The Burnt Toast Podcast

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! It's time for your September Extra Butter! Today we are discussing... dating as a fat person! We'll get into navigating the apps, Corinne's rules for first dates, and why do so many cishet men post fishing pictures. If you are already an Extra Butter subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Patreon. Otherwise, to hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to join Extra Butter. It's just $99 per year, and is the hands down best way to keep Burnt Toast an ad- and sponsor-free space. PS. Don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of healthcare providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!CorinneI’m really excited about our topic for today.VirginiaI’m so nervous about our topic for today.CorinneThere’s nothing to be nervous about. We’re going to talk about dating. And just to be clear, both of us are single. Slide into our DMs. VirginiaOh yes, there’s no announcement being made here. But as two single people, one of whom has significantly more dating experience than the other—CorinneIt’s me. VirginiaThat’s Corinne, to be clear. We felt like we should do an episode about fat dating specifically, because it really is it’s own thing. It’s its own world with things to navigate, and many anxieties and realities.So in this episode, we have Corinne as our dating expert, because she has actually dated in… this current decade. If we wanted to go back and talk about 10th grade dating, I’ve got tips.CorinneI did very little dating in 10th grade, so that could actually be helpful. VirginiaWe’re not going to get into that! But yes, Corinne is the more current dater of the two of us. Corinne is going to be our expert. And we also did a call out to all of you. So we have a lot of your questions, but also your advice, which we’re going to read. And we’re all going to learn a lot, I think. Mostly me.CorinneI’m excited. I have a lot of strong opinions about this. VirginiaI’m ready for your strong opinions. Okay, to kick it off, I just wanted to read this note from Jenny, which I think sums up the vortex of feelings that we have about this:There’s so much vulnerability required to date and I think that’s what makes dating as a fat person even harder. We’re already feeling vulnerable at times just for existing in a fat body. So to be extra vulnerable requires even more courage and energy. For people who have the experience of being desirable, they too must be vulnerable, but they start from a place of security. What are your thoughts?CorinneI mean, I do think that’s true. I also think that dating feels vulnerable for everyone and I think whether or not you’re starting from a place of marginalization, it still feels hard. I think it could be helpful to remember that the people you’re dating also feel that way. Also, if you’re a fat person, you could be dating another fat person, and they could be experiencing similar feelings of vulnerability.VirginiaRight? And we should also say fat people can experience being desirable! That’s not an experience universally reserved for thin folks. But I understand what this person is getting at. You may be coming into this feeling like “I have not had that experience of being desired” and that’s adding to the vulnerability.CorinneYeah. I think that it’s helpful to remember the vulnerability goes both ways.VirginiaThat is helpful to remember. I think we tend to think almost like the other people don’t feel real at a certain point? We’ll get into the apps, but I think they add to that feeling. Remembering that everybody is terrified is a good note.So about the apps, the number one question by far that we got is: Do we post full body pictures on the apps or make other disclosures of fatness in our profiles?What say you, Corinne?CorinnePersonally, yeah. I’m always going to post a full body pic. But like, so does everyone else, you know? I just feel like that’s the norm. VirginiaOh. Interesting.CorinneI feel like it would be weird if you only posted pictures of your face! But maybe I’m just biased?VirginiaI’m not on any apps, so I know nothing about it. I’m just an anthropologist at this point. Tell me more of the of the norms on the apps! CorinneMaybe I’m wrong! Maybe I’m just conditioned to do it this way because I am fat. I do try to post a photo—like, I’m not going to only post a full body photo of me that’s super flattering or something, you know? Like, I’m not gonna post—it’s hard for me to even think of an example, because I don’t wear shape wear or something. But I’m not going to post a photo where I’m wearing shape wear. I’m trying to post a photo that’s realistic. Like maybe it’s a photo of you hiking or you doing something where you’re not posed in a way that is clear you’re trying to make yourself look as thin as possible.VirginiaSo, no selfies taken from above.CorinneNo. And I think when you see other people’s profiles that is also what you want to see! I feel like the best photos are photos someone else takes, because you’re not arranging your body or your face in a way that’s trying to be appealing.VirginiaI mean. I agree with you, and I totally admit, that one of the places I struggle is with photos that I didn’t take and don’t have control over! Because I know the ways that I take photos of myself, and it’s not that I think I look thin in my photos, but I have adjusted my brain to accept myself and to present in that way. Like I have the mirror selfie I take to show an outfit on Instagram, and I think it’s relatively accurate of my body, but probably not as accurate as someone else taking a picture of me straight on.CorinneI mean, this is getting a little more philosophical, but I think when you see photos of other people that they haven’t taken in that way where they are arranging themselves, or taking the photo in the way that they think they look good—it’s like you can see more of like their personality or something too. You can see faces reacting to another face, instead of a face just looking at itself.VirginiaThat makes sense. CorinneThat’s my theoretical thing. But it can be hard to find those photos.VirginiaNow I’m like, “Okay, must go on a beautiful hike with a friend who is a good photographer.”CorinneWho candidly takes a photo of you. VirginiaMake sure I’m just laughing delightedly. CorinneWear your Spanx. VirginiaSo I’m now turning to the listener notes here. Universally, everyone said yes, include a full body photo. Say you’re fat, say you’re a fat liberationist. Chelsea Levy, who’s a friend of mine, a fat dietitian in New York City, she wrote: Share full body photographs in your profile. Doing so will save you time syncing up with someone who is intrigued by your whole package of personality and authenticity. There is someone for everyone. And I liked that. It’s kind of what you’re saying. She’s taking the focus off aesthetics a little bit even, which I hadn’t thought about doing with photos.CorinneI do say in my profiles—I usually say “fat.”VirginiaLike, in case people don’t look at photos or something?CorinneWell, it’s something that I’m going to talk about. Like, if they ask me what is your job? And I’m like, “I’m on a podcast sometimes.” And they’re like, what’s the podcast? It comes up, you know? So I just want it to be out there. VirginiaYes. Donnelle, one of the people who runs Philly Fat Con, said, “Make sure it’s clear that like you’re fat and you’re not trying to change it,” which I hadn’t even thought of! But there could be a misconception that if they see your body, but they don’t see you talking about it, they might assume you’re on a weight loss journey or something.I also like this from Camille, who wrote:One thing I do is always make sure to post at least one full body pic and I include in my bio that I’m a fat liberationist. I don’t do this because I feel the need to warn people about my size, but rather because it weeds out the fatphobes quite well.Also, I only date other fat liberationists at this point in my life, and it freaking rules.CorinneWho’s going start a fat liberationist dating site? Camille, you seem like a good candidate.I liked this next one too. This person says,Recently, I went on a date with someone and beforehand, I was really worried that she didn’t know I was fat, as we hadn’t exchanged photos. So I just told her over text, “hey, just FYI, I’m a fat femme, and that identity is really important to me. I’m letting you know ahead of time, so it’s not a surprise when we meet, since some people aren’t cool with it.”Her response was, “Some people are assholes. I swore off skinny bitches a long time ago,” which is, of course, not an unproblematic statement. But I cannot describe the feeling of relief that washed over me when she said that. Yeah, I like that approach. You might as well just put it out there. VirginiaYou’re letting people know who you are and also your values, which feels important. I think that’s really good. The last note we got about this question is someone who is also, pro-photos, pro-being clear about who you are. They wroteLI always post a whole body picture. I don’t spend very long chatting. I usually try to move to meeting pretty quickly, and will be the one to ask for a date if I’m inclined. And on a first date, I try to tune into how I feel in my body when I’m with them. I really love this idea of, “How am I feeling in my body while I’m in this experience?”CorinneI love that idea, too, and that’s definitely not something I have heard articulated before, or articulated myself. But I also really agree about don’t spend too long chatting on apps! It almost always ruins everything, for whatever reason. If you have too much chatting chemistry, it never translates. At least not for me. It’s almost like this body thing. Dating or being in a relationship with someone is more about being in space with them. So you just need to as quickly as possible figure out if you have in-person chemistry, and go from there.VirginiaOne thing we didn’t articulate, or this person didn’t mention, is: Is it different if you’re dating for a relationship, versus dating just for a hookup? I guess not. I guess in any scenario, you want to not just be texting,CorinneI think it’s really important for both. I feel like there’s this thing that happens with online dating where if you chat too much before you meet, you can get overly intimate. The intimacy jumps ahead of itself or something. You start talking about stuff that you wouldn’t tell people when you’re first meeting them and it just makes it awkward. My advice is: Talk as little as possible, meet up as soon as possible, and for the first date, plan something very short, something you would enjoy doing even if it was alone. And no alcohol.VirginiaWow! No alcohol?CorinneIt’s this “how it feels in your body” thing. Alcohol affects things, you know?VirginiaRight, okay.CorinneI don’t know. I guess you can have a drink. But my go-to is to go get ice cream.VirginiaI was about to say, this feels like ice cream. CorinneFor me it’s great if it’s literally 15 or 20 minutes, because within that time you’ll know: Do I want to see this person again or not? VirginiaI  feel pressure about this! What if you’re kind of slow to warm up?CorinneDon’t you think you know very quickly after meeting someone whether you want to know them better?VirginiaUm, again, I haven’t done this since the tenth grade.CorinneBut even if it wasn’t dating! Like a friend? I think it’s really similar. VirginiaYeah, you do get a vibe even if you’re just talking to someone at a neighborhood barbecue or something. Like, can I stand to be in conversation with this person longer or not? Okay, I see that. How do you tell people you only want it to last 20 minutes, though? I feel like I would be hung up on that. CorinneI mean, I don’t. I’m flexible. I think it’s more just that it could end in 20 minutes. VirginiaCorinne only has dates before she has a dentist appointment. So if it is going well, you would stay longer.Corinne Sure, yeah. VirginiaUnless you have the dentist. CorinneI’m not only scheduling them before dentist appointments. But it could end quickly and move into a second longer hangout or something. VirginiaGot it. So how long does the second date last? If there is a second date.CorinneI’m flexible. The second date is like, "“Okay, yes, I could have dinner with this person.” Like, a dinner date with someone you don’t like? Then you’re like, “Oh, great. Now I have to hang out for an hour and try to make conversation.” I’m much more into a quick first date. Plus, then you feel more excited about it.VirginiaThis is excellent advice.CorinneI feel like I’m giving away all my secrets.VirginiaI mean, I guess the only downside is everyone would like dating more? Okay, so that is what to do with our profiles: Yes, full body pictures. Yes, put some language in there about your your fat values, all of that.We also got questions about how to evaluate other people’s profiles—and how diet culture can show up and anti-fatness can show up in very coded ways. One person wrote, “I’ve noticed that so many straight men”—and we’re going to get to the straight men, so put a pin in that part—“list ‘healthy lifestyle’ as what they are looking for in a potential partner on their dating app profiles. And I strongly believe it is code for be thin. Don’t be fat.”CorinneI have definitely seen this, not from just straight men. I feel like the other one I see a lot is like “active.” Like, “I’m active.”VirginiaSomeone else said there are so many profiles that have “being active” as a priority. CorinneEven like, hiking.VirginiaOh, hiking is a red flag.CorinneIt’s loaded. And I feel like this one is especially interesting for me, because I am active and do spend a lot of time at a gym. And I also know they’re not talking about me. You know?VirginiaOh, yup. That’s interesting.CorinneLike, you like hiking, but they might not be talking about you.VirginiaI’m not “active,” though. I wouldn’t put active in my profile. That’s a thing I do, sure. But that would be like, am I going to put teeth brushing in my profile? Also, I sleep every night?To me, if someone is emphasizing their activity levels in their profile, they’re telling me that that is more of a hobby. Being active is not one of my hobbies. Or it’s like, again, this coded thing, like they’re really saying that they want someone thin.CorinneYeah, it feels like they’re saying, “My expectation is that you’ll be able to keep up,” or something. VirginiaNo! Thank God this date is only 15 minutes long!Someone else wrote:“I tend to pass on any guy who says anything about healthy lifestyle, but maybe I’m making an assumption. I also struggle with whether I need the guy to already be doing his own work to understand himself and the world better, or if I only need someone who’s open minded to new ideas like fat liberation.”And that’s fair, some people might be using the active, healthy lifestyle stuff without having reflected on what that all means. I can see someone inadvertently using it, I guess. CorinneI do think it’s better, or more important, to find someone who’s open-minded than who already knows about these issues. Not to say that it isn’t hard in its own way to have to explain anti-fatness to someone. But I just think it’ll go a lot further if someone is open-minded. And that should go for us, too. I think we also have to remember to be open-minded to other people’s ideas about whatever. VirginiaRight. That’s annoying, but true.It also feels like, if you narrow the pool down to only people who have already done extensive work on fat liberation, you might, depending on your geographic area, have really narrowed your options. Like, that just might not be feasible in some places to winnow it down that much.CorinneI think that’s why open the open-minded thing is also helpful. Because even if someone doesn’t know about fat liberation, they might know about Black Lives Matter. They might have feelings about trans rights. There are other marginalized identities that they might have feelings about or experience with.[Note: We’re not equating anti-fatness to other forms of bigotry here, just emphasizing that someone already doing work to combat other biases is likely to be more open to this conversation as well!]VirginiaYeah, you just have to make sure it’s not the way libertarians say they’re open minded.CorinneMmm yes. Oh, when we were talking about what profile things are red flags, the one that drives me nuts is the fishing pictures. VirginiaWait.CorinneLike, pictures of men holding fish that they’ve caught. It’s so common. It’s really bizarre. Or hunting stuff, like deer. VirginiaNo.CorinneIt’s funny because I was just saying, “use a picture of you doing something that someone else took,” but not if it’s fishing or hunting!VirginiaWe are being open minded. But not about everything!CorinneYeah, I don’t know why that is just such a no for me. VirginiaI mean, is it telling me that fishing is your life so much that you made it your profile picture, in which case I’m not interested because what are we going to talk about? I don’t like to fish, or know how to fish, or want to learn.CorinneI think it might be one of the only situations that you have a picture of yourself in.VirginiaThat’s true, especially for straight men, who may not have been socially conditioned to take a million photos of themselves. I also feel like there’s something to… look how big this fish is.CorinneYeah, like “I’m a provider” or something. VirginiaNo, I think it’s “I have a big penis.” It feels compensating, is what I mean to say.Does that mean we should talk about straight men? CorinneYes. VirginiaOne person wrote, “dating cishet men as a not thin, 40+ year old woman is terrible. Sorry, I know this isn’t even a question.”Which was real great for me. Thanks!And my friend Emily McCombs, who’s a great fat writer, wrote to me, “Fat dating is a literal nightmare, but from what I can tell, so is thin dating if you date man.”So it may be less about bodies and more about the men?CorinneI mean, I don’t date straight men, so I feel like I don’t have the most straightforward advice here. But I do think it’s really helpful to go into dating feeling open to meeting people or even excited to meet people. And I think that’s really hard when you’re like, “Dating cis men is terrible.” Not to discount that experience, because I think it’s true. But I also think, if you are going into dating being like, “this is going to be terrible,” it’s going to be really hard.VirginiaThat’s annoying. But it’s good advice.I think what I struggle with—and again, I’m not on the apps yet. But I am a woman on the Internet who hears from a lot of men. I hear from the worst versions of men. There’s this shirtless bro on Tiktok who just really loves to make videos yelling at me right now. And it’s fine! We would never match on a dating app. He’s really not my type. If that man has a profile, it is absolutely full of “active lifestyle” and not even coded. Like he probably just says, “no fatties,” you know?CorinneIf you met him for ice cream, you would not want to sit down for more than 15 minutes. VirginiaWell, no, because he probably can’t eat ice cream. We would not even get that far. But I have to do some work to separate out that type of dude, and those experiences and not bring that into this. Because I think you’re completely right. There’s no point if you’re going in with this negative attitude. And our lived experience in these interactions with toxic straight men is a real thing. CorinneI find, just as an introvert homebody type person, that sometimes I just don’t want to go at all. Meeting a new person and getting to know them is really hard. It takes a lot of energy. And I do think, to some extent, dating is a numbers game. It’s just about meeting a bunch of people and deciding whether you like any of them, and whether they also like you back. So I do think if you get to the point where you’re like, “fuck this, fuck men, everything is horrible,” just take a break. Quit the apps or the sites and just go back to living your life in a way that you like.VirginiaA couple people talked about that and that is certainly how I feel. I freaking love my life. Anything that happens here has to be a real value add. And I think remembering that you have that, and you don’t need this to be a complete person or a happier person. A relationship cannot be the reason someone becomes a happier, more complete version of themselves. There was a comment I wanted to get your thoughts on. This person wrote,It’s been so interesting to observe different factors in my dating life. When I was a small fat, dating was different from now. While I’m a medium/large fat, I’ve always dated people of different genders, but when I used to have men in that mix, I noticed a lot of fetishization. Also my fat politics have changed. I used to call myself body positive, now I’m a fat liberationist, and I can definitely see ways in which that affects my dating life for the better, honestly.But yeah, can we talk about the fetish thing a little bit? What are your thoughts on that? CorinneI don’t know, it’s been a while since I’ve dated straight men. I haven’t had a lot of experience with it. I’m almost sort of like, "How are you noticing it?” I’m curious about how it’s actually being manifested. VirginiaAnd I mean, some people are into that fetish. So no judgment if that’s your thing. But it’s a weird one to not know how it’s going to come up, I guess.CorinneAnd I think, sometimes, if a thin or straight-sized man is interested in a fat woman, it’s assumed that it’s a fetish thing.VirginiaYes. And that’s problematic.CorinneI would be curious to know more. Probably Burnt Toasties who have more straight dating experience might have more thoughts. VirginiaYeah, I want to hear what people think about that and how it’s coming up! Because I am curious. Well, to end the “why are straight men” segment on a more upbeat note, I’m going to read this note from Jen who writes, I met my husband on plenty of fish after trying literally every app for well over a year. Lots of interesting first dates, not a lot of second dates.Didn’t pass Corinne’s ice cream test, I guess. It depends on what you’re looking for. I was definitely looking for long term commitment at the time, so the way I framed my profile and how I answered messages was very different from just looking to date or hook up. But I was still very much entrenched in my own anti-fat bias at the time, so I was convinced that I couldn’t find a good partner because I was fat… but then I was also being super judgmental of any fat dudes who wrote to me as well.It took me dropping all that crap and giving anyone who seemed interesting, interested, and put together a chance. For me, I found my soulmate who also happens to be fat. Turns out I was doubting my own ability to be attracted to someone over an un-photogenic profile photo. Also, the Internet is fake. It’s a great tool, but you’ve got to use it quickly and get onto the in-person stuff efficiently to really know if things are going to work out.Which is your advice again. But that is a really interesting note that sometimes, in our concerns about fatness, we should reflect on if we’re applying it to the other person.CorinneYeah, this is definitely something I’ve noticed and experienced. I think there’s a certain status if you’re a fat person who has a thin partner. Like, it kind of feels like you are passing in some way? It’s validating. And so I do think that fat people who aren’t into fat liberation or who are more like on the line sometimes can be really averse to dating other fat people. And that sucks.VirginiaWell, I just appreciate this person’s honesty that they saw this was getting in their way. It was narrowing the pool. I think that’s just something to be honest with yourself about.CorinneI think that what they’re saying about giving anyone who seems interesting, interested, and put together a chance is really good advice. Because it’s just so hard to get a feel for a person based on an Internet profile.VirginiaI mean, those are really good criteria. Put together is a nice way of saying it because it’s not body-specific.CorinneIt’s like, “Has a job.”VirginiaOr at least, “Is just is a grown up.” Like, “Comes across as a fully-formed adult human being.”CorinneI love this question. How does an introvert meet people in real life when you’re not interested in dating sites? Is sitting at a bar, beach, diner, bookstore, coffee shop, by yourself a way to do it? Like to become part of the regular crowd? I’m in Seattle and the freeze here is real.VirginiaI also love this question. I think it really depends where you live. As someone who lives in a small town in the Hudson Valley populated mostly by people I know, becoming part of the regular crowd is not the answer I think. Just because, yeah, small town life.CorinneI think the the thing that makes dating sites so appealing is that you know other people are looking for something. In real life, even if you do meet someone and you like them, the chances that they’re also single or looking for the same kind of thing are so small. So I feel like my advice would be to try to go to dating-specific activities. Go to speed dating or go to queer meetups or singles meetup.VirginiaA singles mixer! Why do all the names have to be so cringey?CorinneI don’t know. It’s terrible. I think the other thing you could do is try to ask your friends if they have other single friends that they could host to hang out with.VirginiaEspecially if you’re relationship-oriented. That feels a good way to to do it. But yeah, as an introvert who also doesn’t like to leave her house a lot, I really feel this. We did get some good advice on this. One person wrote,I spent a lot of time on the apps and dates from those apps. When I was dating, I really wanted to be in a long-term relationship, but I met my husband and lots and lots of friends through MeetUp. I went to a few meetups that sounded interesting, and got to know folks. It was just a great way to get out and be social with like-minded people. Better than the apps, for sure.And another person said they joined Sierra Club and Audubon Society to do the same thing because the apps were horrible, in their opinion, and couldn’t replace meeting people in real life through shared interests. And that’s interesting to me. I think the shared interest thing feels really smart.CorinneYeah, well, and I feel like that follows my advice about doing something on the first date that you would actually like doing anyways, like getting ice cream or going on a bird walk. VirginiaI don’t know, bird watching can take a long time, though. You would exceed your time limit.CorinneA 15 minute bird walk. Oh but, how would you know that the other people were, like, single?  I guess you’d just have to take that risk.VirginiaYou would have that risk that you’re talking about where you might connect with someone and then turns out they’re married or whatever or just not looking today. But I can see if you’re forming more friendships, you’re making your pond bigger. CorinneThat’s true too. Because even if you meet someone, whether or not it’s a good romantic fit, maybe they know someone else that they can set you up with or something. VirginiaI think as introverts, finding ways to feel connected to community is ongoing hard work and anything that makes that feel more doable, I think, will be rewarding in and of itself. And if it leads to dating, great. And if it doesn’t, hey, now you also have fun friends to go bird watching with, so that’s a win. It feels like there’s no downside other than getting over—and believe me, I feel it—that initial introvert hump of like, why do I have to leave my house? CorinneYeah, that’s a really good point. Whether or not you meet someone, it’s enriching your life.VirginiaI really love the way,Glynnis MacNicoltalks about this, andlyz, and some other writers I really love, who write about being single.Taking the focus off “central monogamous relationship as the epicenter of our lives” is a win for everyone, pretty much. It just opens you up to a lot more possibility, in all sorts of ways. And that can lead you back around to a relationship or not, but the important thing is having that sense of your own life as very full and rich. Corinneif you do want to find a romantic relationship, whatever that looks like, it doesn’t make sense to make yourself miserable doing it. You have to find a way to do it that’s, if not enjoyable, at least tolerable. So it’s not ruining your life. You still have to like living your life whether or not you end up with a romantic partner.VirginiaOh, my God, totally. That was very well said. I agree. All right, the last chunk of questions we got were about working through our own internalized anti-fatness. And this person wrote: How do I work through feelings and beliefs of, if I were smaller, I’d get more likes, engagements, and dates?CorinneThis is tough. My advice for this is: You gotta let it go. Those people aren’t for you. I have also known thin people who have really struggled with dating for whatever reasons. Just to say, I think people struggle with it for all types of reasons. Body size, gender, neurodivergence. There are all types of reasons that people feel that they’re being rejected. But I don’t think the answer is to change yourself to fit in. Do you want to change yourself so that more people are swiping right on you on Tinder? That seems miserable.VirginiaAnd are those the people do you want to be with, someone who would only swipe right on you if you were smaller? I mean, if it’s just a hookup, maybe. But if we’re talking about longterm relationships, bodies change. So that might not go right down the road. This other comment was interesting. This person wrote,Something I’ve been struggling with lately is trying to figure out how much my lack of dating success can be traced back to being fat and on top of that, how much of my lack of attention from people I’m attracted to is genuine fatphobia in potential partners and them not being interested attracted, versus how much is a self fulfilling prophecy of my internalized fatphobia causing me to assume they won’t be interested or attracted and therefore not making connections or being flirty and not seeming interested in anyone. A little bit of a puzzle there. But I think I get what they’re saying: Is it that people are not attracted to you, or is it that you’re not putting out “be attracted to me” vibes? So assuming that they’re not attracted. CorinneThis one also makes me wonder: Are you feeling attracted to, or interested in people who are fat, or are you just trying to find a thin or straight-sized person and assuming that they’re not going to be interested? I don’t know.VirginiaThat’s a fair question.CorinneIt’s tough. I mean, I think feeling rejected or feeling like people aren’t interested in you definitely makes you question everything you’re doing.VirginiaI’m thinking though about how one of the triggers for me on negative body thoughts is social anxiety—which will make any future dating a real joy, I’m sure. But it’s not that my body is the problem. It’s that when I’m feeling anxious and stressed, I put that on my body.And I’m wondering if there’s a parallel thing happening here where it’s not your body that’s the problem, but if you’re feeling rejected and vulnerable, you have been conditioned to decide your body is the reason for all of that.CorinneI think that’s probably accurate.VirginiaI can intellectualize that for us all! But then how do we get to the point where we can, break out of that body blaming and or not go there in the first place. That’s hard work. CorinneI mean, I don’t know. I guess that’s maybe part of why I’m like, are you only trying to date thin people? Because you just have to assume that other people are going through the same thing, VirginiaThis is some good advice from one of our Burnt Toast OGs, Katie Rose, who wrote,When I was dating, my amazing therapist at the time told me make a list of must haves and would likes in a partner and hold firm and to ensure my profile was genuinely me and not what I thought men wanted to see. Learning to be true to what I wanted and not compromise was really hard, but I ended up with a partner who fit my list, with one exception—he’s bald and I had “full head of hair” on the would like list.And honestly, biggest advice I could give, don’t date without a really good therapist.I mean, that seems like really good advice. What do you think about the list of must haves and would likes?CorinneI think it’s a good idea to be thinking about that, and probably having a list is a good idea. I feel like I would struggle with whether I would put physical characteristics on that. This person is obviously saying they were kind of flexible about it. I’d go back to what that other listener said: Interesting, interested, and put together—those are kind of flexible characteristics. VirginiaI feel like, to me, the only must have would be to be in agreement about what we’re looking for in the terms of the seriousness of the relationship. Because that feels like, if you have a mismatch, that can be really frustrating. But yeah, it’s an interesting idea. I have not made a list. All right. Should we move on to the last thoughts?CorinneOkay, this was the other thing I was going to say. This is not necessarily a first date thing, maybe a second date thing or something. But I also think it can be nice to ask people—maybe this is more getting into the fetishization thing. But I think it can be nice to ask people: Have you ever dated someone fat before?I think it can just be a good way to sort of talk about, either what you need from someone you’re dating around that, or whether they have any experience with it or, I don’t know. And I think also a good opportunity for the person you’re dating to bring up if they have any stuff like that. VirginiaSo do you tend to do that? Has that gone well for you? CorinneI usually have that conversation around if I’m going to start sleeping with someone. I’ll be like, “Have you ever slept with a fat person before?” And that’s when you’re sort of like, okay, is this a fetishization thing? Is this a totally new experience for you that you’re going to be weirded out by?I’ve probably gotten that from like, dating and sleeping with trans people who have asked me, “Have you dated or slept with a trans person before?”Virginia Sure, sure, sure.CorinneThen also it’s a good segue into conversations about, do you have parts of your body that you don’t want people to touch or is there stuff you don’t want people to say, or stuff like that. Boundaries.VirginiaAnd consent. So healthy. I love it! It’s very evolved.CorinneIt’s a good kind of open-ended conversation to have at some point. I don’t know when or where it makes sense. You’ll probably have to figure that out yourself.VirginiaWhich lick of the ice cream cone, in that first 15 minutes?CorinneYou can spend more than 15 minutes with them, but can you have a conversation about bodies?VirginiaTo be fair, having a conversation like that about bodies with your best friend probably feels hard and scary. So, yeah, doing it with someone who you’ve only got that 15 minute of ice cream time in with, that’s vulnerable. If that sounds terrifying to everybody else, agreed. But it does seem smart. CorinneI do think it’s terrifying, but I think it’s good information to have. And it’s something that’s going to be addressed at some point. So why not bring it up in a way that’s not like, in the heat of the moment or something. I don’t know.VirginiaAnd of course, rejection sucks or whatever. If it doesn’t go well. But I’d rather do that before we’re super down a road or invested in some way. It’s going to sting less at that point. CorinneI think maybe that’s why it’s a better second date thing. If you’re going on a second date, both of you are at least somewhat interested. And then you can be like, “I don’t know, what is your experience dating fat people,” or something like that. VirginiaThis is very good advice. Okay, all right. So to wrap up, we have a couple of last notes here that I think will like leave us all feeling a little more hopeful and optimistic about the dating landscape. Do you want to read the first one from Chelsea?CorinneYes.While marketing and advertisements centering beauty standards of smaller bodies will have you believe you need to be smaller, that is far from the truth. 2.3 million couples wed every year in the United States. Rest assured, within that 2.3 million is body diversity. Attraction is multifaceted beyond the physical. Yes, fat people are beautiful. Most important, fat people are worthy of love. What would it feel like to center fat joy and fat romance in your ether? And that’s from Chelsea Levy.VirginiaI think that’s so wise. I love what she says about attraction is beyond the physical. I think that’s something that’s easy to forget when you’re reacting to the apps. Really, really smart. And Chelsea just got married, too, and her wedding photos were so lovely.She also suggested, in terms of books you’re reading, TV shows you’re watching, your social media feeds: Make sure you’re centering fat aspirational characters and stories. Surround yourself with examples of that love.CorinneThat is really lovely. VirginiaAnd then the last one that I really liked, just because it made me laugh, and I think it’s a good mantra for us all. This person wrote, “Don’t settle for somebody who accepts your body. Fat people are hot. You are hot and should be treated like a damn snack.” CorinneYeah, I love that. I do think fat people are hot and I do think it’s helpful to remember that when you’re dating. If I’m attracted to other fat people, why wouldn’t other people be attracted to me? VirginiaAmen, I love that. I love that. And let’s not let the bar be just mere acceptance. We want more for all of us. That was very good, and I found it very informative, as someone who hasn’t dated in this century. So I hope it’s helpful for everyone with much more recent experience.CorinneYeah, I’m excited to hear what people have to say. I bet Burnt Toasties will have a lot of good advice, too.VirginiaI feel like you may get more follow up questions. You might now be our new dating guru. CorinneI can’t wait. Colette pants in dark wash denim. Also, mirror selfie!!ButterCorinneOkay, my Butter this week is a recipe.VirginiaOoh, fun.CorinneIt’s a good end of summer, last hurrah, type of recipe. My mom made it for me when I was in Maine, and then I have made it since coming home. It’s a New York Times recipe and it’s called Taverna salad. It’s like a really big, delicious salad that has tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and also you toast pita and add it in, and it also has halloumi and chickpeas. So feels very hearty and filling. It’s really good.VirginiaIs it one you can have good leftovers from?CorinneYes, the pita chunks will get a little soggy, but they’re still totally good. I'm eating it over multiple days.VirginiaOh, okay, I need to do this. That sounds like a great work from home lunch option. What kind of dressing?CorinneIt has its own dressing recipe. Like, red wine vinegar and oregano or something. It’s kind of Greek-ish or Italian-ish. It’s really good. It has a lot of salty things, like olives and capers and stuff. Highly recommend.VirginiaOkay, my Butter is really a butter in progress. Because I haven't totally decided if I like this thing, but I want to talk about it, because finding pants is so hard. It’s the bulk of our work, really, as humans, as well as Burnt Toast readers.I have for several weeks now, been auditioning the Colette pants from Anthropologie, which a lot of people really love. They’re a cult favorite, and I tried them first through Nuuly, which is that clothing rental service I've been doing. Which, yes, I’m going to do a whole thing talking about the pros and cons of Nuuly as a fat person.But what is interesting about the Colette pants is how weird the sizing is, and yet they might be great? They are a mid-rise, almost like sailor pant style and available up to 26W. But they don't have all the crazy buttons. They have cute front pockets, and they’re a very wide-legged crop pant. I first got them in linen, in a hot pink. But the sizing is extremely generous. I first ordered the 20 (my usual Anthropologie size) and it was enormous. I went to dinner with my book editor and they fell off me by the end of dinner. They stretched out so fast. So then I went down to the 18s, and they were pretty good, but after a day, they were stretched out too. And then I went down to the 51s, and in linen, the 15 would not zip up. And I was like, “well, that means these are terrible pants. This is not for me.” But now I’m wearing them in the denim in the 16, and they were tight the first day, but now they’re amazing.People really love these pants, and they run big, so the sizing is more generous than we sometimes think from Anthropologie plus sizes. But I want to hear people’s thoughts, because they come in a lot of different fabrics and there are a lot of varieties of these pants. So they’re not all great, but there may be one that works for folks. The denim is very cute, and they stretch just enough.Sophie Strauss told me that she also loves them and recommends them for clients all the time. A lot of people don't like Anthropologie, I understand all the reasons not to like Anthropologie. But pant shopping is hard!But I do have mixed feelings about the idea that pants are going to be too tight to put on the first day and then fit the next day. This is asking a lot of labor for me from pants. So that’s why it’s a qualified butter. But they are very fun and cute. And if the fabrics work for you, they come in like a million good colors.

Nisha Sharma, a captivating romance author known for 'Marriage & Masti', dives into the pressing issues of body representation in the romance genre. She discusses the underrepresentation of fat bodies and the striking absence of fat male love interests. Nisha critiques the industry's biases and advocates for genuine inclusivity in storytelling. The conversation also touches on the challenges authors face with marketing fat characters and the role of societal perceptions shaped by medical trends. A refreshing take on love, identity, and narrative evolution!

The hosts dive into the anxieties parents face about their children's body image and eating habits. They advocate for unconditional acceptance of body sizes and a healthy relationship with food. Personal anecdotes reveal the intricacies of snack sharing and portion control in family life. Discussions also touch on the comfort versus fashion dilemma, particularly with clogs, and the journey toward more comfortable bras. Expect laughter and insights on navigating diet talks while promoting self-acceptance and joy in culinary choices!

In this enlightening discussion with Laura Thomas, PhD, a Registered Nutritionist specializing in anti-diet culture, she reframes our understanding of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Laura tackles the misconceptions around UPFs, emphasizing their role in modern family dining and the importance of context. She delves into how UPFs relate to body image issues and societal structures affecting food choices. Personal anecdotes add warmth, showcasing the joy found in family traditions like birthday trees and simple meals. It's a fresh take on nutrition that celebrates ease and connection.

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!This month we’re unpacking content from Rosey Beeme, Brianne Huntsman, and other influencers who long identified as body positive, plus size fashion folks—and now are talking proudly about their intentional weight loss journeys. But it’s not a moral failing if you can’t wipe your own ass.CW: This episode includes some unavoidable discussion of intentional weight loss and links to posts that promote it. Take care of yourselves!To listen to the full episode and read the full transcript, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier.Extra Butter costs just $99 per year. If you are current paid subscriber, the remaining value of your subscription will be deducted from that total.In these monthly episodes we get into the GOOD stuff like:Why all the fat influencers are getting skinnyIs Kids Eat In Color anti-diet?And did Virginia really get divorced over butter?Extra Butters also get a comp to Cult of Perfect, exclusive chats and DMS, and dedicated Friday Threads.And Extra Butter ensures that the Burnt Toast community can always stay an ad- and sponsor-free space—which is crucial for body liberation journalism. Join us here!(Questions? Glitches? Email me all the details)PS. If Extra Butter isn’t the right tier for you, remember that you still get access behind almost every other paywall with a regular paid subscription.Extra Butter Episode 6 TranscriptThis episode includes affiliate links. Shopping our links is another great way to support Burnt Toast!CorinneAre you ready? We’re tackling a big one today.VirginiaThat we have been ambivalent about tackling, I want to say. Especially you? You have been ambivalent.CorinneI have been ambivalent. It’s a tough topic, but a lot of you have asked us to talk about this.So we’re going to talk about plus size influencers, Ozempic, and intentional weight loss.VirginiaThe Rosey Beeme of it all.CorinneYes. Part of the reason we’re talking about this now is because there was a big Instagram kerfuffle where the longtime plus size influencer Rosey Beeme, who has recently been pursuing intentional weight loss through the use of semaglutide, posted a very shitty Instagram story. She said, “Full transparency: I have zero remorse or shame for being public about my weight loss. Two years ago, I couldn’t wipe my own ass. That’s the tea!” VirginiaYup. She did say that. On Al Gore’s Internet.CorinneThat is a very fucked up and ableist thing to say. And, rightfully so, a lot of folks felt hurt and offended by that. And, so, yeah. We’re here to talk about that.VirginiaI think this has really highlighted how much there is a difference between someone talking about their own experience in a personal way, and doing it on a platform. Because, a very common thing people will say to me is, “I support fat rights. I’m against diet culture. But I just know I would feel better, I just know my knees would hurt less. I want to be able to wipe my own ass.”And these health or life or logistical things get named as a valid reason for wanting to be thinner. And it’s both. Because there’s a kernel of truth here, right? Life is easier if you have the mobility to wipe your own ass, and that’s a hurdle you don’t have to deal with. And: People’s lives are just as valuable and meaningful if that is not the case. I mean, my God. I’ve thrown my back out so many times and not been able to do this! I don’t love throwing out my back. But I don’t feel like I need to like pursue some intensive life altering thing in order to not. It just feels very… I’m getting ramble-y because I’m upset about this. CorinneIt’s upsetting. Something that we learn from disability activism is that we’re all only temporarily able-bodied. God willing, if you live a long life, there’s probably going to be a point in your life where you can’t wipe your own ass.VirginiaWe’re all going to end up there, if we’re lucky. CorinneIt just sucks to be making people feel bad about the different ways that they exist in their bodies.VirginiaI think what’s tricky about the ableism conversation is you are allowed, as a person with a disability or a limitation like that, to be frustrated by it and to want something about your body to be different. We’re allowed to want that. But she basically said it as if no one could argue with that. Like, “Well, obviously, I had to lose weight because that was true about me.” That invalidates so many other people’s experiences. I think there is a real gray area and that she was not in the gray area. She was fully in the anti-fat, anti-disability area. But I can understand the kernel of the gray area that made her think it was okay to say that. But she had such a responsibility to do something different with her platform.CorinneI think for a lot of people, it’s also hard to stomach this coming from someone who has historically made money from fat people. Via brand deals, and affiliate links for her fat fashion recs.VirginiaFat community paid her bills for a long time. CorinneTo turn on a dime from that to rejecting that and making ableist comments just feels hard. VirginiaI’m looking at this next post from her, and it’s interesting because she’s talking about being on a health and fitness glow up because of having been on Mounjaro. This is a video of her on a walking pad and talking about taking weight loss drugs. And she says, “I’ve loved visiting the theater without being concerned for the size of seats. I’m flying solo this January for the first time in a long time. And I’m not concerned.”But these are not personal failings, these are structural issues. Because that’s great, Rosey! You can fit in an airplane seat. The airplane seats haven’t changed. A lot of people still can’t fit in them. Your ability to—for now anyway—achieve the smaller body solves all of these issues, but it doesn’t fucking solve it for anybody else. CorinneRight? This is body liberation. You can do whatever you want with your body. You can decide to pursue intentional weight loss and talk about it publicly. And, making the experience of other fat folks harder sucks. VirginiaShe only solved her own problem. This is not a step forward for anybody else. She just decided to solve her own problem—again, probably temporarily—while throwing everyone else under the bus. And to conflate fitting into a seat with health. That’s not a health and fitness glow up. That is you are now the size that our society deems more acceptable so the world is built for you. That’s just privilege. So she’s conflating health and privilege in this really annoying way. And then she talks about now she wants to work on her cardiovascular health and achieving her dream aesthetic. Again, only one of those things has anything to do with health. This is not a health glow up, this is a thin privilege glow up. CorinneI will say one thing I do kind of appreciate about Rosey is that she’s been so open about the fact that she’s using drugs to achieve this. Because I think there are a lot of other influencers out there who are going on similar journeys and not discussing how they’re getting there and or just saying they’re “pursuing health” or are on “a fitness journey.”Alex, the founder of Shiny By Nature, has also been on a health and fitness journey that has included a lot of weight loss, but no mention of drugs. And there’s also The Huntswoman who recently started a new Instagram account, which involves literally changing her name, to pursue “a health journey,” whatever that might look like.VirginiaShe’s not The Huntswoman anymore?CorinneHer old account is called The Huntswoman and her name is Brianne and then she started this new account called Becoming Gwen. So she’s literally like, I’m becoming this other person and pursuing a glow up and pursuing health, including weight loss.VirginiaOkay. Also, the writer in me just has to be annoyed for a second, because the tagline on her new account is “don’t call it a glow up, it’s a rendezvous.” And that… can’t be the word she meant? That doesn’t make any sense. A rendezvous is when you serendipitously meet up with someone. Like, “we’re having a rendezvous at Starbucks.” It can be like a secretive meeting, like lovers. CorinneYeah, so what does that mean here? It doesn’t make sense.VirginiaThat’s not the word she meant. I don’t know what word she meant. But that’s not it. We’re not suddenly having a clandestine meeting with her about her new body? I don’t know. Not the point, but that’s irritating.CorinneYes, she says she’s going to be discussing health more candidly over on the new account with some discussion of intentional weight loss. VirginiaWell, again, I am glad she is putting it in a different place. That at least, is very clear for your followers. I know I don’t need to follow her Becoming Gwen. I’m not going to go to that rendezvous, Gwen. Because I don’t need to rendezvous with Gwen about her weight loss. That won’t be helpful for me.And same with Rosey! I do think if you are someone, especially fashion influencers, you’re going to have a lot of younger followers, people who are at very vulnerable ages for disordered eating and eating disorders and glamorizing weight loss is never helpful for that. It doesn’t serve anyone except you.CorinneIt really sucks to have it framed as a health journey. Everyone being like, “I’m on a health and fitness journey and suddenly I like eating apples.” VirginiaThey don’t want to call it a diet, so it’s called a health and fitness journey. That’s pretty exasperating. We talked awhile back about some other fat fashion influencers—I can’t remember when this was, maybe around the time of the midsize queen conversation? And we talked about how there’s a problem with assuming that someone who has become public for being fat is automatically a fat activist. And I guess these people are showing us that. Do you think there’s anything to the idea that us scrutinizing these fat folks talking about it this way—is that useful? Or are we not holding thin folks to the same standard? Do you know what I mean? Like, are we being harder on fat folks? CorinneThat’s a great question. I think for me, it’s this thing where you built an audience around being fat. You’re making money off of fatness and now you’re making money off of weight loss. That kind of feels bad. Even though yes, people can do whatever they want with their bodies. I haven’t seen or noticed a bunch of thin or straight size influencers talking about these these drugs or going on, quote unquote, health and fitness journeys, but I’m maybe just not as plugged into that. VirginiaI feel like they are all always on a health and fitness journey.CorinneYeah, I don’t know.VirginiaWell, and in terms of the way the media initially covered Ozempic and Mounjaro and all our weight loss drug friends—it was really focused on skinny celebs, the Kardashians, Mindy Kaling. So I think there was a lot of attention paid to thin people using these drugs to get even thinner and some backlash against that. “No, no, save them for the fatties who really need them,” was kind of the message, which was problematic.CorinneI follow a couple other influencer people who have also recently lost a ton of weight and said nothing about it, which I also have complicated feelings about. That also doesn’t necessarily feel great, but it’s none of my business.1VirginiaBut are they not saying anything about it? Or are they pretending they lost weight a way they didn’t? I think is my question.CorinneNot addressing it. Saying nothing about it.VirginiaI think I feel more okay with that. This is something I think about a lot. Nobody owes the world their body—even influencers. I think about some of the questions I get about my personal life because I wrote about my divorce. People think they should get to know a lot of details about my marriage. You’re still allowed to have boundaries and I would rather someone not address their weight loss at all and continue to stand up and be vocal for fat people. Their body is not the point of that. CorinneThe people I’m thinking of, I don’t think are people that would have identified as fat activists or even plus size influencers, but existed in the world in bigger bodies. So I think it just makes me question: Are you still advocating for other people in bigger bodies? Or are you just done with that? VirginiaI think your point about the monetization is really important. Rosey, The Huntswoman—all these people used body positive rhetoric. They used fat, they use the language of the movement, even if they weren’t truly identifying as activists. Like Rosey is sort of like, “I was never anti-diet” now. She is being very like, “this word was never for me.” And that’s fine. But you used the language. You used the hashtags in order to grow your following in order to post your affiliate links, get your sponsor deals, all of that. So you did profit off that rhetoric. So now what you’re basically telling us is you coopted all that rhetoric and you don’t believe it at all and that is pretty gross.Sarah Sapora is someone who has been in this lane for a very long time. She identifies as plus size and body positive, but she has always been pro-intentional weight loss. She argues that this can be part of being body positive. It’s a way of “prioritizing yourself.”Again, body liberation. Her body is her choice. This is a message that may resonate and maybe be helpful to some folks. I don’t know. But from where I’m sitting, it feels like someone who is just still stuck. She’ll talk about not wanting to do it in a disordered way and like not wanting to crash diet and “been there, done that” and all of that. But that just feels like diet culture rhetoric. Every diet says, “We’re not a crash diet.” Every diet is like “the numbers don’t really matter, it matters how you feel.” What are you doing that is any different from any other intentional weight loss? I don’t see it because it’s still, at the end of the day, celebrating pictures of herself looking smaller. She’s still celebrating the aesthetic. And anytime you’re celebrating the aesthetic, you’re in reinforcing anti-fat bias. CorinneShe did do a good post, where she says, “so your favorite fat creator doesn’t want to be fat anymore. Here are six mindset tips to process their journey in a self loving way for you.” And I do think her tips around it are pretty good. Just like, it has nothing to do with you. If it feels bad, unfollow. VirginiaYes.I appreciate that she’s saying, what I care about is all people make the decision that’s most self loving for them, which is body liberation language. I can get on board with that. CorinneIt’s a tough topic. It feels kind of heavy, feels a little heavy. VirginiaWell, and the reason we’re having this on Extra Butter and not on the main stage is because anytime people start to dissect these creators or really any creators, there’s the immediate pushback of well, you’re just gossiping. You’re being vindictive. But we’re really trying to think about the impact of this messaging and the ripple effects on the larger cultural conversation. I think particularly within the fat community, this is an important conversation to have, because it is a lesson for all of us to just be a little more careful about who we follow and what authority we imbue them with, I think is my takeaway. CorinneSomething I also am curious about that I just, like haven’t really researched, but are people who take these drugs just to manage conditions like diabetes or PCOS—are any of them doing any influencing?VirginiaThat’s true.CorinneIs any influencer like, “yeah, I have diabetes and I started taking this”? Or is everyone just like, I’m on a, quote unquote, fitness journey taking this drug. I don’t know. It just feels unfair.VirginiaI would like to see that story. It’s only further reinforcing the fact that people forget—I mean, you had to remind me of this in editing the other day—that Ozempic isn’t even approved for weight loss. It’s a diabetes medication. It’s getting used off label for that.CorinneI think that’s part of what sucks so much! It’s a drug for a disease that’s already very stigmatized, especially for fat folks. People are monetizing being able to take this drug and lose weight and have before and after photos and sell walking pads and people who need to take this drug to manage chronic conditions just can’t benefit in any way. VirginiaAll of that.On a related note, I do have questions about a walking pad and whether I would like having one? but not for weight loss to be clear! This is just the second time today I’ve seen someone on a walking pad on Instagram and I have thoughts.CorinneWalking pads are huge on TikTok. I have seen one walking pad in real life owned by a fat person that I know. I saw it stashed at their house and was like, oooh, is that a walking pad? Like, how is that? And she was like, “It actually is really kind of hard to walk on because of how narrow it is.” Like, you have to pay attention. Because they’re designed to be small and I know a lot of them also have lower weight limits. I feel like if you’re going to use it while you’re watching TV or something, they actually maybe aren’t that practical because they don’t have the sides that you can hold onto, you know?VirginiaWhich seems like it could be a problem. To be honest, I want one because I wonder if my kids would like it? Again, not for any weight loss situation. I have one kid who’s a big pacer and needs to pace to get her energy out and her anxiety and all of that and sometimes her pacing is in laps around my couch. And that’s not great when I’m sitting on my couch. So what if I could just put her in the corner on a walking pad?CorinneThat’s actually a really interesting idea because now that you’re saying that, I pace a lot when I’m on the phone, like if I’m talking to a friend I just kind of walk in circles, but I don’t like to do it outside because it’s too noisy and distracting. Maybe a walking pad would be good for that?VirginiaI don’t know. I don’t think I’m gonna do it because I just feel like the potential is there for it to go diet-y so fast. Lauren Leavell just got one. That was the other person I saw on it and I was DMing with her about it. She’s also a big pacer. And she was like, “I do really like it as a tool for my pacing.” For the stress pacers. I’m not a stress pacer.CorinneI’m really interested in one of those mini trampolines. VirginiaOh, I’m also interested in that for the same reason. For the children. And maybe I would try it? I think I would like it, because my knees are a whole situation. A trampoline is a low impact way to get some cardio in. That could be kind of fun. CorinneYeah, it looks like it would be fun, but I feel like my ceilings might not be high enough.VirginiaWell, and again, the weight limit question! A lot of the mini ones are marketed for kids and the weight limit is like 100 pounds.CorinneI mean, you’ll love to know that there are some really expensive ones made in Germany that you can specify the weight.VirginiaI love to know this.CorinneI haven’t bought one because they’re like $800 or something. I can’t even remember, is it $400 or $800? Both of those are so out of reach to me.VirginiaAbsurd. Walking pads are only like $180 and I was like, this feels like a little ridiculous.ButterVirginiaWell, our Butter is not walking pads or mini trampolines, yet.CorinneYet! Stay tuned.VirginiaBut Corinne, do you have a Butter for us?CorinneI do have a Butter. MyButter is kind of a two parter. Part one is that it’s been really cold in New Mexico, which no one wants to believe, but. And during this little cold spell, I have finally pulled out my cashmere woolies. So I’ve been wearing a lot of cashmere. I specifically have a pair of joggers and a sweater from Naadam, the cashmere company. They go up to 3x, but it’s a pretty generous 3x.But when I pulled them out to start wearing them, I realized that the sweater had a little hole in it and I was really sad about it. I was kind of like researching how this could be fixed and I came across something called needle felting. Do you know what that is? VirginiaI do, I have an aunt and a cousin who were very into needle felting back in the day.CorinneI was drawn to it because it seemed really easy. So basically, you get wool roving and you kind of stuff it in the hole. And then you use this big needle to just stab it until it covers the hole. So I did that and it worked pretty well. You can see it’s a slightly different texture than the rest of the sweater, but it took two minutes and I now am just like, it’s like good enough that I can just wear it. Or I could wear it backwards and it would be on my back and it wouldn’t bother me at all. So I want to recommend cashmere and needle feltingVirginiaI need to do this because some of my Vince Camuto sweaters that I have recommended here all winter and it’s all I wear—two of them have tiny little holes, and I’ve been really upset and feeling like I needed to disclose this.CorinneI feel like you should try to get one of your kids into it. There are people that do cute patches, like a little like mushroom shaped patch over the hole. It could be really cute. Like a little heart. I wasnot that ambitious. VirginiaOkay, a little heart sounds so sweet. This sounds like a fun new hobby for all of us for February. CorinneWhat’s your Butter?VirginiaMy Butter is that I am in my robot vacuum era. I bought a robot vacuum in a Black Friday sale. This is something I did because with an adult moving out of the house, there is more labor to keep up my house. So I have been spending money on things that make that easier. It turns out you can replace a husband with a robot vacuum? CorinneDang! Put a ring on it.VirginiaIt’s really satisfying and it’s really helping. I am someone who has a lot of allergies and I kind of accept that waking up congested is my lot in life. Every morning I wake up with a stuffy nose. And since I started robot vacuuming my whole bedroom every day, it is happening much less. It’s a little confused because then I got cold, obviously that threw out my data collection, but now that my cold is gone it’s been like a week. I’m not waking up congested. What’s happening?CorinneMy question is how does your dog feel about it?VirginiaShe has a lot of feelings. She definitely is easily startled. I actually own two, I have one that I do around the house and then I have one that just lives in my bedroom and is on a timer to do that room every day because I’m trying to deal with my allergies. I set it for 8am and most days we’re out of that room well before 8am. But on a solo weekend recently, I slept in and Penelope sleeps in my bed with me, so we were woken up by the robot vacuum. And she was like, what is happening?CorinneThat’s pretty funny, VirginiaBut she kind of makes peace with it. Once she’s like, okay, it’s that thing again. But at first she’s always like, who is that?CorinneI think my dog would try to play with it/attack it. VirginiaIt’s kind of entertaining. But yeah, if you are someone who’s dealing with allergies or also just vacuuming is like a very physical chore and it is hard on our bodies and not having to do it is great. Big fan of the robot vacuum.

Lyz Lenz, author of the thought-provoking newsletter Men Yell at Me, dives into her inspiring journey post-marriage in her new book, This American Ex-Wife. She critiques societal norms around marriage, emphasizing personal happiness over duration. The conversation touches on the systemic challenges single parents face and the historical context of marriage's patriarchal roots. Lenz also shares her personal triumphs in embracing solitude and empowerment, illustrating how finding joy in independence reshapes life after divorce.

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your July Indulgence Gospel!We’ll be getting into:Millennial vs Gen Z feelings about socksHow to even begin a closet reorganization projectWhat to do when the roller coaster doesn’t fit your body.And so much more!This is a paywalled episode. That means to hear the whole thing you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. Subscriptions are $7 per month or $70 for the year.If you’re already a paid subscriber, you can add on a subscription to Big Undies, Corinne’s newsletter about clothes, for 20% off.This transcript contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is another great way to support Burnt Toast!Episode 153 TranscriptCorinneSo, I heard you have some pants to tell us about.VirginiaI am wearing barrel pants. CorinneSo trendy. VirginiaIt’s trendy, and for a woman who previously could only wear a skinny pant, this is a major growth moment for me. Is it not?CorinneIt’s a major growth moment.VirginiaThese pants are very wide. They are truly barrel shaped.CorinneWow. Yeah. Where did you get them?VirginiaI got them from my Nuuly box. Nuuly is a clothing rental service, which I am trying out for the first time ever because four of my local friends do it and are obsessed. Like I can’t tell you how much of every gathering is talking about Nuuly boxes. It’s a little bit culty, I think? But I’m trying it out and I’ll probably write a longer essay about it. (Here’s a discount code for anyone who wants to try it out in the meantime!)I have mixed reviews so far on how good they are in plus sizes. But I’m going to give it a few months, really get in there, and then report back. And the first win is definitely these Anthropologie barrel pants, whichDacy Gillespiealso loved.Do you have them, too? Or were you just think about getting them?CorinneNo, I don’t have them. I’m unclear whether Anthropologie sizing works for me. VirginiaWell, I will say these are the 1x, and they’re roomy.CorinneAre they zip fly or are they elastic waist?VirginiaElastic waist. And I’m wearing the 1x. They go up to 3x. And they’re pretty generously sized, other reviewers also said they ran large. I really enjoy them, but they do fall down after a few days of wearing as do all pants on me. And I was like, “Well, it’s great that I’m renting them because I can just have that experience.” I have them in the light blue right now.CorinneRental seems like such a good option for stuff like that, where you want to try it out.VirginiaI didn’t want to buy a whole pair of barrel pants when I didn’t even know how I felt about this trend. So trying it out. I did want to ask a follow up question—you had talked both on the podcast and onBig Undies, about some Old Navy denim shorts you got. Are you still liking them?CorinneI’m still liking them. In fact, I bought another pair.VirginiaBecause I’ve been thinking about them and I was like, I need to find out how they’re holding up on multiple wears.CorinneThey’re good. Okay, should we move on to socks chat?VirginiaWe really should because this is a burning question, which was sent in over Instagram.What is your input on the whole millennial ankle versus Gen Z calf sock debate?The reason I’m going to immediately throw this to Corinne is because when we were doing the Style Challenge with Dacy a few months ago and we were having extensive text threads about pants and shoes and all of the feelings and the Birkenstock skinny jeans fiasco we won’t speak of. And Corinne was like, “Guys, Gen Z has really different feelings about socks.” And then it was like everything I knew about socks was wrong.CorinneBasically there’s this thing where people say you can tell if someone is Gen Z or Millennial based on their socks.VirginiaBecause there would be no other way to tell the difference between me and a 27 year old.CorinneThat would be the only way. Because Millennials like wearing no show socks. And Gen Zs think that is very uncool. And Gen Z thinks the cool socks are crew socks.VirginiaI’m a little bit with them? I have always felt like no show socks are the absolute dorkiest of socks.CorinneYeah, they’re embarrassing. VirginiaYou go to somebody’s shoes off household and then you have to walk around in your weird little no show socks, but they’re showing.CorinneI also never found them comfortable. I don’t think I ever found ones that actually didn’t fall down.VirginiaThey slip so weirdly! A little bit of them inevitably does show, but not enough to look purposeful.CorinneThey’re really ugly. So I guess that’s where we land on the debate but for I, for a long time, have been wearing these socks from Shiny By Nature. And I love them. I don’t know if they could really be considered a crew sock? They’re more of a high ankle sock, maybe. But Shiny By Nature is doing some weird stuff. I kind of don’t want to keep buying from them. I’ve currently been buying crew socks to test out to see if I can find any cute ones that don’t leave an indentation in my calf. Because crew socks feel fatphobic. They never fit my calf right. VirginiaThey are anti-calf. And that is one of socks’ two jobs right? To cover your foot and also part of your calf?CorinneDo you have any socks you like?VirginiaI am a millennial who has not been wearing socks as much as possible. At this time of year, I don’t wear socks because I am just wearing Birkenstocks all the time. And then what do even I wear in the winter? CorinneIt does feel like the no show sock is part of the ankle/pants/shoe thing where you need to show your ankle because it’s the smallest part of your leg or something. VirginiaAbsolutely. I think it’s all bound up in that. And I do think that the Gen Z trend of the covered ankle is alternatively exploding that norm or reinforcing the thin ideal because you have to have such thin legs in order to wear a bulky sock and not make your leg look overall larger. And I don’t know which one it is. CorinneOr for it to not have the sock elastic be turning your leg into a little sausage. VirginiaAnd cutting off circulation in your feet. So I think all the socks are fatphobic is what we’re saying. It’s a fatphobic category of clothing and yet also not wearing socks is also fatphobic. Because you’re showing your ankles.CorinneYou really can’t win.VirginiaI don’t know. Do we go back to Uggs? I don’t know where we go with this. This person wanted input. We’ve offered input, I guess. We’ve not offered direction.CorinneI saw a funny TikTok where someone was like, “Just wait till they have to deal with the crew sock tan lines.” Nothing could be less cool than crew sock tan lines. VirginiaIt’s so true.CorinneI’m trying to get into more crew socks. We’ll see.Virginia I mean, when I was a child of the 80s, did I love The Baby Sitters Club ice cream cone socks? Yes, I did. Did I wear my push down socks in turquoise and hot pink and magenta, all together? Absolutely. So I feel like this is in my DNA. This is something I can come back to. I’m excited for the potential of a crew sock with like, a little fun stripe of color. There’s a lot of places you can go. CorinneOkay, should we move on to the next question?VirginiaYes. I will read our next question. Hi Virginia and Corinne,I love Burnt Toast so much. It means the world to me to listen to smart, funny, thoughtful women talk about all the things that make life hard and beautiful about being fat.I am somewhat new in my body liberation journey, actually very new in respect. But I’ve not been participating in active weight loss for about three years now. It felt good in so, so, so many ways, and I can’t tell you just how much intuitive sense it makes to not participate in a very clear cycle of oppression. And I’ve had some experiences fresh from the weekend that have made me feel uncomfortable about my path. I say uncomfortable because I don’t feel unsure or confused, just uncomfortable.Since deciding to stop trying to shrink my body, my body has grown. I have bought the bigger clothes and in my day to day my fat body does all the things they want for the most part. And some things are harder, like tying my shoes. And with that I use it as an opportunity to explore my own ableism and discomfort.This weekend, though, my mom (a very small person) and I wanted to ride our favorite ride at the fair together. I was nervous about fitting into it but thought maybe it will be okay. We got on and it was clear as the man tried so kindly to push the bar closed that it was not okay. I was panicking. But he was kind and I held on to the hope and my mom was trying hard to be supportive and I just wanted to cry out of frustration and pain and embarrassment. I contorted and he finally got it closed. And I rode the ride and I was in so much pain but I laughed with it and made it fun because I wanted so badly to be there with my mom. It makes me tear up now to write about it.And then now the thoughts come. What am I giving up for this? I can’t ride the rides with my future children, with my mom, my brothers. What else can I not do because of this? And am I missing something in my newness of this experience? I want to love my body more but I know part of that is hoping it will get smaller. I guess I don’t know what my question is, just what to do when it feels like this?CorinneThis is such a sad question.VirginiaIt’s so sad. It is so uncomfortable. I think we’re just sitting in the discomfort with you.CorinneThis is a hard question to give advice to, right?VirginiaI don’t think she’s even asking for advice.CorinneI mean, I think she’s asking what to do. And I don’t know that there is anything to do really. It just sucks. VirginiaIt just sucks. I’m glad her mom was supportive. I’m glad the man was kind. I wish they built amusement park rides to fit all bodies. It isn’t your body’s fault. That is the ride’s fault.CorinneYeah, I think that is the thing to remember, just that it’s not your fault. And it has nothing to do with your body. It has to do with the system.VirginiaSo, I guess one thought I have is: Okay, maybe you can’t ride the amusement park rides with your future children. But what were you giving up when you were trying to make your body smaller? What was not available to you when you were in that place?It’s different for all of us. But if you were continually preoccupied with dieting and exercising to a degree that was unsustainable and causing injury, like, all of that would also cost you. Your relationship with your future children will be more intact if you are healthy and happy and safe in your body than if you are shrinking yourself down. So you can’t twice a year ride on a roller coaster with them. I will never ride on a roller coaster with my children even if I do fit in the seats, because I hate them. And I think my kids are doing okay. CorinneI can’t say I’m dying to go on a roller coaster either, but I feel like the point isn’t the roller coaster.VirginiaYeah, if you love it, you love it. I’m not trying to take that away. But if you weigh up what you are missing out on now versus what you were missing out on in a smaller body? I think that’s worth looking at. CorinneTotally. I also just think: Is there a way you can replace that experience with something else? Like, maybe going to the fair to go on roller coasters isn’t fun anymore. But what would be fun to do that you can do? Maybe it’s going to the fair and watching the sheepdog trials or something. I don’t know, something else that doesn’t require you to squeeze yourself into an uncomfortable space.VirginiaThe sheep dog trials!CorinneThat’s what I always like to do at the fair. I was also going to say like, getting fried doughl or something, but I didn’t really want to make it seem like the only thing fat people can do at the fair is eat.VirginiaBut I mean, fair food is amazing. And maybe that is something that is available to you now, that wasn’t when you were dieting. Going to the other things, the sheep dog trials.I also want to shout outBrianna Camposwho is Body Image With Bri on Instagram, and also writes a great Substack. She is a mental health counselor based in Jersey who does a lot of body image work. And she specifically works on body grief, and grieving things that have happened to your body. I think her writing is really beautiful about this. She’s talked a lot about changes in ability and mobility. That might be a great resource for you to check out.CorinneI think it is good to remember that we all have changes in ability at some point. VirginiaIt’s a hard moment when you realize something is harder than it used to be because we’re programmed to think body size is something I should fix or change. Like, I just realized I’m going to need a new glasses prescription because I’m like, wow, I really can’t see the TV again. But I don’t go through a judgment process about my prescription changing. CorinneYou don’t immediately sign up for eyeball gym and eyeball diets.VirginiaI mean, but when I’m like, “Wow, it’s a little harder to get off the floor than it used to be,” I think like, “Oh, that’s something I should be like actively trying to fix, and is weight loss the way to do that?”CorinneI will read the next question. I went to the midwife this week and she told me it’s fine to lose weight while pregnant. Really? Obviously I don’t want to.VirginiaI think you need a new midwife. I hate that for you and all people who get pregnant and are told that.Okay, so I’m looking up a text from my awesome midwife, Danielle Stracci, here in the Hudson Valley. We’ve talked a lot about how she works with fat folks to help them understand they can have a normal pregnancy. There’s so much fear mongering that goes into the way we talk about weight and pregnancy, and I will link to other work I’ve done on that topic. And we also have an episode of the podcast coming up, that’s gonna go deeper. But just top level, Danielle said, “Unfortunately BMI becomes part of the discussion, because that’s where the research is—but by far, it doesn’t steer the ship completely.” Her bottom line is no, there’s no evidence for “it’s great to lose weight while pregnant.” There’s no clearcut science on that. There’s a lot of nuance to the conversation about weight during pregnancy. And you deserve to be with a provider who is not going to push you in that direction. Do you have anything to add? CorinneIt’s unclear whether the provider told her she should lose weight or whether this person is losing weight and concerned about it, and the provider is just saying it’s fine.VirginiaThat’s a good point. Obviously a lot of folks, if they have intense morning sickness, do lose weight. And I think it’s reassuring to know that most of those people go on to have healthy babies. The thing about pregnancy is—I’m not a doctor, but having done it twice, I can confirm from lived experience. Your body is throwing you under the bus the whole time in order to keep the baby safe. So you’re going to feel terrible, but the baby is probably going to be okay in a lot of these situations.But also: If you are so sick that you’re losing weight, I want your midwife actively trying to stabilize your nausea. And making a plan with you about what you can eat to get through the day because you do still need to eat and this is really challenging. How do we figure out what foods don’t trigger your nausea? A blanket “it’s okay if you’re losing a little weight during pregnancy,” is not helpful.CorinneI hope this person is able to find someone who feels more helpful. Tips for organizing your closet when you fluctuate between a few sizes. I’m fine with changing size bodies change, but it makes my closet a mess.VirginiaI mean, this is so real. CorinneYes, it is so real.VirginiaCorinne is getting ready to work on a big closet makeover! I just announced something that she maybe doesn’t actually want to do, but I’m trying to talk her into it!CorinneI do want to do it. Just in a few months, not a few days.VirginiaStay tuned in a few months forBig Undiescloset coverage. We’re going to do a whole thing and I’m very excited. I love closet organization.CorinneOh my God.VirginiaI’m a really fun person. CorinneWell, I recently downloaded the app Lucky Sweater. Have you heard about this app? It’s an app where you can trade clothes. VirginiaOh, that’s so smart. CorinneBasically, the way it works is, you upload stuff that you’re wanting to trade. And then you can message with people about trading. But where are you putting the stuff that you want to get rid of, but haven’t gotten rid of yet? I need to solve that problem in my head before I start. Because it’s not instantaneous—it’s the same with listing something on Poshmark or eBay. You list it, and then it’s sitting around somewhere for a week, waiting to see what happens.VirginiaI think I would just get a big reusable shopping bag, like the kind of thing you’d buy your seltzer in, and have that sitting in a corner of my bedroom. All the stuff that I’m getting ready to swap or sell goes in there. I don’t think that should be in your closet. Because I think your closet should be clothes you’re actively wearing. So something like that should not be kept in your closet.CorinneNo, I agree. But then you have a shopping bag full of clothes sitting in your house indefinitely.VirginiaI tend to shove that in my mudroom, which I realized not everyone has a mudroom, but my mudroom is where there are library of books to be returned, that sweater I’m loaning a friend, the things that my children’s friends leave at our house that I have to return at the next play date. CorinneI keep my clothes that I’m not wearing this season, but I might want to again in the future, in a bin in my entry. VirginiaOkay, but so for the organizing the closet, because I think the question is: Are you fluctuating sizes seasonally? Or are you fluctuating sizes over the course of a month, like related to your menstrual cycle?So if it’s seasonal, like if you’re noticing I’m bigger than I was three months ago, I think for that what I would suggest is that every two to three months you do a closet clear out. Anything that’s not fitting you right now goes into like stashing in your basement or any kind of other storage space. CorinneI think the problem is also sometimes you don’t know. Like, sometimes you realize you need a different pant size and you buy new pants, and then it’s like, you don’t necessarily want to get rid of the old ones too fast because you might need them again.VirginiaThat’s why I would put them in a box in your basement, not donate them right away. But just have them somewhere else. Or, like, my closet has this really high up shelf that’s not convenient. I would never put stuff there I want to access daily, but I’ll often put a bag of stuff that I’m like, "this is not the right size right now,” but it’s close enough that if I need to get on the step stool, I can get it down again.But I think it is committing to doing this process pretty regularly. If you’re fluctuating over the course of a month, like, “I know I need my period week pants,” or that kind of thing. Then I think I would maybe if you have space, I mean, obviously I don’t know what this person’s closet looks like. But can you group things together by size? So that the week that you’re in your bigger size, that’s all this shelf or this section of the closet. Smaller stuff is this section. What’s a nightmare is when you have all your pants stacked up together, but you know six of those pants only fit a certain way and six of those pants fit a different way but they’re all jumbled together. You need two piles of pants. CorinneThat’s what I have. Everything jumbled together.VirginiaYes, I’ve seen your closet.CorinneI have like, whatever, three or four pairs of the same jeans. So I every time I’m like looking at the size tag.VirginiaYou need to shelve it by size.CorinneI might need to demolish my bathroom and turn it into a closet.Virginia I’m not against that.CorinneWho needs a toilet? VirginiaThere are different ways. We’re not designing your closet today!CorinneOkay, never mind. VirginiaFor this person, I think whether it’s a couple different bins, a couple different shelves, I think you do want to keep it organized by size so it makes sense. And because I also think you want the ability to just not look at the stuff that’s not working for you that day. Because it’s just going to stress you out. And not even necessarily from an anti-fat perspective. But just because it’s more noise. Like, I have to remember that those three pairs of pants don’t work today? I just don’t need it. CorinneHow long would you wait before donating something that wasn’t fitting anymore?VirginiaI mean, the rule of thumb you always hear is if you haven’t worn it in a year. I’m probably even a little more ruthless than that. Because I think I can usually tell. Sometimes it’s a combination where it doesn’t fit quite right and I know I never really reached for it. So if I had like two or three strikes against an item I’ll donate it faster. But otherwise, I’ll definitely put stuff in the basement. And then it’s like, if I look in that box, and I’ve forgotten all that, I’m going to let it go.But I do this seasonally. So I won’t donate the winter stuff that wasn’t working when I pulled out my winter stuff. Because I don’t know where my body will be next winter. So I’ll probably evaluate when I pull out my winter clothes. It makes sense.CorinneWhen do you do the seasonal thing?VirginiaWhen…the seasons change?CorinneOne day, you’re like, “I’m cold. Guess I’ll go get my sweaters box?”VirginiaWait, do you really not do that? Well I guess you live in New Mexico so the weather variation is different.CorinneNo, it gets very cold here. I feel like you don’t understand.VirginiaI do understand!CorinneI guess I never feel that organized about it. I’m like, “Wait, I’m cold. Where are my sweaters?”VirginiaWell, honestly, I probably do two mini clean outs per season because I feel like there are the micro seasons, you know, the shoulder seasons. CorinneThat’s like a clean out every two weeks!?VirginiaProbably every six to eight weeks? I don’t know. It isn’t really that much work though because I’m constantly like, “Oh, we’re now wearing open toed shoes.” I don’t know how to explain weather to you, Corinne!CorinneI mean, I don’t think it’s the weather I’m struggling with.VirginiaI think usually in October or late September/early October is when I tend to do it for fall. So that’s when it starts to get a little bit like chillier here. CorinneBut it’s not like in your calendar. It’s just like, a day comes where you’re like today is the day.VirginiaYeah. I mean, it tends to be a Sunday afternoon where I’m like, doing laundry anyway and then I deal with the closet and I move everything around. And I do my kids’ as well. For them I put their out of season stuff in bins on the high shelf in their closet. For my closet, which is a decent size. I actually have some extra hanging space—divorce privilege!—that used to house someone else’s clothes. So now I have a space where I can rotate stuff through. So I still have my sweaters on hangers. I just moved them all to that side of the closet. And then I have the stuff I’m wearing right now all on one rack.I’m excited to do more on closets. I think it’s very interesting. I think you learn a lot about people.CorinneI feel targeted. Um, next question. Is scent part of your personal style? VirginiaI’m so fascinated about this. I think how in the comments recently you were saying that you feel like people are either music neurodivergent or podcast neurodivergent or whatever? I think I am scent neurodivergent, which is I don’t ever think about like, having a scent. Like, I don’t really register scents. Except I am also very anxious that that means my house smells bad all the time and people aren’t telling me.CorinneOh, wow. VirginiaSo I guess I have some scent anxiety. CorinneInteresting. I would say maybe I’m the opposite. I’m really sensitive to scents and have a very strong sense of smell. And I like some scents, and I like smelling people’s perfumes or whatever, sometimes. But I have a really hard time wearing scents because it’s almost like it’s distracting. Like, it’s like white noise. If I put on perfume, after a while I’m like, get it off of me. After like six hours. VirginiaNo, I get that. CorinneAnd because of the world we live in, so many products are scented. Like laundry detergent, shampoo, deodorant—that is often enough for me. I can smell people’s deodorant and their laundry detergent. One time at my old job, it was the day after a party or something and someone had left a jacket behind. And I picked it up and caught a whiff of it and was like, “Oh, this is so and so’s.” Like, in that weird way where you’re like, I cannot tell people that I identified this by smell.VirginiaYeah, I never wear perfume. I just don’t think of it though? That’s what I mean. CorinneI theoretically like it. And I like the idea of smelling stuff, but it’s just so rare that I actually like something. I do enjoy reading about perfume stuff, likeRachel Symehad a really good perfume newsletter for a while. And Christina Loff, our friend at Substack has a cool scent Substack called The Dry Down Diaries 💅.VirginiaThat is really cool. I kind of feel about this the way I feel about wine. It would be nice to have more knowledge about this, but I don’t think I really want to put in the effort to learn about it.But I will say, since we did just adopt kittens, as we are going to discuss later in this episode—I am now extremely anxious about how my house smells. Because I think you really know when you’re in a cat house if it’s not being managed well. We’re cleaning the litter box obsessively. And I did just get one of those plug-in scent things. It hasn’t arrived yet, so I haven’t tried it out yet. The problem is, in order to get the children to clean it, the litter box has to be somewhat accessible. So I can’t just have the litter in the basement, which is what we we used to do with our old cat. It’s in an upstairs bathroom. And so I do feel like now it’s a little too central. I’m trying to figure out a workaround. So I’m going to see if having a scent strategy for my home is the answer. CorinneInteresting! I’ll be curious how that works.VirginiaBut for my body, I’m just like, no. I smell fine with just deodorant. It seems like enough.CorinneYeah. Do you use scented detergent?VirginiaNot consciously?CorinneBut like, you don’t buy unscented?VirginiaI think I do? I don’t know.CorinneIt’s crazy to me that you don’t know, but okay.VirginiaI don’t have a strong position. CorinneWow. Fascinating. That is something that comes up on SellTradePlus a lot. When you’re buying used clothing and then you buy it and it has someone else’s detergent smell. Some people are really sensitive to it. VirginiaOne of my favorite smells in the whole world is Comfort fabric softener which is a UK fabric softener because my grandmother and my aunt always used it. When I smell things with Comfort on them, I’m like, oh, childhood, family. And I’m pretty sure it’s an incredibly toxic chemical, but I love the smell of that.All right. Next question.Chambray/collared button up shirt?Go, Corinne.CorinneI feel like this is really your wheelhouse. Chambray?VirginiaYou’re the reason I wear collared button-up shirts!CorinneI’m feeling like I’m looking for a collared button-up shirt right now. But maybe I’m always looking for them. Is this long sleeve shirts or short sleeve?VirginiaOh, I assumed long sleeve. I don’t wear buttoned up short sleeve shirts. CorinneOkay, I wear a button up short sleeve.VirginiaI know you do. CorinneI have the Universal Standard one. And I’m sort of like medium on it.VirginiaI like it better in the cooler months. It’s a little heavy for right now.CorinneThat makes sense. I have one denim button down that I love. And I feel like I’m struggling to find like a super lightweight one.VirginiaI am wearing a lot of these Target button down shirts this summer. (Plus sold out in that link, sorry!) I have two of their linen ones. And two of their cotton ones—cotton percale? I don’t know. They remind me of percale cotton. And I’m really enjoying them. They are quite oversized. And sometimes they feel like they’re the wrong length with shorts. So I’m deciding how I feel about that. But I do really like the general feel of them. And the length is really nice. But that’s my button up shirt story is Target and Universal Standard. We’re not very original.CorinneThose are good recs. VirginiaI also feel like it’s not something you need to overthink. CorinneYeah. I always think the ideal one is probably like vintage but that’s so hard to find. I also was going to say I did just see some really cute ones on Anthropologie, which this is what prompted my “does Anthropologie sizing work for me?” question. The Bennett stripe button up is the style and they have a bunch of cute striped colors and stuff.VirginiaI’m curious to see how much better they are than the Target one.CorinneWho knows.VirginiaI think just like with jeans, there is not a big difference between the $300 pairs of jeans and the $40 pair of jeans. All the jeans are kind of the same. I think button down shirts are another thing where you’re paying for the label. I don’t think the quality is that different. I think once upon a time, sure, if you’re buying your shirts on Savile Row and getting hand-stitched cuffs and whatnot. But like, when I’m talking about a shirt that I’m going to roll up the sleeves, I’m going to not iron it. I’m going to wear it unbuttoned over a bra, like…CorinneWell, I want you to order and tell us.I did just get a long sleeve one up from Wray that I’m excited about.VirginiaThat’s different because it’s going to be a very fun fabric. CorinneDo you have a non-negotiable self care practice? What does that term mean to each of you?VirginiaI had to really think about this.CorinneMe too. “Non-negotiable,” I think, is a tripping point for me.VirginiaEverything is negotiable?CorinneWell, kind of.VirginiaI almost want to say, if it’s not negotiable, is that a problem for you? CorinneYeah, exactly.VirginiaIt’s like, I’m trapped in diet culture in my self care.CorinneFor example, yesterday, I was like, “I really need a house day.” Like, I need to spend a day alone in my house, and do some cleaning, do some cooking, do some organizing. But that’s not a non-negotiable thing for me every week. If someone was like, “Do you want to go to dinner on Sunday?” I wouldn’t be like, “No, Sunday is my house day.” You know? VirginiaIf something comes up, you’re not wedded to the house day.I have often wished I was more non-negotiable with exercise. For me, exercise is often the first thing to cross off the to do list when I’m feeling busy or overwhelmed. I’m like, “Oh, I don’t have time for that.” And then I’m, like, “Oh, my back hurts. I wish I had made time for that.”But I do think I will prioritize some kind of downtime in my day, whether that’s watching TV or doing a puzzle, reading a book for a little bit. Garden time. One non-negotiable for me in the summer is every morning, I’m going to go out and walk around my garden.CorinneThat’s a nice one. VirginiaBut that’s seasonal. But I think some kind of wind down, power down time. If I don’t have that I feel extremely sad. CorinneI’ve started to think about self-care less as face masks or whatever, and more as like, cleaning, cooking for myself, going to the gym, changing your bedsheets. I’ve started to think about chores more as self-care, rather than necessarily a relaxing activity. Even though they’re both different ways of self care. But I think, like, where you’re more type A, I’m more like, “I could lie in bed all day.” I’m realizing, oh, it’s actually self care to do stuff that will make my life easier and better. VirginiaWell, also, I have to do the chores, right? I’m parenting and caregiving. So I have to keep our lives running. And so cleaning and cooking does not feel like self-care for me at all. Because it’s in the service of other people. Like, it’s not in service of just me, right? I mean, tidying up the house is for me. Before I go to bed or first thing every morning I always go around my entire downstairs and do a sweep, picking up all the clutter. And that one is for me. Cooking does not feel like self-care for me. If I could never cook again…I’m just currently in a place of, it’s a necessity and I’m good at it. But it’s not a joy thing for me right now.CorinneI don’t think it’s a joy thing for me either. But I think it’s like, I’m doing this because it’s going to make my life easier. You know? Like, I’m going to make food and have it in my fridge so I’m not Doordashing every night.VirginiaOh see I’m like, but isn’t that why we have Doordash, Corinne?CorinneI mean, absolutely no judgment. Sometimes I don’t even want to DoorDash.VirginiaAm I going to order sushi for the third time this week? Right after we finish this, I have to figure out what I’m making for dinner. And I think I’m just ordering sushi because I have no bandwidth.I think because I spend a lot more active time in chore and caregiving mode, I think the self-care that I have to make non-negotiable is rest. And I do notice my exhaustion level tick up if I don’t. I’m single parenting nine days in a row. I need to force some rest pockets into that. It’s a lot of stamina. Otherwise when I then have my solo weekend, I’m just like, comatose on the couch. I can’t be so depleted by the end of it. So I’m trying to figure out that balance.CorinneWhen I put off those self-care tasks, it doesn’t affect anyone else, you know?VirginiaRight. I mean, I can put off some and no one cares. CorinneDo you have any summer book recommendations?VirginiaI have a bunch!CorinneI’m excited about this question, because I feel like I need some summer book recommendationsVirginiaI'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman's Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris,Glynnis MacNicol’s new memoir. You’re probably seeing it all the places. CorinneEveryone is reading that.VirginiaIt’s so fun. And it’s also more subversive and powerful than I think you might first realize. Like, yes, it’s about a woman who at 46 or 47 took herself to Paris for a few months, and just ate a lot of delicious food, and had sex with a lot of men, and that sounds like well yay! But it’s like not Eat, Pray, Love at all. Because it doesn’t end with “and then she found love,” right? She’s like, I found my power and I’m centering my own pleasure and joy.I am just about to start All Fours by Miranda July. I’m very excited. People are calling it the perimenopause but also the women-over-40 sex book. So that’s pertinent to my interests. I’m really excited to get into that one. So those are two more literary recommendations. [Post-recording note: I’ve finished All Fours and I very much agree withEmma Copley Eisenberg’s take here and samantha irby here!]And then, for some some fun easy reads. A very good rom com feminist romance I just finished is called Barely Even Friends by Mae Bennett. It has a fat protagonist who has been hired to renovate a giant historic estate. And the only resident is this curmudgeonly, reclusive hot guy. It’s a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, for sure. And Beauty and the Beast is a problematic narrative to retell because it does reinforce a lot of toxic relationship dynamics but Mae Bennett has updated appropriately. It’s fun if you like house stuff, too. It’s got that nice little sprinkling of home renovation with your romcom. And I am now finally working my way through the Bridgerton books. I think I’m late to that party. I think a lot of people have done that. But if you haven’t, I think they’re a good mind eraser. Just a lovely little rabbit hole to fall down. I do think the show is better for a lot of reasons. The books do not have the diversity of the show. That was all Shonda. The Duke is white and the sex is much less feminist. Like, all the women are these delicate, innocent, virgin types and that I’m not so here for. But you know, if you’ve just finished season three and you’re feeling a little bereft and you want to be in the world a little longer, then it’s good.CorinneI’ve been curious about those.VirginiaI don’t know how you would feel about them. I mean, you do like the show. But there are some exasperating parts to them. But it’s kind of fun to go back to them after having watched the seasons that they’ve made the books about ready to be like, oh, here’s what they did differently. There’s a lot that they did that they ended up doing in season three for Penelope’s character that’s much better than the original book. And it was nice to see that. Colin is underwhelming in every medium. It’s what it is. CorinneWell my recs are, I just read Housemates and loved it. The other one is one someone just recommended to me so I haven’t read it yet, but Delilah Green Doesn’t Care. Have you read those books? They’re queer romance. I’m curious if people have read those. And then I also just read Big Swiss. Did you read that?VirginiaI did read Big Swiss. What did you think of it?CorinneI loved it! And a lot of people hated it, which is why I really wanted to ask you, but I loved it. I thought it was hilarious. I don’t know, I just loved it. One thing I liked about it is I felt like everyone in it had a normal weird job and lived a normal weird life. Part of it is her living in this falling apart house.VirginiaI mean, it wasn’t normal…CorinneI don’t know. I just feel like I know so many people like that actually, it’s kind of realistic. But I don’t know. VirginiaI hear what you’re saying. CorinneAnd she’s a gig worker, essentially. I just found it refreshing. VirginiaIt definitely captured some realistic qualities of Hudson, New York. I was like, yep, this is very Hudson. I’m going to get cranky emails for saying that, but it was true. I read it a few months ago, so I’m trying to remember what I particularly didn’t like about it. I think I did not like the Swiss lady?CorinneYeah, I mean, she’s really odd. VirginiaShe’s so odd and unlikable, and I was like, Why? Why is this who you want? I just didn’t buy the relationship? The sex felt very… I don’t know. I was like, this doesn’t seem fun for you.CorinneYeah. I mean, it’s a really odd book. There’s a lot of really odd stuff in it. But I really liked Big Swiss so maybe give it a try.Butter!VirginiaOh, they’re sleeping right now. CorinneOh my God. So cute.VirginiaOkay, so we adopted two kittens. Who can I hold responsible for this? Obviously, my children, who launched an extensive letter writing campaign saying we needed kittens. I also have to blameLindy Westand Meagan Hatcher-Mays, because I’ve been listening to their very funny podcast and they did a whole episode where Meagan impulse adopted a dog and it was just so good. I was filling out a shelter application like an hour after I listened to it. Meagan kept saying, “I went into a fugue state and drove to Pennsylvania and adopted a dog” and I think it was contagious?I mean, the kids and I have been talking about having cats again for a while. Although I now present as a dog owner, I identify as a cat person more. I originate as a cat person. I had four cats throughout my childhood. Then we adopted three cats is our 20s, one of whom is still alive. But when we divorced, my kids’ dad took that old man cat and I kept the dog, because they did not get along well. And since then, for about the past year, we haven’t had any cats in the house and so I lost my mind.And now we have five pets in this house.CorinneWow. Tell me about how fun they are.VirginiaThey’re so cute and fun! They’re bonded littermates. They are brothers. Their names are Licorice and Cheese, named by my children. They sleep all curled up together. They play and eat each other’s faces. I really encourage anyone who is going to adopt a kitten, get a bonded littermate pair like that, because they’re just so much easier because they are happy together. Two is not more work really. You’re already scooping litter. And they are just funny and really snuggly. They really liked being held. That’s the reason we went with kittens versus older rescues, because I wanted cats that would bond with my kids, which these definitely are. It’s really fun. And Penelope has…adjusted. The first week was rough. I would describe it as an existential crisis. She did not understand what happened or why. I did this whole process of gradually getting them together. And then finally got to the point where I was throwing out treats and all three of them were eating the treats. And I was like, we’re here. We’ve done it!So I’m glad now that we did this and not a second dog, which would still be so much work. They’re really cute. Let me now pass on the podcast pet influencing, and influence someone else to go adopt a pet that they probably don’t need. CorinneOkay, my Butter is hot dogs.VirginiaThat’s a good one. CorinneYeah, I’ve really been enjoying eating hot dogs. I got some fancy co-op brand hot dogs. VirginiaIs there a difference between a fancy brand?Corinne I mean, probably not, but but any fancy thing you buy at a co-op is automatically more exciting. I do think the best hot dog buns the brioche hot dog buns from Trader Joe’s. And I’ve been eating them. It’s such a nice quick meal. I’m like, oh, yeah, I can have a hot dog! And I like to eat them with baked beans and a salad or something.VirginiaI’ve never thought about that! That’s a good combination.CorinneWhat? Did you grow up in New England? Baked beans and hotdogs is a classic combo. VirginiaI grew up in like, beans on toast territory.CorinneOh my God.VirginiaA deprived existence. I do want more interesting things to put on hot dogs because I have one kid who loves hot dogs. So it is an easy dinner for us. CorinneI like relish. My other best toppings are both from Trader Joe’s. One is Trader Joe’s dill pickle mustard, which is really good. And I also like to buy, they have these frozen bags of grilled peppers and onions. VirginiaYeah, that sounds delicious. CorinneThey just take like a minute or two to like heat up and they’re really good on a hotdog or a sausage.VirginiaI don’t know if I’ve figured out my sausage personality.CorinneYou should experiment because I feel like there are a lot of good sausages out there now.VirginiaWell. This conversation is taking a turn.CorinneThere’s gotta be some bougie Hudson Valley sausages.VirginiaYes, I’m sure there are! I need to explore. ---The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off! The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today I’m chatting Anita Bhagwandas, author of Ugly: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards.Anita is an award winning journalist who explores beauty culture, unpicks aesthetic standards, and questions how pretty privilege holds the power to shape so much of our lives. Anita also writesThe Powder Room, is a beauty columnist for The Guardian, and a freelance beauty director at Conde Nast Traveler. She lives in London. I really loved talking to Anita about the origins of so many specific beauty standards, some of which you might already think you know, but a lot of which was new even to me, a person who does think about beauty standards pretty often. I also took Anita on my chin hair acceptance journey, and we talk about the absolute dumbest beauty purchase I have ever made.Ugly is available in the Burnt Toast Bookshop!Don’t forget, you can always take 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk from Split Rock Books! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)(Non-US listeners, here are all the links for you to find it.)PS. If you’re enjoying the podcast, make sure you’re following us (it’s free!) in your podcast player! We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts! And while you’re there, please leave us a rating or review. (We like 5 stars!)Episode 152 TranscriptVirginiaSo I got to read Ugly when it first came out in the UK and adored it. The book goes very deep into the origins of our beauty standards. What surprised you the most about how we’ve come to value the specific physical traits and characteristics that we have been taught to value?AnitaThere was so much that surprised me. I thought I was very well-versed in all of this, I’ve always had an interest in obviously beauty, but also the history of beauty. There were definitely so many things that just made me think, “Oh my God, if everyone knew this, I don’t think they would hate their bodies, or their faces, hate their appearance in the way that they do.” In the way that I know I had, for most of my life. I think was one of the most surprising things is how thinness is linked to race. I looked through various journals and books and old texts to look at where this came from—and lots of people have written about this as well. There are old references that specifically talk about in that era where colonization is still a very big part of the British Empire, etc. It’s almost like things are starting to shift a bit and you can tell that there’s something going on and essentially all the descriptions of people of color in the colonies were quite nice up until a point and I think there is a point where maybe Britain thinks they’re about to lose some of their control or something is happened, that it that all of those descriptions switched to being really just derogatory and positioning white beauty above everything.You see it in the art of the time, you see it in all of these texts, you see it in these very famous books written by people at the time. You see it everywhere. And I think, if people knew that [our thin ideal] was so, so closely linked to colonization, I think they would be shocked. Because I know that when I heard that—and I had always known there was a link. But I think once you read the specifics, you’re like, wow, this is wild. This just blows my mind. So yeah, I think that was a really big one for me.VirginiaWe have a parallel and equally depressing and dark story in the States about how the end of slavery led to the same kind of transitioning of language and doubling down on negative descriptions of Black folks’ bodies. It’s just fragile white people trying to hold onto power in both scenarios. That’s the root of all of this. It is a lot to sit with.AnitaIt’s one of those things that we have to know. Because, probably everyone who is listening to this and listens to your podcast hasn’t signed up for that. They don’t agree with that. So, you know, it is just going okay, wait, you know, what is my obsession with thinness? What is my obsession with dieting? It makes me complicit in something I don’t believe in and I don’t stand for.And I think that for me, it was a real turning point.VirginiaHow do you think about navigating our complicity in that? Because it’s hard. On the one hand, we can say, “None of this is my values. None of this is what I want to replicate.” And yet, these standards have such a hold on us. The stakes of not participating in thinness and beauty culture can feel so high. AnitaI don’t think we should beat ourselves up about these things. I don’t think we should be horrible to ourselves about these things. These beauty standards have come as a result of years and years of levels of oppression and forces that have tried to control us. So, I think that’s the first thing, is having a bit of compassion towards ourselves. But then also looking at how you can unpick those narratives and make some decisions for yourself that are truly, as much as we can, based in what you really believe and what you really think. I had thought my entire life that if I was thin, everything will be okay. Because that’s what we’re sold, right? We’re sold that if you’re thin, you’re successful, you’re rich, you’re pretty, you’re popular, you get everything. That’s the narrative we’ve all been sold. And there was a real point for me, I think it was probably about 10 years ago, I just went, “I actually don’t want to be thin.” And this is no shade to anyone who is really thin, because all body types are beautiful. But I was just like, “For me, I don’t actually want to look like that. If I’m honest with myself, I actually don’t want to look like that.” I think it was the first time I’d actually tuned into what I wanted. And it was really liberating. Because then when I was working out, I wasn’t working out to be thinner. It was working out to improve my strength or whatever it is. It was just a real shift for me to actually pick what I wanted and pick you know, pick to celebrate my body and pick to actually celebrate the something that wasn’t the sort of standard beauty ideal. VirginiaWe’ve been sold a certain aesthetic so much, and so often that the idea of your preferences being something different—you just assume that’s what you want, right? How do you look at what you actually want?For example, I’m not a big makeup wearer and I notice whenever I go through phases of wearing more makeup, I start to expect my face to look the way it looks in makeup. And then if I stop wearing makeup, there’s a rocky dismount period and then I go back to being like “This is my face and I’m fine with this.” AnitaI’ve had that experience with makeup, too. Even though I’m critical of beauty culture and the beauty industry, I love makeup and I love self-expression. I like playing with different things versions of myself. And I know I’ve experienced this, where I have become addicted wearing really, really thick, heavy makeup. And then it’s almost like, when the seasons change and I have to go without any makeup on, without anything done to it, it is fine. I try and have a day, usually on a Sunday, where I will try not to wear any makeup or do anything and just go out and be that in the world. To be okay to go meet your friends for brunch or whatever and challenge yourself to be the same level of confident as you would be fully made up. It’s really hard at the start. And then it starts to normalize. And it starts to be a choice, which I think is the really key thing.VirginiaDo you feel like going out is an important part of it? My first instinct would be like, well, sure, when I’m just hanging out at home watching TV, who cares? But that is then reinforcing the idea that it’s okay to look a certain way without an audience. But if there’s any kind of external gaze, you have to make changes. AnitaI think it depends on your level of comfort. For some people even being at home without makeup on or their hair done or whatever it happens to be, would be really, really challenging. So if this is something you want to try, start at your level of confidence. It might just be that you don’t wear a certain thing that you always wear outside one day a week or one day a month. And I think you can almost build it up. It almost just helps decondition you to thinking you have to look a certain way. Then it becomes more of a choice. And I think that is more of an empowering place to be in.VirginiaWe should name, too, that it’s safer for some of us to experiment with this than others, right? Folks in fat bodies know that they’ll get treated worse if they show up looking sloppy. People of color experience this as well. There is the stuff that we’re working on inside and then there are the realities of the external world, right? AnitaThat’s definitely something I’ve experienced as a person of color. My parents moved from India to the UK. I had it drilled into me from a very young age that I always had to look presentable. As I got into my teen years, my mum would always say, “Go put some makeup on.” It’s constantly trying to look like you’re part of society, like you’re worthy of being in society. And that does come with challenges because the outside world does discriminate and it does treat us badly.I guess it’s looking at how comfortable you feel within to resist that. And that’s really different for everyone. And I guess if you can resist that safely and in a way that doesn’t harm you. In a way, I think that could be a really positive thing.VirginiaEven just being clear when you do decide the armor is necessary, it can be helpful to be clear on, “this feels necessary for safety.” Because that’s still putting some distance between you and the standard. AnitaThat’s really helpful. I think that could be really good for people who feel like they definitely need that. That’s a really useful way to frame it.VirginiaI’m just thinking about your mom—she was doing that to keep you safe. It was rooted in love, even though it was also constricting.AnitaYeah, absolutely.VirginiaI love the section in the book where you run down this whole list of questions you ask yourself before buying a face massaging device.AnitaThat script is really helpful because despite knowing how the Internet works, social media, the beauty industry, ads—despite being in that and knowing how that works, I still find myself clicking on things and going to buy things very impulsively. I’ve also got ADHD and quite high on the impulsive scale. If I’m not careful, I will buy into the promise of some thing that says it’s going to change my life. Maybe you feel this too, but I feel like I’m being sold to constantly when I don’t want to. Particularly on TikTok I find this quite hard. I feel like I’m just being sold to. And I just wish there was a button to turn it off. The technique I have coined for myself is to just give myself some boundaries if I do want to impulse buy something that I think will change my life in some way. And at the point, when I was writing the book, I gave the example of a face massaging sort of tool that said it was going to help tighten and tone your skin. And I was like, oh my God, I want that. Like, it was my first thought that I want to tighten and tone my skin. VirginiaAdd to cart. AnitaAnd then I was like, wait a minute. And then I talked myself down a bit and talked myself out of this place of anxiety—because that’s where that was coming from—that I need that to fix this thing that actually isn’t really a problem. It didn’t bother me a minute before I saw this ad for it. I was cool a  minute ago.VirginiaI hadn’t been plagued by my lack of tone. It was all fine.AnitaThen all of one minute later, I’m like, I’m so withered. It’s to take you out of that frame and to just go, okay, why do I want this? So there is a series of questions in the book. Starting with: Why do I want this? Maybe I do really, really want it. But I only saw it a minute ago, so I probably don’t really want it that much. Then it’s sort of just probing into why that could be. And quite often for me personally—and this might be different for different people—when I keep going, why do you want this? What’s the real reason? And you keep digging, layer by layer by layer, underneath all of that initial impulse, quite often for me, it comes down to I’m really tired. I feel like shit and I actually just need some sleep. I look in the mirror, like, oh, I look tired, I probably just need a bit more sleep. I think that’s probably true for a lot of people, particularly women. We have so many different roles in society, we probably just need a bit more sleep. So that will save you a ton on anti-aging creams and de-puffing products and all of that. Let’s just have some sleep.VirginiaAnd how depressing that buying this device feels more doable somehow than reorganizing your life to get more sleep consistently. That’s a whole other thing.AnitaMost of the best self care and wellness stuff that you can do is free.But it’s a bit of investigation to find out what’s really going on. And quite often it is something else. Maybe you’re trying to distract yourself from something, maybe you’ve had a fight with somebody and you feel shit and you need to pick me up or whatever it happens to be. And there is almost always something. And, you know, when sometimes there’s not, in which case, what I tend to do is put it on a list. And then I’ll revisit that in a certain time period. That can be different for everyone. It could be a month, it could be a week, it could be three months. VirginiaInstituting that pause is so helpful. AnitaThe pause is amazing. I have to do this with everything I buy, because I am so impulsive. I have to put it on a list and come back to it. Otherwise I would just be in tons of debt. So yeah, I think that’s a really helpful way to take the pressure and anxiety out of stuff. And if you still want it in a month, if you can afford it, you’ve done your research, you think it’s going to work, whatever, cool, go for it. And you’ve used up everything you’ve got at home, as well! I think that’s a crucial thing. Quite often we might have something that we could use at home instead of whatever this new thing is. That saves us money, saves the planet, etc. It’s good to use those things up before you go and buy something new, like a new serum that promises it’s going to take 10 years off your whatever—which is never going to happen in a serum. VirginiaOkay, I have to tell you about my purchase that I should have put through all of these filters. AnitaCall me next time. VirginiaMy most embarrassing beauty purchase. There we go. There’s the headline of this episode.So I have a lot of chin hair that I manage. My part-time job is managing my facial hair. And I’ve tried laser, but it’s expensive and you have to drive to the place and it’s such a project to keep up with it. So, mostly I shave it but then sometimes when I’m shaving, I get breakouts, and then I’m like I should just embrace this but I’m just not there on my chin hair acceptance journey. So Julia Marcum, from Chris Loves Julia, recommended this product called Nood. Have you seen this? It’s a handheld laser you plug in at home and you can zap your whole face. And it was $199. I’m not proud of this. In a moment of weakness, I purchased it. And I used it for six months and…nothing. Zero reduction in hair growth. Nothing. I just was like, “What happened there, Virginia?”And now it’s just sitting in my bathroom mocking me because I can’t donate it because it doesn’t work. Do you know what I mean? I can’t pass it on to someone else and be like, maybe it’ll work for you. Like, it probably won’t. I don’t think it works for anybody.Thank you for hearing my confession.AnitaSee, it’s so disappointing! I definitely have had experiences in my life where I thought “This one thing is going to be, amazing. It’s going to change everything.” And then it just doesn’t.VirginiaEven though the influencer said it would on TikTok!AnitaI mean, was she being paid to tell you that? I’m sure it was at least an affiliate link.VirginiaAbsolutely. Of course. I know this. And if I had done your process—I don’t think it was tiredness, exactly. But I do think it was just a feeling of flatness. And also, this is a chore and I would love it to be easier. I was like, well, it’s $200. But that’s so much cheaper than laser at the dermatologist. And there were just a lot of hopes and dreams that weren’t realized. And at the end of the day, I would love to unpack my issue with that beauty standard, but that’s hard work too.AnitaIt’s really hard. I have had those those hairs lasered off myself and it’s really tough. I think we have to have a bit of compassion with ourselves for these things. Because there are so many people that have grown out hair in different places. And that’s really cool. But there are some things that are so hardwired into us. And we are all in different places in our lives. Generationally, I think people have different experiences with this as well, because I think each generation has a very strong set of sort of beauty parameters that we have been sold and indoctrinated with. It can be really hard to step outside of these norms. There are people that do and that’s awesome. I think they’re really inspiring. But it can be really hard and I don’t necessarily think we have to push ourselves to do that. We don’t have to feel bad about those things. So if the hairs are there, you don’t have to feel bad about that. Then it becomes a choice to actually remove them. But, you know, in a way that actually doesn’t waste your money. VirginiaYeah, at least don’t buy products off the internet that are not going to work. Probably just shell out for laser or keep using the little face razors. AnitaLaser has made a massive difference for me. I guess as a side note, I was plucking them out and it was causing loads of hyperpigmentation on my dark skin. The laser was actually a real game changer. And because I would find myself sort of playing with them in a meeting. I was like, What am I doing? And then I realized I was, stroking my chin hairs.VirginiaI do it all the time! But it’s a hard thing to talk about. That’s the thing. Often you feel so vulnerable even admitting you have this “beauty problem” because our belief systems around these beauty standards are so entrenched that then the only people who want to talk to you about it are the people who want to sell you a solution. And that’s tricky. AnitaConversations like this and normalizing things like this, I think are really important. Definitely when I was a junior beauty editor and beauty journalist I had never heard anyone admit to having chin hair or any of those things. And it is those honest conversations that make us go, oh, I’m not alone. It’s not such a bad thing. I’m not a freak. I’m not this. I’m not that. I’m not ugly. VirginiaI just have a face. And human faces grow hair. AnitaI just have a little furry face and that’s cool.VirginiaI’d love to also hear a little more about working as a beauty editor. I spent years in women’s magazine trenches here. I wasn’t in beauty but I was in health and wellness, which is very beauty-adjacent. What are your thoughts about having navigated the beauty industry from inside it? And now as a critic of it? Is there anything you look back on and you think, well, that was wild that we did that? Or is there anything that you feel like this was actually really valuable but we need to do it in a different framing?AnitaThis is something I’m asked about a lot, you know, is there anything I regret writing, stuff like that? I think particularly for journalists, they probably you know, as time goes on, there are things you probably regret writing. VirginiaOh, for sure. AnitaI think in pursuit of being funny, I definitely was a little unkind about people in features, as a bit of a joke. You know, like celebrities. And we’re in an era now where we don’t say things like that about people. It was a different time. In terms of the actual content, I think there was only one time that I felt like it was out of sync with what I believed in really. It was when I actually worked on a health magazine, so I was a beauty and health editor at Women’s Health. None of it was sitting right with me. And I it took me ages to work out what that feeling was. And it was because number one, I was the only plus-sized person on the team of this big health and wellness magazine. I was one of the few people of color and the only plus-size person.And, you know, we were writing about losing weight and macros and all of this stuff. Keto was huge then, when I was on that magazine. All of these things were normalized. A lot of our content was about cutting calories. When I looked at some of the cover lines, they really stayed with me because I just find them wild now, because they feel so out of date. There was one—I mean, it’s terrible but it was quite funny at the time. But it was like, “tapas that won’t give you a fat ass” or something like that. Which is actually slight genius.VirginiaThe magazine editor in me is like, so good. And then the fat activist in me is like, no.AnitaAnd I remember thinking, Oh God. I remember being in a meeting and someone quite senior, a man, was talking about fat. And I just remember going, “But I’m fat.” And I just felt so out of place. I think that if I could go back in time, I think that was probably not the right place for me. It didn’t feel like a right fit. I didn’t feel empowered doing it. It was a shame. I did I actually, when I was there, I did do quite a lot of content around being plus size, etc. But annoyingly I did do it from a weight loss place, because I was very much still in that zone. It was before those conversations were being had. And although I was pushing for that internally, and I’d always push for those things wherever I worked. I look back on that and I’m like, That was not me. That didn’t feel empowering to me or anyone else actually. And I felt a little empty, I have to say. I’ve been lucky in that everywhere I have worked, generally speaking, apart from those very early jobs, I have been able to have a voice to a certain extent. Or I haven’t had to do too much that has jeopardized anything for me morally. I’ve always pushed to have diversity and inclusivity. I’ve always pushed to make things real. Wherever I have been able to control that, I have tried to do that. It’s been tricky, though, when I do look back and I’m like, that was not great.VirginiaI have a million of those stories, too. I also think these big mainstream media outlets are reaching huge audiences. Anything we can do from inside that space to push the conversation in a better direction is also valuable. So it’s that push/pull.And obviously, at a certain point, I was like, okay, I’ve pushed and pulled too much and I’m done. But I still think it’s hugely important to get the conversations into those spaces. It’s a both/and for me. AnitaI think I got to a point where I felt like I was swimming upwards and I was like, I have got no more fight left in me. I cannot.This is slightly a side note, but I remember actually drawing a diagram, like diagramming a picture of levels of oppression to have to explain intersectional feminism to an editor. And I was just like, No. Can’t do this. I thought I’d reached the peak of awful women’s magazine. I was like, I’m out. I can’t do this anymore. I shouldn’t have to do this.VirginiaI shouldn’t have to justify my existence in this way.I’d love to hear how working on the book has changed your own relationship with beauty. I mean, obviously, it’s part of this professional evolution, but personally as well. AnitaOne of the things in particular was just how much cosmetics, how the cosmetic surgery industry came about. I had no idea. To tell a very short version of the story: Post-World War II there were a huge amount of surgeons with nothing really to do. So they all were looking for work because they had fixed everyone that needed fixing from the war. They needed something to do to make money because they’d all trained in surgery. So they went, okay, what can we do? We’re going to manufacture some anxieties and try and fix those instead. Virginia“If only the war had given us more casualties we could have worked on.” AnitaI mean, they still would have gotten done with those at some point, and turned towards fixing women and making us more anxious.VirginiaThat is a depressing origin story.AnitaBut fascinating because we don’t know that. I didn’t know that as a beauty journalist. I think just knowing some of that history can really give you perspective on things.Because we are told, you know, “love yourself” and like “self love” and like “do some affirmations in the mirror,” etc. And that’s all great. But for me, I had been doing that for ages. And I’ve had loads of therapy and nothing had helped until I went back into history to find out: Why did that happen? Why has this become a thing? Because at some point, someone must have decided this was a thing. It was better to be lighter skinned, it was better to be thin, it was better to be young, etc. So where do all of those things come from? So in the book, I’m almost learning these things with the reader. And it was just light bulb moment after light bulb moment. They all sort of sit together quite well. By the time I’ve done all the research and come out of that process, I was like, Oh my God, I feel like I have to rethink everything I ever thought about beauty and beauty standards, because there is so much here. I think the thing that really struck me was actually just how much I didn’t know, even though I thought I knew a lot. And I think a lot of people, probably a lot of your listeners, we all think we know where this came from or why this happens. And actually reading those specifics can be really valuable.VirginiaIt’s a little bit like how we all think we know the models are photoshopped. But when they do studies, they see that the photoshopping still impacts us. Even though we think we know what’s happening, we don’t know the extent of it and it still gets in your brain. So I think that’s like on a meta level what you were doing, like oh, yeah, I think I understand this and then it’s like, holy shit, there’s so much more.AnitaAs a modern example, I feel like if people saw what some people do for their pictures—celebrities, people who are in the limelight, influencers, etc. If people saw what they did to their pictures, they would probably be shocked. I don’t know, maybe in this day and age, people expect that but we still don’t know when you look at something for a tenth of a second, particularly with celebrities. I think a lot of people do really unfairly hold themselves up against celebrities and I know this firsthand being a beauty editor and having interviewed hundreds of celebrities.There is so much that goes on to make a celebrity look how they look. Like, they do not arrive on a set looking the way they do at the end. And that’s no shade. They look great but there is a long process of transformation. And  that comes from wealth, the privilege of wealth. I think we do often hold ourselves up to really unrealistic expectations and role models.VirginiaNot to make this just about my continued chin hair acceptance journey, but because I have a feeling this question will come up in the comments: Is there a similar backstory that people don’t really understand about why facial hair on women is so stigmatized? I’m just curious if there was anything you came across in your research that helped connect those dots.AnitaThe story with body hair and underarm hair, I think is quite interesting. There was a certain point where leg hair and underarm hair, some people removed it, some people didn’t. But it wasn’t taboo until around the 1920s, where the fashion silhouette changes. But within that, Gillette launched a women’s razor, because they had conquered the male market and everyone had a razor, the old steel razor. It really seemed like if anyone had a razor, it was probably a Gillette razor. It was this really well made proper razor,VirginiaYou didn’t need to buy a new one every month. AnitaThere’s only so many of those you need. So they were like, oh, what can we do? Similar with the cosmetic surgery? What can we do next? Who can we target next? And then they were like, women. Okay, so what are we going to do with women? We’re going to shame them about their armpits. We’re going to shame them about their legs and make that a taboo. So there are quite a lot of stories of those things in beauty.There is another one which is shampooing the hair. It was essentially people washing their hair once a week, and then all of a sudden, to sell more shampoo, this myth was created around us needing to wash our hair more, and to buy more shampoo. So yeah, there are quite a lot of stories like that.VirginiaAnd the only reason we can shampoo less frequently now is if you’re doing an elaborate curly girl regimen where you need 12 products, so you’re still going to buy more things. I guess one top line question to always ask ourselves is: Who created the market for this? Because it is a market that was created. It’s not an actual flaw that needs to be addressed.AnitaI think most of those things that we don’t feel okay about or that we’ve been shamed for, that are shameful within society, have been manufactured by somebody. That somebody is quite often patriarchy. A lot of those ad companies, most of those companies, were owned by men. There were lots that weren’t actually, particularly makeup, but a lot of those companies were owned and run by men. The ad agencies were almost certainly run by men. That’s one system of oppression that was definitely very present and still is. And then there are lots of different ones on top of that, when we think about class and how that is so woven into beauty in a way that we don’t really think about.The tanning example is actually a really interesting one. Because there’s that flip. People talk about it all the time as an interesting anecdote, of Coco Chanel, she was on a yacht and she got a sunburn. And all of a sudden, people went from not wanting to have a tan because it signified that you worked outside and were of a lower class, to it being cool. But the flip side was because of the industrialization that was happening at the time, people who were inside were now taking leisure time outside and people who were out working outside were now working inside in factories. It does all come back to class.That narrative still lingers. I have so many friends who look in the mirror and go oh, I look so pale. I look pasty.  And I always think that’s really interesting. You don’t think your skin tone looks okay. You don’t think you look well? Why is that? Because we’ve been sold golden skin. Not dark skin. Not naturally dark skin, however, because that is still not aspirational. But that lightly tanned, in the sun glow, we’ve been sold because it’s linked to wealth. There are just so so many things that have become part of our society and our narrative that actually really do come back to class and I think that’s really fascinating. VirginiaOh, that is really mind blowing. There’s so much there. Well, the book is fantastic. I’m so excited for folks to check it out. ButterAnitaIf I think about the thing that I’ve really enjoyed most recently, there was a really brilliant British photographer and she’s actually passed away now, sadly. And her work is sort of just becoming seen for the first time, in a public way. There’s actually a documentary about her that I think everyone can access. If you are in the UK, it’s on the BBC at the moment. And her name is Tish Murtha. She was a photographer from the 1970s to 1990s and was a real activist. She grew up in working class Newcastle in the UK in a time where there was a huge economic issues. People were really deprived. It was a really, really awful time. She documents the reality of working class life, and the way she captures subjects is incredible. Because she’s one of those people, she really is able to embed herself in communities. I just think the work is beautiful. Very definitely worth checking out because she is this undiscovered, amazing sort of genius. VirginiaOh, these are incredible. I had never heard of her and I’m so excited to learn more about her. This is wonderful.My Butter is actually also photo-related, but not professional, brilliant photography. But something I’ve been doing recently is making a point to print out more casual photos. I don’t know if you have this as much in the UK, but in the US, there is a very big culture here around having professional family photos taken where you all dress up in cute outfits. We did that for a few years when my kids were little and then they were just absolutely not available for it anymore. So I hadn’t printed out any family photos in the last few years.And I was like, well, first of all, we all have an iPhone. So we all take good photos all the time. And I love some of the professional ones we’ve done with a photographer friend, they’re beautiful. But they don’t capture who my kids are, or who I am, on a day-to-day basis. And so I have been going back in my Instagram and my phone archives and just pulling out some random ones and getting them printed. And it is bringing me so much joy to have these very imperfect, candid shots. They remind me more of the family photos I would have had growing up.And I am not wearing makeup or anything. Like, there’s a real ignoring of beauty standards because a lot of them are like, we took this in bed one morning or whatever. I’m just here to say we need to get some of those photos off our phones and into our lives because it’s really, really special to have them. I think particularly for moms, there’s a big erasure of moms from photos often. Like we’re often the ones taking the photos, we’re not in the photos. So make a point to get yourself in photos and then print them out and have them up.AnitaYeah, that’s really lovely. Actually, as a side note, on my 40th birthday, I took a random old school disposable 35 millimeter camera out with me, and gave it to one of my friends. And I was like, just take some pictures of people. VirginiaI love that. AnitaAnd I got these pictures back and it was so joyful. It felt like taking pictures in the 90s. As a result of that, I bought a proper, it’s actually a Lomography camera that does all like the mad color and light leaks and stuff like that. But I actually bought myself a manual camera to take take proper pictures again. And I bought a Polaroid as well because I was like, this is so joyful to capture a moment like this in the actual moment. VirginiaYeah, and with old school cameras like that, you can’t look at your phone and then pick the one that came out best. You just get what you get. I was trying to explain that to my kids. Like, back in the day we’d have like 20 pictures on a camera and they just couldn’t wrap their brains around that. Now I want to try that, too, and bring back the candid not at all styled photos. Really joyful. So, Anita this was fantastic. Thank you so much for being here. Just tell folks how we can follow your work and how we can support you. AnitaAbsolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been such a such a lovely chat. You can follow me on Instagram at itsmeanitab and the same on TikTok. And my Substack isThe Powder Room.VirginiaFabulous. And we will of course link to the book which is called Ugly. ---The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark!🧈🧈🧈It’s time for your July Extra Butter! Today we are discussing the intersection of sobriety and diet culture—and taste testing a whole bunch of mocktails! 🍹🍹🧈To listen to the full episode and read the full transcript, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier.In these monthly episodes we get into the GOOD stuff like:Why all the fat influencers are getting skinnyIs Kids Eat In Color anti-diet?And did Virginia really get divorced over butter?Extra Butters also get a comp to Cult of Perfect, exclusive chats and DMS, and dedicated Friday Threads.And Extra Butter ensures that the Burnt Toast community can always stay an ad- and sponsor-free space—which is crucial for body liberation journalism. Join us here!(Questions? Glitches? Email me all the details)PS. If Extra Butter isn’t the right tier for you, remember that you still get access behind almost every other paywall with a regular paid subscription.Extra Butter Episode 5 TranscriptCorinneToday we are doing something really exciting: We’re going to try some non-alcoholic beverages! And, we’re going to talk a little bit about sobriety and sobriety culture, as two non-sober people.VirginiaThis idea came about because we did an Indulgence Gospel episode a few months ago where someone asked for our favorite non-alcoholic beverages. We were both like, “seltzer water?” But everyone in the comments started suggesting really good stuff. We were like, “We need to try a bunch more of these.” So that’s the fun part where we’re going to be taste testing—and linking everything, of course.  We’re also really interested in how sobriety culture intersects with diet culture, so we’re going to talk about that quite a bit, too. I want to be very, very clear right off the top: We are pro-sobriety, whether you need it, whether you just want it. We think sobriety is awesome. But we do think there’s a conversation to be had about the marketing and messaging in this space, which can veer into diet culture territory fast. So that’s the focus today.Okay, are we ready to try our first one? CorinneJust to set the scene, we each have a little lineup of four tiny cans in front of us.VirginiaAll the cans are so freaking cute.CorinneNon-alcoholic beverage marketing is doing a good job. I mean, as we knew, because I was dying to try these.VirginiaYou have been influenced. CorinneI have definitely been influenced. First up is Ghia Le Spritz, ginger flavor. VirginiaAre you drinking from the can or a cup?CorinneOh, I was gonna drink from the can. VirginiaI don’t like drinking from cans because I got really scarred by some Dateline episode or something about like, how rats poop on the top of cans. Anyways!CorinneWow. Well, I’ll be drinking from the rat poop hole.VirginiaMaybe we should have covered that off mic? Anyway. I have a little tumbler.CorinneThat looks very nice. VirginiaIt’s a pretty color. CorinneOh, it’s a really pretty color. It’s like orangey pink.VirginiaThe tumbler is helpful because we can see the color. Alright, cheers![Everyone drinks.]We’re making some faces.CorinneIt’s surprisingly…bitter, maybe? VirginiaYeah, it’s…sour? It’s a little sour.CorinneIt tastes like it’s going to be a really spicy ginger beer, but it doesn’t have the spicy. I was like, “Is this going to make me cough?”VirginiaI think I like it. But does it feel more like a winter mocktail?CorinneI think this feels too ginger ale-y to me.VirginiaIt’s very ginger ale. CorinneYeah, I like ginger ale. But is it better than ginger ale?VirginiaIt feels like one of those fancy ginger ales. This is not Canada Dry, which is my preferred ginger ale. I like a basic airplane ginger ale. CorinneIt’s almost like if you crossed ginger ale with Campari or something?VirginiaOh, that’s what it is. Yes! It’s bitter/sour. I don’t know if I’d get through a whole can of this one. But if you like a Campari or Negroni type situation, I could see this being satisfying to you. It just doesn’t feel refreshing,CorinneI feel like the thing that I always miss, the thing that’s always missing from non-alcoholic drinks is—VirginiaAlcohol?CorinneYes. Mmmhmm. That’s what I was going say.But you know how alcohol kind of burns? I feel like they’re trying to get that with the spicy ginger flavor, but it’s not the same. VirginiaYes, you’re right. You’re right. CorinneI feel like a lot of non-alcoholic stuff I’ve tried, it’s just kind of too sweet. VirginiaWell, this one’s not sweet. CorinneIt’s definitely not too sweet.VirginiaDo we want to talk a little bit about why mocktails are such big business right now?CorinneIt seems like a lot of this is being driven by like Gen Z. VirginiaYes. Apparently Gen Z doesn’t drink. One of the statistics we found was that Gen Z folks drink 20 percent less than millennials. [VSS Note: Correcting because I accidentally said 40% in the recording!] I mean, caveat, that was a marketing survey. And, as I was saying off mic, I think they’re just high a lot of the time? I think legalization has changed the game. I don’t think that it’s that Gen Z is like “no inebriation for me,” but alcohol is less their game.CorinneI also feel like since the pandemic, a lot of people have cut back on drinking. And I don’t know if that’s just like people are going to bars less or everyone just reevaluated their lives.VirginiaI was chatting about this on a text thread that included who lives in the Pacific Northwest, who lives in Iowa, me in New York, and who lives in central Pennsylvania and who is in California, in New Hampshire. So we were covering many parts of the country. And I asked, “What do you guys think about drinking culture where you are?”And we were all experiencing totally different drinking norms. Ann Helen said that in Pacific Northwest for sure there has been this like “if you didn’t get sober during COVID what did you do wrong” kind of thing. With almost a little bit of moral judgment around it. Like, everybody got sober. And Lyz was like, “Yeah, in Iowa, we’re still fully drinking.”CorinneThat’s funny.VirginiaAnd Amy said that in Central PA, there’s like no cannabis? Weed moms are not a thing in her circles. Whereas in New York, I can definitely say there are a lot of weed moms and just in general, a lot of pot now. So it’s fascinating. I think there are these little micro pockets of norms and cultures around this. Like, are people getting fully sober or are people switching substances? But the upshot is the alcohol business is kind of in trouble. Because of both the rise of sobriety and I think the rise of weed and cannabis. So there are all these interesting articles about how the alcohol business is trying to figure out how to get Gen Z to care about them and what to do about mocktails? We’re in an interesting moment, I think. CorinneYeah, I would definitely say in my community here in New Mexico, which is people in their 30s, but probably mostly people that don’t have kids. Or some people with young kids, definitely fewer people are drinking. I feel like it’s noticeable.VirginiaThat’s interesting, because my pre-kids social life was very drinking heavy.CorinneWe’ll still go to breweries and stuff, but I also feel like it’s pretty normal for at least a few people to not be drinking. I should also say that I live in a high altitude place where drinking is actually just WAY less fun, because you pretty immediately feel horrible.VirginiaWe are also seeing a lot of celebrities getting sober. I love how Anne Hathaway just casually dropped into an interview with Vanity Fair, like, oh, yeah, I’ve been sober for four years now. So it’s less of a headline story. It’s not like Courtney Love or Matthew Perry or something. It’s just like, more millennial and Gen Z celebrities are like, yeah, this is not for me. And I think that’s pretty great. I love the normalizing of that. CorinneI think that’s a good way of putting it. Like it has just become a lot more normal to not drink.VirginiaYeah. Although, who has written a lot about her sobriety and was also on this group chat discussing drinking norms was like, “If you’re actually getting sober, you feel the stigma.”CorinneThat’s fair. VirginiaSo I want to hold space for how the recovery journey is different from the recreational sobriety journey.CorinneEven recreationally, if you’re with a group of people who are drinking and you’re not, it’s not always the most fun.VirginiaI was designated driver for a group of friends who went out to dinner this past weekend, in part because I was like, “Great, I actually don’t want to drink tonight.” And thankfully, there were agua frescas at the taco bar we went to, but I was glad this was not a group of friends that goes hard when we go out because I was like, “I don’t want to be back in college taking care of people.” CorinneDrunk people can be really annoying.VirginiaI’m just driving my Subaru to the taco bar now. Alright, What are we trying next?CorinneSo our next one is Figlia Fiore Frizzante.[Cans crack open.]VirginiaThat one sprayed me a little bit!CorinneI do not like the smell. It smells very— VirginiaGrandma perfume?CorinneBath and Body Works. I guess it is the rose?VirginiaBut is this going to be a good rosé substitute? Because I do like a rosé.CorinneOh god. It tastes like you spilled hand soap in your fruit juice. VirginiaYou captured it perfectly. That is exactly what it tastes like.CorinneOr your body wash.VirginiaI mean, I hope these get better. I’m a little underwhelmed by our first two! And I think I accidentally bought an eight pack of this! Oh, this one’s really bad. CorinneThis one is definitely less bitter.VirginiaThe Figlia is not as bitter as the Ghia, but the Figlia is much more soapy. It’s not great. CorinneI feel like I’m getting less of the soapy-ness now? You really smell it but you taste it less as you keep drinking. VirginiaI don’t want to keep drinking. Don’t make me keep drinking it. CorinneI wouldn’t freely choose this. VirginiaI would have to be forced. CorinneI would have to be on a desert island with only this for hydration.VirginiaShould we talk a little bit about our own relationships to alcohol and drinking?CorinneWhat’s your current drinking status?VirginiaI have never been a big drinker. I did not drink until I was 20 because I was just really afraid of getting in trouble. You know, classic oldest daughter good girl stuff. I was just like, “It’s fine. I am the sober friend!” I did party more in my 20s, for sure. Because we lived in New York City and in a very party heavy sort of social circle. But it’s never really been my thing. I am also very migraine prone and would get hangovers easily. It’s also worth noting, my ex was six years sober when we split up. And I’m very proud of him for that. And that meant I was de facto sober for the last six years of our marriage. Because it was a no brainer to me. If it wasn’t good for him to be around alcohol, we didn’t have to have it in the house. And that was a shift! I think I used to have a glass of wine with dinner most nights, just out of habit. And then I went to basically nothing, or maybe like, twice a year have one drink. And day to day, I didn’t miss it really at all. Then once he left, I was like, “Well maybe it would be nice to have a glass of wine with dinner again?” or have it back in the house. And now what I’ve learned is that one glass of wine will give me a migraine in the next day. My tolerance is just non-existent.If I hydrate like mad all day long, you know, fill up my giant water bottle and get through at least three of them, I will be okay. But I don’t need drinking mental load! Who wants to think about hydration all day long just so you can have three sips of Chardonnay? So I will have a half glass of wine maybe like twice a month and then always be like, oh right.What about you? CorinneI was definitely more of a recreational drinker as a young person. Like in my 20s and stuff. And I did briefly work in the restaurant hospitality industry where I did a lot of drinking. When I moved to New Mexico, it was a good chance for me to reevaluate. When I first got here, I still drank like a bit from time to time. And then as I’ve gotten older, as my body has changed, I’m just pretty unable to drink. I will also get a migraine after just one or two drinks. VirginiaIt is wild, and frankly annoying, because I do like the taste of wine and I would like to just enjoy a glass of wine. But I don’t like it that much.CorinneI’ve also dated a lot of people who are sober. And I think that has actually made me realize that in some ways, I like dating people who are sober because dating someone who is not sober can be really annoying if you don’t drink a lot. VirginiaBecause you will end up being designated driver. CorinneOr just, like, drunk people are annoying! I feel similarly about weed sometimes. Like, it’s great. And I don’t necessarily want to hang out with high people? I probably drink like maybe once a month. I’ll have one unit of alcohol.VirginiaAnd what do you usually drink when you do drink? CorinneI would probably go for a cocktail because I find those most delicious. There is a bar here that has an alcoholic slushy drink that I got really into last summer. But yeah, one or two and you’re like, uh oh. VirginiaThis is reminding me that I haven’t had a cocktail in a long time and I’m kind of curious to see if I get the same extreme reaction with a cocktail? Like is it the wine or is the alcohol? I don’t really know. I mean, in my youth, I had some bad experiences with various hard liquor, so I don’t tend to go to them. But maybe a very watered down Mojito would be fine? Maybe two sips of a mojito would be fine.CorinneI’ve definitely found that I react to all of it. It all makes me feel bad. But I like drinking cocktails the most.VirginiaThat’s where you’re willing to roll the dice. When I was in more of a diet culture place with my migraines in my 20s I had really convinced myself they were caused by red wine. But I think that was mostly because that was the thing I could most bear to give up. Alright, should we try another one?I’m excited for this one since we were just talking about mojitos. Mojitos are my favorite cocktail. And since I probably cannot drink a whole mojito without feeling like death the next day, I would love to find a mocktail mojito.CorinneNext up is Ish. The mindful drinking company. Non- alcoholic pre mixed cocktail Mojito. VirginiaAll right. Let’s try it.[Cans open.]CorinneThis one weirdly smells like alcohol to me.VirginiaOh it does. They faked it well! I’m excited for this one.CorinneWhoa.VirginiaOh, I like this one. You don’t?CorinneI’m getting my bearings. It has a real alcohol feel. Like it has rum flavoring or something.VirginiaYes, this feels decadent for us to be drinking on a Monday.CorinneYeah, it’s not even noon.VirginiaI’m looking at the label to make sure.CorinneIt says less than 0.5 ABV. So what does that mean? Do the other ones say that?VirginiaThat is the thing about a lot of non-alcoholic drinks is they sometimes do have a trace amount. CorinneI thought that was just non-alcoholic beer.VirginiaI don’t know if it’s because they put in a little sprinkling of something in? Or if it’s because things are fermented and so you might be getting a little bit?Well, this one I really like and I would totally buy this again and have on hand so I can have a mojito in the summer, hopefully without a migraine.I feel like your experience is being impacted by the can. Because I do really want to have this in a glass with a lot of ice and fresh mint.CorinneYeah, I think these would all be good with ice. I feel like this could use a few more squeezes of lime. It’s a little bit sweet.VirginiaI could use this as a base and doctor it up into a really nice summer drink. I would not drink this straight from a can but you wouldn’t drink a mojito from a can. That’s not correct.CorinneIt has like an alcohol-like flavor. VirginiaThe other two just felt like experimental sodas. This one feels like I could believe this is a cocktail.CorinneShould we talk about diet culture and alcohol?VirginiaWe should because these labels are a lot. If we go back to Figlia—the one that tastes like bad soap—on the label, you will see it is “woman owned,” “1% for the planet,” and then— “no added sugar” is right up there. CorinneFascinating.VirginiaWhat you will see with a lot of mocktail marketing is a big emphasis on these drinks being lower calorie and lower sugar. I don’t think the other ones we bought are too egregious on this front, but it is definitely a recurring theme.CorinneWell, yeah. And the big non-alcoholic beer brand Athletic Brewing is sort of named that because—VirginiaBecause of Athletic Greens is my theory! CorinneThey’re like, “We like to do athletic activities.”VirginiaIt’s the man mocktail. You’re going on a long run and then you want to crack a cold one so you can have an Athletic Brew. Their marketing feels very “male wellness culture” to me in a lot of ways. And of course it may be accidental, but in terms of the impact in the market, you’re so used to hearing Athletic Greens marketing, and then here comes Athletic Brewing—you’re going to conflate the two.We also talked about this on the Substack Chat, andd there were some really interesting comments.CorinneIt’s super fun. It’s like basically having a little group text. VirginiaSo we’ve been having little conversations about any random thoughts that we have. I know it’s annoying to download another app, but it’s a pretty good, harmless app. Get more from Virginia Sole-Smith in the Substack appAvailable for iOS and AndroidGet the appCorinneI actually really like that app. I think if you subscribe to even just one Substack newsletter, it’s worth having the app.VirginiaYou can then delete them from your inbox and enjoy reading them in the app and it’s a much more leisurely reading experience, I feel.CorinneYeah. And it’s easier to comment.VirginiaOkay, that was a sidebar plug for Substack Chat and the Substack app!But in the chat, I asked folks for thoughts about all of this. One person wrote:“I keep getting ads for pot gummies and drops because ‘I shouldn’t waste calories on wine.’ I like wine and never think about its calories so these ads really surprised me.”That’s weird for people to be like, “let’s emphasize the calorie difference.” Because there’s the thing about pot where it makes you want to snack? So it’s probably going to be a wash, which is fine. But that’s a weird thing to lean into. CorinneTotally. There’s a whole thing where it’s like, you shouldn’t waste calories on alcohol. And then the whole thing of skipping meals so you can drink.VirginiaYes, saving your points. In college, my friends on Weight Watchers used to save their points all day so they could go out drinking at night. Which meant that they were starving when they went out drinking. It was a real solid plan. Just, no downsides there.Someone else said they subscribe to the sunnyside app, which is one of those encouraging you to drink less tracking apps. And the app tracked how many calories you were not consuming by not drinking alcohol. That just feels like such an annoying way to approach this as a project. Especially because if you were truly getting sober, because you have a problem with alcohol, you need space to have other things in your life to replace that craving. And for a lot of folks, that ends up being sugar for a while. And that’s a very healthy switch to make, because you will not crash a car eating sugar. CorinneAnd alcohol actually is poison, unlike sugar. VirginiaAs my brain reminds me every time I have two sips. So for lots of folks getting sober will coincide with gaining weight or changing eating habits. And that’s going to be tricky enough in diet culture. But if you’re also thinking well, part of my motivation for getting sober or one perk should be that I’m consuming less calories and I’ll lose weight….that can really jeopardize someone’s recovery. CorinneI have anecdotally known people who have lost or gained weight becoming sober. VirginiaIt can definitely go either way. CorinneBut I can’t imagine wanting to get sober and having that coincide with weight gain, and then diet culture sending you back.VirginiaRight? That’s scary. Someone else wrote:“I have noticed in certain circles of mine, there has been a morality tone to sobriety similar to that of diet culture. I’m all for further acceptance of sober life in general. I think that’d be good for us as a whole. There’s just a tone I can’t quite put my finger on that feels a little disingenuous.”Have you noticed this? What are your thoughts? CorinneI feel like most of the sober people I know are not sober for morality reasons, so I’m not sure?VirginiaI kind of know what they’re getting at? Alcohol is often included on the list of things you cut out if you’re doing some kind of cleanse or diet. If you do Whole30 or Paleo or something.And it just gets messy because you’re removing too many variables, right? You’re not actually getting any useful data on your relationship with alcohol because you’ve cut all this other stuff, too. And often you’re doing it all for a weight loss component so there are these weird tangled knots. This is where I would say where sobriety gets coopted by diet culture, or gets sort of subsumed by it, and becomes another tenet of diet and wellness culture. CorinneI think there’s kind of a myth or an idea that people who have gone through recovery have some sort of emotional maturity, which I think is both true and not true. Some people have, some people haven’t.VirginiaThere are a lot of different versions of this. CorinneYeah, I could see that being a morality thing.VirginiaIt depends on why you’re getting sober, but also how you’re getting sober. If you talk to anyone doing real recovery work, they will tell you that not drinking is not the whole ballgame. Going to meetings, the support, the doing really intensive therapy, and really dealing with yourself in a new way, that is arguably the bigger piece of the whole thingThis is from my cousin , who writes the Substack about mental health and living with chronic illness. It’s a new Substack, it’s really good. Kate is also in long term recovery from eating disorders. And they wrote:“A lot of people move from alcoholism to eating disorders, and vice versa, because they are stored in the same part of the brain. So dismantling diet culture in recovery spaces and everywhere is super important. Plus in treatment spaces, weight loss as a benefit to not drinking is mentioned a lot, as healthy eating and avoiding bad foods.”So that is super depressing for this weight loss language to be being used in formal treatment programs for substance use disorder. CorinneTotally. Yeah, using diet culture as a tool to keep people sober. VirginiaAnd especially as they’re saying, because there is a lot of overlap between eating disorders and alcoholism. This is also why a lot of the research following folks post-bariatric surgery documents that an increased risk for substance use disorders post-surgery, because the surgery changed how they can engage with food, but didn’t give them any support for the underlying mental and emotional and psychosocial stuff. And then they’re vulnerable for this other kind of substance abuse. It’s messy.CorinneIt’s complicated. VirginiaOn that note, we have another mocktail.CorinneThis is the one I’m most excited about. VirginiaYou saved the best for last.CorinneThis is the brand is called Parch. This is a non-alcoholic Agave cocktail. It’s a spiced Piña Rita.VirginiaSo like a piña colada and a margarita? CorinneI think like a pineapple margarita? And the it’s infused with botanicals and adaptogens.VirginiaWellness culture!!Did you see on the back there’s a note about “pour behavior?” So we’re drinking it wrong because it says “pour slowly over ice and garnish with a dried orange wheel or sip straight from a chilled can.” It isalso gluten free and vegan. This marketing is pretty, pretty diet culture-y. CorinneThis one smells spicy. I’m nervous. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh God. It’s so smoky! Why is it smoky? It literally tastes like bacon! It’s salty and smoky. It doesn’t say smoky anywhere!VirginiaMaybe it’s a good breakfast mocktail?CorinneBreakfast?!?!VirginiaWell, it does taste like bacon! I don’t know! CorinneOh, God. Oh God. I’m so sad.VirginiaYou really had your hopes up for this.Corinne It just doesn’t say smoky anywhere.VirginiaIt says it on the side in tiny letters. See? It says “smoky and spicy.”CorinneOh God. It’s horrible.VirginiaI’m so sorry. You really wanted to like it.CorinneOkay, I’m trying to get over the smokiness, which has really taken me aback.VirginiaIt’s like drinking bacon. But not in a delicious way.CorinneIt’s nuanced. It’s salty, sweet, spicy. Pineapple-y.VirginiaWhere’s the pineapple? I don’t taste any.CorinneWhen I smelled it, I thought it smells pineapple-y but it doesn’t taste it and the smoke—the smoke is too strong. It’s overpowering.VirginiaIt was so busy telling us about the adaptogens it did not warn us enough for what we were in for. I see the ingredients are organic blue agave, golden pineapple, Mexican lime, and smoky cayenne. I would say it’s mostly that last one.CorinneOh. I don’t know. See after a few sips. I’m always like, “Okay, okay, fine.” VirginiaI can’t finish that! CorinneIt’s really smoky though. It’s also quite salty. VirginiaHow would you eat a potato chip with that? When I’m having a mocktail, I also want a salty snack. And there would be too much salt. I realized that we should have said this at the top, but we did purchase these with our own money. These weren’t sponsored. Clearly,CorinneSadly, we have paid for all of these.VirginiaI was trying to order in the smallest quantities possible, but I have like eight more of a lot of these. CorinneYeah, I have a couple of some of them as well. VirginiaWe’re going to have to figure out what to do.CorinneWould you drink any of these again?VirginiaI would drink the mojito one.CorinneWhen I ordered the Ghia I ordered a few of the flavors and I liked some of the other flavors.VirginiaOh, you did? Okay.CorinneI think I would drink some of the Ghia. VirginiaI’m going to keep this and just offer when people come over over the summer, when I’m hosting and people could try them. And yeah, maybe other people will feel differently. Maybe some people like drinking soap and bacon!CorinneI mean, the one thing I’ll say is, they do feel celebratory. We’re judging them just on how do they taste at at noon on a Monday. But if I went somewhere and didn’t want to drink and had an option to buy one of these canned cocktails, I probably would. You know? VirginiaYeah. Well, I don’t think I would buy the bacon one or the soap one. CorinneBut only now that you’ve tried them. VirginiaIt’s true before I knew, I did buy them. And I also think, especially the mojito one, I could see how that could be really elevated. I mean, some of them, I’m wondering, do you just need to water them down? CorinneYeah, like if you mixed this with pineapple juice, or seltzer. VirginiaThat might help. I could see the bacon one being better if it was way more subtle.CorinneI wonder if you poured it into a glass with ice some of the like fumes would diminish and it would taste less smoky.VirginiaI don’t know if we’ve given people good intel on how to do their mocktail shopping. Try to taste them before you buy them. This is a wide open market.The last thing we were going to chat about is how does alcohol fit into intuitive eating? CorinneI think it’s a complicated question. I think for someone like me, who already feels kind of alcohol averse, I do think part of what has led me to drinking hardly at all is noticing how it feels in my body when I drink, and it feels bad. So doing less of it. What do you think?VirginiaSame. I do think when I drank more before, like when I was much younger, I couldn’t as clearly connect my headaches to drinking. Because if you’re having a glass of wine most nights and then you’re not getting a headache every day, it felt more random. But now it’s like, I’ll go two to three weeks without having a drink, have one drink and then have a terrible headache the next day. It’s just very stark. And it is this useful data point that I can make a decision about. But I want to just acknowledge some privilege here that I’m not an addict. This is not the thing that triggers my brain this way. So it felt like a very positive decision. I don’t feel remotely deprived. I mean, there will be occasions where I’m like, “It would be nice to have a glass of wine or a taste of that.” And then I’ll have a taste of that. But it doesn’t feel restrictive to say, “I’m not going to drink.” And again, I just want to recognize that that’s not true or simple for folks who are addicted to alcohol. So there’s a privilege that I can say that I can truly take or leave this. And I’m able to assess how it feels for me in this more dispassionate way. But I think that is a form of intuitive eating because if you don’t feel like a food has to be off limits, you can much more clearly evaluate whether you want to be eating it or not and how it feels in your body. So yeah, I think it’s related. I mean, it’s true with food, too, but with alcohol in particular. I think it’s such a personal one because there’s a lot of variation. There are a lot of like shades of grey in how people relate to alcohol. It’s not binary, it’s not like you’re either not an alcoholic or you are an alcoholic. You can be uncomfortable with your relationship with alcohol without identifying as a full blown alcoholic and still find it challenging to give up and there’s just a lot of gray there.CorinneYeah, and there are cultural components, too, like people who don’t drink for religious reasons or cultural reasons.VirginiaYeah, absolutely. Or if you live in a culture that is high drinking.CorinneYep. Families or the hospitality industry.VirginiaPeople’s family contexts, people’s work. A lot of workplaces are very alcohol-oriented and then it feels harder to opt out. CorinneYeah, definitely. VirginiaOne of the norms I struggled with when we were a de facto sober house was if we were having people over for dinner, not having wine to offer them felt odd to me. People in our life were super supportive. No one was ever like, “I’m not coming to dinner because there’s no wine there.” No one would do that. But I felt like I’m being a bad host somehow? I’m not offering a complete dinner experience? So I do now if I’m having people over, I’m always like, “Must have wine on hand, even if I’m not going to drink it!” And that is sort of silly! I know, because I did it for six years, you can hang out have a great time with people without drinking. It’s not necessary. But there’s that social norm of it.CorinneWell, and the other thing is people bringing you alcohol. I had so much alcohol leftover from having a birthday party in January that I still have some of it. Everyone brings a six pack or whatever. And then I never drink it. So it’s taking up an entire shelf of my fridge. VirginiaAnd I think it would be good for us to be more thoughtful about that. I tend to not bring alcohol anywhere now, just because I feel like I don’t know everyone’s individual relationships. I no longer assume everybody wants to drink alcohol. I’ll bring flowers instead. That feels nice. CorinneYeah, I do think it’s like if you’re not stopping drinking because you must for addiction reasons then it is sort of like, what is the like, celebratory alternative, you know? Or like, what is the nice hostess gift alternative? VirginiaFor sure flowers. I think you can never go wrong.CorinneFlowers, if you’re visiting Virginia. I will take flowers too.VirginiaI think anyone likes flowers. CorinneYeah. Or like other food stuff. VirginiaBringing nice chocolates is good. Or a fun loaf of bread if you’re going to dinner is nice.CorinneOr one of these non-alcoholic cocktail cans.VirginiaBut not the bacon one. Unless you’re trying to send a message.ButterCorinneI want to recommend this podcasts that I just started listening to and am addicted to called Hang Up the podcast, and it’s a reality dating podcast. VirginiaOh, you talked about this in and I was like what is she talking about?CorinneSo it’s a queer REALITY DATING podcast. So all the dates take place over the phone and are recorded. And the latest season season two is in Albuquerque. And obviously, everyone has to change their names so that the person trying to find a date can’t google them or whatever. Each episode they have to hang up on someone or eliminate them. And then at the end the person who gets chosen gets to either choose to go on a vacation with the person or take $1,000 So I’m really curious what’s going to happen.VirginiaOh my God. This is a fascinating premise, especially for a podcast. Like, they’re not even on Zoom. CorinneYou can’t smell the person or see how it feels in real life.VirginiaSmell the person? CorinneI don’t know! Like, what is chemistry!VirginiaIf you go on a date with Corinne, you better smell good, folks.CorinneWhat I’m saying is, there’s an element to being in real life with a person that you’re not getting over the phone. VirginiaI’m just picturing you sniffing people now. CorinneNo, that’s not what’s going on. The first round of dates the main character person who is being set up, asks everyone this question, which I now want to ask you, which is, you choose, either your face looks 10 years older or your body looks 10 years older. I was like, this is a terrible shallow question.VirginiaIt’s so shallow. CorinneBut it’s also very interesting. They’re basically asking you to choose between wrinkles on your face or saggy boobs.VirginiaI’m going to go with body because when I did this essay on body hair, a lot of people 10 years older than me told me they lost a lot of body hair. So I’m excited for my body getting older and me being less hairy. Having less hair-related maintenance feels like a real asset. CorinneInteresting. VirginiaAnd saggy boobs? I had two kids. That ship has sailed. We are there. You can’t scare me.CorinneI chose face just because it’s less surface area.VirginiaWell and you already have body hair privilege, so you don’t need to worry about that. CorinneYeah. Didn’t even cross my mind. VirginiaAlright, I definitely want to listen to this. It sounds really fun.CorinneYeah, what’s your Butter?VirginiaI feel like it’s not nearly as fun as that. It’s not as spicy as a reality dating show. My Butter is I have honed in on my summer uniform, what I will be wearing all summer. I feel like every season there are those weeks where I’m like what is the weather?! How do we do this? And then I hone in.So all last winter it was the joggers and those sweaters, that sweater jogger combo. Now, I am really on the train of sets, with a matching shirt and shorts. And I now have three sets, all from Target. I’m wearing one right now. It’s a linen, the blue linen. Very pretty, kind cornflower blue color. Matching shorts. And then I have a striped green one (sold out) and a purple paisley, which sounds bold but it’s actually very cute. I realized it just removes all the decisions of getting dressed. This is the perfect work from home outfit, the perfect run errands outfit. As we know, I don’t do anything else. That is my whole life. What I like about these is the shirts are very big and light and loose, so I can layer them over a tank top. Then if I get hot I can ditch the long sleeve shirt and just be in the tank top. But I kind of like the look of that. I feel like when the shirt is buttoned up and the fabric matches the shorts, I can’t quite shake the feeling of wearing pajamas. But unbuttoned over a tank top that works for me, styling wise. CorinneAre they all linen?VirginiaTwo of them are linen and then that dark green, light green striped shirt and shorts that I wore when we were in New Mexico, that’s cotton.CorinneOh cool.VirginiaI feel like the trendy shirt of the moment is a light blue and white striped button down shirt. I feel like every fashion person I follow is either shopping for this or wearing this. just did a post about it. on her newsletter was like I’m shopping for this.CorinneLike a striped button down?VirginiaBut specifically light blue and white is the look and then you wear it with red shorts or you wear it with jeans or you wear it with white shorts. has one so now I do kind of want a set that is light blue and white stripes. But do I need four sets? There are many days in a week. CorinneYeah. Then you have one for every day almost. VirginiaBasically it would be covering Monday to Thursday. I recommend the sets. You know we love a no decision dressing moment. CorinneYeah, that’s a really good recommendation. VirginiaThe final thing of it is I hung them in my closet together with the shorts and the shirt on the same hanger, which is very nerdy. And I realize some people would break up the sets and mix and match things. But I just really love the ease of I’m just getting dressed this way. I really feel like I have capsule wardrobed the summer.CorinneThat’s awesome. I love it.VirginiaAll right. This was a good episode. I hope people enjoyed us tasting things they couldn’t taste and understanding that we were not enjoying it.CorinneLet us know if you’ve tried any of these!VirginiaYes, we’re dying to hear. We want to hear in general about how you feel about mocktails, how you feel about drinking. How you feel like drinking fits in with your intuitive eating stuff.---The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today I’m chatting with Melissa Walker, head of Giving Circles at The States Project about how to save democracy.And yes, it’s July 4, so we are technically off today—but it is also America’s birthday and a very, very scary and complicated time to be an American. We recorded this conversation before last week’s debate dumpster fire and this week’s horrific SCOTUS rulings — but I promise, it’s still the reassuring action plan you need right now.The States Project works to flip state legislations blue around the country. In 2022, Burnt Toast raised over $28,000 to hold ground in the Arizona State Senate. Last year we raised over $15,000 to elect majority making candidates in Virginia, where we defended the State Senate and flipped the House of Delegates to put a wall in front of Governor Youngkin’s right wing agenda. I know November is looming, and many of us feel paralyzed with fear about Trump, and not so great about Biden. So Melissa explains why state legislatures are where we can focus our energy and do some real good—even if Trump wins again.I’m setting a goal for the Burnt Toast Giving Circle to raise $20,000 this year, and I fully expect us to hit that, and exceed it. After you listen to this episode, be sure to vote in our poll for the state you want us to support. You can also start your own Giving Circle to support the state of your choice!Join the BT Giving Circle!Happy birthday, America! You’re a mess. But we’re trying to form a more perfect union here. Or honestly, anything even a step above dumpster fire would work.PS. If you’re enjoying the podcast, make sure you’re following us (it’s free!) in your podcast player! We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts! And while you’re there, please leave us a rating or review. (We like 5 stars!)Episode 150 TranscriptMelissaI’m Melissa Walker, I am the head of Giving Circles at The States Project. We focus on shifting the balance of power in state legislatures to elect majorities that are focused on improving people’s lives. VirginiaAnd you were on the podcast in 2022, when we first launched the Burnt Toast Giving Circle.It's Time to Stop Panic Giving.Virginia Sole-Smith·March 10, 2022Read full storyAnd I asked you to come back because, Melissa, everything feels bad right now. It truly seems like Trump will win in November. And I feel like we’re not even talking about it because we’re all just burnt out with fatigue. But you are this voice of reason in my life who’s always like, “This is what we focus on. This is what we do.” So can you talk us off some ledges, please?MelissaYes, I can. First, I want to acknowledge the fatigue, because it’s very real and we all feel it. Your fatigue is definitely a feature, not a bug, of a right wing that wants to dismantle our democracy. So if you’re feeling it, know that that is perfectly normal and we’re all feeling it to some extent. But also know that the helplessness and the isolation paralyze us, and that can cause some really bad things. I am lucky enough that I found a political path for me in December of 2016 when I heard New York State Senator Daniel Squadron speak about state legislatures. What I started to understand was that there were these 50 mini-congresses in our country where the right wing had been building power for decades, and where it turned out, I could have an impact. Being able to walk that path since 2016 has been therapy for me.I think that gathering people in community and taking action in whatever form you do, it is the antidote to despair. It is also the only thing that has ever worked to move a democracy. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”And I really believe in that. VirginiaAnd it’s what the other side has been doing for decades, as you said. They’ve been changing the world for the worse. So now we need to be that small group of committed citizens.MelissaThat’s correct. VirginiaTell us a little bit about how The States Project works and what you’re focusing on for 2024.MelissaState legislatures are the places where everything that we care about domestically is decided, from education funding to environmental policy to health care to civil rights to abortion to the course of our democracy, voting rights, and gerrymandering, the drawing of the district lines that decide who goes to Congress—it’s all happening in the hands of state lawmakers. These are not folks who people will have heard of. They are not going to be the spotlight races or the names on MSNBC at night. But they are the people who are deciding state by state by state what rights Americans have and get to keep. It’s an incredibly important power center. So The States Project does a 99 state chamber analysis every year—it’s 99 because Nebraska is unicameral. We figure out where we can target to try to shift power to elect majorities to improve people’s lives or break a right wing supermajority or defend against one. We figure out which races we need to go into to support with tactics and resources to make that happen. This is where the right wing has been building power for decades, no matter who’s been in the White House. And a lot of things that I think people remember, like the bathroom bill, the Stand Your Ground gun laws, the Flint, Michigan water crisis—those are all things that happened under an Obama presidency because the right wing had taken over state legislatures. This is where the rubber meets the road on policy and where we have to focus if we want to build back our democracy.VirginiaI mean, that’s weirdly reassuring because if those horrible things could happen under an Obama presidency, it means another Trump presidency wouldn’t necessarily have the impact that we’re all fearing, if we can make this progress in the State legislatures.MelissaYes. States will be a best line of defense if Trump is to win the presidency. Because states are the places where we can protect a lot of our rights and even advance them. Michigan ’22 is a great example. Michigan is a state where The States Project has been working since 2018 and making gains each year. But in 2022, we were finally able to help flip the State House and the State Senate—both of them flipped by one seat. Both of those seats were won by fewer than 400 votes. And with that trifecta—meaning Gretchen Whitmer in the governor’s mansion, and majorities in both the State House and the State Senate—Michigan has been able to codify the right to abortion, pass free breakfast and lunch for public school children, end right to work laws so unions can be strong again, and they passed the strongest climate bill in the country last fall—stronger than New York’s or California’s. All of that is because of one seat majorities in the state legislature. And again, not with politicians you will have heard of, but with that power shift comes real policy shift that changes people’s lives in Michigan and becomes a model for the rest of the country about what is possible when we elect people who are focused on improving lives.VirginiaSo tell us which states you’re focusing on for 2024. We’re going to put a poll in the show notes so that we can vote on where our Giving Circle should focus our energy.MelissaGreat. Yes. So we will be in Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania to defend new majorities that we recently were able to win.All those majorities won on very slim margins. In fact, the ones that I just mentioned in Michigan were the largest margins of those three states. In Minnesota, we were able to flip the State House by 191 votes. And in Pennsylvania, the State Senate, we flipped 12 seats, and the last one was won by 63 votes. VirginiaOh my gosh. MelissaSo what I really want to tell the Burnt Toast crowd is that each Giving Circle really matters in this work. If every piece of the basketweave isn’t there, these are the margins that we’re winning or losing on. So we’ll be back to defend in those states.And in addition, in Pennsylvania, we’ll be working on the Pennsylvania Senate as well to try to get to a tie there. Only half the seats are up so we’re looking for a tie in 2024. That will help us set up for 2026 flip. We’ll also be in Arizona to try to flip both chambers. We are two seats away from a flip in each chamber, one seat away from a tie. And that margin has held for the past few years. We are really, really close to flipping Arizona. There’s a Democratic governor. It’s an incredibly important state, obviously. All the states are important, but it’s a presidential swing state, so we’ll be in Arizona. We will also be in New Hampshire to try to flip the State House and tie the State Senate. That’s another, of course, swing state. And then we’re in a few states to try to break right wing super majorities. So we’re in North Carolina today to break a right wing supermajority. We just need one seat in the State House to do that. And we’re in Kansas to try to break a right wing supermajority for a Democratic governor Laura Kelly. Breaking those super majorities means that a Democratic governor has veto power which is incredibly important. One illustration of that is in Kansas where we saw voters come to the polls in Kansas and reject abortion restrictions, but the state legislature passed them anyway. When the governor vetoed them, they overturned her veto because of the supermajority. So if we’re able to break that supermajority those vetoes can stand and that’s a really important power shift that needs to happen in Kansas. Especially because the will of the voters is being completely ignored. We will also be in Nevada to try to build a supermajority against a right wing governor who vetoes everything. We’d love to be able to overturn those vetoes. And then in Wisconsin, we are going to be working to flip the assembly, which is what they call their state house. And Wisconsin has new maps and this is the first time that we actually see a path to shifting power there because of those new maps that are fairer than they’ve been in years in Wisconsin. So that’s a big lift, but an exciting new state for us to be in.VirginiaEvery state listed above is linked to its page on the State Project’s website so you can read up on them if you like. It turns out that Substack’s poll feature only lets me list 4 options, so here’s a Google Poll everyone can use to vote!Which state should BT support?If your state doesn’t get picked for the Burnt Toast giving circle, however, you can start your own giving circle to raise money for the state that you are most focused on. Melissa, tell folks how they do that.MelissaSo I should say a couple of things about Giving Circles. One is that it is often cheaper to change the balance of power in an entire State Chamber than it is to win a single competitive congressional seat. Congressional races cost millions and millions of dollars and state legislative races do not. So, if you think, “Well my Giving Circle won’t be big enough to make a difference,” I beg to differ. Because dollars at this level go so incredibly far. Whatever you are thinking about investing politically this year—because I know everyone is looking for a place where they can really have impact—think about having that impact and then inviting 10 other people to come in and match what you gave. You’ve just given 10 times what you individually are able to do. And that’s the beauty of Giving Circles. It’s the community coming together for collective power. I think it’s a real antidote for that isolation and helplessness that a lot of us tend to feel when we watch what’s happening on the national scene. I should also say this, because I think it’s really important: Last year, Congress passed about 30 bills. Michigan, with that new trifecta, passed 321. This is absolutely where things are moving. If you care about Congress, you should care about state legislatures, because state legislatures draw the district lines that decide who goes to Congress in 70 percent of the country.If you care about the Supreme Court, you should care about state legislatures because the Supreme Court doesn’t write laws, they rule on laws that are coming out of state legislatures. It was a Mississippi law that took down Roe and if that one hadn’t done it, there were 16 other states that had queued up abortion bans right after Kavanaugh was confirmed with the explicit purpose of rising up to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe. Those laws are coming from state legislatures. If you care about the presidency, you should care about state legislatures because not only do state legislators decide who can vote and when and how and when to purge the rolls or close polling places, but also because the path that the Trump team tried to steal the presidency and 2020 ran directly through state legislatures. It wasn’t senators or congresspeople that Trump called to the Oval Office in December of 2020, it was state legislators from Michigan and Arizona and Pennsylvania. He was asking them to change their electoral college votes because state legislatures are in charge of their state’s elections. And what I say to everyone who starts a Giving Circle at any level is that they’ve turned on the porch light for strategic political giving and that is a gift to everyone in their networks—their friends, their families and their neighbors—because everyone is looking for that right now. So I really appreciate the Burnt Toast community having a Giving Circle. I hope folks will join. I should also mention that in 2023, the Burnt Toast Giving Circle helped us focus on Virginia where we were able to defend the State Senate and flip the House of Delegates, so that there is a wall in front of Governor Youngkin’s rightwing agenda. There were a lot of articles about Governor Youngkin and his national ambitions and his plan for an abortion ban in Virginia last fall. But you haven’t read much about him lately and that is because the legislature has blocked everything that he’s trying to do, and that was partly because of the Burnt Toast Giving Circle. VirginiaGood work us! Yes, yes.MelissaStart a States Project Giving circle at statesproject.org if you’ve got your own crew, and just don’t give into the helplessness and despair. We do not have to be witnesses to what is happening in our country. We can absolutely be active participants to make it better. VirginiaI mean, I feel so much better when I talk to you about this. There is a clear path, this is a thing we can all do. It’s doable. We can do this and we just need to come together and make it happen. Thank you so much for hopping on to talk about this. I’m excited to see which state Burnt Toast picks to focus on (vote here!) and to hear from everybody starting their own Giving Circles. Keep in touch. We want to know what you’re doing and what you’re focusing on.MelissaAmazing. Thank you so much. VirginiaThanks, Melissa.---The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay who runs @SellTradePlus and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!56