The "pro-ana" movement -- WTF?

New "food is evil, control is good" answers!

also: The Brethren of the Free Spirit vs Flagellants

I made a brief allusion to these in my post on Mauras Atkins diet thread. I find them extremely hard to read, and extremely hurtful. First of all they can touch a very raw nerve, second of all the self- absoption of the ME ME ME 'the way I eat is a right' - then how come it's probably by now affecting every single person around you? I can see HOW they are calling it a lifestyle choice - your point of view when you are seriously into an eating disorder IS warped and it becomes your everything and this is how it's translated itself to the internet. I need to stay away from these sites, because they seriously, seriously fuck me up.

If eating disorders are 'about' control (and I wouldn't know) then this kind of underground 'marketing' surely ties in - an extension of the zone of control to perceptions of the act of control.

Everything nowadays is a 'community' - one reason to mistrust the word.

2. Some of the descriptions of the emotional and spiritual effects of fasting sounded familiar to me (I fast ten days or so once a year) and sound awfully (in all senses of the word) attractive, but of course my calorie intake during these fasts would be considered obscene by some of these folks, and I don't have any problem starting to eat again when the ten days are over.

3. I'm really interested in seeing what happens when this thread gets Googled.

To the extent that anorexia's a disease (psychological or physical or both in a feedback loop) 'these girls' suffer it passively. To the extent that it's clearly related to a set of wider cultural norms and possibilities, they have a relatively free reign to construct it how they want, however repulsive. (As Tom kind of said, though like Sarah I pretty much recoiled from that language). But presumably you have to be able to see it both ways to tackle it?

If these websites (representations of a body/world view in a public domain) are worse than that worldview inside someone's head (and I think they are) then it's presumably because they legitimate, sustain and reify it - I'm not sure 'encourage' is the right word. The difference, I'd guess, isn't really one of content. I think these sites (and I believe there are equivalents for self-harmer/cutters) mutate out of self-help 'communities' (Tom's made me all self-conscious about the concept). Is there a firm line between the two (in practice, rather than in principle)?

This happens with music sites (say) and it's harmless - a lot of the tension on ILM is between people who want a space where it's 'OK' to like certain musics/talk about music in certain ways and people who want to disrupt or challenge that space, and that tension is creative and healthy.

It happens with politics and it's less harmless - the quality of public debate suffers because opposing camps form and the circumstances where the camps meet and talk and debate their differences are allowed to wither.

And it happens here with eating disorders and it's even less harmless - the safe space of the community intentionally shuts out outside perspectives, but also I suspect prevents shifts in perspectives by people inside the community.

Big noises made with guitars are an attempt to effect the external world, imply that it's possible to control something external to yourself -- isn't "pro-ana" about "I can control nothing but my physical occupation of space, and this I shall control to an extreme degree"?

I don't think the internet being able to spring up such communities that would never previously existed is ostensiably a good or a bad thing. It is just a different thing.

I really, really dread to think where I'd be if the younger me had seen these sites. They still hit me hard at 21 because so much of my head is messed up and devoted to that kind of thing and can turn self- destructive only too easily. But I don't call it 'punk rock'.

Tom/Maura's note about the instant community and its limitations fascinates me, though. All of a sudden I see how a downside could exist...

The sites fit into a whole spectrum of extreme body-rights issues - the 'deaf baby' controversy we had a while back, Operation Spanner and consensual mutilation, gay 'conversion parties', right-to-die campaigners, even pro-smoking groups. But the propagandist aspect is the main difference and the main concern.

Yay! Good choice. :-)

Yeah, I should have been clearer. The toxic aspect isn't the existence of the community per se but the extent to which it encourages members to cut off ties to those outside the community and keep the 'real them' for the community - hiding symptoms etc falls under this umbrella. These kind of toxic communities have always existed but the Internet makes them easier to set up and easier to find, I think.

I mean, you had to leave the house as a young punk, but these folks can cease to exist on their own!

this upsets me because i know too many people who take this too seriously, who read these sites and cry and stop eating. or who read these sites and are excited and exercise more because eating nothing isn't enough. Luckily I've never had serious issues myself but too many people do. Crippling your mind with constant thoughts of "perfecting" your body until it gives out on you...that's so sad. I honestly don't know how much of it is conscious and how much of it is compulsion due to illness but if it's a lifestyle choice it's destructive. And I still don't think it should be censored so I don't know what to say.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/an-epidemic-basically-a-conflicted-weight-loss-blogger-on-thinspo/275671/

fount of thinspiration macros interviewed about appropriation of her stuff by pro-ana/pro-mia types and otherwise unhealthy people, discussion of prospects for a twitter hashtag ban, etc.