Hey, everyone, Virgie here. I hope you're all hanging in there. I've been deep in quarantine Landia and dealing with it the only way a type A Taurus knows how, by filling my time with ritual and work. Here is a shortlist creating elaborate teatime rituals, making chocolate chip banana bread, painting my toenails, gold stretching, meditating, dancing really hard on my bikini to Kate Bush, and listening to self help audiobooks.
Drumming on stuff like literally just me drumming on the wall with my hands has been weirdly helpful as an energy release, and then sometimes I have deep, heaving waves of tears when things begin to feel overwhelming. I hope Rubel Eaters Club has been able to offer some solace. And in that spirit, I wanted to play a live conversation I had in late February with someone I really respect,
Caleb Luna, better known on Twitter as Chairbreaker. Caleb is an intellectual powerhouse finishing up their PhD at UC Berkeley, and I have a very big friend crush on them. We first met years ago when fat activism was still a small movement. Since then, I've read all of their writing on the intersection of race, gender, sex, and fatness, and it's amazing to witness how they hold it down for complexity and nuance, but with a lot of heart.
Caleb and I started off by talking about their favorite snack, Mother's Circus Animal Cookies. They were one of my favorite treats as a kid too, because not only were they animal shaped, they were frosted, and they were pink, and they had rainbow sprinkles, and even to this day they are delicious. So I feel like I was talking to some people here beforehand about how these are such like a childhood memory, and I chose them specifically because I still love them and I still eat them, um, because
they're delicious. Um. And also I'm really stubborn. I'm a tourist moon um, so I'm really into the principle of the thing. Oh my god. I was wondering, yes, food
and stances all about it. Um, But I find that, like, I mean, I grew up working class, right, and now I'm like doing this PhD thing at this like institution that has all this prestige and blah blah blah, and like everyone around me is so thin and so like concerned with it and so obsessed with it in these like ways that they don't even recognize or think is
normal and been good. Um, right, And so like eating continuing to eat the foods that I ate as a child is actually really important to me as a way of like maintaining like my working class background and like honoring it and recognizing that that's like what brought me
into my fat body in some ways. And especially as like these kinds of foods get really demonized in some ways as like unhealthy or sugary or processed and blah blah blah, and like everybody is like I don't know whereas like the fucking local vegan alternative to this, right or whatever. It just feels important to me to continue to eat them because yeah, like I said, I'm stubborn, and it's the principle of the thing that these are delicious.
I just remember one of the first things I was examining when I started looking at the public health stuff around like you know, the campaigns and whatnot around the quote unquote obesity epidemic and then specific focus on children, and there really was this very to me overt line of reasoning around the idea that essentially working class people make poor decisions across the board, and eating is one
of those things. And obviously I grew up working class as well, and I kind of think about how that relationship to these very class foods right like they they stay with us. I kind of want to get into who you are. Sure, I'm a Leo Son, a Pisces rising in a tourist moon. Like I said, I'm a PhD candidate, I'm a scholar, I'm an activist, I'm a performer,
a writer, artist. I obviously am a fat person and that has been like in many ways that defining experience for me, especially as like a super fat person, gender nonconforming, non binary. Yeah, I mean or in a program for performance study? Is correct? Correct? Yeah? Can you tell for the people of people who have never heard of this? What is it? So? Performance studies is an academic discipline that considers all sort of behavior as performance, that we're
all performing roles at any given time. And I'm actually setting my dissertation this semester and I'm writing about performances of eating and not eating. Okay, wait, I need that we need to keep going. Can you talk about the performance of can you talk more about that the performance of eating not eating. Yeah, Like this performance of like oh I can't eat that because I'm bad or that
makes me bad, right, is a performance. It's performing this like sort of good citizen, which is like an individual who will produce a productive body towards the ends of the nation state. And so I'm really I'm really interested in the ways that fat phobia impacts in people too, right, because I feel like with with these conversations sometimes like obviously fat people are impacted um most directly, but UM, I worry that sometimes the way the impacts on thin
people gets lost as well. And so I want to put pressure on the ways that thin people are self disciplining UM in ways to maintain a certain kind of body size UM that comes with the rewards, but also like comes with hardships. Also, thin people take up in some ways like fat aesthetics of eating UM in ways
that are culturally evalorized UM and obscured. And it's like, actually, you really want to be fat or you want to like perform the things that you think that fat people are doing all the time, but you're really scared too. I Mean, I'm thinking what comes to mind is this image. I remember once there was this I found a T shirt and it called it said I Love Fatties on it, and I was so excited and then I was like, great,
can I buy one? And then they sort of looked me up and now they're like, well, I mean, you know, we've sort of and I was like, well, what's this you have? And like the largest side they had was extra large and it was like a tiny extra large, right, it was like a baby tea. And I was like, Okay, you guys, you need to get your branding, you need to get this together. But you know, it just reminds me so much of what you're talking about. Um, okay,
so your Instagram handle is chairbreaker. I'm wondering if you can give us the origin story of this handle. I think. Yeah, So before I came to grad school, I had an office job and there was one other fat person in my office. Um, and she and we like kind of bonded a lot over being the only fat people in the office. Yeah, as you do, right, And she kept, I mean she kept there were two chairs that were
broken that were in her office. Who knows how that happened, but she was like really stressed about it like understandably, but I was also like, girl, fucking good for you. Um, I've broken so many chairs before, and it was just like this real like yeah, that's the thing that happens because it's framed as like, um, something's wrong with our bodies because they break chairs, rather than like these chairs are insufficient because they can't hold our bodies right yes, um.
And so I was like, there's my new Instagram handled. Um. People will frequently like DM me showing me like pictures of chairs they broke, and I'm always like, congratulations, another one down. You know, we're gonna break every chair until there's none left that can't hold us. Um. And that's really how we do this work. Like yeah, so like you know, a smaller bodied person SIT's in a chair and breaks and it's a broke it's a broken chair, and a fat persons it's in a chair and a
break and they broke the chair right like. And I always tell people right people are like, well, how like, how how do you know fat phobia is is bigotry and discrimination? I'm like, because two people can do the exact same thing, and you can have very different experiences of how they do them. Um, depending on their size, right and like, and what you think about them and what happens um when I was thinking about you and
human rights and fat justice. Right, one of the things that has increasingly gone away from the conversation around body positivity body justice, um is the fact that we are fighting for human rights. This is not just a movement about the individual feeling good about themselves. Um. Though those things though that's important, right um. But really, you know, when I think about the inception of fat activism and fat justice, I think about the ways that you know,
rights were always a big part of it. And at the end of the day, right like positivity is very important, but it's not actually a political tool. And in the sense that right like, positivity is not a useful tool for people who are in survival mode. You cannot wield positivity and get anything from it. Really if you're like
if you're being denied human rights. So I'm kind of curious about I mean, like, just like, right like, I'm curious about your thoughts on maybe the ways in which human rights have gotten away from this conversation, your interest
in them, things like that. Yeah, I think it actually is for me about identifying as an anarchist and rejecting social hierarchies right, and understanding that social hierarchies are hierarchies of race, they're hierarchies of gender and class, but they're also hierarchies of body size, and that I can make
the choice to not perpetuate them in my actions. But I think you're right that like it gets the conversation gets so distilled and so like how we feel about ourselves and like body image and self love and all this shit, and like, actually the stakes aren't much higher. Um, Yeah, I get so freshed by that conversation, partially because thin
people don't love themselves. But when thin people don't love themselves, and I still granted opportunities like admission to college, like they get the job offer, right, Like those things it isn't part of the conversation, And those are actually the stakes that we're talking about, right, That, like fat phobia impacts our access to resources and our access to livelihood and survival and happiness through having resources and having the
resources to be happy. Yeah, I mean I use like body positivity is like business lingo for me at this point, because I want to tie my work and when when I'm talking about it in reality for my own life with my friends or you know, privately or academically or any other thing. It's always fat active bism. It's always fat liberation to me, because liberation is an actual political demand.
I mean, it's complicated, bec there's different paths to it, but um, but there have been many movements throughout history
that have fought for liberation. And there are like mechanisms that you can do to like that are pride and true to get rights, to get those kinds of things like access to medical care, and also like highlights that fat people are not the only people impacted, right that, like then people need like don't feel good about themselves either, and that like sometimes people are just naturally thin and like that's fine, um, and like you can also feel
okay about yourself. But yeah, it's very much like use that as a link as like the sort of Trojan horrors to then be like and actually this is what body positive is. Body positivity is to me, which is like the liberation of all people. Yeah absolutely, um, Okay, So I have tons more questions where I've got all
my little all my little notes here. Yeah, Okay. One of the first pieces of yours I ever read was an article titled on being fat, round them ugly and unlovable, and I really loved how you went there in discussing ugliness. I remember thinking, there's there's power here, right, there's power in this idea, right that like, and for me as someone who grew up feeling super ugly, right and being taught that I was ugly because I was fat, and
those things were the same thing. And so for me, one of the most powerful things that ever happened was when I started to actually have sex. And I was like, wait, this is actually not hard. I don't understand. And I was like, you know, I was being told I was never gonna get that, I was never gonna have sex, I was never gonna have love, I was not gonna have a relationship. And then I found that, you know, at least casual sex was actually quite easy to acquire.
And I kept sort of going through the math. I was like, okay, wait, so like we've got this person, I've had sex with them. That happened, I'm sure, and then that person definitely real also, but like what it meant to occupy the space of being sexually desirable and also ugly and I'm kind of talking, and I'm curious,
you know, do you still identify with that piece? Do you still identify with all of those words that I say when it's so I have such a complicated relationship to it because I wrote it when I was really sad at like three in the morning and like unrequitedly in love with somebody and never expected anyone to read it. And then like I remember waking up like two in the afternoon the day it was published, and like it had like all my friends were sharing it and like
it went and I was like fuck. And as part of its like virality, like I got a lot of like messages affirming that I wasn't ugly, which also I don't actually remember if I like talk about in that essay that like I don't actually think I'm ugly. I think I'm very attractive, but the world responds to me as if I'm ugly just because I'm fat. So I got all these affirmations that I wasn't ugly and that I just needed to love myself, and I was like, once again, I see it. Then people who ate themselves
all the time and they still get asked out on dates. Um, So like this is not the issue. However, I think one thing that I would have that I've learned since that essay is that yes, sex is easy, and that just because somebody's gonna have sex with me, it doesn't mean they're going to respect me. Yeah, And that is like the thing that I feel like more fat people need to, like I don't know here like understand or like a process that we all go through is that like, oh,
this is easy. It doesn't necessarily feel good. They're not necessarily like treating me well. And like I had this one experience with this boy who was like very attracted to me and then like told me when we were cuddling that he could never be with me because he didn't know what his family would say, right, And I was like, I'm literally just here for the sex. You don't need to like overshare with me. But you know, people are so many more people are attracted to us
than they want to admit. But it doesn't mean that they're gonna like be nice to us. It doesn't mean that they're gonna like love us necessarily, not the way that we need to be loved. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I relate to what you're talking about where it's like you were in the midst of this really intimate thing and there's clearly this desire and it's reciprocal. But then
there's this public facing component. The public component is a significant part of how we understand relationships, how we understand love and intimacy and all that. That's a big part
of relating. That's a big part of dating. That's a big part of relationships, right Romance, one of the pieces that you wrote was about Grinder, and you said that it took you until the age of twenty nine to realize that you could be genuinely desirable and not just someone that someone settled for, and I kind of want to hear that story of that realization. I would love to tell that story. So it was actually right after
I moved to the Bay. I moved here on a Tuesday, and like within an hour, this dude was like hitting me up and was like when can we meet? And I was like, oh, my god, my friends here, So we're gonna have to wait a couple of days. So my friend who drove across the country with me, I feel like they left Thursday morning and Thursday afternoon we hooked up and I was very attracted to him and I was, and he was like very attracted to me. And that was the moment when I was like, I was.
I didn't understand that, like I was sexy and that people could think I was sexy because up until that moment, I was only having sex with people that weren't really engaging with my body. And so when I met this person, then I was really attracted to you that was really into my body that we had to get sex. I was like, oh, like, I'm not a consolation prize, which I think until that moment I had always felt like partially because that's kind of how people treated me. Yeah,
I mean I can relate to that also. I mean just thinking there's only two kinds of people right for me, it was people who don't like me and some kind of man saint who will just out of the magnanimity and wonderfulness of his spirit, would tolerate my body. And I just remember thinking, right like, I have to be on point. I have to be smart, to be funny, I would be fashionable, I have to great glasses and right like, and then maybe he'll be able to overlook
this like layering problem with my body. And then kind of finding that I could actually experience and then demand something much better, right, and just kind of like the first time somebody was like, can I watch you shower? Please? And I was like, oh my god, right, what a special day to day is? You know? And I don't know, like they're just something so powerful about that. Before we wrapped up our conversation, we took a question from a
super cute fat babe in the audience. She runs an Instagram account called Curvy Streets documenting fat fashion in the Bay Area. She brought up how it's on trend for brands to make plus size clothes and you can order them online, but when you go into the stores, the plus sizes aren't on the rack. I was really struck by one thing. She said that she feels like these companies are treating her and other fat people like their secret girlfriend. They want our money, but they're not sure
about committing. Yeah. Well, and I think like the duality of fashion, how it's both for me, it's both self care and it's also armor, which I see is not as antithetical to self care in a lot of ways, And so it's difficult, you know, And I think for me,
I have a different persona. When I don't look cute and I'm not like shower, I like, I turn into this like very inwardly facing, very sort of like defensive, very person and I really I watch, I literally see the shower as like part of the arming to go out into a world that hates my body. I had this experience like a couple of weeks ago where I went to fucking tourid the Fat Girl Store and they did not have my size in store, and I was like, what does it mean to be too fat for the
Fat Store? And so I'm just especially like bitter about that right now. But yeah, it's absolutely this thing where they want us to wear their clothes, but they don't want us in the store because we are somehow chanting their brand and chanting their image. They don't want us to be associated. And then you know, I feel fucking chopped because I like looking cute and like we have
thank you again. Who knows that this is because I'm a Leo Son, But like my self esteem is so tied to like how cute I feel and how cute I look, and like I can't do that without access to the clothes, and so it's just and so then we're like forced to. Um. I mean I still have to fucking BUYE Toward pants because that was like the only place I know that can like harries my size. Um. So yeah, it's garbage. UM and I hate them. YEA. Check out Caleb Luna on Instagram at chairbreaker. That's one word.
C h A I R B R E A K E rum. Caleb, thank you so much for being here and being amazing and wonderful. Thank you. Next week I'll be back to answer a few of your questions. How do you get to the point of loving yourself at any size? That sounds wonderful, but how do you get there? If you'd like to send one along, leave a voicemail at eight six two two three one five three eight six. That number is eight six two two three one five three eight six. You can also email us at Rebel
Eaters Club at gmail dot com. Rebel Eaters Club is in a original podcasts from Transmitter Media, the podcast company that's like adding fresh herbs from your window garden to your pasta prima vera. I'm Virgie Tovar. The show is produced by Lacy Roberts and Jordan Bailey. Our editor is Sarah Knicks Greta Khane as our executive producer. Like what you hear on the show and want to sponsor us, Send us a note at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail
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