Escape Artists

PseudoPod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Bdoomed on May 16, 2015, 05:01:28 PM

Title: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Bdoomed on May 16, 2015, 05:01:28 PM
Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight (http://pseudopod.org/2015/05/16/pseudopod-438-baby-weight/)

by Sarah Benkin (http://peppermintmonster.com/)

“Baby Weight” was first published on Bogleech (http://bogleech.com/). “Baby Weight started out as a story about eating and about the way disorders can hide themselves under other names. It turned into something all its own, but the thoughts that gave birth to it are still in there”

They say that SARAH BENKIN lost her right hand gambling with the devil. They say she won it back, but it wasn’t her hand anymore. They say that, but you shouldn’t believe them. Sarah Benkin makes words and pictures, not always at the same time. Her most recent project Then It Was Dark is a comic anthology (comic as in words and pictures and panels and speech bubbles, not comic as in funny, though there is a little humor to be found there) of personal paranormal experiences, true ghost stories, friend of a friend tales and brushes with the unknown. She is the editor and has a story of her own. She’s also recently started a webcomic of freeform short horror fiction that can be found at Ragpicker (http://www.ragpickercomic.com/). Her main website, Peppermint Monster (http://peppermintmonster.com/), has links to all her other work, most of which is not for children.

Your reader this week is – EVE.

Check out 01 Publishing’s submissions call for WHISPERS FROM THE ABYSS Volume 2 – HERE! (http://01publishing.com/submissions/open-call-whispers-from-the-abyss-vol-2/)


“7:00am – Glass of room temperature lemon water with cayenne pepper

8:00am – Steamed, purred carrot, half. Eaten at desk

10:00am – 1/2 cup coconut milk. No added sugar. Four bites porridge.

I watch the women from the phone bank while they eat. One is nibbling on a small, grey puck of a breakfast sandwich. The kind that you buy, store, microwave and eat out of a white paper wrapper. I can’t look away. I watch while she’s pushing bite after bite of the thing through her greasy, lipsticked mouth.”

(http://pseudopod.org/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/audio_mp3_button.png)
Listen to this week's Pseudopod. (http://media.libsyn.com/media/pseudopod/Pseudo438_BabyWeight.mp3)
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Schrodingrr on May 17, 2015, 03:56:04 AM
Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!
(Well done)  ;D
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: LucretiaBorgia on May 17, 2015, 01:59:28 PM
Really enjoyed this story. I was ready to get all pissy about this woman's narcissism and fat fascism, but then listened on. This is what *all* of those obsessive dieters and so-called nutrition experts sound like to me. I'm a fat girl, I'll never be "beautiful" but I'm never going to be so vain as to go this far. It was dark and topical and gave me a feel of "Tales of the Unexpected" (remember them?). Good job, Ms Benkin.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Kaa on May 18, 2015, 12:16:00 AM
I guess this is appropriate for this story, but this is making me want to gag. Oy. Not done, yet, either. About halfway through.

[EDIT] Ooookaaaaaay. I think I may skip dinner tonight.

[EDIT 2] And yeah, WONDERFUL reading by Eve. One of the best I've heard recently.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Whaletale on May 18, 2015, 03:14:30 PM
Ugh, that was GROSS!! I LOVED IT!!

What a wonderful story! Phenomenal reading as well, especially at the end.

Looks like I'm going to skip lunch today.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Wiggins on May 19, 2015, 01:50:52 PM
Agreed, I loved it!  This was one of the few Pseudopod stories where I almost had to stop listening to it, especially when
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
  Amazing story, and great narration!
Title: Re:
Post by: bounceswoosh on May 19, 2015, 10:13:26 PM
I wish it hadn't gone supernatural. It was more creepy as just a mother starving her daughter.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: PeanutsnBacon on May 21, 2015, 04:07:02 AM
This story was crazy creepy to me.  Thanks!
Title: Re:
Post by: Fenrix on May 26, 2015, 02:20:39 PM
Quote from: bounceswoosh on May 19, 2015, 10:13:26 PM

I wish it hadn't gone supernatural. It was more creepy as just a mother starving her daughter.


The narrator seems rather unreliable. I don't see why you can't have both.
Title: Re: Re:
Post by: bounceswoosh on May 26, 2015, 02:25:10 PM
Quote from: Fenrix on May 26, 2015, 02:20:39 PM
Quote from: bounceswoosh on May 19, 2015, 10:13:26 PM

I wish it hadn't gone supernatural. It was more creepy as just a mother starving her daughter.


The narrator seems rather unreliable. I don't see why you can't have both.
Yeah, I thought about that. I still would have preferred the story without it.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: zoanon on May 26, 2015, 07:15:29 PM
Quote from: Wiggins on May 19, 2015, 01:50:52 PM
Agreed, I loved it!  This was one of the few Pseudopod stories where I almost had to stop listening to it, especially when
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
  Amazing story, and great narration!

oooerr... I stopped listening way before that, it sounds like this story went to an interesting place but I cant go there with it.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Unblinking on May 27, 2015, 02:38:13 PM
I found this one very hard to listen to, and I was hoping it would end soon at any given moment.  It was certainly effective, but I guess not really the kind of horror I enjoy listening.  Infanticide and torture of children is one of my few squick-points.  It doesn't so much matter that the baby didn't apparently die, as that her actions would've had the effect of murder on an ordinary baby.

Besides the squick-point, this one was a little too.. what's the word... on-the-nose, maybe, for postpartum depression.  "That thing you produced isn't human at all, it's a horrible parasitic monster that will literally bleed you dry, and your body isn't your own anymore, it's been forever altered by that horrible little monster and you will never feel like yourself again" is a little too close to the mindset some women may fall into in postpartum depression, and I find it thematically troubling that in this particular story the baby is LITERALLY a horrible parasitic monster that will apparently bleed its mother dry, seeming to give a message that yes you are right to be depressed and horrified and disheartened and bleak after giving birth because look at the evil you have wrought.  I'm assuming the author is intending to send no such message, but I found it hard to listen to separate the reality from the story at that point, and I felt the story reinforced the reasoning behind real depression in ways that make it very hard to like the story for.

Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Fenrix on May 27, 2015, 03:04:12 PM
Is it validating post partum depression, or is it conveying what it feels like to someone who has not had that experience?

Quote
Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.
Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.
And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern—it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Unblinking on May 28, 2015, 01:29:29 PM
Quote from: Fenrix on May 27, 2015, 03:04:12 PM
Is it validating post partum depression, or is it conveying what it feels like to someone who has not had that experience?

Quote
Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.
Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.
And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern—it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.

I feel like the author was aiming for the latter.  For me it came across more as the former.  I expect the difference between the two is a major of subjectivity, but I personally feel that for the baby to be a literal parasitic inhuman monster made it more the former than the latter.

The story had been squick-making before that, mind you, but before the reveal of baby-as-monster I wasn't troubled by the theme that was coming across, only squicked by the event of apparently inevitable infanticide.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: da_bill on May 28, 2015, 09:25:11 PM
I just heard this and felt a real need to comment on the success by the author because of how affective this story was.

I usually put a podcast on before I start my 15 min drive home from the train station. For the first time ever I had to pull over as soon as I left the motorway and found a safe place because after 10 minutes this had me crying and feeling bloody awful. The story, combined with brilliant narration, was horrifying in a very honest and real way. I did make a point of hearing the end but only once I was home and in a safe space.

Well done to the author and the narrator, but I couldn't listen to many stories like this because they're just too realistic and for me that is where the kind of horror that truly terrifies me comes from.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: shanehalbach on June 01, 2015, 04:02:30 PM
Wow. This was about as close as I've ever come to not being able to finish an episode. Since becoming a parent, the baby stuff hits me a lot harder than it used to.

Sometimes I wish I had a dash camera pointed at my face as I listen to podcasts. I think on this one I was squinting the whole time, like I was driving into a harsh wind. I felt like I needed to flinch away from the words.

At the end I wondered if there was going to be an outro. After the mic-drop final line, I couldn't think of anything one could say after that (and that's why Alasdair is the best!).
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Peppermint Monster on June 02, 2015, 03:43:26 PM
Hi! This is the author of the story. I'm really enjoying seeing the different reactions to it, even from those who didn't find it to their tastes.

Believe it or not, it wasn't until I was hearing the story read out loud (Eve did an amazing reading, didn't she? I was overjoyed to hear it) that I found myself thinking "I might have written a pretty gross story here." I'd thought of it as very harsh and abject in it's depiction of the body and its functions. But somehow it didn't occur to me how many people would react with pure nausea to it. Given the story's origins, I'm a little disturbed that I've made so many people skip meals. ;)

I'm a little hesitant to reply/address comments on the story just because I fear that once I've said "this is what I, the author intended here" I've killed the discussion a little by setting what the "right" interpretation of the story is...particularly on the postpartum depression ideas...that said, there is one comment I really wanted to reply to. Well, two actually. First this:

Quote from: shanehalbach on June 01, 2015, 04:02:30 PM
Wow. This was about as close as I've ever come to not being able to finish an episode. Since becoming a parent, the baby stuff hits me a lot harder than it used to.

Sometimes I wish I had a dash camera pointed at my face as I listen to podcasts. I think on this one I was squinting the whole time, like I was driving into a harsh wind. I felt like I needed to flinch away from the words.

I just wanted to say, though this may sound a little sadistic, reading this touched me quite a lot.

Quote from: LucretiaBorgia on May 17, 2015, 01:59:28 PM
Really enjoyed this story. I was ready to get all pissy about this woman's narcissism and fat fascism, but then listened on. This is what *all* of those obsessive dieters and so-called nutrition experts sound like to me. I'm a fat girl, I'll never be "beautiful" but I'm never going to be so vain as to go this far.

It may not come as a surprise to people who've heard this story that there was a brief time in my life when I struggled with an eating disorder. The period of time when I was actually engaged in clear ED behavior fortunately did not last long, less than a year. But for a very, very long time after that I still had a highly unhealthy relationship with food and with my body. The difference was, I expressed it in behavior that I and others around me were able to see as normal. Bingeing and fasting is a clear sign of an eating disorder, but going on a series of different diets and frequently saying negative, disgusted things about your appearance is acceptable, even expected behavior for a woman.

It's taken me a very long time to get where I am now. It isn't that I've stopped being insecure. I've just learned to recognize how destructive the thinking patterns I used to have were. I've also come to notice how prevalent a lot of ED language and behavior can be found in "normal" diets and weight loss advice. "Cleansing" diets and the ethos of eating "clean" in particular have a great deal to do with the mindset of someone with an eating disorder, and nothing to do with health in any factual medical sense. Juice-based diets that promise to "flush out your system" while helping you lose weight by filling you with enough fiber, sugar and liquid to send you constantly to the bathroom are indistinguishable from laxative abuse in my eyes.

I'm not saying all diets are bad. There's nothing wrong with altering your diet to be healthier, to lower your blood pressure or to lose weight if that's what you want. It's the attitude of self-loathing, mortification of the body, of dieting as penance for being undesirable or as an attempt to reach an ideal of purity that disturbs me. Having been there, I know how much it hurts. It's a level of stress and strain that can break a person.

I hope that when you put quotes around "beautiful," it's because you meant it facetiously. Being fat doesn't stop you from being beautiful, desirable or lovable. <3
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: shanehalbach on June 02, 2015, 04:55:29 PM
Quote
though this may sound a little sadistic, reading this touched me quite a lot.

Though it may sound a little sadistic, I meant it as a compliment.  ;D

Re-reading my comment, it probably didn't come across as complimentary as I meant it. So allow me to expand:

When I said "Wow", I meant: "Wow, that was a good story."

When I said I almost couldn't finish it, I meant: "That story was brutally honest and written in a way that was close to home. I really felt like I understood where the MC was coming from, even though I've never been in that situation before. That made it difficult and uncomfortable to listen to, which is a feeling I don't often have (even while listening to Pseduopod)."

I had to flinch from the story, because the story flinched from nothing. So, well done, you!
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Unblinking on June 03, 2015, 02:02:23 PM
Quote from: Peppermint Monster on June 02, 2015, 03:43:26 PM
I'm a little hesitant to reply/address comments on the story just because I fear that once I've said "this is what I, the author intended here" I've killed the discussion a little by setting what the "right" interpretation of the story is...particularly on the postpartum depression ideas...that said, there is one comment I really wanted to reply to. Well, two actually. First this:

I don't think that's an unreasonable stance to take.  I personally find it interesting when an author talks about the origins of a story and their intent, and I oddly find any self-consistent interpretation of a story by a reader equally valid as the author's intent, maybe more, because the author's always going to have some stuff surrounding the story in their head that may not be interpretable from the text of the story, and things that are rooted in the text of the story are the most important to me.  (Even if, as I occasionally do, I find a completely unintended tangent that is nonetheless self-consistent).  Not everyone may agree with me on that, so you've got to make your own choice about what you feel comfortable saying.  You could also consider elaborating some time later after the active discussion has died down--a lot of us read the thread comments no matter how old the story, so it will still get read.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Peppermint Monster on June 18, 2015, 02:14:50 AM
Quote
I personally find it interesting when an author talks about the origins of a story and their intent, and I oddly find any self-consistent interpretation of a story by a reader equally valid as the author's intent, maybe more, because the author's always going to have some stuff surrounding the story in their head that may not be interpretable from the text of the story, and things that are rooted in the text of the story are the most important to me.

It's always interesting to see what others find in the story, and the sort of ideas and feelings the story produces in others.

Quote
Re-reading my comment, it probably didn't come across as complimentary as I meant it.

I understood the compliment, and I thank you for it, very much :)
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Millenium_King on August 03, 2015, 05:40:37 PM
This was a tough one to listen to.  Anyone who has kids should understand what I mean.  The most unnerving part was when the mother decided to change her baby's diet so that she would stop gaining weight.  Terrible to comprehend that someone would forcibly starve a helpless human being - especially one that they should be caring for.

Honestly, once the supernatural element kicked in, this story became much easier to listen to.  Once it was removed from the realm of the possible, it was easier to accept.  A story, sans supernaturalism, about a slightly unhinged mother deliberately putting her infant on a "diet" would be much scarier - since it's so much closer to home.

Anyway, I did enjoy this one.  A slow spiral into madness brought about by body image concerns.  Not a new idea, but it was told very well.
Title: Re: Pseudopod 438: Baby Weight
Post by: Moritz on September 16, 2015, 06:46:20 PM
As someone without kids (yet) who hasn't met anyone recently with eating disorders, I was able to listen to the story but still found it quite disturbing. I was working out at the gym and thought "woa, now I am doing this for my body and I've changed my diet... and then I'm hearing this." Quite effective, but a bit close to real life disorders to make it "enjoyable".