We can all sympathize with the discomforts of flying cattle class on airplanes, but if I really needed more room, I assume it would be my move to shell out for first class. (Should I expect the airlines to subsidize my claustrophobia?) "Fat acceptance" is the ultimate "society made me do it" argument. Driving everywhere and relentless sitting, as is our cultural wont, do promote obesity, and therefore law and government must save us from the consequences.
The contradiction here is that while some are screaming for government interference in the food industries (as if we didn't know that sitting on our cans and "supersizing" it makes us fat), others are demanding that we, in essence, promote a pathology by accomodating it. If you're going to sue fast-food providers, why turn around and demand that airlines function as "enablers"? (Having spent more than one airline flight reduced to using half my own seat because a "person of size" colonized the other half before I could get the arm rest down, I rather think the thing to do would be for me to demand half-off my own fare.)
The simple solution is for airlines to charge everyone by pound. No discrimination needed, and you could do away with special rules for heavy people, infants, etc. (I wouldn't single out Southwest for attention here. It's just responding to market conditions and tends to have rational and humane service policies.)
Posted by: Jonathan on June 19, 2002
The reason I'm a little weirded out by this story is because it's kind of hard for me to get my mind around just who would be considered too big to be "comfortable". I mean, isn't everybody in the entire world uncomfortable in airline seats? I know some short, skinny people who nonetheless think airline seats are too narrow for their own comfort. This is a tough call for that reason, and I'm not just trying to be funny here.
Posted by: bl on June 19, 2002
"Person of size"? Yeccchhhh. As a fat chick, I can say that I would never ever fly without buying two seats. I think I would do the same even if I lost weight. How else is it possible to be comfortable in cattle class? And it is ever so much cheaper than first class. Of course, you may run into the odd bozo who doesn't grasp the concept and thinks the (mostly) empty seat is there for his convenience too, but eventually, even the most obtuse can be made to catch on. If he won't cooperate after being told politely what the arrangement is, you can annoy him to death by making needless trips to the restroom.
Lord, I hate air travel.
Posted by: C on June 19, 2002
"'Fat acceptance' is the ultimate 'society made me do it' argument."
Alternately, sometimes it's just overweight people reminding one another that they're not necessarily scum.
There are few sensible ideas in our society that some people don't immediately grab and sprint with, toward the goal-line of some crazed extreme. Or government subsidy. Or rationale for Wagging The Finger Of Moral Superiority.
A lot of "fat acceptance" is just common sense--people who aren't shaped like models, atheletes, or teenagers, reminding one another that it's okay. Not everything is a theater of the war between heroic individualism and the enemies of freedom.
(You know all this. I'm engaged in the process described on rec.arts.sf.fandom as "arguing in order to be polite.")
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden on June 19, 2002
Others who should pay, dearly, for flying in coach:
the aroma-challenged
people who think their kids are sooooo cute
people who sit in the gate area reading, then fire
up the cell phone as soon as they sit down
next to me, starting off the conversation
with "I'm on a plane...".
people who read the NY Times
Al Gore (coach or first class)
people who wear exploding sneakers
people who snore
people who hog the armrest
people who sit behind me, and pull themselves up
using the back of my seat for leverage
people who carry on bags the size of steamer
trunks
people who board the plane while whacking everyone
in an aisle seat in the face with the garment
bag slung over their shoulder
Posted by: Bob on June 20, 2002
No offense, Patrick, but why can't overweight people remind each other they're not scum without forcing me to applaud them for it? I prefer to meet people before I judge them.
Posted by: Jeff G. on June 20, 2002
Whoo, I'm with Bob. Extra charges all around!
I want to add to his list though:
-Parents who think those battery-operated bouncy balls are an appropriate seat-back table toy.
-People who, no matter how firmly your nose is wedged in your book, insist on conversation along these lines "Are you going to Topeka? No? I'm going to Topeka. I go there every year. Where are you from? My daughter-in-law lived there once..."
-People who sigh when you ask them to move once--ONCE!!--on a four-hour flight so you can use the restroom.
Posted by: Eden M. on June 20, 2002
"No offense, Patrick, but why can't overweight people remind each other they're not scum without forcing me to applaud them for it?"
I must have missed the part where I suggested you should be forced to applaud anything. My point wasn't that anyone needs to applaud "fat acceptance", but rather, that sometimes (note that word, "sometimes") "fat acceptance" is nothing more sinister than a benign dialogue between fat people. As opposed to "the ultimate 'society made me do it' argument," as our normally gracious hostess categorically asserted in an uncharacteristically illogical moment.
The problem with this kind of assertion is that it's nothing more than a grumpy stereotype, as un-useful -- and unfair -- as liberal claims that all gun advocates are violent and unhinged.
"I prefer to meet people before I judge them."
I prefer butterscotch. Like the above, that's a non sequitur to the points hitherto under discussion.
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden on June 20, 2002
You're correct, Patrick, about the illogic of that statement. "Fat acceptance", and suing Twinkie manufacturers for obesity's attendant health problems, are different issues.
However, organized "fat acceptance" appears to have precious little to do with convincing size 12s that they needn't be size 2s, or persuading people that obesity is a tough problem and not a contemptible moral failing. Organized fat acceptance has a political and legal agenda, and I wouldn't hesitate to characterize what I've seen of it as dishonest and pernicious - and I don't think I've been exposed only to the fringe loonies.
Posted by: Moira on June 20, 2002
Indeed. The "I'm (fat, gay, fill in the blank), deal with it" attitude permeates various and sundry 'liberation movements'. If "deal with it" means don't judge me solely on my fatness, fair enough. But in the organized fat acceptance movement, deal with it as often means that if I'm fat, and my bulk spills over the armrest into half of your seat, well hey, that's me, deal with it, I've as much right to be here as do you. Yes you do, IN YOUR OWN SEAT; your right to be here stops at the armrest. You want part of my seat, pay for it.
Eden M.....frequent flyer, eh? We could probably share some stories!
Bob
Posted by: Bob on June 21, 2002
To add to BOb and Eden's list:
If the jackass in front of me wants to kick back his seat so far that I can see his bald spot and smell his aftershave, he should pay for two seats. I have precious little space in front of me as is. And -- if he decides to sit up to converse with others -- he needs to bring his damn seat back up with him.
Posted by: Peggy on June 22, 2002
Sometimes, yes, "fat acceptance" is a reminder that self-worth is not inversely proportional to weight.
And, sometimes, it is the demand of some morbidly obese idiot that a physically-fit person with a gun snatch for him what he is too fat to grab for himself.
I'll bow my head humbly in the presence of the former, if you agree to me let beat the latter slowly to death. Deal?
Posted by: John "Akatsukami (and horizontally-enhanced)" Braue on June 23, 2002