I Blame Those Evil Towel Conglomerates
From The Independent, a new moral crisis:
A plus-size content creator and traveller who said seatbelts on planes cause “emotional damage” is now sharing tips on how to avoid the trauma.
It occurs to me that the thing causing the annoyance – sorry, emotional damage – is not in fact the seatbelt, or asking for an extender. If, say, a person of average proportions found that all plane seatbelts had suddenly been reduced in size by 38%, this might well be irritating, and somewhat surreal, but it would not, I think, be a likely cause of similar “emotional damage,” let alone psychological trauma.
Likewise, if you’re rendered incensed by the fact that a plus-sized bath towel is still insufficiently commodious, then the cause of any sorrow and agitation probably isn’t the towel, but rather what you’re trying to fit in it. However, it seems that certain obvious realities must not be acknowledged – and so we get performative indignation about how oppressive towels are.
Update, via the comments:
Regarding airborne stowing dramas, readers may recall the delightful and ladylike Lindy West, a “fat activist” whose “work focuses on pop culture, social justice and body image.” In a tearful tale shared in Jezebel, Ms West insisted that she should always be accommodated, regardless of practicality and inconvenience, as if her own choice to be, and remain, notably overweight could have no bearing on the issue. While struggling to squeeze into her plane seat, Ms West decided to pick a loud verbal fight with an adjacent male passenger, and then amused herself by deliberately knocking him with her luggage as he tried to sleep. She then complained, seemingly without irony, that “nobody wants to sit next to a fat person on a plane.”
When not writing about herself for Jezebel and the Guardian, or testing the endurance of plane seats and fellow passengers, and insisting that her difficulties fitting into seats and other spaces are nothing whatsoever to do with her choices, Ms West makes videos of herself eating biscuits and junk food.
“Elsewhere, Kirsty regularly posts videos on her platform sharing the lessons she learned while travelling, her adventures and other helpful and positive content to inspire other plus-size people to explore the world.”
Sadly, not on foot, which would probably do them the most good…
It’s odd just how widely this displacement has become accepted, if only superficially, and not least in the media. The reason these ladies are unhappy, sufficiently so to broadcast their miseries to the world, has little to do with seatbelts and towels. I realise it may sometimes be impolite to draw attention to the obvious, but the scale of the pretence can become quite silly.
“Related”
https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1496151551165059079
“Related”
Today’s word is teamwork.
Yes, but what of MY trauma when one of these plus-sized behemoths is seated next to me and I find them literally oozing into my space?
This is why I have a rule – if I can drive to a location in 15 hours or less, I do so. Sure, it may take longer but I plan for that and enjoy the leisurely pace. My schedule is my own.
So basically, she’s just a whinging fat bitch. WGAF?
…seatbelts on planes cause “emotional damage”…
Kirsty may think it is all about her but…
…literally oozing into my space…
The thing is, as bad as oozing is, whereas the Brobdingnagian like our TicTac star think it is all about them, the fact is that commercial aircraft seats are stressed to about 9 Gs in the -Gx (forward longitudinal) direction – IOW, take off and landing, where most crashes occur.
The more weight in a seat, particularly over the 95th percentile size/weight design factors, the more likely it is to fail in an otherwise survivable crash and taking you in the next seat, as they are connected, with it. This of course means your chance of survival decreases and gets worse if we throw in the fact that Miss Kirsty says she wants to sit on the aisle which she is in any event blocking access to decreasing your ability to egress. Of course her next complaint will be that the aisles and and emergency doors, which she would also be blocking in an emergency, need to be wider. For her convenience of course.
…oppressive towels…
First LP was “Emotional Damage”, but I digress.
The demure lassie in the video said she was at Target, a quick look shows their largest towel is 70 inches. The average height of wymxn in the US is 5’4″ – 5’5″. If your circumference at 5’5″ (for that matter, any height) is over 70″, the problem is not the towel.
It has been said before, but the fundamental problem with this lot, as well as the Alphabet People and other chronic complainers, is that they expect toe entire universe to bend to their peculiar pathologies.
Perhaps I have become desensitised to this stuff, but looking at her site I was quite surprised that she’s only averagely enormously fat. I doubt she’d stick out (ahem) in the US. She’s no Lizzo, fo’ sho’… Although it might just seem that way because she’s covered up.
Anyway, if she wants to remain plus size and proud, while travelling without inconvenience, I recommend the front of the plane. Plenty of room for the fatster and no problem for anyone else.
The demure lassie in the video said she was at Target, a quick look shows their largest towel is 70 inches.
That sounds like a “bath sheet”, which I suspect was invented for the luxury market and/or for the increasing number of, um, “plus-sized” Americans. Bath towels are typically about 30×60 inches, which bath sheets are another 6 or more inches wider and longer.
Some alternatives that a healthy mind might try instead of trying to be a square on someone’s victim bingo card:
1. Bath sheet
2. Beach towel
3. Terry cloth robe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkoPq5AOCOA
Seat belt extenders: You can buy seat belt extenders for automobiles, but the extender you buy for your own car will not be compatible with other makes and maybe even other models. I once discovered to my great discomfort that someone who I had been giving rides to had never been buckling up because she was too fat for the seat belts, and if we had been in an accident she would thus have been far more likely to be severely injured or killed. Since I was the driver and owner that put me in a position of liability that I did not want.
Seems somehow apt: Cartoon of two cows in a field. One says to the other, “I’m not contented.”
A plus-size content creator and traveller
Again – it looks like English, but???
That sounds like a “bath sheet”…
Yeah, but not wanting to get into semantic quibbles, it is still a towel in the oversize towel section of Target where she claims to have been looking, and where “XL bath towels” go to 65″.
Regardless, if your circumference is a mere 60″, the problem still isn’t the towel, whatever one calls it.
She could always get a beach towel which can be between 6 and 7 feet. If that ain’t big enough, I believe that would qualify her as a planetoid.
“I believe that would qualify her as a planetoid.”
I think that’s an assteroid…
*ducks*
She could always get a beach towel which can be between 6 and 7 feet.
And she’ll end up having to buy an extra-large commercial washer for her laundry. 😉
If she doesn’t know where her ideal towel is, then she cannot be a hoopy frood.
“I believe that would qualify her as a planetoid.”
Does light bend around her?
Does she have her own atmosphere? Tides? Tectonic activity?
It’s odd just how widely this displacement has become accepted, if only superficially, and not least in the media.
Odd in the sarcastic sense maybe. It had become accepted because no one speaks up to challenge it. People are afraid to point out the bloody obvious. I recall a news show decades ago, during the Reagan administration IIRC where some big fat mamma (black) was complaining to the news crew “I don’t got enough food to feed my babies!” To which I replied during a workplace discussion of the issue in general, one that I had not initiated, that she’s bloody fat and if her babies are truly starving, she could maybe…eat less herself. Even back then that comment got the crickets chirping.
It seems to me there are three broad approaches to being notably fat. The first is to lose weight, which I’d imagine is a bit boring and sometimes difficult. The second is to remain fat and get on with your life, and deal with the practicalities of fatness as a grown-up might. The third approach, as favoured above, seems to entail being unhappy about being fat while pretending that you aren’t unhappy about it, but unhappy about something else, something in no way your fault, resulting in complaints regarding the difficulty of finding a towel that could also be used as the sail of a Seventeenth Century frigate.
Tides? Tectonic activity?
Probably…
The first is to lose weight…
You heartless fatphobic fiend, even to suggest that is conversion therapy and unpossible.
Fundamentally, in the modern world, if anyone feels bad about their choices, it is the fault of the world. It is expected that the world will simply change everything to accommodate you if you feel put out or annoyed or ashamed. Never mind that this is impossible, inconveniences others, costs others lots of money, or is your own damn fault, still, the world must revolve around you, and immediately.
Yes, there are giant towels out there called beach towels. If you choose to be 350lbs there are seatbelt extenders. Problems have solutions but it is so much more satisfying to whine about being oppressed.
No doubtMr. Jordan would find himself cancelled today.
Bollocks. Screwed up the link.
Here’s another thing that busts my chops about fat women complaining, I’m 6’4″. Sitting in standard airline seats for many hours is not comfortable for me period. But I just f’n deal with it. I’ve never made an issue of it, never complained…except slightly on that transatlantic Delta flight where I was traveling business class and the seats were broken such that they wouldn’t recline at all. So aside from any Procrustian solution that’s just the bloody way it is. Now at 6′ 4″ I know I’m nowhere near the exceptionally tall. I can even buy clothes and such without having to go to the big&tall men’s store and suffer the fashion indignities there. I also have made moderately decent bank in my life. But I often wonder about these guys you see in college basketball and such who don’t make the NBA, don’t make a decent living for whatever reason* life has gotta be harder on them than this whiny, bitchy fat (white? I was afraid to look) woman. Yet you don’t hear those guys complaining.
Sigh. My life is just one big E.M. Snickering children’s limerick.
*Again, not complaining myself as I’m not that big but being exceptionally tall is not the tremendous social advantage most people greatly assume it to be. There are things that I personally never noticed until reading a story about a UF basketball center from back in the 80’s, forget his name. But he was something like 6’6″ in the 7th or 8th grade and he did not handle that well. Fortunately he did get some help via being a useful b-ball player but in relating the story it was pretty clear he was a bit messed up psychologically from always being noticed, the comments and such.
I read fantasy. I don’t want to live it.
that is conversion therapy and unpossible.
Well when you consider that losing weight is for the vast majority of people a mental thing but those very same people perceive themselves as having zero, absolutely zero, possibility of being able to lose weight…well, ipso fatso she’s right.
You left out canvas tarpaulin.
Not entirely unrelated.
Please…Mr. Jordan had nothing on Arthur Godfrey.
Not entirely unrelated.
Various social critics have pointed out how some parents foolishly allow their children to bully them into bad choices, and that they should learn how to say ‘no’ and make it stick. But then, a lot of adults have developed lifelong junk food habits.
[+] posted a link to a guy who lost lots of weight. Good for him. If you lose such wt while young, not much problem. If you stay fat for a long time and then lose the wt, you will have huge rolls of loose skin hanging that look like shit. Also, if you destroy your knees or back, you can’t revive them.
pointed out how some parents foolishly allow their children to bully them into bad choices,
As a child, I was almost never asked what I’d like to eat. The idea of making demands or causing a fuss simply wasn’t on the map.
Some women are built for comfort, others for speed. Others still, for ballast.
As a child … [the] idea of making demands or causing a fuss simply wasn’t on the map.
Exactly so. To her great credit, this also applies to my teenage daughter. Some of her friends, not so much…
“ipso fatso” “some for ballast” hahahah
Airline seats: had a very chubby guy sitting next to me and that was bad enough but he played his gameboy the whole flight with elbows out way into my space (grown man with a gameboy, sheesh).
I don’t really care if people are fat BUT if you want to climb stairs, avoid diabetes, have knees that work, etc. maybe avoid that. Choices have consequences but of course that is an evil thing to say. It is also true that even if truly oppressed (which they are not) young black men killing people is still a choice.
As a child, I was almost never asked what I’d like to eat. The idea of making demands or causing a fuss simply wasn’t on the map.
As a child my mother’s uncle wast often quoted by my father saying, “The child will eat what is put in front of him and be damn glad he has it.” Were that man to know what has become of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren he’d be spinning in his grave. I remember staying at a friends’ house and being asked how I’d like my eggs. I was stunned as no one had ever asked. As people on tv and the movies often said “over easy” I was curious what that meant so I replied “over easy”. I was quite embarrassed when my friend’s mom laughed at me. Her husband told her that’s what you get for asking a kid such a stupid question. In my defense, it has the word ‘easy’ in it and I actually had no idea it was the harder of the options.
As a child, I was almost never asked what I’d like to eat…
And that’s the right way to
do parentingraise children. Do not allow the children to become accustomed to the idea that they can make such demands. Train them in the right eating habits (and explain why) and hopefully they will continue those habits as adults.…The idea of making demands or causing a fuss simply wasn’t on the map.
And that was so far off the map as to be terra incognita.
Airline seats: had a very chubby guy sitting next to me and that was bad enough but he played his gameboy the whole flight with elbows out way into my space (grown man with a gameboy, sheesh).
I’m sure he had plenty of excuses for his behavior.
…It is also true that even if truly oppressed (which they are not) young black men killing people is still a choice.
We can try to reform government and non-governmental institutions to reverse decades of harmful leftist policies, but in the end black people have to take responsibility for themselves. The same observation applies to British chavs, Irish travelers, and so on.)
I’m 6’4″. Sitting in standard airline seats for many hours is not comfortable for me period
Preach, brother. And yet somehow I was able to buy extra-large bath sheets which will dry me off entirely (it’s not the circumference, it’s the absorption surface area) with a mere two clicks thanks to Amazon.
If you stay fat for a long time and then lose the wt, you will have huge rolls of loose skin hanging that look like shit. Also, if you destroy your knees or back, you can’t revive them
There’s a middle ground. The loose skin thing is a problem with rapid weight loss, as is typical of bariatric surgery. Losing weight gradually, and staying hydrated, the skin goes along with the fat. Ditto the knees/back thing; they’ll never be 100%, but just not loading them with 100 extra pounds will make a world of difference.
The idea of making demands or causing a fuss simply wasn’t on the map.
I’ve noticed this as well. The number of people in my age cohort with children who are “fussy eaters” bewilders me. There’s a strong correlation with “fussy eater” and “indulged their entire childhood”, though, I’ve noticed.
“The child will eat what is put in front of him and be damn glad he has it.”
It may have helped that my parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression and knew what poverty was like.
Preach, brother. And yet somehow I was able to buy extra-large bath sheets which will dry me off entirely
I eventually realized that bath towels are actually more than I need to dry off completely. The hand towels from the better lines of linens are sufficient, and I’m 6’2″. Which led me to a housecleaning epiphany: Use that hand towel once to dry off and then to wipe down the shower walls to prevent soap/lime buildup, and then throw it in the laundry hamper.
“””I don’t want to look like a weirdo! I’ll just go with the Muumuu.””
Homer J.
That sounds like a “bath sheet”, which I suspect was invented for the luxury market
I don’t know about luxury market, but I like purchasing these because it is sheer luxury for me to step out of steamy shower and wrap up in oodles of fluffy terrycloth. I get terry bathrobes oversized too.
Life’s too short not to indulge in little bits of personal luxury now and then.
It may have helped that my parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression and knew what poverty was like.
Significantly. That uncle was born around 1895(?) either in Germany or came over on the boat with my grandmother as a small child. My mother’s father, the uncle’s brother-in-law, died in 1932 leaving her mother with three grammar school age children to raise. That uncle provided occasional odd jobs (he ran a small general store iirc) and advice for the family through the depression. People forget times were hard during the Depression but they had been much harder years before. We are all too young to know anyone of mature age who lived through the financial crisis/crises of the late 19th century but if you read contemporaneous accounts of the times things were quite hard then as well. It’s what drove many people in the US west for more opportunities. Don’t know if that era stuff affected Europe but that’s about the time most of the people on my mother’s side left Germany.
I don’t know about luxury market…
It’s possible that they existed 60 years ago and I was unaware only because as someone of modest means I ignored such things. But we have on average become more wealthy over the last 70 years which is what led me to speculate that this is a more recent thing.
When I was a kid, I am sure men’s hankies were the size of a parachute canopy, but as I have got older (and maybe my hooter has grown larger) today’s men’s hankies seem pityingly small.
On the other hand, Mars bars could hold a barn door open and Wagon Wheels were the size of dinner plates. I expect then in years to come, people will complain that there was once a time when a Happy Meal satisfied a growing lad.
On the other hand, Mars bars could hold a barn door open…
See Stephen Jay Gould’s funny essay Phyletic Size Decrease in Hershey Bars, which appears in his collection Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes. He could be a good science writer when he did not allow leftist politics to intrude.
There’s a strong correlation with “fussy eater” and “indulged their entire childhood”, though, I’ve noticed.
I’ve watched in silent fascination as a mother I know returned from work to start cooking an evening meal, while simultaneously cooking two entirely different meals, differing from each other, for her two teenage children, who were seemingly in charge of these things, thanks to proficiency in face-pulling and sub-verbal noises. A total of three different meals. However, the teenagers had yet to master the washing machine or vacuum cleaner, or the technical subtleties of doing the washing-up.