Truth, Honesty, And Online Personals (And Fuck You Dan Savage)

I read this Savage Love last week and I meant to write about it but I just didn’t. But upon realizing no one else seems to have commented I feel the need to point out, yet again, Dan Savage’s hates fat people.

So FATSO writes to Dan:

I put a profile on an online dating site some time ago when my job moved me to Florida and I didn't know anybody down here, but I soon forgot about it. Recently, a girl contacted me via that old personal ad, we exchanged pictures, and she told me she was overweight. In the pictures she didn't look that big and I chalked her comments up to female insecurity. Less than an hour ago we met for the first time and she was huge. I told her as politely as possible that I felt her pictures were misleading, that she was bigger than I expected, and that I didn't think it would work. I felt (and still feel) like total shit.

Dan, help me. Am I a bad person for this? I want to go slam my head in a car door!

Yes, FATSO, you are a total shit. Now why is that? Is it because you didn’t want to date this person. No. It’s because you acted like an ASSHOLE.

And Dan, naturally, sides with him! Because to Dan, fat people don’t deserve to exist. If you are fat, you deserve whatever treatment you get.

So long as you were polite and direct—and I'm taking your word for that, FATSO—you're not a bad person even if her feelings were hurt. There are men out there who are open to big women or into big women—the bigger the better—and she can avoid hurt feelings in the future by e-mailing accurate photos and attracting the attention of men who actually find her attractive.

So every time I meet up with someone who is uglier than their photo would have me believe, I get to tell him IN THE MOST DESVESTATINGLY RUDE WAY POSSIBLE, that they “lied” to me by showing me attractive pictures of themselves and that I don’t date ugly people. In fact I shouldn’t even bother with the meeting. I should just walk to the table and say “sorry you are uglier than advertised.” Gee wasn't there an episode of The Office where Michael pretty much did just that?

Look let’s get something straight. FATSO’s date actually said she was overweight. And FATSO doesn’t say the pictures are out of date, just that they made her look more attractive to him than the real person did. Maybe they were just headshots...that is not “misleading” him. You shouldn’t be putting up unattractive pictures on your online personal ad. A photo should make you look presentable. There is no rule of online dating that says you have to put up an unflattering picture so as not to “mislead” people as to how attractive you really are. You would think he now knows why women get so many insecurities about their weight! Especially when guys feel its totally acceptable to tell women they are too fat. Thanks ugly guy! You suck too!

And even if your picture leads someone to meet up with you, it does not give them carte blanche to be an asshole. There is no “polite” and “kind” way to tell someone they are too ugly for you. Meeting someone on a blind date isn’t permission to cruel. It’s not like FATSO’s date cheated him out of anything. But he totally hurt her for no good reason.

Dan Savage Apologizes (Sort Of) About Beth Ditto

A month ago I wrote about Dan Savage dinging Beth Ditto about her making a comment about gay fashion designers and him responding about fat people, calling them “dumb motherfuckers” who apparently are getting what’s coming to them, beauty-wise anyway.

Well "Savage Love" this week is ALL about fat people and I think it’s pretty much as close to an apology as Beth and his readers are going to get (or at least a retraction about his previous comments). The very first letter is a man (which I’m pretty sure is a spammer/troll, the letter-writing equivalent of a crank-caller) saying that despite the fact he only dates/has skinny athletic women as girlfriends, fundamentally he’s attracted to poor, dumb, fat, ugly cowish women (whom he finds in the suburbs). Dan rips him a new one and then the rest of the column is about the sexual attractiveness some fetists find in fat people.

None of the letters are directly about Beth Ditto, her comments, or Dan’s column about her. But my guess is he got a lot shit because of that column and this week is sort of “inspired by all the anger I got because I called fat people ‘dumb motherfuckers.’” (The very fact the first letter is about someone claiming fat women are dumb is a tip-off, also why I think the letter isn’t even real, although not because Dan himself wrote it).

This non-apology-apologist move is something I’ve seen Dan do previously, which I went into details in the comments. I’ve not heard a word from Dan either on his podcast or on the slog about the Beth Ditto comments, but I bet he got a shitstorm about them.

UPDATE: Brian at Red No. 3 has the low-down on Savage Love's long history of poorly-written comments about fat people, and fat women in particular, that I eluded to in comments here.