Discursive entanglements, diffractive readings: Weight-loss-surgery narratives of Girth & Mirthers

ABSTRACT

Building on Barad’s (2007) discursive entanglements, we explore discussions about weight-loss surgery among Girth & Mirthers, a nationwide social club of big gay men ostracized from the larger gay community because of their size. They promote size acceptance, but are suspicious of surgeons promising social normality through gastric bypass. In interviews, they revealed positions regarding weight-loss surgery such as respect for others’ personal choices, soft opposition to invasive surgery, comparison to sadomasochism, and matters of attraction. Their positions coincide somewhat with those of feminist fat activists. Their live-and-let-live attitude can also be understood as a claim of control over one’s own body.

KEYWORDS:

• Girth & Mirth
• weight-loss surgery
• bariatric procedures
• gastric bypass
• stigma
• discursive entanglements
• body image
• medicalization
• masochism
• plastic surgery

Notes

1. Big Men is one of the preferred terms the individuals in the group use to describe themselves.

2. See, for example, Boling’s (2011) proposal for future research, “I would also like to consider techniques and technologies of weight loss, including bariatric surgery and the proposal to loosen requirements for undergoing such procedures” (121).

3. Note that some fat studies scholars take serious issue with Puhl’s work on weight-based discrimination because it was funded by the Rudd Center, whose mission is to find a solution for “obesity” (see Marilyn Wann.com for her 10/9/2014 blog entry, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy Hate Mail”).

4. Likewise, in the literature on parents being persuaded by physicians to subject their intersex infants and children to so-called normalizing surgeries, we find that these surgeries often disrupt “normal” life more so than if the child were left alone (Butler 2004: 63–65). As Iain Morland (2013) describes from personal experience, such surgeries leave one’s body “glaringly unusual, yet brutally normalized” (456).

5. Many studies have been written about the factors predicting success or failure of gastric bypass surgery, a field of research that is beyond the scope of this paper. For a review essay from a medical perspective, see Taubes (2013).

6. Most of the bariatric procedures cannot be reversed per se, but one may be able to undergo what is referred to as a “takedown,” cognizant that it is impossible to put things back exactly the way they were before the surgery.

7. Davis (2013), whose research group included lesbian and heterosexual women, argues that cosmetic surgery and feminism can be compatible, although she did not study weight-loss surgery.

8. We would like to thank Marilyn Wann for this caveat/word of caution.

9. Again, we would like to thank Marilyn Wann for this caveat/word of caution.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jason Whitesel

Jason Whitesel is an assistant professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Pace University, where he teaches queer studies and researches and writes on gay male experiences.

Amy Shuman

Amy Shuman is a Distinguished Professor of Folklore at the Ohio State University, where she serves as director of disability studies.