Landwhale Quotes

“My body hasn't been on the socially designated "fuckable scale" for a while now, but I no longer feel the need to climb that ladder. I am not here for the men in this world--not as a scapegoat or a baby-maker, and certainly not for their sexual satisfaction. My purpose is far greater than shallow bullshit. Never again, my friends. Never again.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“Liberation is freedom from all outside expectations, even our own. Liberation is not having to love your body all the time. Liberation is not asking permission to be included in society’s ideal of beauty. Liberation is bucking the concept of beauty as currency altogether. Liberation is recognizing the systemic issues that surround us and acknowledging that perhaps we’re not able to fix them all on our own. Liberation is personally giving ourselves permission to live life.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“I was convinced that I was the problem in the relationship; that if I were to do something different, things would get better. I was unaware at the time that this was simply a manifestation of my crucial need for control. That by convincing myself that it was me, I was convincing myself that I still had the power to fix it. If it was me that needed to change, I could do that! Absolutely! No problem! I could absolutely fix this.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“In her world a fat body was an invisible body. An invisible body was a safer body. And the safest body of all was the fat one you completely disassociate with and leave in the corner while you search for your life’s meaning everywhere else.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“My body is not meant to be a mirror for other people’s insecurities.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“Because we live in this world, we cannot realistically escape this bigotry (which manifests itself for fat bodies in lack of health care, inaccessible cities and events, harassment, and tragically, suicide). To propose that you absolutely can love your body, and if you don’t it’s because you’re not trying hard enough makes those who are affected by oppression daily feel like they’re somehow failing at this movement that is allegedly supposed to offer freedom. It’s not always possible to love your body. And it’s not something I want to ask of anyone any longer. I have been working instead on using language that respects and acknowledges these very real barriers and find myself feeling more at home with the concept of “body liberation.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“Pretty is a definition all feminine bodies are encouraged to embody, something that is a silent pledge we make by doing everything we can to exude sexiness. “I solemnly swear that I am trying to be the best version of me that you require, even if that will never be enough.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“There is so much power in naming your monsters.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“And there’s a good reason for this: we are all so resistant to ditch this seemingly simple solution because diet culture has reinforced that restriction is a form of self-control, starvation is a spiritual practice, and if we can reach utopic obedience in these ways we will have instant access to heaven, where self-esteem, validation, and worthiness are liberally doled out with fistfuls of glitter and endless praise.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“Here’s what a fat person hears when you say bloodwork: “A definite way to prove in black and white that your biggest fears about your body are definitely fucked up and now you’re officially a failure to the human race and all the trolls that diagnosed you with arbitrary illnesses were right and now you can’t deny it. Fat person, just spare yourself the humiliation, burn the paper, and disappear forever.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“Non-fat, hetero-presenting men (often white and surreptitiously bolstered by their participation in academia) still continue to steal from fat, queer, disabled, trans, and/or bodies of color, insisting that they get to be the gatekeepers of who gets to accept their body. That they understand the headlines we’re all too familiar with better than we do. That they, and they alone, are the rightful rulers of a safe space that was built to escape their domination in the first place. Because having the rest of the world available to them simply isn’t enough; they want our designated areas too, and they’ll use our verbiage against us when necessary to convince us that we should be ashamed for being selfish by demanding the right to exist while feeling worthy of respect.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“Here is one of the most important things I can tell you: confidence and resiliency when it comes to accepting your body has nothing to do with your body at all. They have everything to do with actively working toward becoming the best person you can be.4”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“There is a strange phenomenon that happens when you speak your greatest fears or most shameful thoughts out loud. I’ve often heard this act of courage compared to a virus. If a virus has a bodily host, it can continue to thrive. However, if you expose that same virus to air? It dies upon contact. I have found this to be a powerful biological analogy when it comes to sharing our excruciatingly vulnerable feelings with our friends, partner, and, yes, even the internet.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“As I reclined on her comfortable red couch, clutching a pillow to my chest while my session came to a close, I started to fully digest this frank truth: you can spend your life becoming the epitome of visual health and still be tragically, shockingly, and profoundly sick.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“My body was the friend that people tolerated so they could hang out with the rest of me.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“there is something about watching a person slowly disappear—their energy, then their color, then their body—that pushes you, unwillingly, to the edge of an emotional canyon and forces you to look, to see the vastness held within it and realize that you’ve explored so little. That life isn’t infinite but is monumental, and if you don’t start exploring now, you are going to miss some of the most important sights. The feeling of being consumed with grief at the idea of losing someone you’ve known for so long yet hardly understand… that feeling changes you.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“My body holds my mystery but no longer defines my entire identity. My jean size doesn’t have anything to do with my value as a human. My body is not an indicator of my worth. My body is not meant to be a mirror for other people’s insecurities. My body is something that I am working toward accepting, and once I’m able to find some neutral space inside of me I will be able to continue allowing it to disappear into the background as much as society lets me, and then some. No longer something to be fixed, all I want to do is simply engage, experience, and love my life. My body is a vehicle that can take me toward that happiness.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“How much are we allowed to change our bodies while still being body positive? Does that amount of change decrease if we call ourselves part of the fat acceptance movement? Does the community get to vote you out if you go over a line? Where is the line? Does a group of people on a social media platform count as a community?”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“Being fat doesn’t make me different. Fuck, I look like America. But loving that I’m fat makes me a Pillsbury rebellion. I hold protests in my mouth every time I eat in public. Picket signs wallpaper my willing body when I dance naked in my apartment. Riots Not Diets is tattooed across my chest. And I live for the moment when I shock you into silence. Because being me is fucking political. And you never voted for this shit.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“I am not here for the men of this world--not as a scapegoat or a baby-maker, and certainly not solely for their sexual satisfaction. My purpose is far greater than shallow bullshit.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“you responsible for your willpower or lack thereof. It puts the onus on you to master the ability to unlearn old lies. It binds us with the opposite requirements of self-hatred, but it’s still binding us. When we tell each other to love your body and with the implication that if you don’t, you just need to try harder, we’re not necessarily empowering anyone; we’re just regurgitating logic we learned from weight loss and from diet culture. Liberation is freedom from all outside expectations, even our own. Liberation is not having to love your body all the time. Liberation is not asking permission to be included in society’s ideal of beauty. Liberation is bucking the concept of beauty as currency altogether. Liberation is recognizing the systemic issues that surround us and acknowledging that perhaps we’re not able to fix them all on our own. Liberation is personally giving ourselves permission to live life. Liberation is slowly learning how to become the best version of our whole selves—body included, yes.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“the wholeness of her presence reminds me weekly of my ultimate goal: to develop the ability to handle life’s loose cannons with the grace of someone whose internal work has healed them on a cellular level.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“It makes perfect sense that because many fat women are desexualized, undesirable, and perceived as lazy in every way we would attempt to prove all of those things wrong by performing the most obvious form of desirability a woman can: turning ourselves into sex objects. This helps us hold on to the currency that we are still trying.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“For decades, my harsh line in the sand was safety; I felt justified in removing my dad from my life. I didn’t feel like I deserved any more harm than I had already received.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“It’s painful to do, but I also have to acknowledge that my dad was once a child as well. Also powerless, dependent, and without the skills to keep him safe from an emotionally distant father who never recovered from war. From poverty and a mother who didn’t know how to advocate for his safety.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass

“This had nothing to do with laziness. Lazy was just a synonym for fat in the all-too-familiar bigoted world I continue to live in. Fat and lazy are too often connected though unrelated.”
― Jes Baker, Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass