Letters to AskMen.Com

Note: PLEASE, for the love of God, readers, read the AskMen article I've linked to. Not that I want to give this disgusting website any traffic, but you really have to read this shit to believe I'm not making it up.


Dear AskMen.Com,

I have rarely been as motherfucking pissed off as I am right now. I just read your lovely educational article entitled "Top 10: Subtle Ways To Tell Her She's Getting Fat." I am floored. First of all, "subtle?" Poor choice of word, unless you're using it to mean "manipulative, obvious, and douchey." Second... okay, I don't even know. Like, did you pay someone to write this? Does this person have a girlfriend? Does he have frosty-tips and man-boob-pecs? Can I get his address so I can properly egg his house?

I mean, these are your 10 suggestions?

1. Take her to places she has to wear a swimsuit
2. Leave "now" and "then" photos lying around
3. Sabotage her chair (anyone who didn't read the actual article yet: they mean by loosening the bolts to make it effing fall apart under her weight)
4. Ask her to wear an old dress
5. Playfully grab her love handles
6. Improve your own diet
7. Serve her unsatisfactory portions
8. Set out on your own weightloss plan
9. Sign her up for yoga under the pretense of "stress relief"
10. Buy her clothes that are too small

By the way, all of these bullet points would be appropriately followed by the phrase "so as to purposely make her feel like an ugly, worthless piece of crap."

Jezebel truly addresses this article best. I was intending to address all the points of the article with my enraged comments, but if you read the Jezebel piece, you'll get the picture perfectly. Please read it before continuing, yes?

So, the following, AskMen.Com, is what I want to say to you and every single reader you have who would tend to think that this crock of disgusting, mysoginistic bullshit is. And, I'll have you know, I don't like tirading. I don't like being disrespectful, and swearing a lot, and not having "journalistic integrity" like I might like to maintain in case I ever reference this blog in an interview for a writing gig. But you, sirs, have sent me off the ever-loving deep end with this one and I'm just not going to censor myself. So here it is:

How dare you? I don't know how anyone can call himself a decent boyfriend/husband/lover/whatever and keep any shred of intuition that he is doing his girl a favor when he is acting in such a vindictive manner. How can you possibly suggest you humiliate someone you supposedly care about? And for what? So that she can be your little trophy? Not once do you mention the idea that losing weight would be healthy. You want your girl to feel bad because she doesn't look as good in a bikini as some size 0, because she doesn't look like she did in the past. You want her to feel like she owes you something by joining you BS weightloss efforts, because, goddam, she'd better look good for her studly prize of a man. Have you ever given it an ounce of thought that maybe you're not God's gift to women? And, I mean, let's not even get into how this article reeks of the assumption that if you're fat, you sit around on your ass all day "replace[ing] sexual intimacy with ice cream and cake." Give me a fucking break.

Let me share something with you: there are 6-year-old girls out there right now who feel absolute fear over the idea of becoming fat. There are elementary school girls foregoing snacktime because they think they're disgusting. There are girls and women of every age shoving their fingers down their throats and taking laxatives to look like the photoshopped images that men like you seem to think are beautiful. There are girls and women abusing themselves with all the hate they can possibly muster because they wish they could look like those images the media has created for us, images that aren't real or healthy or normal or, in my opinion, even that attractive. I'd rather look at Beth Ditto over Nicole Richie any day. This article you've published, I guarantee you, is enough to make some girl somewhere feel like absolute crap, even without the man in her life actively taking this advice to make her feel that way.

And I will have you know, by the way, that I wear fucking size 10 jeans. I would prefer to be smaller-- I won't deny it. But I never felt as sexy and confident in size 4 jeans as I do right now. My boyfriend treats me with respect. He thinks I'm hot because I've got meat on my bones. If he didn't, I wouldn't want any part of him.

This is the thing: if any guy would even entertain the idea of humiliating his girlfriend so that she'll get thinner rather than loving her for, you know, who she is, then he doesn't deserve to ever get laid ever again. He doesn't deserve the pleasure of a woman's love or time or body or anything. The kind of man who would emotionally abuse a woman by dropping "subtle" hints that she's inadequate is quite honestly a piece of shit. Nothing more. Ladies, if you are dating this kind of guy, dump his ass. Right now. Don't even keep reading this. Dump him and come back. Trust me, you're better off.

I also have to add that the intro to this article says "For obvious reasons [you can't say], 'You’ve put on weight, and I find you less attractive' . Even if it does have the desired effect and she goes on to drop a few pounds, she’ll never forgive you for pointing it out so bluntly and making her feel like sh*t in the process."

How on EARTH do you think that rigging a woman's chair to break so that she thinks she's too fat for her goddam chair is a way to tell her she's fat without making her feel like shit? Like your girlfriend who's gained 15 pounds is going to believe that she crossed that chair's weight-supporting threshold. I'm willing to bet she's not a complete flipping idiot, but of course you have no respect for her whatsoever so you wouldn't realize that anyway. Sir, I would never forgive my boyfriend when I found out he couldn't be honest with me and discuss a problem with me, let alone that fact that he's a manipulative tool who obviously wants me for nothing more than being the doormat he uses to sate his sexual desires.

AskMen, I am disgusted. The thoughts I have about this are rattling so quickly around my head right now that I don't even wish to write any more about this. Your site and everything you stand for is absolutely repulsive. You are what's wrong with society today. You are why I fear for every single woman on this earth's self-esteem. You are the fucking cancer killing so many beautiful women of all sizes all over this world, destroying them from the inside out.

Oh, I mean that. Sincerely.

FUCK YOU,
Vanessa



P.S. If you're as raging mad as I am right now, go to this address and give AskMen a piece of your mind.