Kevin Smith Deemed Too Fat to Fly by Southwest Airlines

Kevin Smith boarded a Southwest Airlines flight last night from Oakland to Burbank. After his bag was up and he was seated (with the arm rests down), he was deemed a “safety risk” and thrown off the flight. While he did end up on another Southwest flight, he turned to Twitter to express his (reasonable and totally justified, in my opinion) anger.

The Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines fire storm began with one Tweet from @ThatKevinSmith:

“Dear @SouthwestAir – I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?”

And that was just the beginning. He went on to Tweet, “Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as “Silent Bob.”"

But that wasn’t all Southwest Airlines would hear from Silent Bob Kevin Smith. He got really, really pissed off and went on to tweet, “So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir. Wanna tell me I’m too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR.”

Even though he was deemed a “safety risk,” he did end up boarding another flight with Southwest Airlines, completely disproving that whole “you’re a safety risk” sentiment, Kevin Smith still didn’t stop tweeting about his horrendous experience with Southwest Airlines and even took a picture of himself sitting on his later flight.

“Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off! http://twitpic.com/1340gw”

“The @SouthwestAir Diet. How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!”

“Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank. Don’t worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.”

Southwest Airlines did eventually start tweeting back to Kevin Smith apologizing and wanting to make it up to him in some way:

“@ThatKevinSmith hey Kevin! I’m so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right, please follow so we may DM!”

And here is where my love for Kevin Smith goes much, much, much deeper. In fact, my heart could just about explode from Smith’s next tweet:

“Hey @SouthwestAir? Fuck making it right for me just ’cause I have a platform. I sat next to a big girl who was chastised for not buying an extra ticket because “all passengers deserve their space.” Fucking flight wasn’t even full! Fuck your size-ist policy. Rude…”

Regardless of the jokes Kevin Smith made in the bulk of his tweets, such as saying the plane was opened and he was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised, the real core issue here is a size-ist policy that is enforced not just by Southwest Airlines, but by all airlines. There is also a little thing we like to call fat phobia that exists and is the product of an increasing amount of ignorance, not just by corporations and businesses, but by the people behind them and the people who use them.

Just because a person is big, fat, plus size or any other words commonly used to describe people who do not fit within the body image standards set forth by media and advertising companies directed at all people–women, girls and men alike, does not mean that it is okay to treat them any differently than you would treat someone who does, in fact, mirror corporate beauty. What we saw go down through Twitter between Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines was not a safety risk in the least and it was not a policy being enforced due to him compromising the comfort, safety or well-being of the fellow passengers. It was a series of Southwest Airlines employees demonstrating fat phobia and casting one person on the flight out and embarrassing and fat shaming that person for no reason. This is not a one-time case; stuff like this is happening to bigger people every single day and on all flights from all airlines. If anything, Kevin Smith spoke the truth for every single big person who has ever been singled out on an airline for no reason.

Book Review: Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner

I had been interested in reading Good in Bed for a few years now. I used to work at Borders Books & Music and of course, in such a setting, I came upon several hundreds of books that I had made mental notes of to read, forgot about them, life went on and on and on; but Good in Bed has always remained on my mental ‘must read’ book list. With a title like Good in Bed, I hardly cared about what the story was about, the book cover and name alone eluded to chick lit, which is super fabulous to indulge in after long days and just wanting to relax in the bath tub, in bed, on the couch, outside in a lawn chair, I just knew in my bones that the book was for me. Knowing very little about the book at first, I put it on my ‘to-read’ list on Goodreads and through the love of books and book sharing, an acquaintance who knew of me through a website I run mailed me a copy of the book.

Upon completion, and even a little less than halfway through the book I knew my intuition about this book was right; it was a book that I needed to read and it is a book that I will cherish for some time to come.

Good in Bed has been quite heavily compared to Bridget Jones’s Diary, which I am also a fan of and can see where people are coming up with the comparison, however, the main character of Good in Bed, Candace “Cannie” Shapiro, is by far superior in wit alone. Cannie is a hilarious, full of character woman who has used her sense of humor and sarcastic wit to cover up the negativism she has felt about herself for quite some time.

Cannie is a larger woman trying to live her life in a world of Hollywood and size 0’s and 00’s. Being a woman who wears a size larger than a 4 sometimes has a difficult time living their life in a world where if you turn on the television, open a magazine or go see a movie, you are bombarded with images of what everyone else thinks you should look like. Cannie gives us women whose left breast couldn’t fit into a size 0 shirt a voice–A brutally honest, no bullshit, real voice. Her life is pretty much together–She has a successful career as a reporter for a Philadelphia newspaper, an apartment she shares with her beloved dog, Nifkin, whose name gives you the first glimpse of how packed with humor this book is, and loving, supporting family and friends. She had broken up with her boyfriend Bruce a few months prior, saying that she had wanted a break and was happy with the decision she had made. However, Bruce is also a writer who had gotten a good gig writing a feature piece in a nationally published magazine every month entitled Good in Bed and his inaugural piece was about Cannie entitled “Loving a Larger Woman” where he compared her physique to Monica Lewinsky.

Cannie then decides that it’s time for her to make some positive life changes and enrolls in a weight loss study in hopes of losing weight. Also on her list of plans is that the man she broke up with but is now starting to miss and want back, will look at her after she loses her weight and want her back. After trying Weight Watchers and several other diets that didn’t work, the new weight loss study and course that Cannie decides to try involves weight loss drugs which seem promising. At her classes, she meets the doctor who is running the course, Dr. K who later becomes a great friend of hers and possible love interest.

Through the story, Cannie goes through ups and downs when it comes to coming to terms with the Bruce debacle and things only get worse for her when Bruce’s father dies unexpectedly. Through her means of trying to comfort him, but him only pushing her further and further away and the next few months of columns he writes for the magazine praise a new girlfriend Bruce has in tow, Cannie begins taking a closer look at her life and figuring out through the never ceasing anger she has for Bruce and that in reality, she isn’t angry with Bruce, she is still angry at her father from her childhood years who abandoned her and his family which in turn has transformed her siblings and even herself, regarding how she feels about herself and her weight. At an early age, Cannie’s father would introduce people to his daughter and say that while she wasn’t a real beauty, she made up for it in brains and would also tell her that no one would want to see her naked and that she was too fat. Cannie’s father, whom she calls The Original Abandoner becomes the person in her life who she realizes she had given too much power to.

Through the steps Cannie takes to make her life better, she meets a woman who she was scheduled to do an interview with, Maxi Ryder, a Hollywood actress who Cannie later finds out also has problems of her own and just because you may be rich and skinny, it doesn’t mean that you’re happy. Cannie’s life forever changes through the pages of Good in Bed, some good and means for celebration and some bad, but by reading Good in Bed, you realize that you can’t make someone love you, how you look to someone physically holds no barrier to how they may feel about you, weight is not something to be hung up about because there is so much more good in the world that you could be experiencing instead of standing in front of the mirror wishing you could be slimmer, and that while things in your life may seem hopeless, the people who love you the most are going to be there to help you through it.

Cannie does indeed become a slimmer version of herself towards the end of the book, in a time of utter despair, and it is then that it doesn’t really matter because she has bigger problems in her life that need to be tended to. The people who love you do not love you because you may be a size 0 or have long, shimmering blonde hair. The people who love you are there for you when you need it the most, they are the ones who can see you at your worst and love you just as much as they did when seeing you at your best and that is a life lesson that Jennifer Weiner hit spot on.

Good in Bed is an excellent book that makes you laugh and makes you cry. It makes you look at your own life and how you see yourself and realize that just by being yourself, you’re good enough for anyone and the problems in your life that you don’t think you can make it through are the ones that make you who are you and with the love and support of your family and friends, you can get through anything.

Rating:

Babeland Knows Women

When you think of sex shops, most often you’re probably thinking of shady-looking shops off the corner of a highway with a large “Do not come in here unless you are over 21 years of age” sign on the front of an entrance that looks more like a garage door. These shops are also the ones that have those creepy private booths in the back that most definitely cannot be too hygienic, given what men do in there. These are the sex stores that are targeted more towards men and of course, are the standard because only men like sex, right? Wrong!

The success of these types of shops can only be measured by the amount of competition surrounding them, which in most cases aren’t many, if any at all. If you live in a suburban neighborhood, you most likely have one sex toy store in your area or even one shop for several areas and of course, these are the “male-ego” shops; the shops with jizz rooms, blow up dolls and many, many videos all building up the fantasies that women enjoy sex with their twin sisters, having cum adorn every inch of their faces and several, several different men at the same time.

As a woman who lives in a town with no sex toy shops whatsoever and having to drive an hour to the nearest one, which of course is a disgusting-looking shop catered to men, I wondered, isn’t there a place out there that doesn’t objectify women? A place that celebrates the libido and doesn’t treat it like something dirty that women should be ashamed of, but for men, it’s the standard? I wanted a place that had the nerve to treat me as sexual being and as a woman without objectifying me.

Because of the status of the standard shops, I normally look online for any bedroom toys I may be interested in purchasing and because of that, I stumbled upon Babeland.

The title alone may lead men to think “Oh wow, hot sexy babes? I’m in!” and for women, it could make you think “Babeland! Woman land! My land!” which is what is what I first thought. Their website alone is very woman-oriented. It’s sleek, shiny, it doesn’t have ads or pictures of women dressed in bondage and being treated purely as sex objects so their man can have a good time. It’s straight forward, but has a womanly touch, which is to be expected since Babeland was founded by women for women with the motto Sex toys for a passionate world.

With their fifth store opening nation-wide in Brooklyn, New York, positioned in between a maternity store called Bump and an organic restaurant that sells an herbal formula to boost your libido, Babeland gave the press a deeper look into what Babeland is all about.

They are a woman-friendly store where strollers are welcome, there is a baby changing station in the restroom, kids are more than welcome, the founder being a mother herself, since the store is set up so nicely and so friendly that kids are welcome due to the inconspicuously detailed products. They also have events scheduled which include seminars for women on sexuality and body image, private workshops and parties. It does not get any better than Babeland.

Book Review: All About Vee by C. Leigh Purtill

Veronica May is a pretty standard teenager. At eighteen years old, she is bubbly, caring and has a few great friends known as ‘The Vees,’ named simply after the first letter in all of their first names. She is a confident actress, star of her school and city theater in her hometown of Chester, Arizona and she is absolutely gorgeous–All 217 pounds of her.

While Veronica loves her life in Chester, she loves the spotlight even more and craves the success that as a big city actor, she knows she could achieve.

Once her father, a widower librarian, decides to finally marry his girlfriend of ten years and the city theater casting a play in which there are no female lead roles, Veronica feels as if she is being replaced not only in her household, but in her whole city. With her father’s reluctance to talk to Veronica about her deceased mother and provide his child with any closure, she decides to make her dream of being a successful actress a reality after finding some old letters that her mother had written her father in the attic. Veronica learns that her mother was also an aspiring actress who left her life in a little city in pursuit of becoming successful in LA–And that is just where Veronica heads to start her big city life.

Veronica drives to LA and stays with one of her childhood friends and fellow Vee and soon learns that life in LA is nothing like she had imagined and that in order to be a successful actress, you don’t merely have to be good at acting. While learning the ropes of this new city and spending her life savings on head shots and a myriad of acting, yoga and movement classes, Veronica realizes that being confident and talented are the least sought after attributes when it comes to being an actress.

Struggling with sending head shots, waiting for call backs and going on cattle calls and auditions, Veronica starts working as a barista and makes friends with two other fellow actors. She loves her job at the coffee shop and her new friends, but her attraction to the manager is also weighing down hard on her path to stardom.

All About Vee is a must-read book for all young teenage girls, in my opinion, for the simple fact that Purtill illustrates how women who aren’t a size 0 are treated not only in LA and not only because they are striving to become actresses, but all across this country. She gives the weight epidemic that plagues so many young girls a story and luckily, Veronica does not change a thing about her weight throughout the book, which I was impressed with.

Through her time in LA, Veronica learns that those who you think are your friends can change and become people you don’t want to associate yourself with, that people can be brutal and backstabbing and to always remember who the people that love you are because those will be the people who want and help you to succeed in life.

Rating:

Is Bigger Better?

Considering the amount of junk mail that one of my five email addresses receives in just one day, you can easily see the influence mass marketing has over men; and that is just one example. If you also take in the amount of late night infomercials and in the same respect that the media is always targeting women to look better and be skinnier, they are also targeting men to perform better making the generalization that.

Viagra, penis pumps, cock rings, penis weights, homemade penis enlargement devices, medications and so on. These are the options available to men who wish they had a little more in their pants and while some methods may work, you have to ask yourself–Are all of these devices really necessary?

Statistically, most men wish that they were carrying a little more and the only conclusion I can come up with is that the media really has a hold on them to the point where they feel inadequate and if they don’t feel confident in what they’re packing, there’s no way for them to feel fully confident in the bedroom.

There comes a time in every relationship when you have to sit down and have the sex talk–Just be sure that you’re not having it while having sex. For me, I go through a rundown of what I liked, what I wanted, what I didn’t want and etcetera right after I had sex; I figure it’s at a time when obviously both of our minds our on sex and of course as most women know, we get very chatty after an orgasm. One of the topics that may come up, if you have a particularly open and chatty guy, is his size.

You can tell immediately how a particular guy feels about himself just how he words statements pertaining to his package. By using the term average, you can tell that he may not be particularly satisfied with himself. By using the term well endowed, you’re sleeping with an intelligent man who first of all, knows what well endowed means. He may feel great about himself, so if he isn’t living up to your standards, it’s important to keep all talk about his size light and maybe choose to have this conversation over dinner or a nice dessert so he doesn’t get defensive about himself.

But what happens if you’re having the opposite problem? It doesn’t happen too often and funnily enough, not as often as some men would like to think, but occasionally you run into that special guy that just has too much to offer you. If you run into a case when you’re in bed and are suddenly greeted with the Bionic Man, what’s a woman to do?

Scream, run for your life! On a more realistic note, it is definitely something that needs to be talked about, especially since in some cases, a woman can feel intense pain while having sex.

The average woman’s vaginal canal is only 4 to 5 inches in length, maybe 6 inches, so when you’re going through your junk mail and see that advertisements for penis enlargement devices and medications targeted towards men are telling men that they could and should be 8, 9 or even 10 inches long, you know right away that a man that size not only couldn’t work, but if he tried to really go at it, it would be excruciating for the woman to go through.

While some men may feel empowered to be wielding around a penis the size of a sword, us women know that that simply is not what we go after and more importantly, it is important for men to know this because they are still being told that they aren’t big enough by every product and medication out there who are looking to lure men in to buying something from them.

- – - – - – - – - -

This is a new category, so if you would like us to talk about a particular subject regarding sex or if you are looking for some tell-it-like-it-is sex advice, leave it in the comments or use the contact form to email me.