Emma Hoglund



Emma Hoglund

Methods

Dr. Vigilant

8 March 2009

Starving for Community: The Religion of Thinness and Pro-Ana Websites

INTRODUCTION

In his text The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber outlines the process by which certain aspects of Christianity were “incorporated and transposed into the calculating, routinized, measured modes of life that enabled the emergence of modern industrial capitalism.”[1] The transmutation of religion is also obvious in other spheres of life, including such areas as politics and entertainment. Indeed, the modern obsession with football has certainly developed spiritual-like dimensions with specific rituals, sacred spaces, myths and lore, saints, and even sacred holy days.[2] This religious transmutation also extends to female conceptions of body image and the body image obsession that is rampant in today’s western society.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Now that the western devotion to thinness has reached epic proportions, scholars have begun to recognize the religious dimensions of this devotion. Dr. Michelle Lelwica coined the phrase “Religion of Thinness” to describe the “quasi-religious quality and function of the pursuit of thinness among many women in this country.”[3] Lelwica writes, “the obsessive, imaginary, sacrificial, ritualizing, ascetic, penitential, dogmatic, and devotional aspects of anorexia and bulimia all resemble certain features of traditional Christianity.”[4] Although seemingly secular, the desire for the slender ideal goes beyond the desire to lose pounds and employs its own set of rituals, myths, convictions, and icons that “encourage women to find meaning and purpose in their lives through the pursuit of the ultimate body.”[5]

In past research, I employed Max Weber’s “Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism” hypothesis to better understand the influence of certain Protestant beliefs, ideas, and values on contemporary American women’s manic attempts to control and reduce their bodies. In particular, I analyzed how, in a society largely oriented by Protestant ideas and values, the female body became the site of women’s “worldly asceticism” – the place where they work out their sense of vocation or “calling” – and a primary indicator of their “salvation.”

In today’s technological age, the Religion of Thinness is perpetuated on a variety of websites known collectively as Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia. These websites seek to promote the Religion of Thinness, often with blatant religious overtones. In this paper, I will explore one of these Pro-Ana websites, proanalifestyle., in the hopes of continuing and broadening my research regarding body image obsession and its relationship to the Protestant Ethic. More specifically, I am particularly interested in outlining the ways in which this website functions in a pseudo-religious capacity and what implications this has in a larger Weberian perspective.

METHODS

While there are numerous websites devoted to Ana and Mia, I will narrow my focus to proanalifestyle.. While it would certainly be a relevant endeavor to compare and contrast Ana and Mia websites, I am more interested in narrowing my research to one site so as to identify how it functions in a religious-like capacity, and the scope of this paper is particularly conducive to the in-depth exploration of just one website. To this end, I will examine proanalifestyle. beginning with the homepage.

FINDINGS

Upon entering the homepage for proanalifestyle., I am struck by two features. First, the text is surrounded by wide pink borders. With pink being the quintessential color of femininity, I am not surprised. The Religion of Thinness seeks to perpetuate the idea that slenderness is synonymous with beauty and femininity and using a pink-based color scheme subconsciously forces this connection. Second, the website’s motto, “Anorexia is a lifestyle, not a disease,” is brazenly posted at the top of the page. Next to the wording is a “cause” ribbon similar to the “Support Our Troops” ribbons suggesting that anorexia is not the disease that psychiatrists and psychologists with their DSM definitions would lead us to believe. Rather it is a cause, a lifestyle that women chose to pursue.

There is a serious disconnect between the women who pursue the Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia lifestyles and the doctors, relatives, and friends of these women who understand their condition in purely medical terms. Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia devotees believe that they have willingly committed themselves to a positive lifestyle, and Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia websites feed this illusion. Most women suffering from bulimia and anorexia will not find support for their “lifestyle” choices among their family and peers, and that is what these websites provide: an accepting, encouraging community centered around the Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia lifestyle.

Below the motto and within the saccharine pink borders, is the message board where the site manager posts important Pro-Ana news. Currently, at the top of the list, is a discussion of the myths concerning the Pro-Ana lifestyle. Unconvincingly, the author attempts to persuade readers, among other things, that the name “Ana” does not necessarily refer to anorexia and that the Pro-Ana lifestyle is not consciously promoted in religious-like terminology. As will be demonstrated later, traditional religious conceptions play a central role in promoting the Pro-Ana lifestyle. Alongside this text, with “thinspirational” images as bookends, are the “Thin Commandments,” which are obviously structured as a reflection of the Biblical “Ten Commandments.” These thin commandments include:

1) If you aren’t thin, you aren’t attractive

2) Being thin is more important than being healthy

3) You must but clotes [sic, presumably “buy clothes], cut your hair, take

laxatives anything to make yourself look thinner

4) Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty

5) Thou shall not eat fattening food withoud [sic] punishing afterwards

6) Thou shall count calories and restrict intake accordingly

7) What the scale says is the most important thing

8) Losing weight is good, gaining weight is bad

9) You can never be to [sic] thin

10) Being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and success.[6]

Not only are several of these commandments phrased to mirror the original Ten Commandments, but they also reflect some aspects of Weber’s conception of the Protestant Ethic. In particular, the tenth Thin Commandment suggests that “being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and success.” The need for physical signs of success is one that is deeply embedded in the Protestant Ethic. Weber writes, “good works are indispensable as signs of election…good works serve to banish the anxiety surrounding the question of one’s salvation.”[7] As a movement devoted to predestination, early followers of Protestantism, especially Calvinism, were obsessed with identifying signs of their status with God. As time progressed and life became more secularized, however, these signs developed more societal significance. Instead of representing signs of God’s election, they began to represent personal and communal success. Likewise, women may not seek thinness as a sign of Christian salvation; instead these signs represent a more worldly salvation.

Another feature of the website is the webmistress’s diary. Currently, there are only two entries, both of which herald the Pro-Ana lifestyle. The first entry outlines what encouraged Jade, the webmistress, to become anorexic and what she personally gained as a result. She writes, “I started at 170 lbs, and now, I’m down to 145. But that’s not all. I’m going down to 100, and eventually to 75. My BMI will be 11, and life will be perfect.” This striving for perfection is another aspect of the Protestant Ethic. Indeed, the early Calvinist, devoted to the notion of predestination, would have striven for perfection, as sin would have been considered a sign of God’s disfavor. While the women who write and read through the material on this site may not be preoccupied with ideas of sin and salvation in the traditional sense, they are certainly concerned with perfection and presenting the image of perfection. And certainly these women are seeking “salvation” in the sense that they assume that once they reach their weight goals, they will reach a happiness not possible at their present weight. Jade writes, “I’m noticing already, people are talking to me, they like me, and guys are flirting with me. They never did when I weighed 170…never! They hated me, the only form of attention they gave me, was when they told me I was fat. And well…they don’t do that anymore! They like me, and when I reach my goal, and weigh 75 lbs, they’ll like me even more. And then life will be perfect.” This mentality not only suggests a worldly asceticism but also a worldly salvation. While traditional Protestants practiced “worldly asceticism” in order to reach other-worldly salvation, modernity has seen a transition away from this. Instead of practicing worldly asceticism in hopes of a salvific afterlife, these women are practicing this-worldly asceticism for this-worldly salvation, which is dictated by the numbers on the scale. And these numbers can never be too low. Anorexic women weighing less than 100 pounds often consider themselves imperfect and continue to strive to reach even greater weight loss goals.

This obsession for perfection is also reflected in the “Quotes” section of the website. Some of the quotations continue the Religion of Thinness theme. Some examples include, “An imperfect body is an imperfect soul,” “Sacrifice is giving up something good for something better,” “Thin is beautiful, even thinner is perfection,” and “Thin is perfection, I’ll die trying to achieve it.” These “quotes” continue the theme that thinness is akin to salvation and perfection. They may even function as mantras that women memorize and repeat to themselves when feeling the urge to “sin.” Not so very long ago women sought signs of election as proof of future salvation with God in heaven. As secularization has developed in modernity, so to have conceptions of salvation. Women are less likely to seek signs of their religious election, but rather focus their attention on salvation that is attainable in this world.

The most blatant religious references occur in a section of the website entitled “Religion.” In this section, Jade posts a variety of writings that concern thinness and religion. The first such post is a letter to “Ana” – the fairy-like personification of the Pro-Ana lifestyle. The letter is produced in full below. Jade writes:

Dear Ana,

I offer you my soul, my heart and my bodily functions. I give you all my earthly possessions.

I seek your wisdom, your faith and your feather weight. I pledge to obtain the ability to float, to lower my weight to the single digits, I pledge to stare into space, to fear food, and to see obese images in the mirror. I will worship you and pledge to be a faithful servant until death does us part.

If I cheat on you and procreate with Ronald McDonald, Dave Thomas, the colonel or that cute little dog, I will kneel over my toilet and thrust my fingers deep in my throat and pray for your forgiveness.

Please Ana, don’t give up on me. I’m so weak, I know, but only you with your strength inside me will I become a woman worthy of love and respect. I’m begging for you not to give up, I’m pleading with my shallow breaths and my pale skin. I bleed for you, suffer leg pains, headaches and fainting spells. My love for you makes me dizzy and confused I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Men run when they see the love I have for you and never return. But they aren’t important to me all thats important is that you love me.

If you stay with me, I will worship you daily, I will run miles a day, come rain, snow, bitter cold or searing heat I will run from the pain and in fright. I will do 1,000 sit ups a day and lie to my family about what I eat and how I feel. I will stop weeping when I feel your warm arms embrace my shivering body. I will numb the hunger pains with razor blades and your strength.

Today, I renew our friendship and resolve to be faithful to you year long, life long. I begin each year with a 3 day fast in honor of you. If you give me the strength to fade away I will love you and worship you forever.

When I’m finally faded to nothing, when you’ve given me the gift of ending this torturous life. I will float on to the next world and be thin and beautiful payment for my undying love for you in this world.

I ask only one more thing you, please Ana, remove me from this hell, from this world ASAP. Please take away this hatred for my pain and allow me to be free and light.

Love Always, Worthless One

This letter is rife with religious connotations and implications. Jade describes a religious-like devotion that requires ritual, penitence, devotion, prayer, sacrifice, and confession. In an increasingly secularized world, trends like Pro-Ana provide a religious-like outlet to modern women outside of traditional organized religion. In addition, while body image issues are often described as a result of women attempting to cater to the physical desires of men, this letter suggests something quite different. Those committed to the Pro-Ana lifestyle exhibit a nun-like devotion – one that requires absolute commitment. Like a nun’s commitment to be a bride of heaven, Jade and other Pro-Ana supporters pledge themselves to Ana and Ana alone. Male relationships are of little importance, and this challenges the commonly held notion that women torture their bodies purely to appeal to male conceptions of beauty. As the letter suggests, the Pro-Ana lifestyle has little to do with pleasing a man and more to do with a strictly female sense of fulfillment both personally and socially. In fact, this sort of physical asceticism is more akin to the female Catholic ascetics of medieval Europe. These women, including Catherine of Siena, often performed extreme acts of physical depravation in order to wield power in the male-dominated Catholic world. Similarly, these modern women appear to be more concerned with fulfilling some personal salvific goal than attracting male attention.

Following the letter to Ana, Jade posts a letter from Ana and another from Mia, the personification of bulimia. These letters seem to personify Ana and Mia in the image of the vengeful God of the Hebrew Bible. They expect blood sacrifice and undying devotion. Ana writes:

I expect you to drop your calorie intake and up your exercise. I will push you to the limit. You must take it because you cannot defy me…I want to see your blood, to see it fall down your arm, and in that split second you will realize you deserve whatever pain I give you.

Ana and Mia expect sin to be followed by guilt and retribution. They are unforgiving and demand perfection. They make demands and compel devotion. Mia writes:

Sometimes I will tell you not to eat it, and you will listen. Other times, you will disobey me and devour the entire cake. Then I will really make you feel guilty. You should have followed my orders! Now go and throw that cake up you FAT COW!

Clearly Ana and Mia function as goddesses in the Religion of Thinness. Ana and Mia have more in common with the Hebrew God that ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac than the compassionate and forgiving God that Jesus and his follower pledged devotion to. This vengeful, controlling personification of Ana and Mia is used to inspire devotion and commitment in the followers of the Pro-Ana movement.

To further the religious theme, Jade posts the Ana Pslam, the Ana Creed, and the Ana Laws. The Ana Pslam is modeled after Psalm 23:

Strict is my diet

I must nog want

It maketh me lie down at night hungry

It leadeth me past the confectioners

It trieth my will power

It leadeth me in the paths of alternation for my figure sake

Yeah, though I walk trough the aisles of the pastry department, I will buy no sweet rolls for they are fattening

The cakes and the pies, they tempt me

Before me is a table set with green beens and lettuce

I filleth my stomach with liquids

My day's quota runneth over

Surely calorie and weight charts will follow me, all days of my life

And I will dwell in the fear of the scales forever

The Ana Creed, like the Ana Psalm, reflects a specific Christian tradition – the Apostle’s Creed. The Ana Creed reads as follows:

I believe in control, the only force mighty enough to bring onrder in the chaos that is my world.

I believe that I am the most vile, worthless an useless person ever have to existed on this planet, and that I am totally onworthy of anyone's time and attention.

I believe in oughts, musts and shoulds, as unbreakable laws to determine my daily behaviour.

I believe in perfection and strive to attain it.

I believe in salvation trough starvation.

I believe in calorie counters as the inspired word of god, and memorise then accordingly.

I believe in bathroom scales as an indicator of my daily succeses and failures.

I believe in hell, cause sometimes I think I live in it.

I believe in a wholly black an withe world, the losing of weight, recrimination for sins, the alonegation of the body and a life ever fasting.

As is obvious, both the Ana Psalm and the Ana Creed are modeled on Christian texts. In fact, I am somewhat surprised not to find a prayer modeled after the Lord’s Prayer. Psalm 23 and the Apostle’s Creed are two quintessential Christian devotions often used as a means of strengthening and centering faith. Likewise the Pro-Ana movements are modeling their own devotions off of these faith-inspiring texts of Christianity.

CONCLUSIONS

The Pro-Ana lifestyle allows women to fill a religious void in an increasingly secularized world.[8] Through the use of blatantly religious discourse, Ana promotes a religious-like devotion in her followers that is similar and yet quite distinct from traditional religion. In addition, while many scholars and feminists have focused on the male component that contributes to women’s obsession with body weight, my examination of the Pro-Ana lifestyle seemingly contradicts this, at least on the surface. The followers of this movement seem far more committed to a personal salvation with Ana, one that eschews relationships with men. Ultimately, Pro-Ana websites allow women to validate their quasi-religious devotion to anorexia in a communal way that provides both fellowship and “faith”-affirmation.

-----------------------

[1] Michelle Mary Lelwica, Starving for Salvation: The Spiritual Dimensions of Eating Problems among American Girls and Women. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 37.

[2] The following essays explore the “spiritual” dimensions of football: “God and Games In Modern Culture” by Lonnie D. Kliever, “The Super Bowl as Religious Festival” by Joseph L. Price, and “Through the Eyes of Mircea Eliade: United States Football As a Religious ‘Rite De Passage’” by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore.

[3] Michelle Lelwica, Jenna McNallie, and Emma Hoglund, “From California to Calcutta: Spreading the White-Western Devotion to Female Thinness – A Feminist Postcolonial Analysis,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Publication forthcoming. Religion of Thinness was first developed in Lelwica’s text Starving for Salvation: The Spiritual Dimensions of Eating Problems among American Girls and Women (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) and defined in her forthcoming book The Religion of Thinness: Challenging Our Culture’s Devotion to Slenderness and Practicing Peace with Your Body.

[4] Lelwica, Starving for Salvation, 7.

[5] Lelwica, McNalie and Hoglund, From California to Calcutta, 3.

[6] All quotations from the website are verbatim – including grammatical, punctuational, and spelling mistakes.

[7] Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Trans. Stephen Kalberg. (Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company, 2002), 68.

[8] Previous collaborative work I completed with Michelle Lelwica and Jenna McNallie explores how the Religion of Thinness is becoming an increasingly global phenomenon. See: Michelle Lelwica, Jenna McNallie, and Emma Hoglund, “From California to Calcutta: Spreading the White-Western Devotion to Female Thinness – A Feminist Postcolonial Analysis,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Publication forthcoming.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download