Tag Archives: figure girl

Picadilly Circus of Sins

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‘Face direction of travel,’ commands the sign suspended in a shiny hallway of the Heathrow airport. My spatial disability prevents me from obeying, for I never really know where I am. If you try to help by using such exotic terms as ‘north’ or ‘south,’ my eyes will go blank as I swerve the wrong way, probably into the Thames River. Right now I know only that I am headed back to Canada, my ever-too-brief English visit at an end. I will return home a little fatter—the Licorice Hut near the London Eye is partly to blame—and a whole lot wiser. For example, I learned the useful verb ‘vagazzle’ from watching a British TV show about women with shiny faces and glue-gunned twats who date boxers. I learned that taxi drivers do not like to take credit cards, but they are much obliged, and rather surprised, by tips. ‘Cheers Madam!’ I learned that expensive rubber pants are worth every penny. Oh, and I guess I also learned something or other while reading books every day about early modern tape worms, breast cancer, and anal fistulae at the Wellcome Library, British Library, and British Museum. After all, research was the reason for this trip, right? Well…  Continue reading →

The Look of Cosmetic Surgery

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Unlike most people, I love long flights. That is the only time I can unguiltily relax, get caught up on Mad Men, or even better, read an entire book in one sitting. While travelling I recently completed Rhian Parker’s Women, Doctors and Cosmetic Surgery (2010). Though in many ways hideously dull and repetitive, I found one argument–based on in-depth interviews with Australian women who have purchased cosmetic surgeries of various kinds–surprising. Apparently, women do not pursue breast reductions or enlargements, nose jobs, and eye lifts in order to stand out or be looked at, enviously by women, lustfully by men. (All of the interviewed women were straight, something worth thinking about). Oh no; they just want to blend in and ‘look normal.’ 

Really? Because that is not my experience with cosmetic surgery; I mean, with hearing about other people’s cosmetic surgery, for I have had none of the invasive prodecures listed above (nor have I had any kind. I have not even had my appendix out or experienced a broken bone). Now I should confess–and this is something you already know–that most of the women I encounter who have had such interventions are fitness models, Continue reading →

Clean Machine

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Right now I am in a certain northern Ontario town giving a talk about medicine and art. After touring me around all day, my lovely host dropped me at a fancy new gym beside the grocery store. I paid $15, got changed, and then went into the spacious, well equipped weight room, feeling rather pleased with myself. A staff member suddenly appeared, informing me that I was breaking an important club rule. ‘Tank tops are not allowed,’ she said, staring at my sleeveless attire, emblazoned with the words Olympia Las Vegas 2010. ‘You have to wear a t-shirt.’ ‘What?’ I chortled. ‘How else am I supposed to show off my guns?’ (I said this as if I was joking but the message was factual. I often pretend to lie while boldly telling the truth. It’s kind of my thing.) The heavily-clothed staff member was not amused. ‘Some clients could be intimidated,’ she stated. I had never before thought of my shoulders as intimidating, even offensive. I suddenly remembered visiting the Vatican and various churches in Rome, where bare shoulders are forbidden. God knows what you’re wearing, you brazen hussy. And so does Angelica, the anti-armpit Nazi. Continue reading →

Clothing Quandary

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For the first time since I began blogging in August, I wracked my brain for a topic. After running through my schedule of events this week—I wrote a talk to give to medical students, organized the renovations of the hallways and lobby of my condo building, sweated through tabata training, drank coffee, reminisced about Vegas with the delightful G-Smash while eating Cajun chili, approved an MA thesis proposal, participated in a reproductive rights teleconference, bought 18 tins for gifting baked goods in December, and hired a diet coach—I decided that it was all too boring. Who, other than me, would give a rat’s ass? Continue reading →

What Would Derrida Think of My Supplements?

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I realize that you are itching to hear what the amazing Jacques thinks about bodybuilding, but I have to share something else first. I regularly check the stats on the Feminist Figure Girl blog, which tell me how many hits my site receives per day, and which entry has been the most popular with readers. Wordpress also lists the different search terms that have guided people to my writing, however unwittingly. Some are obvious, like figure girl, figure competition, feminist bodybuilding. Others are hilarious. I give you: ‘obese black thong’ (no comment necessary), ‘why women kick testicles’ (I imagine a creepy guy clasping an ice pack to his crotch with one hand and gingerly typing this query with the other), ‘locker room women naked’ (I hope they were directed to my discussion of 1970s porno bushes), and ‘girl bent elbow armpit’ (ugh, does someone consider my bicep header erotic, even pornographic?). I also like ‘why did my ex become such an asshole?’ Now I don’t doubt that your ex did become an asshole, but is google really the place to figure out why? I think my favourite search term, however, is ‘speedo shame feminist.’ What was that person hoping to find? An image of Gloria Steinem looking sheepish in a lime green banana hammock? I might actually pay a small fee to see that. ‘Lingering hot sexy model man.’ Oh yeah, I want a hot man but I do not want him to be lingering. Bad odours linger, unpleasant experiences linger, unwanted house guests linger. And shadowy stalkers who were once hot male models might also linger…just outside of the 20 foot restraining order limit.  

On to Jacques Derrida and his supplements. Here is what he probably ingested on a daily basis to bolster his man power: coffee, cigarettes, viagra, red wine, creme fraiche. Okay so he had an old French bad breath nervous energy kind of manliness. Still, I heard that ‘JD’ was quite a ladies’ man and could dance. That is what one of my theory professors used to call the effusive French philosopher, as if they were close friends. During class this taut German would have an unlit smoke stuck to her lip, and would pound the table with her fist while shouting ‘HEGEL JA!’ Seriously. Do you think I could make this shit up? I drank quite a bit of JD—the brown liquid kind—before writing a Heidegger versus Mothra paper on ‘the handiness of the hand’ for her course. Got an A. Then when she asked me to discuss it with her while sober I reread the essay but could no longer understand my own argument. 

Supplements simultaneously overcome and draw attention to lack; they are both a surplus and necessary addition, and are thus central to approaching the vicissitudes of bodybuilding. Derrida discusses writing as a supplement, but he also explains the relationship between writing and the body: ‘in what one calls the real life of these existences “of flesh and bone”…there has never been anything but writing; there have never been anything but supplements, substitutive significations which could only come forth in a chain of differential references’ (Of Grammatology). Hell yes, and the Feminist Figure Girl project, which attempts to convey bodily experiences in textual form only reinforces that point, albeit in a literal rather than mind boggling fashion. Are protein powders, fat burners, and vitamins in any way like writing, or like this blog? I have included photos of my own supplementation regimen, though some of it has been placed under erasure. 

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