Melissa A. Fabello

So you’re on a diet, and you’re really pumped about it. You truly, honestly believe that you’re—say—“getting your body back” post-partum (that’s a harmful concept) or improving your fitness a la the latest technological tracking device (that’s also a harmful concept). And while I think we need to throw a lot of these ideas in the trash, I’m also understanding of how diet culture makes you believe that these are good things – things, in fact, to brag about.

I’m a big proponent of teaching our loved ones how, during the holidays, to be gentle with our eating disorders (both in recovery and out).

Right now, today, as of writing this, I identify as queer. But I didn’t always.

Street harassment. Eating disorders. Rape — three times, including one storyline that involved Zoe being sexually violated at a party by two star athletes who filmed the assault and distributed the video online. Intimate partner violence. Sexist school dress codes. Police brutality and racial profiling. Islamophobia. Sexting and child pornography.

And it’s that last one that really irks me: that most people — and especially most women’s — new year’s resolutions center on dieting and weight loss as the key to happiness.

Dirty talk takes practice, but practice makes perfect. And watching your partner orgasm over video is almost as satisfying as it is in real life. I promise.

Uh, in case you haven’t noticed, the body acceptance movement has a bit of a body rejection problem. Namely, anyone who isn’t a thin, white, able-bodied, straight, middle class, cisgender woman gets left out of the movement altogether — which, in my opinion, isn’t very accepting.

I wake up hungry, but I also wake up lighter, emptier. Something about it makes me feel purer. This is one feeling that’s positive in a sea of negative.

It might take years before you can hold a cupcake in your hand and not nearly have a panic attack.

What I’ve (amazingly) learned is that if I eat what I want, when I want, and as much of it as I want (what my stomach wants, not my eyes, which are two separate measurements), my digestion regulates itself again.