From: sheryl@seas.gwu.edu (Sheryl Coppenger)
Subject: Re: CHOOSING to be attracted to someone
Organization: George Washington University
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 16:34:41 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.085219.15410@rcvie.co.at> cc_paul@rcvie.co.at (Wolf N. Paul) writes:
>
>Well, this sounds all very good and true, but it's not the way people
>function.
>
>My Dad was an outdoors person, hiking and mountain climbing mostly,
>and to him the fact that my mother's interest in sports decreased and
>her girth increased in the course of bearing six children was a major
>problem. He was committed to the ideal of marriage till death, so
>divorce never was considered, but it certainly affected the quality
>of their relationship.
>
>I can understand someone who has experienced this sort of scenario to
>consider physical compatibility (and I don't here mean "sexual
>compatibility") just as important as mental, ideological or religious
>compatibility.

You're switching from one topic to another in this case.  Your mother's
interest in outdoor activities changed.  That could have happened
to either partner at any time due to aging, disability or just a change
in interests.  Unless your father was a good deal more helpful than
most husbands of his era, most any woman would be worn out by 6 children
and not be interested in sports.  She may have needed extra food just
to have the energy to keep going.

It's true that people who have different levels of physical stamina will 
sometimes have a hard time in a relationship, but that doesn't correlate
100% with size.  I have skinny friends who are couch potatoes, and I
know big folks who hike and do sports.  And a physical mismatch is like
an intellectual mismatch -- it's up to the people involved to decide
what's important and how they are going to react to the challenges.  The
Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward marriage usually is held up as a classic
case of that.  She goes to his races, he goes to her concerts.  The
problem comes when one partner has to have his way all the time and
tries to make over the other partner.

>The other consideration, even though I also experience pain when 
>people snicker because of my size, is that I don't think anyone 
>is obligated to be attracted to me, and it doesn't really matter why
>they aren't. Attraction between people is a very personal thing, 
>and I get very uneasy when anyone seems to try and regulate it, even
>with the aim of correcting what I agree is less than ideal.

I don't think anyone is obligated to be attracted to me either.  That's
not what I'm talking about.  But part of attraction is personal and
part is social.  And the social part could use some work.

>One can try and regulate/legislate ACTIONS, as long as they come
>properly under the jurisdiction of some public agency, but it is
>useless to try and regulate ATTITUDES, and that's the heading under
>which personal attraction belongs.

Oh, come on.  Attitudes don't happen in a vaccuum.  The media play
a big part, and laws play a big part.  Both can condone an attitude and
make people more willing to express it.  Think about how much attitudes
have changed about SO many things just since the 50s.  WE are shaping
today's attitudes and the attitudes of the future.  The question is,
how many of us will recognize and exercise our power (limited thought it
may be) and how many will just roll over and die?  

>>I'd like to think that as people realize that they *can* change what
>>attracts them, that they would keep the door open to get to know people
>>for whom they do not have an immediate attraction.  This at least gives
>>both people the opportunity to *develop* an attraction, and see what
>>happens.  To reject someone solely because of their appearance means *two*
>>people may miss out on something good.
>>
>>
>>-Libbie C.
>>  

Avery went off on a gay/straight tangent here, and I doubt that was what
Libbie was talking about.  I know that wasn't what I was talking about.

There definitely is a peer pressure component in physical attraction.  A
certain amount of pressure is there to be with someone who will impress the 
peer group.  Not everyone can transcend that pressure.  The pressure may
affect the gender of the partner one chooses, the religion, the ethnic
background, etc. as well as the physical appearance.  

I'm not so cynical as Avery.  I don't think we have to replace one fascism 
with another.  And I don't think anybody's such a fool that they think one
can legislate physical attraction.  But I would be willing to bet that
if fat people were more honestly portrayed in movies and television and if job
discrimination because of size became illegal, and a few more changes like
that occured then more people would be tolerant of and attracted to fat
people.

-- 

Sheryl Coppenger    SEAS Computing Facility Staff	sheryl@seas.gwu.edu
		    The George Washington University	(202) 994-6853          
Newsgroups: alt.support.big-folks