hivemind

thank you note for an interview - via email or hard copy?

unless they are a very old fashion or low tech place, email is fast - which seems to count

We're not beholden to find everything sexually attractive, but do you think this statement is going to undermine any of what he's done in the eyes of big women?

The statement pinged me with 'Why? Why do we always have to classify people as sexually available/desirable to us?'

I say, "He seemed nice." My friend says, "Oh, he's gay." I say, "He seemed nice." My friend says "Oh, but he could stand to skip a few meals."

I'll confess to scanning for wedding rings when I see someone attractive, but it makes no sense to me that everyone is qualified as sexually available and/or attractive.

I so wished, given the excellent content of that story that the writer had left off that last bit. It seemed already explained (if it really needed to be) by Nimoy's snark over people wondering if he was a fetishist.

Then again, perhaps the too fine point was made at his request.

The statement pinged me with 'Why? Why do we always have to classify people as sexually available/desirable to us?'

Because the article is somewhat about that. I don't think he's walking up to people and volunteering the information. Nothing said earlier in the article made him seem like the sort of guy who had to make it clear he didn't want to shag fat women, in case anyone thought he was some weirdo chubby chaser (feel free to replace that with your own derogatory term that fits the context).

In an article about expanding and calmly challenging view of fatter women, yeah, I think it's in context.

I mean, I know I'd bristle if a guy said he thought black women are beautiful, but not sexually attractive.

I think there is also a semantic issue here. Does Nimoy mean "sexually attractive" in general, or does he mean that HE is not sexually attracted to them. I took it to mean the latter, and I think that you interpreted the former. Those two concepts are different.

eta: He said:

He doesn’t necessarily find them sexually attractive. “But I do think they’re beautiful.”

so, he is not sexually attracted to large women, but does not say that they are not or cannot be sexually attractive.

I don't think that the statement "______ are not sexually attractive" can be made on its face. I think that "to me" is inherent in the statment, because no one can decide what someone else finds sexually attractive.

I took it to mean the latter, and I think that you interpreted the former

I absolutely did not, and am not sure why you got that impression.

I'm not up in arms about what he said at all. In fact, my reaction to it is completely irrelevant here. I'm just wondering about the impact of that statement--I can see it having one like ChiKat had. And that might detract from the general positivity of the article, which I think is remarkable in its rockingness.

Remember--I started off by saying that no one is beholden to find everyone sexually attractive.

I also think he was talking specifically about the women he's photographed, too, which makes it a different kind of thing, too, to me.

I absolutely did not, and am not sure why you got that impression.

whoa! no need to be so strident. I said that I "think" that you thought the former. I was wrong, sorry.

Because the article is somewhat about that.

That's interesting. I seem to have skipped right by that because I read it as being about self-acceptance and being viewed as socially and artistically on equal footing. Not about 'we're sexy too!'

I was intrigued too by the email he shared from a woman who isn't considered obese but envies the comfort she perceived in the women photographed. Years ago, I participated in an eating disorder group with women who were all roughly twice my size. I was sort of segregated until, eventually, one of the women said that she hadn't understood that my concerns were the same as hers. Our habits were similar, our outcomes the same, I just looked different. It made for a really good conversation.

Interestingly, one of the women in that group was a third degree blackbelt in karate. She showed us pictures of her qualifying tests. ita's comments about krav bring those images forcefully back to my mind sometimes.

Off to rescan the article.

I wonder exactly what the question was -- I know the article says "his own attitude toward fat women," but his answer is different if he's saying "Fat women are beautiful to me, but not necessarily sexually attractive" versus "The fat women I photograph are beautiful to me but not necessarily sexually attractive."

(Note that the "doesn’t necessarily find them sexually attractive" is also a paraphrase, not a quote -- I can't judge Nimoy from those two lines at all because I don't know what he was really asked or what he actually said.)

Anyway, the first version overgeneralizes to such a huge degree that I have to roll my eyes at it no matter what you sub in there for "fat women" (thin women, blonde women, tall women, whatever). The second is much more specific and reasonable.