and smaller, lighter and lighter, the goal of the lifter is to push more and more, to see the numbers rise rather than fall. As with wrestling, competitive lifting offers different weight classs to its participants; a team that wants to be successful thus must have a group of girls with very different body types. More so than virtually any other sport, this encourages coaches and teachers to recruit a wide variety of girls.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m an exercise fanatic. My desire to share the gospel of fitness, however, is not motivated by a desire to get everyone to start chasing an unattainable physical ideal. We live in a culture in which most of us are alienated from our bodies, often ashamed of our bodies. The best kinds of fitness activity teach us to reconnect with our bodies, to love our bodies, to experience the power and pleasure our bodies can bring to us.

And in achieving this goal for high school-age women, Florida seems to be ahead of everyone else.

Tennyson and Sharon Olds, Ulysses and Telemachus: a very long post about endurance athletes, independence, and the single body alone in the universe against its own best time

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 19, 2007
in Age, Athletics and Fitness, Body, Favorite posts 2007, Poetry, Sports and Vanity
. 6 Comments

Another busy Monday morning finds me sitting at the messiest desk in the Western Hemisphere. Really, it’s appalling — Clif bar wrappers and old tests, coffee-stained handouts and framed wedding pictures all jostling together. Merely to type a post or an e-mail requires blowing the crumbs off the keyboard. (I need a new keyboard annually, thanks to the food and drink spills).

I’m thinking this morning about a dear relative of mine. Because it’s a private family matter, I won’t share much, but I will say that this relation is a man in his mid-seventies, now suddenly frail and weak and battling serious illness. Though his physical diagnosis isn’t immediately terminal, he seems to have lost much of his will to live. I am praying and meditating for him daily.

This man and I have had a lot in common for many years. My relation was the first endurance athlete I ever knew; he started marathoning in the 1970s, back when the sport was first becoming popular. He ended up doing more than 80 marathons, as well as several Ironman distance triathlons (including a strong finish in the Hawaii Ironman back in the very early years of the event.) He was a great bear of a man, not terribly fast but with a tremendous will to compete and and a tremendous capacity to live with physical pain — two things any serious endurance runner must have. He gave me lots of good advice when I first became a distance athlete, and in many ways, has been an athletic role model for me for more than twenty-five years.

What he and I share, more than a love of sport itself, is an intense desire to maintain our own autonomy and to pursue self-perfection through the endless disciplining of our own flesh. So much of our identity is built around the very satisfying thought that we do things other people can’t do. While others sleep in, we push our bodies to their limits, always seeing what else we can do to improve. And while there is much that is praiseworthy about this tremendous longing to achieve maximum fitness and performance, there’s a dark side to all of this as well. At its worst, this addiction to endurance sports can isolate us from others, cause us to ignore social and familial responsibilities, lead us to prioritize logging miles rather than spending time with those who love us most.

Berkeley-born Sharon Olds’ most famous poem is surely the marvelous Sex without Love. I loved it the first time I read it, largely because it was as close to a perfect description of how my companions and I lived out our erotic lives in our twenties as anything I’ve ever seen. And as a man who was both sexually promiscuous and athletically obsessive, I recognized myself at once in the closing lines:

They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health–just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

I long ago surrendered my sexuality to God, and gave up “sex without love.” I have received indescribable gifts in return. But I struggle, Lord how I struggle, not to think of myself as going through life as a solitary runner, alone in the world, always racing against my own best time. The danger for distance athletes, both world-class and amateur, is that we can become profoundly selfish. Beating “our own best time” becomes the one meaningful battle in our lives. We discipline ourselves with restrictive diets, we beat up our joints on endless hills, we drag ourselves out of bed hours before dawn to do solitary combat on the roads and trails and treadmills. And if we’re not careful, we mistake the pursuit of our own individual excellence with authentic virtue.

Authentic virtue is never selfish, as Aristotle and a hundred other wise folks have pointed out. Authentic virtue is about balancing one’s own need to endlessly recreate and improve with one’s responsibility to the world at large. If our running gives us great pleasure, but leaves us so drained and self-absorbed that we are less available for our loved ones and our community, then we’re not being virtuous. We have to make choices, and in the past couple of years, I’ve made that choice. Many folks think I work out a lot (14-20 hours per week). But that’s nothing compared to what I would do if I gave up more of my outside commitments! Oh, how I long to take eighteen good months and train for a solid 100-miler. But running 120 miles per week would take too much from my wife, too much from my chinchillas, too much from my students and my youth group, my seven classes, my mentees, my colleagues.

The greatest danger for distance athletes, however, isn’t that we become selfish. The greatest danger, one that I see in the life of my ailing relation, is that we become so enraptured by our own physical capabilities that we begin to believe we are radically autonomous. Our bodies do such incredible things, and bring us such pride and satisfaction, that we start to think we’re indestructible. We become particularly loath to rely on others, jealously, often pridefully guarding our own independence. The phrase “our bodies, ourselves” takes on a radically different meaning: our identity as human beings becomes enmeshed with our sense of what our bodies can do.

We came into this world naked and helpless. We had no control over our flesh; we were diapered and dressed and spanked and bathed and fed on another’s schedule. We wailed and flailed, but for the first few years were utterly incapable of meeting our own needs. And unless we are taken young and suddenly, most of us will leave the world in that same way. Even if we retain the ability to use the toilet and feed ourselves up until the end, old age will rob us, sooner or later, of our precious independence. If we’ve spent fifty or sixty years building up a personal myth of indestructible autonomy, “alone in the universe against our own best time”, we’re going to be absolutely devastated by the slow surrenderings we will inevitably have to make as we age.

I’ve posted a bit about my Dad lately. His dying was relatively quick last year; he got the terminal diagnosis in mid-April and he passed on on June 22. A gentle man, not in the least concerned with “personal best times” or “faster and farther”, he surrendered himself easily to his caregivers. He was uncomplaining as he slowly lost his abilities to do for himself what he had done for nearly seven decades. He maintained his dignity and his sense of humor, and above all, he maintained his sense of self even as his body shriveled. My father, a philosopher by training and a wise soul by natural temperament, knew that he was not his body. While he had a hard time accepting the soul as separate from the flesh, he knew that his “Hubertness” was not defined by what his muscles and bones could do. That knowledge gave him the strength to surrender gently when his time came.

My ailing relative, my fellow endurance athlete, is not going so gently. He’s raging against the dying of the light. For him, the “light” remains connected to what his body can do, and losing those capabilities is devastating for him in a way that it wasn’t for my far-less competitive father. As for me, I have had both these dear men as role models all of my life. Though there is much I owe to my Dad, and though I love him still with all my heart, I did not get my manic restlessness from him. That longing I have to climb the next mountain, and the next, and the next, until I reach the final summit from which there is no descent — that obsession comes from somewhere else. My cousin has it in him; his were the first pair of eyes in which I saw what I so often see when I look in the mirror: the sense that life is a constant struggle against weakness, against darkness, against our own sense of limitations. And when at last our limitations overwhelm us… it’s hard.

On the list of the hundred most famous English-language poems, Tennyson’s Ulysses must rank near the top. I first read it in college in a frosh Comp Lit class. I loved it then and love it now, and remember fighting with my Marxist TA who insisted that it was the “Ulysseses” of the world who were responsible for colonialism and imperialism and slavery. She hated the poem (and hated Tennyson) and wanted her students to mock the sentiments within it. I nearly lost my temper, so eager was I to defend both the poet and his protagonist. And I think of Ulysses often as I think of my dear cousin, fighting so hard in his hospital bed.

Ulysses was a lousy husband, to put it mildly. He wasn’t much of a king either, if we take Tennyson’s view — he has no interest in doing what his son Telemachus does:

…by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness…

Ulysses is not centered in that sphere of common duty; he hears a different call:

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life!

It’s whopping hubris to compare oneself and one’s relations to the ancient heroes, of course. But when I think of my father, I think of one very gentle, loving, devoted Telemachus. My God, Dad was “strong in the sphere of common duties”! Though he was not a political man or a natural leader, he was a pillar of his family and of the broader community; the hundreds and hundreds of mourners at his memorial service were all touched and moved by him. In my life, especially since his death, I’ve sought to become more and more of the sort of man he was. Kindness and grace came naturally to my father, and I long to emulate him in those virtues.

But my cousin and I — like so many of my friends in the endurance running community — have the restlessness of a Ulysses. We are the ones who find “how dull it is to pause, not to shine in use.” And though we don’t kill monsters, we devote our lives to killing our own limitations. Contentment scares us; complacency unnerves us; we embrace domesticity with often considerable unease. We are capable of common duties, but we’re not centered there. Our center is always a mile further up the trail.

Near the end of the poem, Ulysses says:

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are…

That which we are, we are. I am thinking this morning of a man I love and admire, lying in his bed four hundred miles from here. A man who has climbed mountains, swum through oceans, run marathons on five continents. For him, the great question is finding the will to live now that so much has been taken. The question for him is whether “much abides”, and whether or not what remains is enough to continue to live.

Those with the spirit of Telemachus have an easier time letting go. They give up the bicycle, the running shoes, the car keys. They may mourn the loss of their independence, but they haven’t staked their identity to their autonomy the way those with the spirit of Ulysses have. And as one who struggles to reconcile his inner Telemachus with his inner Ulysses, I have much to think about this morning.

Working out, eating right, self-acceptance and the call to transform: towards reconciling a series of contradictions

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 8, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Body, Favorite posts 2007, Feminism and Food
. 18 Comments

One of the things about going vegan this year: no more Cadbury cream eggs. I’m thinking about this because my sources tell me that I’ve had several visitors who came here with the search query “cadbury eggs sweden”. Sigh.

I’m thinking about feminism and bodies again this morning. I read Sara’s post at F-Words yesterday. She notes that a poster appeared on campus at Washington State (she’s got the photo) with the caption: “Better your Body”. That wouldn’t have been unusual as an ad for a gym, but it was a flyer advertising free body composition testing in conjuction with WSU’s body image awareness week. Body image awareness programs have been around on college campuses for two decades or more, designed to combat the epidemic of eating disorders and self-loathing that is rampant among college students, particularly among young women. And if there’s something at the core of all “body image awareness workshops” it’s the notion that feminists ought to resist the imperative to be thin, to be overly concerned with body fat, to be endlessly obsessed with having a “better” physique.

Sara points out the absurdity of all this, and moves on to muse about what a truly “body-friendly” gym would look like.

It seems like there is so much emphasis on the idea expressed in that image - that we need to change our bodies, that we need to quantify them and judge them to be responsible and healthy - that it’s not necessarily a mentally-healthy environment.

In my body-friendly gym, there would be no scales. What do we need them for? No one leading an aerobics class would remind us that “swimsuit season” is coming. There would be fitness classes geared toward people whose bodies are different - classes for the disabled, for example. Even a person’s size can significantly change their experience of a class. I’ve found out (the hard way, having gained a fair amount of weight over a period when I was really into pilates) that having a belly makes pilates harder….

Mostly, I’d like a gym where a person’s current body was what’s being worked out and enjoyed. No matter how hard you work, you’re not going to lose actual pounds or gain actual muscle mass during any gym session. I’d like the emphasis on a future, perfected body to take a backseat to the things a person can appreciate about their current body.

I’m thinking about this at the same time that I’m thinking about an e-mail I got from a wonderful former student of mine. She enjoys the blog, but recently went through my photo albums at my old Typepad place, and was troubled that several of the photos were of me, shirtless. As I’ve explained many times before, I almost always run shirtless. I hike shirtless. When I’m down in Colombia on my wife’s family’s finca , I spend much of my time shirtless. (Drenched in SPF 50 sun lotion, mind you; I’ve had enough battles with skin cancer.) Mind, my student was not suggesting that there was a sexual or flirtatious component to these photos. What bothered her was that these pictures came in conjunction with the frequent notes I make on the blog about diet, exercise, and sport. My student admitted that it made her feel bad about herself, particularly because she saw me (rightly or wrongly) as a pro-feminist role model. In a very thoughtful and polite way, she made it clear that there was a disconnect between my very public commitment to working with young people to combat eating disorders and body dysmorphia, and my almost equally public fascination with the endless improvement of my own flesh. And while she could accept that disconnect in print, she had a hard time with it reflected in photos as well.

So, I’ve cleaned up all of my old Typepad photo albums. No more shirtless pictures. (I will still be shirtless all over the greater San Gabriel Valley this spring and summer, in mountains and on roadways, as I up my mileage for a July marathon.)

The connection between Sara’s post and my student’s e-mail? They’ve both got me thinking about ways to create a pro-fitness, pro-health culture that is radically respectful of body diversity. It’s got me wondering how we can do a better job of articulating fitness goals that aren’t visual. Gyms and health clubs and personal trainers often speak the language of health, but as Sara makes clear, the atmosphere of most clubs is one that encourages a pre-occupation with achieving a specific size goal. There’s an almost universal double-speak going on in which everyone claims to be doing whatever they’re doing in order to “get healthy”, but most feel compelled to emphasize aesthetic achievement over true fitness. I don’t know a lot of young women who worry as much about osteoporosis, heart disease, and breast cancer as they do about weight.

My mother is a big fan of the Curves franchise. She’s been overweight much of her adult life, and is — thank God — a cancer survivor. She started going to Curves a few times a week back in 2002, and she’s really enjoyed her experience in a mirrorless, women-only gym. She would never have joined an ordinary health club, but she found the non-judgmental, accepting atmosphere at Curves to be just what she needed in order to experiment with an exercise regimen. I’ve never been inside a Curves, obviously, but I hear almost universal praise from the women I know who have become regulars.

It’s often hard for me to write about fitness and body image issues, knowing that I still have miles to go on my own journey towards radical and complete self-acceptance. I don’t work out merely to improve my body’s appearance, of course. I don’t work out for health alone, either, at least not only for physical health. I work out so much because I’m addicted to endorphins; I am a nervous, restless energizer bunny who needs to burn off tension constantly. Running, boxing, Pilates, cycling — to one degree or another, they all get me high. And I like being high. It just so happens that my addiction has the side effect of a lean and toned physique!

My views on diet, too, are rooted less in an obsession with my own health and appearance and more in a commitment to justice. I gave up meat a while ago because of my commitment to animals; I’m now embracing a fully vegan lifestyle out of that same commitment. If it keeps me healthy, great. But while my health matters, my choices about what I put in my mouth are linked first and foremost to a desire to live as cruelty-free as possible. I’m not willing to eat what I’m not willing to kill, and I’m not willing to kill many things.

There’s an element of defensiveness to what I’m writing, and that frustrates me. I suppose that in the end, I’m torn. I position myself, quite deliberately, as a role model. I do it in my teaching. I do it in my volunteer work with youth. I do it in my blogging. I believe I’ve hit upon a set of values for living, rooted in my faith and my feminism, that have not only made me a better human being but might very well work for others. I keep making the case, over and over again, that what we do in every area of our life matters. How we eat and what we eat matters, not least because we are called to be stewards of our own bodies and stewards of the earth we share.

I realize that what I want to work on is this: further developing and articulating a pro-feminist “ethics of diet and fitness.” My core assumptions: health, fitness, and a sense of well-being are a priori goods. Self-acceptance is also an a priori good. Self-loathing is an a priori evil. Concern for how our dietary choices impact the planet is an a priori good. And yes, pleasure — as long as that pleasure is not at another’s expense — is still another fundamental good. Somehow, I want to put all of these “first principles” together and articulate an ethic that embraces both transformation and self-acceptance, that promotes ultimate well-being and is simultaneously radically accepting of body diversity.

I’ve seen others try to create a synthesis of pro-feminist values and a commitment to maximum physical fitness; I’ve seen them fall woefully short. And I myself continue to fall prey to my own contradictions around the body and self-acceptance. Too often, my words to others say “Love yourself just as you are!” while my actions show a man who is relentlessly committed to his own transformation.

One of the paradoxes of a strong Christian faith is this: Jesus loves us just as we are. He could not love us more. He loves the child molester just as much as he loves the saint; He loves Jeffrey Dahmer and Mother Teresa, Saddam Hussein and Martin Luther King. But for Christians, realizing that God loves us just as we are is not the same as God’s endorsement of what we’re doing. God loves us no matter what, but He longs for us to transform, to become more and more like His Son. We hold in tension two seemingly contradictory ideas: we are loved whether or not we change, and God longs for us to change and grow. This tension is familiar to any serious Christian, and to the followers of many other spiritual paths.

I’m convinced that there’s a way to apply this mixture (radical, complete acceptance and the radical call to growth) to a culture of fitness and diet. I’m going to figure it out, Lord willing, and when I get a clearer idea of how to articulate it, I’m gonna let you know.

Or maybe you’ll have to wait for the TV show.

Still in my PJs…

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 5, 2007
in Body
. 2 Comments

I’m home sick today. It’s not a cold or a flu, more of a feeling of complete exhaustion. I’ve been in bed thirteen hours, and have just begun to stir. My wife thinks that maybe I’m detoxing from nearly two decades of constant infusions of Nutrasweet/aspartame; I haven’t gone this long without artificial sweeteners since the first Bush Administration, at least. That might explain the wooziness and the stomach upset that’s coming along with the exhaustion.

I’ll try for more later.

For my students, I am sorry to be missing class. I will be in class tomorrow.

Being vegan…

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 1, 2007
in Animal Rights, Body and Vanity
. 10 Comments

…is hard to do while working out. I hadn’t realized that most of my bars and protein supplements contained milk solids until last week. I hadn’t realized I have to give up my beloved Altoids, as they contain gelatin. Oh, blissful ignorance, I do miss you!

I’m pumping in a lot of Vega. It’s actually pretty good, though Eloy, my office colleague, thinks it looks disgusting. It’s not bad, and it takes care of lunch.

In terms of training, I think I’ll shoot for the San Francisco Marathon in July. If I can get some speed work done, and get my weight back down around 165 (ten pounds below where I am right now), I might be able to do a nice clip…

But dang, even as a happy vegan, I miss the Altoids.

“Glorious Me”: A link, and some short reflections on male and female body anxiety

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 14, 2007
in Body, Feminism, Links and Men and Masculinity
. 15 Comments

Zuzu has a post up this morning: Wonderful, Glorious, Me. She writes:

Let me try to open up the floor to give us a chance to do something together.

We’re conditioned, particularly as women, to be self-deprecating, to not take up space, to not revel in our bodies and ourselves. We can get 150 comments in a thread about when we realized that we were aware our bodies weren’t up to snuff; let’s see how many we can generate praising ourselves.

Your mission: list at least five things you love about your body and yourself. Five is the floor; you can always do more. And no self-deprecation! No offsetting a compliment with a dig.

Great idea. If you’re a woman, please visit and consider contributing.

The thread is, I sense (perhaps wrongly) women-only. It’s not as if men don’t have body anxiety! But in our culture, as intense and incapacitating as male fears about their own flesh can be, it’s worth acknowledging that women still are held to a higher standard. Men are allowed to deviate dramatically from the physical ideal and still enjoy recognition; women (with a very few exceptions) aren’t.

For what it’s worth, the male anxiety I see in myself and in my peers is qualitatively different from what I see in many of my female friends. I hang out a lot with men who run and work out quite competitively. There’s a tremendous collective concern about our bodies; there’s a fair amount of subtle preening and worry. But at the same time, we voice those concerns differently. We talk about acts, not about aesthetics. For example, my running buddies and I can talk endlessly about split times and heart rates. We worry about our aging, and about whether our bodies can still run a 10K under 40 minutes or a marathon under 3:15 or whatever the threshold of the moment happens to be.

It’s a classically masculine anxiety: the sense that the body is a “performance machine” threatened by sloth and by ageing, always in need of vigilant monitoring. Of course, many of us (I know this well from unguarded conversations) are worried about how we look; we do compare ourselves to the men on the cover of the fitness magazines. But unless very comfortable, we tend to cloak our fears in concern about performance rather than aesthetics. A desire to be faster, after all, is evidence of athletic ambition — a desire for a more beautiful body is evidence of an unbecomingly feminine vanity. It’s a masculine moral calculus that elevates the body doing to a higher position than the body appearing.

It’s silly, and ultimately indefensible. Our physical achievements on the gym and on the track don’t make us better husbands, fathers, brothers, or sons anymore than our sister’s breast enhancements make her a better human being. Its all culturally reinforced fear and vanity, but it’s worth noting that it often operates differently for both men and women.

UPDATE: The thread is not female-only.

Second UPDATE: The comment thread here is for those who identify as feminists or feminist-friendly only. I’m tired of having a few men’s rights advocate trolls hijack the discussion. Comments that are anti-feminist will be deleted without discussion. This will not be a policy in all my threads, but in this one, yes. I’m adopting the Alas, A Blog, policy — a bit late, but it’s the right thing to do.

A note about obesity report cards

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 9, 2007
in Body and Youth
. 11 Comments

Much is being made of this New York Times story yesterday about “obesity report cards”.

The practice of reporting students’ body mass scores to parents originated a few years ago as just one tactic in a war on childhood obesity that would be fought with fresh, low-fat cafeteria offerings and expanded physical education. Now, inspired by impressive results in a few well-financed programs, states including Delaware, South Carolina and Tennessee have jumped on the B.M.I. bandwagon, turning the reports — in casual parlance, obesity report cards — into a new rite of childhood.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a notoriously poor indicator of overall health, as many commentators have pointed out. And given the huge fluctutations that kids go through as they grow, it is a rare child indeed whose BMI (based on weight and height) will always be perfectly “average”. Like most people, I went through a very skinny stage before adolescence, and then a prolonged chubby one that carried me through high school. Had my BMI been measured when I was a string bean in fourth grade, it would have suggested I was too thin; by ninth grade, it might have suggested I was too heavy. And I am not at all sure that calling attention to it would have led to any changes in my eating habits.

As the Times article points out, it’s useless for schools to cut physical education programs, serve junk in the cafeterias, and shame students for their bodies all at once. Now, restoring P.E. and serving healthy food wouldn’t justify shaming either, but there would be a modicum of consistency in the message. I am a great advocate of P.E., particularly when classes are designed not merely for aspiring jocks but to get the less athletically inclined to enjoy moving their bodies. Simply offering competitive sports opportunities isn’t enough; schools must offer a much more inclusive and diverse range of physical activities that can meet a wide variety of interests. It’s worth spending the money on. (I’d enjoy teaching PE, frankly; it would be an exciting challenge to get a wide variety of kids excited about being active in a non-judgmental environment.)

It’s difficult to sell “health”, particularly to the young. Kids, particularly in their adolescent years, care desperately about looks. Thinness is, as we all know, very “in” for girls, and has been since the 1920s. Fit and toned muscles are “in” for boys. But outer beauty and inner health are not closely linked; one can achieve thinness with an unhealthy regimen of cigarettes and diet Coke and pills (I know this from my own experience). The absence of fat, in other words, is in no way, shape or form a reliable indicator of overall health. Indeed, we can’t gauge health by looking at a person’s outsides, and for the young, outsides are critically important. Tell a teenage girl who has just started smoking that she might get lung cancer, and see what reaction you get; she knows damn well it’s bad for her, but the consequences are both far off in the future and apparently invisible. What she cares about is not health but appearance, and she — and her peers of both sexes — are far more interested in the latter than the former.

I’m prepared to believe that childhood and adolescent obesity is a problem. But the enemy is not fat; the enemy is a lack of opportunity to exercise and a dearth of healthy food options. Health and fat are, in fact, not always mutually exclusive; sloth and health invariably are. There’s a huge difference between a concern with aesthetics and a concern with genuine well-being. Most kids are only concerned with the former, and “obesity report cards” seem designed only to reinforce this misplaced anxiety.

I’m a work-out junkie. I like the aesthetic results of all of this exercise and healthy eating. I am glad it may prolong my life. But my obsession with exercise is not particularly about becoming healthier or about being better looking; it’s about a physiological addiction to endorphins, to the rush and high I get from exertion. I like how I feel when I am fit — everything else is just a happy bonus.

Circumcision update

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 13, 2006
in Body, Circumcision and Men and Masculinity
. 63 Comments

In October, I posted about my own circumcision. I also wrote about the ongoing research into the link between circumcision and the reduced risk of HIV infection; at that time, studies were still in progress.

The New York Times reports today that the National Institutes of Health is convinced: circumcision works, and they are now formally recommending the procedure. This is powerful and important news.

Let’s get to snippin’.

“Fat studies”, cohabitation, and why Hugo likes gaining weight

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 11, 2006
in Body, Food, Relationships and Vanity
. 35 Comments

Apparently, some universities are considering offering a course in “fat studies.” When I taught my Humanities course on “Beauty, the Body, and the Western Tradition”, we spent a fair amount of time on the cultural history of fat. I recall some terrific, spirited discussions — and some painfully awkward moments.

In a vaguely related note, we learn that “cohabitation” is bad for women’s health:

Dietitians have found that women tend to gain weight once they move in with male partners. “Living with a male seemed to put pressure on females to consume more of the ‘unhealthy’ choices,” Amelia Lake, a research fellow at the Newcastle University Human Nutrition Research Center in Britain, wrote this year in the journal Complete Nutrition, “while females had a positive influence on the diets of the males.”

That’s intriguing. Culturally, we teach women to monitor the health of their male partners. Men are generally permitted, even encouraged, to be somewhat irresponsible about their diets. Attention to food preparation and to nutrition is traditionally considered a female concern. Spend time with many couples, and you will often hear stories of what the guy “used to eat” back in his “bachelor days.” One tangible way to measure a woman’s success at “domesticating” a husband or boyfriend is to transform, or at least improve, his eating habits.

There’s a bit of the old “myth of male weakness” at work here. Both men and women buy into the myth (which is why so many folks don’t think it’s a myth at all). Call it the “men are big babies who can’t take care of themselves properly” topos; men “buy it” because it allows us to be irresponsible, women “buy it” because it offers the opportunity to measure one’s feminine power. A woman who can cause a man to change his diet is a “proper woman”. The worse he ate before they got together, the more impressive her achievement becomes. Obviously, lots of folks don’t buy into this, but the Lake study suggests that some people still do — and that it has real consequences for women.

And thirdly, I’m putting on a bit of weight. I’m cutting my exercise and increasing my food intake as we draw closer to Christmas. The exercise decrease is slight, and largely due to increased academic and social obligations. The food intake comes along with it. But I don’t mind putting on a few pounds, largely because I can look forward to taking them off beginning in January.

I’ve learned that my diet and exercise pattern is seasonal; I’m rigorous for a few months, and then slack off a bit. My joints need time to recover, and my body needs to rest. I “soften up” and then “trim down” at different times of the year. The softening up time is obviously pleasurable, but so too is the trimming down. For someone who loves setting goals and meeting them, it’s fun to put on a bit of weight and then take it off again. It becomes a challenge. Mind you, I don’t put on and take off huge amounts of weight; yo-yo dieting is never healthy. But I honor a certain rhythm and seasonality to my eating and my exercise. Though I expect to be ripped once more by Easter, from now until Epiphany, I’ll be in a more languid and indulgent mode.

“I really like big guys”: culture, desire, and the awkward position of pro-feminist men

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 29, 2006
in Body, Feminism, Men's Movement, Relationships and Sexuality
. 107 Comments

I was talking to a female friend of mine yesterday; she’s just started dating a new fella, and the budding relationship appears promising. My friend is about 5′8″, and her new boyfriend is 6′5″. I knew her last boyfriend, who was her height — and so, as we chatted, I asked her if the height differential in this current relationship made a difference.

“Yes, I suppose it really does”, she said. “Being with a man so much taller and bigger makes me feel smaller, more feminine. Being in his arms feels wonderful because I feel the difference between us so much more than with Jack (her ex).”

My friend, who knows I teach feminism, asked “Do you think that makes me less of a feminist, wanting a man who can wrap me up and make me feel so feminine and protected?”

Almost from the start of 2006, the broad feminist blogosphere has been engaged in an intense period of self-criticism, culminating in October’s infamous “waxing wars.” I have no interest in reviving a lot of talk about feminist credentials. But my friend’s sense of delight in the size differential between her and her new guy — and her mild discomfort at what that delight might symbolize — is worth a post.

Of course, y’all know I’m going to share the inevitable personal anecdote. In college, I had a huge crush on a gal who lived in the same co-op as I did. She was my height (6′1″) and a broad-shouldered swimmer who had started her college career on an athletic scholarship but who had tired of the intensity of the competition. She was the consummate jock, and if I could be said to have a “type”, it was always the very athletic, tomboyish women. “Lisa” and I tried a romantic relationship, but it ended quickly; my interest in being more than friends exceeeded hers.

Lisa told me, even before we started dating, that she had doubts about our chances together: “I really like big guys”, she said; “I’m a tall strong girl and I like being with a man who makes me feel petite and feminine.” She liked dating tall linemen, and I was going through one of my “skinny stages”. I was already taking women’s studies classes at that point, and in order to make my case, I quite shamelessly used what I thought were sincere feminist tactics, saying something like:

“Lisa, you only want a stronger, bigger man, because you’ve been brainwashed by a sexist culture. You’ve been taught to be uncomfortable with yourself as a tall athletic woman, and so you want to be with an even bigger guy who can make you feel more traditional. You’re surrendering to the patriarchy!”

There might have been one or two grains of truth in what I was saying, but it was evident to both of us that my exhortation was colored less by a commitment to feminist principle and more by naked self-interest. And I had no reply when Lisa told me off, saying (and this I remember more vividly than my own words):

“Don’t be an asshole and assume that what I want stems from my oppression as a woman. If you were a real feminist man you would never try and channel my feelings and desires to serve your needs, and you’d never try and use feminism to guilt me into being with you.”

That was an uncomfortable “aha” moment, and it taught me an enduring lesson. Few things are more indefensible and pathetic than a self-proclaimed male feminist using the rhetoric of gender justice to try and “get” a woman to be attracted to him. Been there, did that, grew out of it.

Of course, this argument is really raising a very old question: to what extent are our romantic and sexual desires shaped by cultural and familial expectations, and to what extent are they genuinely organic, original, and unique to our “truest self”? (Yes, philosophers, I know, we can’t even be sure we have a “truest self” independent of outside influence!) I’ve raised this question before, writing about men, women, homosociality, and weight. There, I took men to task for being overly concerned with how the weight gain of their female partners would reflect upon their status as men.

So is wanting a “big strong man who will make me feel delicate and feminine” something feminists ought to try and talk women out of? Can we presume to distinguish between a woman whose innate sexuality gets turned on by “big guys” and a woman who likes being with bigger men because she’s uncomfortable with her own size, and longs to feel smaller? Can we insist that women’s erotic desires be shaped and informed by their feminism — and thus work in conjunction with their ideals, not in opposition to them?

Here’s where I drive many of my male critics in the men’s rights movement nuts. When I write about male heterosexual desire, I am adamant that it can be channeled. When discussing what men want, I am quite comfortable — because I am a man — in suggesting that men can master and redirect their libidos. I post a lot about older men and younger women in this regard, and regularly make the case that one key thing men can do is match their desires to an age-appropriate partner. I’ve also made a case against porn, and against male fat-phobia. But I am not willing to make the same demands on women.

Is it because I think women ought to be held to a lesser standard? Of course not. But I’m a great believer in the notion that men ought to hold other men accountable. When men do try and hold women accountable, even in the name of feminism, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish a righteous motive from a self-serving one. Too many women have been told too often what to do by too many men. Women’s transformation and accountability needs to take place in community with other women, not at male behest. Do I think that women ought to think critically about the ways in which our culture shapes their erotic drives, particularly when it encourages pleasure in submission and a sense of “being small”? You betcha. Am I troubled that we live in a world where so many women are taught to find particular pleasure in being overpowered, overwhelmed, “swept off their feet”? Of course. It may be my place as a teacher to raise uncomfortable questions, but that’s as far as I ought to go.

Explicit judgment and direction are things I choose to reserve for the men in my life, not because I am filled with self-loathing or dislike masculinity, but because I believe in the importance of same-gender accountability. And, most of all, I am leery of having any man — no matter how well versed in feminist rhetoric and praxis — telling a woman what she “ought” to want. Lord knows, I spent years wishing that more women would eroticize cross-country runners instead of football players! It’s damned hard for any man to ever escape the charge of blatant self-interest when this topic comes up, and though it’s been nearly twenty years, Lisa the swimmer’s cutting words still echo in my brain.

Uncomfortably numb

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 28, 2006
in Athletics and Fitness and Body
. 7 Comments

Feministing links to this article about female cyclists and loss of genital sensation. It jives with what I’ve heard from some women I know who ride regularly. The study also found, I was delighted to read, that no such problem occurred in a control group of women runners.

I cycle rarely these days. I enjoy the bike, but it doesn’t give me the same high, the same rush, as running. The article above suggests that many women might be well-advised to consider reducing saddle time, or at least invest in extra padding in the shorts. (Too many folks, both male and female, ride without sufficient padding in the right places.)

Vanity posting

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 16, 2006
in Body and Vanity
. 8 Comments

I’m home from the gym and a quick nine-miler in the hills around the Rose Bowl.  I’m happy to report my body has now adjusted to the vegan diet quite well; I’m grateful for all the wonderful recipes that a number of folks e-mailed me.  Thank you!

I’m supplementing my diet with Vega, and it’s really helping. I’m eating the bars and drinking the meal replacement stuff, and it gives me the energy I need.  My weight has stabilized in the high 160s (I’m guessing, because I’m sticking to my commitment not to weigh myself).  That’s the lowest it’s been in years, and fifteen pounds below where I was when my father died.   I’m still taking in the occasional non-vegan thing or two; I had some ice cream the other day and I had a few bites of a veggie lasagna last night at youth group.  I’m not interested in being fanatical about avoiding all animal products when I’m out; I’m "vegan in the house, vegetarian in public", and that works for now.

Boxing is good.  We’ve been doing tons of plyometrics lately. Plyometrics build power and explosiveness, and I can certainly use both.  It’s a great supplement to my marathoning.  All my long runs build lots of slow-twitch muscles; it’s nice to work on building up some speed and power.  And if I keep doing enough squats, I might rebuild my now nearly non-existent backside.  Still, it’s nice to have a much better body at 39 than I did at 19 or 29.   How long I’ll keep it, I have no idea.

One long-term goal of mine: I want to help develop low or no-cost work-out programs to offer to working adults, stressed college students, etcetera.   Really long-term goal: open a summer camp for teens — and adults.  Teach fitness, teach basic life skills, spirituality, the whole thing.  I’m just putting it out there… give me a few years, let me write a book or two, raise some chinchillas and human children, and raise the funds. 

In the meantime, plenty of work to do.

Another long post about pleasure, feminism, food, and sex

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 16, 2006
in Body, Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism, Food and Sexuality
. 15 Comments

In recent years, as I continue to fiddle with my women’s studies syllabus, I’ve moved away from emphasizing certain themes and towards others.  One theme that has become more and more important to me: tracing the cultural history of women’s shame in America, particularly in regards to sexual pleasure, food, and other "selfish" desires.

I’ve emphasized this many times before, but my students are, overwhelmingly, non-white.  They are, overwhelmingly, first-generation college students.  And in my women’s studies class, overwhelmingly female.  But whether they are black, Latina, Asian, Armenian, they’ve almost all been raised with one enormously important — and colossally destructive — discourse: pleasure comes with penalties.

I tend to focus on the close relationship between attitudes towards eating and attitudes towards sex, largely because they seem so often to be inextricably linked.  The pleasure of food is our first pleasure; when we were tiny infants, it was what we screamed for and it was gave us comfort and delight.  Long after many of our other appetites may have faded, we will still take pleasure in what we eat.  (I’ve spent a lot of time with the elderly; my experience has been that in nursing homes, the subject of lunch tends to dominate conversations.)  Throughout our lives, in groups or alone, eating has the potential to be one of our greatest physical delights.

And we do not live in a world where women are permitted to eat to satiety without a considerable degree of shaming.  While their brothers are often encouraged to eat to excess, the majority of my female students grew up with a sense that they had to monitor what and how much they ate.  Many were first introduced to the idea that "pleasure has penalties" by mothers who warned them, as they moved into puberty, "don’t eat so much or you’ll get fat."  Others grew up with parents who were happy to have them eat all they liked, but as they transitioned into puberty, found themselves under the crushing influence of the broader culture, which idealizes a female body type at odds with healthy, indulgent eating. 

Bottom line: few students get to college without a considerable amount of shame surrounding their eating.  Most, if not all, have incorporated specifically moral language to refer to their food habits.  When I ask them "What does it mean when you hear a friend say ‘I’ve been good today’", all of them know that that refers to a particularly successful period of restriction.  When another friend says "I was so bad at lunch today", that never refers to skipping out on a restaurant bill; it’s always a reference to prioritizing pleasure over self-denial.  And as a feminist, few things make me sadder than to see so many of my students caught in that trap of oscillating between self-denial and indulgence, between bouts of puritanical pride in their own restriction and crushing guilt for giving into the basic desire to be sweetly, pleasurably, full.

I always connect this struggle around food to sexuality.  Just as my students vary in their eating habits, they vary widely in their sexual mores.  I’ve posted before about just how diverse they can be; I’ve had porn stars sitting alongside those who insist that kissing before marriage is a sin.   But if I can make some generalizations, I can say with confidence that most have been raised to view women as "gatekeepers" who must carefully guard their bodies against lustful, predatory, men. Too many have grown up with a sense that lust is a one-way street in which women are objects but rarely subjects.  Many were taught by their mothers how to be pleasing  and desirable; they were taught how to attract men while at the same time keeping them at bay.  For far too many, male sexual desire is a tool to be used with great care.  But few were raised with any sense of their own sexual agency (at least in the service of their own pleasure.) During a discussion a few semesters ago about the "discovery of the clitoris" by the male-dominated medical profession, one bold young woman said frankly:

"I’d sooner admit to sleeping with dozens of guys than admit that I masturbate.  Bringing pleasure to men is always easier to cop to than bringing pleasure to yourself.  It’s almost like masturbating for yourself makes you more of a slut — it’s like you can’t control your own desires, and that’s bad." 

While some students vigorously disagreed, it was clear that that comment had struck a familiar chord with many of the young women in the room.  (Nota bene: I do NOT ask students to disclose details of their private sexual lives to me or the class; I do, however, try and create a safe environment where those who wish to take such risks can do so.) 

Many of my students seem to have a sense of their own sexuality that reminds me of many folks with eating disorders whom I have known.  I’ve known quite a few women who regularly starved themselves.  And yet, rather than avoid food altogether, they became marvelous cooks.  I once dated a woman (briefly) who wanted to cook for me every weekend.  She made full-course fattening meals; she spent hours in the kitchen.  And she ate virtually nothing.  It became incredibly uncomfortable for me to eat in front of her, as she watched me with tremendous interest, constantly asking if I wanted more.  Obviously, she took some vicarious pleasure in watching someone else eat, but she clearly also had a perverse sense of personal agency.  For this woman, pleasure consisted solely in the capacity to bring pleasure to another.  She had no ability to enjoy food for herself; her delight was entirely contingent upon mine.  It was absolutely awful.

I’ve told that anecdote to a few of my classes, and seen many nods of recognition.  And it seems evident to me that for far too many young women, that attitude of "contingent pleasure" seems to carry over from the kitchen to the bedroom.  Even in our hypersexualized culture, most of my female students are taught more about how to provide pleasure to another than to experience it for themselves.  The agency that they are permitted is the agency that comes with mastering the male ego and the male body, learning how to flirt, learning how to seduce, learning how to bring delight and pleasure. They see porn everywhere, but rarely do they see a storyline written for them, one in which their own ecstasy is central rather than something feigned to soothe male anxiety.

I don’t tell my students that they must masturbate without concomitant shame in order to be good feminists.  I don’t tell them they need to eat cheesecake without guilt  in order to be liberated.  It’s not the place of a feminist professor (particularly a male one) to prescribe specific steps for  transformation and growth in such profoundly personal arenas as sexuality and food.  But at the same time, I am clear that there are few areas of life where it is more important to live out our egalitarian values than eating and sex.  I am not advocating uncontrolled gluttony or destructive promiscuity. I am advocating an ethic that respects women’s pleasure as an a priori good. I am not advocating selfishness.  (Heck, I’m a monogamous vegetarian; I understand the importance of balancing one’s own desires with one’s commitments to others.)  I am challenging my students to see physical joy as their human birthright. 

Though not all of my students are yet sexually active, all of them are "food active."   They’ve been eating for as long as they can remember, and will do so for the rest of their lives.   Part of beginning a feminist journey is making a commitment not merely to self-indulgence, but to the principle that all human beings are entitled to seek out pleasure.  It’s one thing to say those words aloud, another to live them out.  And since feminism is never merely about transforming the self for the self alone, it’s vital that men and women commit themselves to being advocates for shame-free pleasure in the lives of their friends and family.  Though our understanding of when and how we seek pleasure may be informed by our own spiritual beliefs, and though we ought never seek pleasure at the expense of another’s happiness, we can still boldly, loudly, and continually proclaim the God-given right to delight in our bodies.   

Creation, in all of its messiness, is a good thing.