Nomy Lamm stood in a short black dress, red fishnet stockings and blood red lipstick before an audience of about 50 people and admitted to being fat, “gender queer,” a lesbian and Jewish.

Lamm was brought to the Holmes Student Center’s Room 305 by PRISM to speak about “Body Anarchy: Prescriptions for a Personal Revolution” Tuesday night.

Lamm attacked dieting myths with facts, humor and personal experiences. She also focused on being comfortable with one’s body and not living up to society’s definition of beauty.

Lamm, who has been speaking on this topic for about 10 years, started her discussion with a slide show about people who think they are overweight and internalize the blame for their problems.

“You want to dance; you want to swim,” said two of the slides. “But you are too fat,” followed the next slide.

“I really liked her slide show,” said Amanda Lucek, a DeKalb resident. “It was very sarcastic and animated.”

Lamm discussed the discrimination on the basis of size in the job market in the name of professional beauty qualifications.

Lamm lent her personal experiences to the topic.

She had been dieting since the age of five because of her family and grew up with a bulimic father.

“I had so much experience of having to deny myself things and failing in the end, I did not want to quit smoking,” Lamm said.

At the age of 17, her involvement with Riot Grrl, a support system for feminists in the punk scene, which led to her self-acceptance and the writing of her first magazine, “I’m So F****** Beautiful.”

Lamm sang four songs from her CDs, “Effigy” and “Transfused,” that reverberated her rebellion against society’s standards.

To involve the audience, Lamm had them repeat a “magic” word she made up – f***-a-roo – when she waved her wand during the songs.

Using a visualization exercise, Lamm made the audience close their eyes and form a mental image of their hopes and aspirations from when they were younger and what it feels like to be them.

Lamm told the audience to discuss each image with the person sitting next to them and try and integrate those images.

Lamm ended her speech with a question and answer session with the audience.

“[Lamm] opened up the dialogue to the word fat and being fat,” said Traci Heinz, junior psychology major who attended the session. “It was interactive and fun, not lecturing.”