I need to fix my tags. There are plenty of typos and spelling mishaps that have snuck into my entries. This will be much easier to fix when I switch to S2, as I'll be able to search entries by tags. I'm very anal online, which is odd as I'm not usually anal IRL. At least I'm not now. Back when I played Magic: The Gathering, I was incredibly anal about deck and card organization. I used to be very anal about my dress and appearance as well. Not so much anymore. I don't have something of equivalent analness in my offline life currently, but I still see it's potential in things. I'm not sure what determines what I will and will not be anal about. However, I know that I have a strong desire toward analness with the tag system. The miscreant tags bother me greatly. I want to standardize them. It's a mess currently. I need to dive into S2 soon.

I just filed my first abuse report:

Deadly Contests 0_thinspiration holds contests in which the anorexic participants try to lose the most weight possible in a short amount of time. This is a potentially deadly contest, and I would hate to see lj share in that liability. The information about the contest is listed on their profile. from the profile of 0_thinspiration: Competition [06.20.05 - 07.20.05] This is a little weight loss competition that is just meant to keep people on their goals. It runs for a month and members compete to lose the most doing whatever they want (fasting, binge & purge, excersize, pills). We put their starting weight & height in a special entry, and we announce the winner at the end.

Some of you will note that this is different than my old attitude towards pro-ana communities. While I never much cared for the communities, I thought they should be left up for two reasons: 1) free speech issues 2) attacking the communities was in effect attacking the victims of anorexia and not the root causes (the marketing, entertainment, news, fashion, and beauty industries).

The first point has always been shakey in my view, as LiveJournal is a privately run forum, and therefore has every right to monitor the content on it's servers. LiveJournal has always censored content. There would need to be no new precedent set about the pro-ana communities.

As far as the second point goes, my views on the root causes has not changed. I still firmly believe something must be done about the problem. However, pro-ana communities (especially ones that hold contests or rate users) promote, spread, and worsen eating disorders. I don't believe people should go into these communities and tell the people in them off. Harassment will help no one, further victimizes victims of corporate culture, and causes members to become insular and separated from those who could help them. Shutting them down, especially when they cross some very fine lines, is more appropriate.

I hate the media's and the medical community's mixed message on weight. First, the medical community's weight standards, which they refuse to revise anyway except downward, suggest a weight that is unattainable by many people and studies are showing isn't actually healthy. A bmi of less than 25 actually puts you at greater health risk. Some padding is actually a good thing. If it weren't people wouldn't have evolved the ability to make padding. If would be much easier for the body to just expel the excess calories, so there must be an evolutionary reason for keeping them.

The news media repeats the medical communities dire predictions about the "obesity epidemic". Warning people that if they don't achieve the unhealthy and often unachievable goals that not only will they die an early death, but it will be their fault. They will cause their own demise, cause the suffering of loved ones, and be a general burden on society as a whole. What a cheerful message to tell people, considering that the United States Health Department's demented guidelines list two-thirds of Americans overweight. This message refuses to be swayed by evidence, as the thin obsessed elite press to make sure everyone fits into their model of "attractive". The goal is a perfect world with perfect conformity.

While the emaciation-obsession of the entertainment industry is more well known, it is growing in its destructiveness. Every year, the parade of starvation in the entertainment media increases in severity and prominence. Women in entertainment are regularly below even the government's unrealistic guidelines for a healthy weight. American Idol judges tell woman the government would consider of normal weight that they are too fat to compete. With the backing of the medical community and the news media, the entertainment industry has become emboldened and belligerent in it's attitude to the slightest drop of fat.

And then these same assholes sit and scratch their heads at the alarming rate of eating disorders. ED suffers must be mentally ill or narcissistic they reason. It can't be the simple fact that when people can't realistically achieve the weight desired by the media and the medical community, they turn to less healthy methods, because for many they are the only way to achieve the only acceptable physique. The pro-ed sites have to look no further for the "thinspiration" images they display on their webspaces than the entertainment industry. The problem couldn't be the images of severely underweight stars labeled by the mainstream as "sexy" and "ideal", it must be the anorexics and bulimics fault for looking at them as "sexy" and "ideal". It can't be that until the eating disorder becomes critical they receive endless complements and encouragement for their weight loss from friends, loved ones, and even their doctors. It can't be that they are actually listening to the media and the medical community. Instead they are treated as evil, selfish, and mentally ill. The pro-ana communities are seen as cause not symptom. When the eating disorder is revealed, the vulnerable are treated with contempt and ridiculed by the very people who had been complementing and encouraging their unnatural weight loss.

I find myself often wearing ripped clothing nowadays. Tattered robes, blouses, and dresses. All falling apart. I could sew them up. But I'm not motivated to. I feel a bit tattered myself right now. I like the look. It feels like me. Worn, but still alive.

I have updated my profile. For simplicity's sake, I'm only posting the parts I changed here.

New Profile I have finally found a place I fit in. I have a place in my community. I am the madwoman. I am a multiple system. In older entries I used "we" often, but nowadays I usually (but not always) use "I". Just easier to write that way. I still identify as plural. I'm also a bisexual, vegetarian, polyamorous mtf pre-op transsexual. I have two wonderful girlfriends (purpleglitter and merryperseis) and two wonderful cats (mazzycat and madeleinecat) Old Profile I don't really fit in anywhere, but I'm okay with that. I have dissociative identity "disorder" (or the condition formally known as multiple personality "disorder".) You will notice that in the course of this journal I will use "I" for me and "I" and/or "we" for the system as a whole or the Central Group. Occasionally another alter will make a post, but for the most part this journal is mine. I'm bisexual and a pre-op transsexual (mtf). I've left behind my long gothic phase, and am currently molding my style into something infinitely more fabulous. I still have some gothic friends and gothic tendencies, but have been burnt too many times in the subculture to wish to continue immersion in it. I have decided to start my own. I have very eclectic musical tastes, as one might imagine. Diamanda is Goddess. My religion is my own. While I draw from both Neopaganism and Buddhism, most of it is simply what makes sense to me. I'm vegetarian. Meat is yuckie. I have two wonderful girlfriends (purpleglitter and merryperseis) and one wonderful cat (mazzycat). Buttercup is my favorite Powerpuff Girl.

Poll #298694
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I had coffee with neodarkling at the Diesel Café last night. It's been a long time since I last saw her, and it was nice to catch up with her, as I haven't seen her in some time.

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My foot that I twisted before my trip to Plattsburgh is still sore. It was quite sore last night right before my to walk to purpleglitter's apartment. publicoenone insisted that if I walk that I wear more practical shoes (I was wearing platforms). When I told her I didn't have more practical shoes, she gave me a pair of tactical boots designed for SWAT teams. They fit perfectly and are surprisingly comfortable and go well with my pajamas.

zarthon, purpleglitter, and I went to the mall. Yes, the mall. The mall is a scary place, true, but there are good finds there. zarthon bought me a couple presents, which I picked out. Happy! Happy! I got a pair of gloves from Payless and a pair of winter boots with spikes on the sides from Hot Topic. Yes, Hot Topic.

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What's wrong with something from Hot Topic? There is quite a bit of snobbery about the place. I like the boots that zarthon got me there, what's the problem with that? If you refuse to wear or do or eat or listen to something that is popular on the basis that it is popular, then you are just as much a slave to popular culture as someone who only wears or does or eats or listens to things that are popular. You are letting pop culture dictate your tastes. We must break free of trends and cultures and popularities. We must create our own styles. Be ourselves without artificial expectations or limits. Then we are free.

The waist of this skirt is far to small. It's really digging in. Oh well, a little pain never hurt anyone.