Post by Rebelle Haze, a Sex Positive Sex Educator, owner of Rebelle-ution.com and Endangered Bodies Ireland committee member.

There has been quite a bit of talk lately about same sex marriage and quite a few myths about same sex marriage and same sex couples. I’m here to point and laugh at the stupidity of some of these myths.

1. Gays shouldn’t marry because it’s not natural!

Ah yes, being gay is not natural. As Irish people we always reject unnatural things like being able to fly in a giant metal airplane, polyester, and processed food.

2. If we let them marry then it’ll encourage more people to be Gay!

Same sex marriage will encourage people to be gay, of course it will! When the campaign for equality is over the very first thing the LGBT community is going to do is go on a recruitment drive! City centres all over the country will be overrun with people carrying rainbow coloured membership cards.You know the same way I hang around with tall people so that I can be tall too!

3. If we let Gay people marry then it’s only a matter of time before people will be marrying their pets!

Legalising same sex marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behaviour. People may even wish to marry their pets. All they are waiting for is the gay community to go first. After all if two consenting adults can get married then I should be able to marry my labrador right? Y’know, because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

Today, Endangered Bodies are launching an international campaign asking Facebook to remove the‘I Feel Fat’ & ‘I Feel Ugly’ status update options and emoticons. After all, fat is an adjective and a substance on our body, but it is certainly not a feeling.

As the petition starters Vicky and Charlotte say 'We think it promotes and supports the endless torrent of judgment and pressure to be perfect felt by young people across the world. We do enough comparing as it is, we don’t need a status update to make it even easier to feel bad about ourselves'.

Scroll through the images in this post to see why the young people in Limerick Youth Service feel that these status updates and emoticons are damaging and then join us in signing this important petition.

Guest post by Rebelle Haze, a Sex Positive Sex Educator and owner of Rebelle-ution.com.

'It is my mission to help people become a lot more relaxed when talking about sex and sexuality. I am a fierce, fat, feminist with a wicked sense of humour and a taste for tattoos.  I am a positive body image activist and an adoring pet owner'. 

Ah January, the month where body shaming is at one of it’s highest peaks. The new year brings on a barrage of messages that you are simply not good enough and you must change to accommodate this new year. Food corporations are pedalling their new low calorie, chemically laden treat, the diet industry takes out waves of ad space in the media and people who have lost weight during the holiday period are held up as demi-gods/ goddesses.

In a world where being in love with your body takes a whole lot of work as it is January can be one of your greatest tests. It’s almost expected that you will become a brand new human being. This January, instead of becoming a whole new you, why not work on loving the you, that you are. You can start moving forward and building a more positive body image by starting small. So, today, I wanted to share with you some simple steps you can take to start building a healthier body image. They are like resolutions but much less painful and we won’t make you feel bad about yourself! 

It's true, you do relax about things as you get older. Concerns that once consumed you tend to fall away or maybe they just finally wear you down and so you surrender or maybe it's acceptance. One area where I've relaxed is in my observations of bodies, especially women's and including my own.

I've always noticed other women's bodies because I've always noticed my own. I used to compare and wish and still sometimes do, but mostly now I just look and admire. I let myself naturally prefer and when I do I prefer so many. I appreciate or maybe it's still appraise, but positively, all body varieties. I see shapes, sizes, statures, surfaces. I make note and think thoughts about what I see. Most of the time these thoughts are benign even kind. For instance, I often say to myself, 'she looks great in her jeans'. All, and I mean all, bodies seem to always look good to my eyes in jeans. Jeans have always eluded me. I've spent many hours trying many jeans over many years. From the front is a no-brainer. Turing around has always been the deal-breaker. They are the Holy Grail of garments. So I always notice them. Always. Even today, even when I see myself differently in my own jeans.

Hi everyone!

Introducing our new Endangered Bodies Ireland logo! The design was provided by Mary Fannon (sister-in-law of Tara Fannon who has written some of our previous blog posts and who also contributes to Endangered Bodies New York). Massive thanks to Mary and Tara for their work on this. Mary gave us this really interesting rationale for the design which she called 'the nude shamrock' ...

This blog was originally posted on Masculinities 101 and has been re-posted with permission.

Beer commercials aren't typically known for their deep and meaningful messages but a recent Guinness commercial has taken a different approach. In sum, it features a group of fit, happy-looking men in wheelchairs playing basketball. Toward the end of the ad, all but one of them stand up out of their wheelchairs before they all head to the pub to share a pint. This all takes place against the backdrop of sentimental music and inspirational narrative about dedication, loyalty, and friendship, concluding tagline: 'made of more'. A number of online media outlets have written positive appraisals of the ad describing it as ''a touching sensation' (MSN Money) that will 'make your heart melt (HuffPost); 'give you goosebumps' (USA Today Sports); and 'make you tear up' (IndyStar). One outlet in particular, Business Insider, suggests that Guinness stands out from the competition by promoting a brand of masculinity that 'breaks the industry stereotype'. Most beer advertising tends to depict men as irresponsible juveniles with only hot chicks and cold beer on the brain or as meat heads jocks with only hot chicks and cold beer on the brain. Guinness, on the other hand, has crafted a message that suggests that beer drinking sports-men can be sensitive and strong at the same time. This advertising approach works for Guinness in-part because of it having a reputation as a drink of the people and one that hails to make you stronger (see early 'Guinness for Strength' ads).

Image by Airman Magazine via Flickr Creative Commons

In her recent podcast titled 'fat-shaming?' Jillian Michael, personal trainer to the stars turned armchair psychologist (most known for being on Biggest Loser U.S. - a weight loss reality show) rejects the idea of fat-shaming. According to her no one can make you feel ashamed about your body or appearance. In-fact no one can make you feel anything that you don't 'want' to feel and should you feel it (whatever it is) then it's because it lives 'inside' of you already. In other words, if you've ever felt bad about the way you look, well, it's because you want to feel bad. Never mind the ongoing and tiresome objectification and scrutinization of male and female bodies. Never mind the combined forces of capitalism, media and celebrity unapologetically inviting us to critically look at ourselves so that we can then feel better about committing to unrealistic, unsustainable health regimes. Our morality depends on it, so it would seem. All of this directly and indirectly creates shame and stigma around weight and physical appearance. What we get is a rise in obsessive exercising among young people, body dissatisfaction among females, and eating and body image disorders among men (see: Sharpe et al, 2013; Tiggeman and Pickering, 1998; Agliata and Tantleff-Dunn, 2004; Ryan and Morrison, 2009; Hargreaves and Tiggeman, 2006). There have been numerous other studies, too many to list, that document these effects.

Image by *USB* via Flickr Creative Commons

I live in NYC but I've heard all about the Dr. Eva Orsmond Operation Transformation outburst (which led to this petition from Endangered Bodies Ireland to the makers of  Operation Transformation). It got me thinking about the tough love approach that makeover reality TV continuously uses to champion the masses. I'm holding the ever-expanding health and wellness movement responsible. It incorporates everything from fitness, food and dress to the construction of our lived spaces and the design of our spiritual lives. What it really boils down to is being in control of ourselves and in-turn the makers of our own destiny. Contemporary life has become all about it and the television industry has latched onto it and capitalized big time. Enter the TV expert: the fitness expert, nutrition expert, the style expert, the life-lived-with-purpose expert. Not always but most of the time they're the hosts of the familiar makeover programmes that use break-em-down to build-em-up practices and syrupy, touchy-feely language to get people on the path to ultimate body/mind success. Men and women alike are given advice to implement, rules to live by, tasks to meet and regimes to follow. They're scolded and schooled; praised and promoted and it works as a winning formula.

Welcome to the Endangered Bodies Ireland blog!!!

The following post was originally posted on the Endangered Bodies Global blog in January and has been reposted here to provide a bit of background information on how and why Endangered Bodies Ireland got started. We hope to continue to add to the blog in the coming months with further contributions from our committee as well as guest posts from other contributors. If you would like to write something for our blog, send an email to: 

eb-ireland@endangeredbodies.org

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Time for Change in Ireland (January 2013) 

Happy New Year! (Can I get away with saying that right through January?) Over the last 12 months I have been reaching out to other women in Ireland who have had enough of the toxic culture of body hatred, who are tired of the lack of diversity of size, shape, age and colour that they see in the mainstream media, who are sick of hearing their friends counting calories and worrying about their weight when they should be enjoying their lives, and who don’t want their children to grow up in a world where they will be judged on their appearance instead of all the wonderful qualities they bring to the world. Through tweets and Facebook posts, email conversations and phone calls, discussion groups and chats over cups of tea, we are finding our voices and finding strength in one other. We know that we are not alone and we believe in change. As we start into a new year, it seems like the perfect time to reflect on EB Ireland’s journey so far.