I shouldn't have gone back

Ugh. Internet. Why do you do this to me.

Why do you let me attempt to engage people and not then block me from reading the follow-up comments.

The following happened on a post on Sociological Images about a series of Klondike commercials where people under go horrible endurance challenges to win an ice cream. In the one under discussion, two big burly biker men had to - gasp - HOLD HANDS for five seconds!

So I go and read the discussion, and see this.

"Also, regardless of my sexuality, I wouldn’t want to hold the hand of someone that is obese and that doesn’t abide by basic hygiene. I wouldn’t even do that for a klondike."

A challenger appears:


"Why wouldn’t you want to hold the hand of an obese person? Are you afraid you might catch fat cooties or something? Your comment is hateful and dehumanizing."

The reply:

"I don’t find fat people attractive. It’s fine they’re fat, whatever, don’t care. I just find them physically repulsive. Others may find them sexy or whatever, but not me. The men in the vid are not attractive to me, and therefore I would not want to hold either of their hands, even if I was one of them.
So, do you want to apologize or am I supposed to get aroused to only fat people now?"

I stared at this for a while, totally baffled at how that comment even begins to be a reply to the challenge. Holding hands equals sex now? It's "fine that they're fat" but they're physically repulsive, and that's totally not a contradiction in attitude?

I couldn't help myself. All I said was "there’s a massive chasm of spectrum between “find sexually attractive” and “find physically repulsive”." I really didn't intend to go back to the post. I just wanted to leave that there. I really couldn't believe that those were the only two categories that this person put people into - fuckable, or repulsive.

Of course, I went back. The discussion was interesting and there were a lot more comments, and this was their reply:

"And I find obese people both sexually unattractive and physically repulsive. Particularly the fellow on the left in the commercial.
I know some people have the same feelings toward non-obese people. That’s their right and I don’t see anything wrong with either opinion."

I just.....what do you even say?

The original challenger had also replied in the meanwhile:

"Please show me the sentence in my comment where I said that you have to only be aroused by fat people. Please show me the part in my comment where I said that you had to be aroused by anyone.
There is a big difference between being sexually attracted to someone and holding their hand for five seconds. You don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone to touch them. Try replacing the word “fat” with the word “gay” or “Jewish” in your sentence and see if you don’t sound bigoted."

And the final reply in the chain:

"non-fat LGBT and/or Jewish people aren’t disgusting to me, so long as they aren’t fat. A person’s sexuality or ethnicity has nothing to do with their obesity. The mere thought of touching a portly hand is sickening to me. Now, what does your comment have to do with the video?"

POINT






























HEAD

I had to archive this. I can't really process it. How do you even? How do you get into that mindset? How do you so completely miss the point? How do you put no possible middle ground between sexual hunger and complete revulsion? How do you not understand that it hurts to be told so casually that my body or others like mine are so sickening to you that five seconds of touching a hand would be too much to ask? And how do you not see a problem with finding other people PHYSICALLY REPULSIVE based on one characteristic just because you think there are people who would do the same refusal to touch a skinny person?

I just don't even know what to say. I'm not even angry. I really can't be. I hope it's a troll. But my goodness if it isn't worth writing down just to have a record of.