[Note: For some of these links, they might not work if you're not an OKCupid member. I'll try to tell the story so the links are not strictly necessary.]

Over on OKCupid there was a thread on, of all topics, whether or not to lie to one's children and tell them there's a Santa Claus. I chimed in, and the userpic OKC chose to represent me was this photo.

One of the posters decided that I was a hypocrite, because I clearly was espousing honesty while lying -- that is to say, I clearly DO hate my body, because I'm fat. I engaged her for a while until it became clear she was trolling, or just someone unacceptably bigoted to warrant my attention. Some of my friends there engaged her and came to my defense.

And then the coolest thing happened. The bigot wrote a post titled "Obese people shouldn't accept their bodies". Well, that's not the cool thing. The cool thing has been the reactions.

One person posted a macro of some celebrities who've gotten fat, captioned 'FAT PEOPLES IN UR INTARNETZ KILLIN UR BONERZ N TAKIN UP UR SPACE and explaining why the bigot's position was not okay to her.

Then it got better. Hot fat women started posting cheesecake photos of themselves.

One woman said it was "in the spirit of serenejournal", aww.

One made a macro of herself that said "KISS MY BIG FAT JIGGLY ASS".

One was dressed as a sexy Christmas present.

This charmed me no end.

Anyway, I subsequently wrote a post about healthism (thanks, firecat, for giving me language around that whole thing) that I hope becomes part of the dialogue, but mostly, I'm just feeling really happy and validated at the response my love of my body has engendered in these folks.

Thank you, clawfoot, for the party you threw in my dream last night. epi_lj and okoshun were there, too, but epi_lj was out taking a bike ride when we all woke up in the slumber-party fort in the living room and you took me outside to see the white christmas lights in the snow, so thanks! :-)