It’s No Diet Day. Hurray! So relax, shelve the protein shakes and for fuck’s sake stay away from the Apetamin.
You know as well as we do that body-wise, women can’t do right for doing wrong. Too thin, too fat, wrong shape, pores too visible, fannies too gross... hair too hairy, mouth too talky, etc etc – there’ll always be something. And if it’s not enough that we’re made to feel inadequate by the Daily Mail, p*rn and the very existence of Helena Christensen, we’re now being trolled by our soft lighting choices.
The recent rise in ‘slim-thick’ body candles, as gal-dem pointed out, is just another waxy stick to beat us with, as well as – bonus – fetishising the physiques of Black women. Look, Society. We just want a nice, relaxing candlelit bath, perhaps pop on a podcast, maybe have a cheeky strum. If we could do that one thing without feeling like a disproportionate meat sack, that’d be awesome, thanks.
Speaking of podcasts: for body (and specifically fat) positivity, you need to wrap your ears round the Media Voices interview with Gina Tonic [starts at 15:40], who recently co-founded Fat Zine: “I gave away the PDF of Issue One for free to anyone who ticked the box saying ‘I’m fat, and I love myself’”. No ‘D’ words in sight.
And if you need further distraction from nutribullets and the size of your FUPA, this issue has serial killer spiders, pregnant mummies, and a mother–son tale that would make Oedipus reach for the gelding equipment.
Bon appétit.
TIT BITS
Keeping abreast of the latest news, views, and research
It’s complicated
As we’ve established, BMI is a basic bitch as a measure of health. But when it comes to cancer’s relationship with this stat-we-love-to-hate’s, it could be described as “it’s complicated”. A recent study found an interesting link between high BMI and survival rates of people with HER2-positive breast cancer - there were worse outcomes in early breast cancer but increased survival in advanced breast cancer. Dr Ashley Hopkins, co-author of the study says: “This is world first evidence of an obesity paradox in breast cancer and highlights an urgent need to understand the biological basis of obesity impacts throughout breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.” Watch this space.
Eight-legged freaks
You’ve probably already heard that the female praying mantis eats her lover during sex. But at least the male mantis gets something out of his sacrifice – keeping his sweetheart occupied means a longer mating time and no rivals muscling in, so he’s more likely to pass on his genes (though how horny do you have to be to accept being eaten alive in place of pillow talk!?). The male Black Widow spider, however, doesn’t get his happy ending, OR get the dubious honour of being his mate’s one and only. Having despatched suitor #1 mid “sperm transfer”, most females will go on to mate/kill again.
Mummy issues
Researchers were surprised to discover that an ancient Egyptian mummy was in fact… a mummy. Previously thought to be a male priest, the remains were those of a heavily pregnant woman. “Our first surprise was that it has no penis, but instead it has breasts and long hair, and then we found out that it's a pregnant woman,” said Marzena Ozarek-Szilke, an anthropologist and archaeologist. It is the first known case of such a well-preserved pregnant woman, and “opens possibilities of learning about pregnancy and treatment of complications in ancient times.” We’re going to take a punt here and guess that ‘it was not fun’.
HEX Education
Revenge is a dish best served… sleepy
Warning: you might feel “seen”
Raise a hand if this is you: you’re super tired and have a big day tomorrow, but once again you find yourself staying up late looking at Line of Duty tweets or adding random stuff to your Pinterest board. Have you been so busy or preoccupied during the day you’re grabbing the free moments you can to just do you? Even if that means deliberately foregoing sleep and knowing you will feel shit the next day? Welcome to revenge bedtime procrastination.
The term recently trended in China, and describes when overworked people claw back hours for themselves when they should be sleeping. But we all do it, and the phenomenon particularly affects busy parents/carers and overworked individuals (including - SURPRISE! - women), and those with anxiety or who struggle to manage their time over the day.
So if this is you, what can you do? Remember, you’re not some dickhead hedonist for staying up too late caning cat videos online: downtime is important for wellbeing - plus you could argue you’re just embracing your rebellious streak by carving out some time when you can. But sleep is obviously super important, so maybe compromise with fewer videos and try a bedtime routine (why not light a couple of [body inclusive] candles and have a bath??). You could also try to find another way to exact revenge on the time-stealing aspects taking over your day… We suggest an ‘internet dropout’ when that Zoom call goes on way beyond your finish time, or guilting someone else to do the damn washing up for once.
TO THE KRAKEN 🦑
Creepy teenagers automatically eligible for Ms K’s premium service
Even from the depths of her lair, Ms K got wind of some news she wishes she’d never heard: a 19-year-old dude set up an OnlyFans account for his mum... from which he hopes to make some extra pocket money. Screams of “WTAF?!” are bubbling from her inky black trench. Ms K cannot believe that this guy would choose to make money off his mates crusting up their socks while watching his mum, rather than get a job himself. She has no wish to read stories about sons exploiting their mums’ bodies for their Xbox fund, thank you very much. As this young man is dragged down into the depths, Ms K might give him a taste of his own medicine and upload pictures to her own aquatic fan site of him being tentacle slapped: she’s heard there’s a thriving market for that sort of thing and those doubloons aren’t going to fetch themselves now, are they?
More things wobbling our meat sacks this week:
Gina Tonic’s brilliant Vice piece How to Have Sex with a Fat Girl | The book tackling viral BS - a debunker’s dream! | Painting lost women to raise money for domestic violence charities | Anti Diet Riot Club Body Weekender | Listening to “woozy loved-up psych-rap” by Lava La Rue
The HEX Science team
🧬Jean Splicer | ☢ Marie Fury | 🧠 Rorschach Tess | 🔬 Rosalind Frankly