A Note on Ariel Winter's Boobs

I really enjoy Modern Family. Not just in the "this alright, I'll leave it on" sort of way. But in the way that I'll watch each new one as it is released. So it would be silly of me to pretend not to have noticed how puberty his Ariel Winter.

Although it seemed like the kind of celebrity gossip I'd usually ignore, I was intrigued by this article about her decision to have breast reduction surgery.

My gut reaction to it was, Well, if that's what makes her feel comfortable, good for her. It's her body, let her so what she wants with it, her logic seems sound.

But after a further moment of reflection, I found myself feeling less position towards it. I still completely and wholeheartedly support Winter's right to do whatever she wants with her own body. I also think that, as far as surgical body modification goes, it doesn't seem like the kind of procedure likely to herald the start of a vanity-fuelled lifetime of dangerous surgery. It's not like she spent $86,000 trying to look like someone else. Even if it was, it would still be her body to take those risks with, her right to make those choices.

Her reasoning is actually very reasonable. It's common in women with larger breasts to experience back pain, which she describes as being horrifically bad: "I had a lot of back problems. I really couldn’t stand up straight for a long period of time. It started to hurt so bad that I couldn’t take the pain. My neck was hurting so bad and I actually had some problems with my spine."

That's a very good reason to get body modifying surgery. It, along with full-body burns and mastectomies for breast cancer sufferers, is one of the main reasons breast remodelling was invented.

But it's not the only reason she gave.

In her interview with Glamour magazine, she talked about not being able to find clothes suited to her body shape. She spoke about not being able to dress in a way that was considered "appropriate" for a 17-year-old because there simply wasn't anything she could buy that suited both her figure and her age. She spoke about people talking behind her back about whether or not her breasts were real or fake from the age of 14. She talked about having to pretend to be confident with her figure because "we live in a day and age where everything you do is ridiculed". She talks about how she didn't feel respected for her work as an actress because so many media outlets focussed so much on her breasts.

"It made me feel really uncomfortable," she says, "because as women in the industry, we are totally over sexualized and treated like objects."

I, in no way, have any objection of Winter's decision.

I do, however, object entirely to the kind of society that puts a young woman under that kind of pressure.

It's reasonable to see why those things would make her feel uncomfortable, especially as it's all happening in the public eye.

But, beyond the medical benefits it offers her, I don't think it's Winter who needs to change here.

I think the attitudes of the media and the fashion industery need to change. Photographers and journalists need to stop making objectification the primary function of stories about and images of women. Clothes need to be designed with every body type in mind, not just the contemporary 'ideal'. These aren't difficult changes to make, especially compared with the number of womn - young and old, famous or not - who feel the need to resort to surgery to conform to unrealistic standards.

I don't understand why people think it's not an extreme measure to resort to invasive surgery because it's not fashionable to be big-breasted or wide-hipped or round-bellied or short-legged. It's not okay to marginalise people with normal and naturally-occuring body shapes that don't meet increasingly unattainable expectations of beauty.

I want Ariel Winter to be comfortable in her body. That means, I want her not to feel pain that occurs naturally but can be avoided through surgery. It also means that I want her to be able to look her natural self, or whatever self she chooses, without being judged for it, or ogled, or objectified, or labelled, or reduced to nothing but her looks because of it.

I want every human being to feel comfortable in the skin. I want them to feel that way without having to undergro dramatic and unnecessary surgery to feel that way. I'd like to live in a world where everyone can find clothes they feel comfortable in and where no one feels like their natural or chosen body, for whatever reason, is drawing unpleasant levels or kinds of attention.

And I don't see why this is such a controversial or unpopular opinion. I don't understand why people are preapred to accept that they're not good enough in the body they were born in, for any cosmetic or non-medical reason.

Well they are good enough

You are good enough.

Regardless of whatever part of you is too big or too small or too puffy or too saggy.

What is not good enough is the culture that tell you this is not true and, worse still, makes it actively difficult for you to believe it.

Bigger On The Inside

The Daily Mail makes me ashamed to be British. The fact that it is so popular in my country makes me feel somehow associated with it, and that makes me feel dirty. And not in a fun way. But not for the obvious reasons. The bigotry, the quack pseudoscience, the gossipy approach to ‘news’ and the shameless right wing propaganda all irk me, but in a harmless-old-fart sort of way. In the same way that most people’s grannies are a little bit racist, I don’t really care that the Daily Mail is a bit shit. I generally assumed that the people who are affected by it are the people who are dumb enough to read it, that they inflict it upon themselves, that if they really choose to believe that divorce causes cancer then that’s up to them. They’re most likely the same people who will choose how many lottery tickets to buy based on the horoscopes in the back of gossip magazines. Generally, I’ve been happy to let them go ignorantly on and to wait patiently for natural selection to take its course. As long as I don’t read it, I reasoned, it won’t get to me. And, on the odd occasion I want to vent about the stupidity of the world with a big fat facepalm, I accept total responsibility for looking at anything written by Samantha Brick.

What I actually did on my birthday.

But there is one thing that does disgust me – the personal attacks. In general, I think it’s despicable that a respected newspaper would be so childish about anything, but there a particular one that gets to me on a personal level. This one. (As much as I loathe publicising this drivel, I think it's only fair you know where I'm coming from.)

Earlier on this year, my trusty Google machine informed me that Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra would be playing at the Camden Roundhouse on my 20^th birthday. With no celebrations yet planned, I lost my proverbial shit. I was then promptly and politely informed that, with very good and somewhat heartbreaking reason, that part of the tour had been postponed. Instead, I got drunk with my friends on my birthday and ate pizza and watched films and suppressed the little fangirl that had come prancing out of me when she had seen the chance to party with Amanda Fucking Palmer.

The show was rescheduled for July 12^th. In what I hoped was very much the AFP spirit (and on the back of some kind person offering me cupcakes), I decided I would take biscuits. For anyone unfamiliar with Amanda Palmer, she has a huge Twitter following and she makes a genuine effort to make her followers feel like they are part of a community. This tweet from just before the show, for instance, encouraging her fans to talk to each other is a perfect example. I promised her that I would speak to all of the strangers – and what better ice breaker than an offer of biscuits?

So I arrived with a carrier bag full of biscuits and walked from the box office to the end of the queue and offered them out to everyone waiting. It was indeed a great ice breaker. My friend and I got talking to loads of cool people. Random compliments flew. People standing near each other started chatting after discovering a shared passion for ginger nuts. A girl from France was delighted that she had got a chance to try a chocolate Digestive. Some people were genuinely hungry. Some people just really fancied a custard cream. Some people hugged us. More promised to find us inside and hug us there. Some did.

AFP with her loving fans.

From the start, the night was incredible. Having both attended and staffed such performances, I expected to have to punch my way to the stage and stand in an awkward crush for an hour and a half before the warm up act kicked off. 

But, of course, AFP does things her own way. A better way.

Ten minutes after the time the doors were officially opened, an astonished ring stood on the floor of the Roundhouse around the first warm up act, who were already playing when we arrived. They were fantastic. They were energetic and colourful and exciting – just like everything else. And one of them gave me a hug. I suspect that more of them would have, but I only asked one of them before I went off to tell a fantastically dressed man that I loved his face.

Over the next hour, I was introduced to some incredible musicians. AFP appeared on the balcony and, without microphone or amplification, accompanied the entire audience singing ‘Creep’ on her ukulele. She came onstage to introduce us to each one of her warm up acts – that is, her special guests. She told us where she had found them and why she wanted us to hear them. They were all incredible.

When at last Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra took their places, the crowd as one screamed and clapped and stamped and jumped. In the first song, AFP waded out into the audience, letting us all paw at her, stroke her, touch her, hug her, dance with her as she cut through us. Mad rushes to brush her with fingertips swept the smaller people – myself included – along in her wake. Propelled away from my friends, I ended up right at the front. For a moment, I was face to face with her while she waited for two security guys to haul her back onto stage. The whole time she had been tugged at, she had not missed a single note. Her voice was perfect the whole time. She had no problem cutting through people when she wanted to get back to the stage. She was powerful; in those moments, she was flawless.

Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra.

She told us stories about being at Glastonbury, about meeting Liam Gallagher from Oasis, about being exposed to English swear words. The music was amazing. The gorgeous Chad Raines threw himself to the front of the stage, leaning over the audience so that we could reach to stroke his sweaty back while he riffed – even dripping with hours of exertion, he had the fluffiest curly hair (I know, I touched it). He and the delicious Jherek Bischoff danced together as they performed, hugging and sharing guitars and creating a miniature show within the show of their adorable bromance. AFP had her special guests back on to perform, to duet with her, to dance with the band.

She sent her band off for a break and performed for us with just a ukulele. She performed a new song about being strong when all the world is going to shit around you. It was perhaps the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard written for the ukulele. About half way through, tears started to stream down her face. She did not miss a note; she did not stumble over a single syllable. She just kept singing and playing perfectly through until the end as tears dripped onto her chest. Seeing her cry broke my heat. I managed to hold my own until the end of the song, when I thought I would be safe. 

But then she played ‘The Bed Song’, another beautifully sad, sadly beautiful song. 

And I broke down. I bit my knuckles until a woman in front of me hugged me. The people behind me found my friend and dragged her to the front so that she could hug me too. I wanted to hug Amanda Palmer. I think we all did.

She just got on with the performance.

Towards the end, AFP played us a brand new song, exclusive to the night, one that she said maybe she would never play again, one that we should upload and share. It was a gift. It was a direct response to the judgmental article about her Glastonbury performance in the Daily Mail – that had not even tried to critique her music or her performance – that she had finished writing only an hour before the show had begun. It was bright, bouncy and funny. She proudly and properly used one of the new British swear words she had learnt. Half way through, she flung off her kimono and finished the song completely, comfortably nude. It was fantastic and I adored it – I have already described it on more than one occasion as my favourite thing that has ever happened. 

And meant it.

(Enjoy that video while it lasts; YouTube will take it down for the nudity sooner or later. Dicks.)

But at the same time I hate that it had to happen. I hate that someone had to make AFP feel so objectified, so bad about one little accident, to make it seem like it eclipsed all the effort she had put into putting on an incredible show. It is horrible for anyone to say such a thing about anyone, but to do it in a public and respected forum and to try to pass it off as ‘news’. And about someone who does no one any harm ever, who spreads only joy. It was hurtful and unnecessary. “Boob glimpsed briefly” is not news. It is definitely not a review.

And if people think it is, then maybe someone needs to start reviewing the reviewers.

I don’t mind if the Daily Mail and its writers and readers don’t like AFP. That’s totally up to them. In fact, if AFP were the kind of performer that the Daily Mail approved of, I probably wouldn’t care for her all that much. Simply put, I don’t trust them to have particularly good taste. 

But they don’t need to be dicks about it. They’re supposed to be professionals. And I have never known a professional anything to fail more monumentally.

Fangirl though I may be, I am under no illusions that Amanda Palmer is perfect. She's human. But I do think that she is a wonderful role model and a great person to look up to. I wish I had her wit and energy, her bravery and creativity, her perseverance and dedication. I wish I could connect with people the way she does, could make people feel special like she does. I wish I had her strength, her courage, her joy. I wish I could pull a Neil Gaiman (but frankly, she has earned him – and he her). Through her music, her writing, her talks and, I think most importantly, her behaviour, she has taught me a hell of a lot about life and what it is to be a good person. She has taught me that the most important thing to be is myself. She has taught me that if you don't like the way things are done, you can go out and do them your own, better way, and if you're on the right track then you'll get the support you need. She makes me want to work harder at everything I do. She makes me think it can be worthwhile to do what I love.

She makes me want to buy biscuits for total strangers just to see them smile – and she makes me actually do it, too.

I love you, too.

Shi-min Fang; a science writer’s hero.

Alright, so I’m not a science writer, and I’m not even an aspiring science writer because I already know that I would get far too fangirly around all those physicists with their big, sexy brains to do it with any degree of serious professionalism. But I do like science and writing, and I respect more than anyone else the people who take risks to get the truth out there into the public sphere, especially when the risks are so high.

Shi-min Fang is a Chinese science writer who has risked far more than just libel cases (which are bothersome enough as it is) to expose the straight-up lies of some people in China. He has recently won the Maddox prize – which is typically awarded to people who promote science despite perhaps facing difficult or hostility in so doing – for exposing scientific misconduct in China.

Since 2000, Shi-min Fang has been exposing fraudulent ‘scientists’ who took advantage of China’s celebration of any science and technology to publicize nonsensical, pseudoscientific articles, flog fake medicines and carry out dangerous medical procedures without clinical trials. He has made it his business as a science writer to root out those who are fakers and expose them, despite whatever threats they offer him, using his website New Threads to make this information accessible to the Chinese general public.

Many have fought his allegations, no matter how truthful they were. He has been sued more than ten times and, due to the inefficiency and bias of the Chinese court, has even wrongly lost once, as well as being assaulted with pepper spray. In 2010 hired thugs attacked Shi-min Fang with a hammer with the intention of his murder when he challenged the efficacy of a surgical procedure developed by their boss as well as the heavily padded CV he used to persuade people of his worth. Shi-min Fang is responsible for opening up a forum for criticism and debate in a society that was otherwise devoid of such freedoms.

Despite all the dangers he has faced, he maintains that it was all worth it because of the good he has done for the scientific community and the general public in China. His one concern, he admits, is the danger faced by his wife and children.

Frankly, that takes balls. And he deserves that prize, and the £2000 that comes with it, and so much more.

And he is not the only one who does. He is one of many people who risk so much just to make the world a little bit more honest. Here is hoping that one day we won’t need people like Shi-min Fang. But until then, let’s just be glad they’re around.

The Richard Nixon Effect on FaceBook

I am currently reading an anthology of writings by Hunter S. Thompson, which is essentially a collection of rambling, drug-addled rants about sports, politics and generally the state of the USA throughout the past 50 years. It's very interesting.

Over the past couple of days, I've read his account of Watergate and all of the scandal surrounding President Richard Milhous Nixon's resignation from the White House. Up until now, everything I knew about Richard Nixon can be epitomised by this picture:

It doesn't really matter that I don't know much about him. It might have been pertinent to my life if I was American and wanted to be a politician, but I'm actually neither. But I did find it interesting.

While he was President, Nixon recorded everything that happened in the White House. He had bugs placed in the all the phones and he carried around a tape recorder so that he could make a note of every thought that he had as President of the United States. He had people running around after him making notes to catalogue everything he did. After he resigned, as part the agreement of his pardon for Watergate from his successor Gerald Ford, he was given all the tapes so that he could keep them as a memento of his presidency forever.

Thompson said that Nixon's obsession with recording things made it look like he cared more about having something to put in the history books than actually running America, as if what was important was how he would look afterwards and how he would be remembered rather than actually helping his country. In the account, Thompson often compared him vividly to the Nazis, even going so far as to liken his underlings to Hitler's advisers, so he clearly wasn't perceived well. But he has been remembered, so it would seem that his aim has been achieved.

Thompson described Nixon's behaviour as a form of mental illness. This is coming from someone whose job it was to record everything that happened and who spent much of his career developing a whole new form of journalism based on it. But he nonetheless categorised the voluntary recording of one's own life as a form of madness. The way he wrote it, I could not help but agree. It seemed so strange that someone would do that - would record every second of their waking moment to ensure that they would be remembered exactly as they wanted to be perceived by other people.

But then I realised that it's practically the norm to do that now. No one does anything without worrying about what they'll tweet about it or how the photos will look on FaceBook. The TimeLine feature on FaceBook means that people can scroll back through their lives and edit out the things they don't want other people to see. It's exactly what Nixon did, exactly what made Thompson - who is, quite frankly, brilliant considering how well he can write when blitzed - predict that Nixon would spend the rest of his life listening to those tapes and reliving his presidency over and over again. Now, pretty much everyone automatically uploads and updates and makes sure that everyone else know what is going on at any given time.

It's scary to think that we'll all end up like Richard Nixon.

Then again, who wouldn't want to run the world and have an awesome body despite being nothing more than a head in a jar?

Yes, I realise the irony of blogging about this.