Fatties of the World Unite!

I was born into a world where fat women are outlaws, living on the outskirts of womanhood, chastised for their role in eroding the standards of beauty.

As a man once told me: “Never met a guy who didn’t love fat girls. Never met a guy who would tell his friends.”

Fat is synonymous with ugly. Ugly is a funny word because it’s quite prescriptive. You are either beautiful or you are ugly. The other funny thing about the U-word is that every woman has been, is currently or will be UGLY. Because ugly encompasses those who are disabled, old, sick, sad, needy, disproportionately-featured and, yes, fat. We live in pursuit of un-ugliness, and we fight a losing battle. Why not opt out?

My early experience with my fatness is not too terribly unique in the fat girl narrative: made fun of every day for approximately twelve years, utterly de-sexualized, chronic dieting, wishing I was dead, hating seeing myself, fantasizing about taking a big knife to every inch of fat on my body, wishing for invisibility (not even bothering with acceptance or celebration), starving, crying, hurting. By the time I was through with high school, I was quite thoroughly convinced that I was so ugly that I didn’t deserve to be loved or really even looked at.

The victimization of fat people is inhuman, and far more acceptable (and in vogue, with books like Skinny Bitch hitting best seller status) than other forms of oppression. How many fat women have never been in a relationship where they were actually recognized as a girlfriend? Innumerable. How many fat women don’t wear what they want, eat what they want, go where they want because they want to avoid looks, judgment, appraisal? I think this is called segregation is some places. Self-imposed segregation is not always different from compulsory apartheid.

I wasn’t always fat. No, let me rephrase that. At a couple points in my life I have been in that delicate place where your boobs:hips ratio is “acceptable,” that you’re considered “voluptuous.” I discovered that when I was voluptuous, men came up to me on the street just to tell me I was beautiful. They were unashamed to hit on me with their friends. They wanted to take me out to dinner. Oh, the world was pretty fucking great.

But I couldn’t keep it up. Eating nothing and exercising three hours every, single day was not sustainable for a natural born fatty like myself. I had undiagnosed anxiety. I wasn’t eating enough protein. The truth is I was weak and had no energy. My only function was to be pretty enough for men to like me for more than fucking (but as it turns out, you’re rarely good enough for more than fucking regardless).

Even now that I am more successful, more skilled in the bedroom, more communicative, more articulate, more open, better traveled, better educated, more bubbly, and larger breasted than most I still (*I still*) don’t get treated the same as thin women. And, no, it’s not about thinking I’m beautiful. It’s not about being open. It’s not any of that shit you read in self-love books. The world hasn’t caught up. Men still want to fuck me (oh, do they want to fuck me!! and squeeze me and watch me model lingerie and have me blindfold them and have me smother them with my fat ass and my fat tits), and not date me. I still have to convince myself that I’m OK. Men still tell me I’m one of the sexiest women they’ve ever met, and I still have only ever had 1 real relationship.

Just the other day I spoke with a man who told me that it wasn’t easy loving fat girls. It’s not easy getting shit from your friends. It’s not easy taking her out and knowing that people are thinking you’re weird. It’s not easy only finding women who look like her in the fetish/freak section of the porn store. I know. What a pity.

I wonder how much harder my life would be if I didn’t have enormous boobs. They’re within the realm of normal. They’re fantasy material. They have power. They make it easy for people to look to the man I’m dating and say “Oh, yeah. He’s with her because of her tits.” And he’s got a free fat girl pass.

I’m one of those progressive, fat-loving, fat activist fat girls. I often try to forget that I live in a cruelly anti-fat culture. We are political through t-shirts and not actions. We spend more than we make. We buy fair-trade coffee instead of not. We buy purses that cost more than our rent because it matters that some jealous bitch is going to covet that purse. We date men we don’t like because at least they’re 6 feet of “masculine height” makes you look diminutive. We eat salad instead of crème brulee. We deny rather than affirm. We hate rather than love. We criticize instead of celebrate.

Women are complicit in the fat hate. Just about a year ago, I was wearing one of my many utterly fabulous outfits, and a woman on the train (whose partner was a fellow fatty) audibly “whispered” that I was too fat to be wearing that. I let her know that my body was mine and that her beliefs were really unacceptable.

It’s odd to me how much fat people are hated, especially fat women. I’ve tried to analyze what this is about. The only sophisticated critique I’ve managed to come up with is that it’s enraging to people when women don’t look the way they’re “supposed” to look. Women are eye candy, and it’s a violation of the social beauty contract when women don’t fit into the narrow category of “hot.” The description of this word vacillates between stick thin and perfectly voluptuous, between short hair and long hair, bangs and no bangs, glasses or no glasses, dark and exotic or pale and milky.

My fat is political. My fat is political because I’m keeping it. Acceptance does not lure me into starving and self-hatred anymore. That word – FAT – is used to scare women, but it doesn’t scare me any more. My fat is political because when I show it off, it makes people mad. I can’t make generalities of those who hate fat, but it seems to really piss off both men and women. My fat is political because it’s fucking hot

And to conclude – let your fat ass light up the night ‘cause dessert is better than dick and fat is totally edgy!