UCSB to Host Discussion on Safe Spaces for Fat Gay Men
From the department of you can’t make this stuff up.
Campus Reform reports.
UCSB to host discussion on ‘safe spaces’ for ‘fat, gay men’
The University of California, Santa Barbara will host a book discussion next week to discuss “the anti-fat stigma that persists in American culture,” specifically for “fat, gay men.”
The event, a discussion of the book “Fat, Gay Men: Mirth, Girth, and the Politics of Stigma” with author Dr. Jason Whitesel of Pace University, is being hosted by the UCSB Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. According to the event page on Facebook, 34 of the 199 students invited have indicated that they will attend.
“To be fat in a thin-obsessed gay culture can be difficult,” the Resource Center’s description of the event begins. “Despite affectionate in-group monikers for big gay men—chubs, bears, cubs—the anti-fat stigma that persists in American culture at large still haunts these individuals who often exist at the margins of gay communities.”
To help students learn more about the issue, Whitesel “delves into the world of Girth & Mirth, a nationally known social club dedicated to big gay men,” which the description later states “has long been a refuge and ‘safe space’ for such men.”
Although not a member of the group himself, Whitesel is “a partial insider as a gay man,” and “offers an insider’s critique of the gay movement, questioning whether the social consequences of the failure to be height-weight proportionate should be so extreme in the gay community.”
UCSB to host discussion on 'safe spaces' for 'fat, gay men' (Campus Reform)
Comments
Ditch the “safe” space thing and grow up. Good grief, everyone has lost their minds with all this silliness. What a bunch of crybabies. Life isn’t fair. It’s never going to be fair. It isn’t supposed to be fair. So get over yourselves, wimps!
Money could be saved by having fat gay men talk to straight women. Society also fat shames women (who want to be attractive to males) into being even thinner than height weight proportional. There have been endless discussions on the topic of how 300 pound straight men with three teeth and little hair think that their mates should look like models because that is how it is in the movies and on tv.
UCSB must be a place where no decent student would want to go. Perhaps, dopey is a good word to describe them.
What nonsense! I am homosexual, (I dislike “gay”, see below.) I am a part of a sub-culture called Bears. There was a time when the rules of the “gay” “community” required being slim, impeccably groomed, clean-shaved, hairless, dressed well. The Bear sub-culture came about with those who were homosexual but didn’t meet the standards. Fat, or at least bulky. Hairy. Bushy moustache or a full beard like I have. It gave us a place of our own.
Am I fat? Yes. Do I want to lose weight? I am working on it with some success. However, I will never meet and would not want to meet, those old standards. I am very comfortable with who, and what, I am. Do I attract others? Yes, and of all shapes and sizes.
In short, those who seek that safe space and want someone to comfort them and pat them on the head and say “there there” are sniveling pansies that badly need to grow up!
(I mentioned above that I dislike “gay”. To me, “gay” means those whose entire lives orbit around their homosexuality. It is the prism through which they view the world. It affects their politics, behavior, and thinking. That is not me. My political and social views alone take me out of the gay picture.)
But what if they’re fat *white* gay men? Are we going to go to a point system for politically correct here? +4 points for being gay, +2 points for being fat, and -8 points for white perhaps?