In Support of Anorexia

Anorexia Nervosa in its true state is a disease, an obsession, an inability to control your behavior; that's never cool. But in our judgmental culture, doctors with a cure to push and neurotic parents fixated on saving their children from dangers real or imaginary have seized on the idea of this relatively rare mental imbalance and proceeded to diagnose it in many people who have a perfectly sane and rational desire to be thin. The distinction between the disease and the lifestyle choice is, appropriately enough, a thin one, iron-solid and razor-sharp: self-control. If you could choose to eat and gain wait but decide you'd rather not, you're healthy; if the decision is taken entirely out of your hands by a chemical imbalance in the brain or an absolutely unbreakable neurotic pattern in your mind, then you're sick and should be cured if possible. But no-one has the right to take that choice away from you. Only if *you* know you have a problem, if *you* are afraid that you're killing yourself by wasting away, but you just can't control your behavior - only then should the doctors get involved.

We exalt beauty in this culture, and we should. We create airbrushed images of impossible perfection, and we should. We look upon those illustrations of the ideal and wish it could be our reality, and we should. All of that is right and proper - we should hate the restrictions of our reality, and do everything in our power to give voice to the image of something better. (Yes, give voice to an image; they're my metaphors and I'll mix 'em if I want to.) After that, it begins to become dubious. I have nothing but admiration for the mental fortitude that it requires to defy your persistent hunger, eating just barely enough to stay alive; as long as you're doing it on an entirely conscious, intentional, non-compulsive level, I think you deserve praise for that kind of dedication. Whether being thin will actually make you beautiful varies depending on a lot of other factors - some women look gorgeous with their ribs showing and their wrists like sticks, while others appear grotesque with roughly the same proportions. But ultimately, the decision should be up to you.

When someone dies as a result, it's tragic. We should mourn for them - but we shouldn't go force-feeding other "anorexics" out of a neurotic reaction to our loss. The blame lies with reality for not being willing to make the victim look like what s/he wanted to; the universe ought to bend so that we may be content with ourselves. Our efforts should be focused on reaching out to people who are suffering with the effects of their extreme weight-loss program, offering them assistance in surviving what they do to themselves, instead of trying to convince them to stop. Telling someone that they're sick is an intolerant judgment against them, and you don't have the right. They have to decide whether they need help. If you talk to them honestly and compassionately, rather than self-righteously with a controlling "you owe me" attitude, they will accept your aid as much as they are willing to, and you can improve their odds of stabilizing at a healthy and sustainable weight. Don't let the fear that they're going to "slip away" because you "didn't do enough" get to you; if they die for their choices then they've done the right thing, and you did the right thing by letting it happen, rather than caging them in a reality that rejects them just for the sake of your own self-esteem.

All this applies only to anorexics, nervous or otherwise. Bulimics can go straight to blazes as far as I'm concerned; if you're not willing to digest your calories, don't waste perfectly good food by eating it, let alone by eating inordinate quantities of it. I respect the desire to binge, and indulge it constantly, resulting in my bloated 350-pound self (my sedentary lifestyle probably also plays a role, I'll admit); eat all you want, but have the fucking spine to accept the consequences of your eating, don't resort to emesis and squander valuable resources that the rest of society can use. Take the money you spend by not eating those binge-meals, and invest in virtual-reality research; eventually we'll figure out how to record the sense of taste on a cassette and you can get your chowdown fix through pure imagination, with no need to puke. That's the way it's done, princess; you belong in a fantasy kingdom of silicon spires and magic dream-helmets, so start building one instead of throwing a gourmet meal into the toilet.