Quote of the day UPDATED

"I'm not as thin privileged as I used to be." - a Savage Love commenter.

Found this via an unrelated search, but it does remind me that the Reddit thread inspired by/ranting against/providing copious traffic to (thanks guys! I should rile people about undergarments more often - maybe then the blog-ads I forget are even there would amount to something) my earlier post on bra-fit includes a debate about whether or not I have "thin privilege." The only information I'd provided in that post was that I lack gamine-privilege - what, you hadn't heard of gamine-privilege? Let me educate you: It's the privilege to go out in a camisole. To be menswear-chic. My point being that my skepticism about the bra-fit industry did not come from being a woman to whom none of this marketing was directed in the first place. And I left it at that - no details, no... dimensions - because that's the WWPD way.

Anyway, one participant says that I said that I'm not thin (but that I could very well be fat and privilege-oblivious - good to know!), but another is like, no way, she never said that, she is thin. 

But alas, I failed to do the thing one must in such conversations - provide accurate, up-to-date full-body photos, and the complete roster of measurements (weight, BMI, waist size, cup size, etc.). One must situate one's self. But one neglected to do so. So it must remain speculation.

The Reddit-users were forced to Google-image-search, from which they have determined - bizarrely - that they know what I currently look like. The photos that produces are not terribly revealing, but even if they were full-on bikini-and-calipers - and if one makes any reference to one's build, one owes the internet bikini-and-calipers - they're from a good long while ago, back when I lived in cities and, like, went out places. Who knows what I look like now.

(OK, of my three readers, at least two are probably people I know and am actively in touch with in real life. They may have some idea. And Obama - surely he knows all. Meanwhile there isn't much, mirror-wise, in this apartment, so I myself am not entirely sure.)

Which is really the problem with looks-privilege-talk on the internet. Well, one of them. Another is that using "privilege" in reference to looks suggests a dichotomy like the (ever-increasing!) one that exists wrt class/income. People who say they're 'middle-class' are often in denial in one way or the other. But most of us are within normal limits when it comes to looks. 'Middle', as it were. And looks are subjective in a way that wealth is not. (Yes, relative wealth is important, but either you can afford housing/healthcare/kids' education/some fun stuff or you cannot.) Exceedingly few of us either benefit from the advantages of being gorgeous or suffer from the effects of being unusually plain. 

With socioeconomic privilege (also known as "privilege"), people can be evasive, but there's generally an answer. With looks... there's self-reporting subjectivity. As in, I could tell you that I'm basically Gisele, but that would not make it true. Self-esteem as vs. what others see. (The proverbial model-who-still-thinks-she's-a-gawky-loser.)

Also important: whether someone is or is not photogenic. Whether a photo has been doctored. Whether - if no photo - what sounds on paper like conventional beauty amounts to the same in person. A 'leggy blonde' might or might not be Claudia-Schiffer-esque.

Of course, if beauty privilege exists within the online world, not just in reference to off-line, then one really could just have a blog, no photos, claiming to be a beautiful woman, and somehow benefit from this entirely constructed identity. Stranger things have happened. 

Oh, and in anticipation of the inevitable response: thin privilege is real, as in the advantages of being not-fat are real, and especially key for women. Thin privilege plus white privilege means when there's an empty seat next to you on public transportation, someone takes it immediately. 

But thin privilege isn't identical to beauty privilege, so even if a thin woman goes through life not knowing what heavier women deal with (that is, if she's never been fat - something people on these internets seem quite ready to assume), she may still know perfectly well what it's like to be bullied for one's physical appearance, to be rejected romantically time and again (and remember, the default assumption in our society is that girls and young women receive a constant barrage of offers). 

Finally, it's come up here before whether privilege is something that can be acquired - i.e. the working-class Harvard grad. (Some say yes - I prefer to call earned privilege 'advantage,' so as to distinguish it from unearned.) But there's a related question, which is whether what matters more is what one has now, or what one had at some formative time. This could apply re: looks or wealth/status, but the whole earned/unearned issue never quite applies with the former. I remember some study a while back, showing that men's income correlated with their height, but not their current height, their height at 16. Something like that might well be true for women and weight, or just women and looks.

On an unrelated note, somewhere on Facebook is a picture of me at 12 or 13. My name isn't anywhere on it, and I'm not tagged. And I'm fine with that.

UPDATE

As usual, Autumn had the answer all along.