Fat Rant

I’ve always been a chunky girl. I can’t remember a time I didn’t have a belly or kind of fat arms. This, of course, became more pronounced once I started college, quit dancing, and discovered Lambic. But I digress.

It never once occurred to me organically that there was anything wrong with my appearance, nor does it now. There is nothing even remotely unattractive about me, physically. I have a pretty face. I have great hair. Awesome, clear skin. Killer boobs. Curvy legs. Pretty hands (when I keep them manicured). My mother likes to point out that I have skinny wrists and ankles, which I do. They, also, are quite attractive. I’m curvy as hell. I know how to dress in a way that complements my body.

This having been said, it makes me exceedingly angry to ever receive the message that someone should be attracted to me “in spite of” my physical appearance. To love me for my intellect or personality, not for my body. Why in the world can’t it be all of the above?

I’m tired of living in a culture where I’m constantly separated from my body, or to have constant assumptions made that just because I don’t look like Angelina Jolie, I must somehow feel inadequate or have bad self esteem. That is, quite simply, the most ignorant thing in the world to assume. It may come as a shock, but I actually like my body. I enjoy looking the way I look. I see no reason to be ashamed of that. But on a regular basis, I am made to feel as though I should apologize for my body, to hide my shape, to cover up bumps and curves that “shouldn’t be there.” Who says they shouldn’t? What, precisely, is so offensive about love handles, or big thighs, or a belly?

This isn’t to hate on my thin sisters. Y’all can be beautiful too, with your washboard abs and tiny, perky boobs. Good for you. It’s not your fault we live in a culture that has chosen you as the ideal.

This is precisely to hate on all of you out there, male/female/otherwise, who glorify that ideal, even unconsciously.

This is for the bullshit TV shows who desexualize plus-sized women and make them cake-eating, simpering sidekicks to Christina Applegate. It’s also for the shows that star a slightly plump girl and are called things like “Almost Perfect.”

This is for the movies about the “Prince Charming” who falls in love with the girl’s personality, never giving a damn about her body. It’s also for the movies where the woman has to make herself over as a skinny blonde with contacts instead of glasses in order to get anyone to look at her. And the movies that use baggy clothes to make the skinny woman “plus sized” in the first place.

This is for mothers who tell their daughters they’ll do anything to help them lose weight, especially when the daughter has never asked for any help. And grandmothers who harp on about diets.

This is for clothing designers who fill “women’s” sections of stores with clothes cut exactly like the skinny girl clothes, but just with more fabric, completely ignoring that my body is shaped extremely differently from an athletic size 4.

This is for stores who only sell plus sized clothing online, because apparently big girls don’t need to try on the clothes they want to buy. Why don’t you just put us in shapeless potato sacks? Our bodies don’t matter anyway, according to you.

This is for all the commercials who wouldn’t think of putting an overweight woman in a role that isn’t “grandma.”

This is for you men who want a big girl as a fuck buddy and confidante, but won’t take her out in public around your friends.

This is for you skinny women who have fat friends you describe as having a “great personality,” and that you try to set up with guys who want you but aren’t up to your standards. Who believe that chunky women aren’t really competition for you. Who can’t stand it when you see a big girl with a man and have to try desperately to once again be the center of attention. Who feign empathy when you will never know what it is to walk into a room and be the last person anyone notices.

And finally, this is for all the big girls out there who apologize for what they look like. There is nothing wrong with you. There’s something wrong with the world you live in. You have the option to live in defiance of a culture that tells you you’re unworthy, that you’re ugly, that you’re weak and prone to temptation, that you make bad choices. You have the option to declare that you are beautiful, that you are complex, that you are not only a personality and wit, but a living and wonderful body.