Tag: fat girl

There’s a Weight Limit on That

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

“I love it when girls wear white shorts.” Not if those shorts show off some cellulite. Then the best come on you can muster is a cow noise as you walk behind her.

“I love it when a girl eats.” Not if she’s got some meat on her bones and some rolls in her bakery. Then you have nothing but concern for her health that you spit out as snide comments.

“I love a girl in yoga pants.” Not if that pants size is in the double digits. Then she just looks like a slob because we all know she doesn’t actually do yoga, am I right?

When I hear comments like these which remark on a woman’s appearance (which are almost always made by a man), I automatically add the asterisk to it. Because there’s a weight limit on that comment, a footnote on it about the exceptions.

Because there are always exceptions.

Now of course these are generalized comments so they’re not necessarily supposed to include everyone. Most people are just speaking from their own attractions and I suppose there’s no harm in that. But when you take a closer look at the exclusions that apply to those statements, you start to see a pattern.

You see the weight limit.

Even people who claim to be body positive will put that kind of asterisk on their declarations.

“People can wear whatever they want.” “But are you sure you really want to wear that?”

“People can eat whatever they want.” “But are you sure you really want to eat that? All of it?”

These asterisks are so internalized that we don’t even notice them. It’s not something anyone has to say out loud. It’s just automatically understood that these statements don’t apply to those of us over the max weight. And, yes, we even apply those asterisks to ourselves.

These terms and conditions are established by society and just by being born into it, we click accept. Not that we would probably read them anyway. But they are pretty insidious. We agree to look a certain way and be a certain way. And when we violate those terms, we get removed from the privileges the agreement provides us. No seconds for us. Not without further consequences.

Sometimes I feel the urge to call out these comments. To point out the weight limit and watch the scramble to defend or justify or dismiss it. “You’re too sensitive!” Do you not see all of the asterisks spilling out of your mouth? They’re covering the floor like jacks. Have you ever stepped on a jack?! You’d be feeling sensitive, too. Downright sore, even. That shit is harmful.

People don’t like to be called to the carpet over things like that, the internalized bits of societal rhetoric that they blindly adhere too without questioning. They don’t like to think about the harm that they’ve been inflicting on others -or on themselves. They don’t like to take responsibility for a wrong they didn’t realize they were committing.

And that’s why their scales tip when I wear the white shorts.

Max weight indeed.

“How Are You So Confident?”

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A variation of this is “I wish I had your confidence!” And I’m going to talk about both of these, but first I’m going to answer the title question.

How am I so confident?

I have a tendency to walk through life with the attitude of “The Universe has questionably allowed me to exist another day and I’m going to make it everyone else’s problem.” My confidence comes from a place of pure spite. My continued existence comes from the same source. Spite gets things done.

Do I always feel confident? No. I have un-confident days brought on by hormones or mental illness or just the poison of a hateful society seeping under my thick skin. Am I confident about everything I do? Absolutely the fuck not. I am a self-doubter through and through. I manage to get by with a generous helping of ego and a little bit of faking it. And spite. So much spite.

The interesting thing about the question “How are you so confident?” or the statement, “I wish I had your confidence,” is how often they’re directed at people like me. And by that I mean fat women.

The style I rock at work tends to include patterned pants. Tropical flowers, jungle animals, black and white window pane, shiny blue mermaid scales, black and white gingham, pink cheetah print, teal plaid, black and white ditzy print. I once had a patron tell me “I wish I had your confidence” so she could wear pants like that, but she was too fat to do it. She said this, with a straight face, to my 255 pound ass. I probably would have popped off if she’d be a thin woman saying this to me, but she was definitely plus size, so instead I was just disappointed. Because the default of society is that fat women are not supposed to be confident at all. We are supposed to fade into the background until we correct ourselves enough so we are worthy of public gaze.

Confidence is generally not something granted to women anyway, but when it is, it tends to be reserved for the women who fit the narrow beauty standards of a thin-obsessed, youth-obsessed society. If any woman outside of those constraints dares to be confident then it’s considered either a miracle or an affront. In fact, “I wish I had your confidence!” has a back-handed feel when it comes out of certain mouths.

Because as I said, confidence is thought to be granted from an outside source. Of course we all know that confidence comes from within and being comfortable in your skin, whatever skin that is (best be your own, though; let’s not Buffalo Bill this), but we also all know that society has the final say of whether or not you’re allowed to be confident. That unmerciful bastard is unrelenting. The constant messages of perceived inadequacies designed to sell you the solutions to flaws that change based on what’s trendy today leaves no one untouched.

Confidence, particularly the confidence of a fat woman, is an act of rebellion.

To be confident in a body deemed undesirable is a slap in the face to a society pushing that ideal and a thumb in the eye to the industries trying to capitalize on that. That kind of defiance stings. And that confidence often gets branded in other less flattering ways. Lazy. Attention-whore. Giving up. Aggressive. Letting yourself go. Pushy. Should you be wearing that?

Don’t be like her. She’s a bad example.

Or worse. That confidence she has is unattainable. It’s a rare thing. Only a very limited number of fat women are allowed to have this confidence and they’re usually plus sized models, or women who’ve aged out and have no fucks left to give. This confidence is not for everyone. It’s not for you.

But it is.

Anyone can be confident. Anyone.

Do it out of spite.

Sometimes I Forget Myself: Fat Ass Edition

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I spent this past summer with my hair dark pink. I was bored, needed a change, and it had been ages (literally about 20 years) since my hair had been pink. Seemed like a no-brainer to me. And I enjoyed the summer with my dark pink hair.

Here’s the thing.

I often forgot that my hair was pink.

Like, I would just go along, doing the day-to-day things in my life, and not once think about my hair being pink. It just didn’t occur to me. Or it would occur to me later, like when I went to lunch with my great-uncle and cousins and then after I got home realized that I had pink hair the whole time. Nobody said anything, of course. It might have been a couple of decades, but they’d seen me with pink hair before. But still, I didn’t think about it at the time because there I was on a Sunday afternoon, having lunch with some family I hadn’t seen for a while.

The same phenomenon occurs with my fat ass as well.

I often go through my day-to-day life forgetting that I’m fat. This is my body and I inhabit it and I move it around and do the things and it just doesn’t occur to me that I’m fat. I’m just me. Existing. Doing stuff. Being. This is my reality. I often forget how big I am. I’m just living life.

It’s a strange thing when I can pontificate about how society abhors a fatty and logically know that I am judged by my size, but also, I’m so accustomed to living life in this body that the bulk of it doesn’t occur to me. I know how to work all this girth. Do I go jogging? Absolutely not. But do I do HIIT workouts? Yeah. Do I do yoga? Yeah. Do I still belly dance? Sometimes. Am I still flexible? Yeah, though I have my less-than days. Can I work an eight hour shift on my feet, busting a butt cheek to get all of my work done? Absolutely. And I do it all without thinking too much about my size.

Actually, I think more about my persistent patellar tendonitis than I do my weight. Probably because the pain from that affects how I go through my days more than my size does.

And I do a whole lot of other things too without thinking about my fat ass: grocery shopping, hanging out with friends, talking shit with my coworkers, reading a book, playing with the stray cats we’ve adopted, visiting with family, working on podcasts, eating, drinking, breathing….the list is endless. I do all sorts of things without thinking about my double digit pants size.

You’d be surprised how much fat people DON’T think about being fat, how much they don’t think about food or dieting, how much they don’t spending every waking moment pining for a smaller existence to better fit into a thin-obsessed society. Because they’re busy doing other stuff, regular life stuff, and they forget themselves in that.

Look at it this way: Once you get used to driving a land yacht, you don’t think too much about parallel parking that beast.

You know how to drive it.

Schrodinger’s Fatphobe

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Last week some unfortunate DNA construct posted this embarrassingly bad take on Twitter. And as absolutely fetid as it is, it’s not at all an anomaly.

You see this sort of hostile bullshit is actually pretty typical. Now, I went into it in a Twitter thread when this bebop posted this, but I’m going to do it here again for easy reference, thoroughness, and posterity.

Dollars to donuts says that this human equivalent of megaphone feedback would also trip over themselves to tell a fat person they saw in public that they need to “put down the fork and get in the gym.” And yet, should a fat person have the audacity to utilize gym facilities for the purpose of fitness, well, it’s too fucking late and what the fuck are they doing there aside from embarrassing themselves.

This is Schrodinger’s Fatphobe.

You need to stop being fat, but also how dare you try to stop being fat.

You see the main problem this person has, that all fatphobes have, that most people who wouldn’t even call themselves fatphobic, but it’s a rhetoric so baked into society that no one can avoid it have is that fat people should not be seen in any context. Period. Society absolutely wants you to not be fat, but even in that context they want you to fix the moral failing that is your excessive weight in the solitude of your own home or some forgotten cave until you are fit to re-enter society a beautiful butterfly freed of your fat cocoon. Should you choose to remain a squishy caterpillar of a person, then it’s your own fault for daring to allow your existence to encroach upon public spaces and you deserve the ridicule you get.

Do you not see the conundrum?

Fat people exist. We exist in public. And we exist in various states of health with various fitness and/or weight loss goals. Some choose to pursue their goals in a gym. Some people take that walk around the block that fatphobes are so eager to insist upon. And some have no interest in this sort of thing, they simply leave their houses from time to time to do things, and that’s fine, too.

The point is that at no time do any of us need to be exposed to whatever dogshit opinions a fatphobe might be steaming in that rotten cantaloupe of a head of theirs. Shutting the fuck up is free and minding your business comes at no charge.

Let that last bit be a general reminder.

***

Full disclosure: My 255 pound self exercises, but I do not go to the gym. This has nothing to do with the worry about encountering some fatphobe with mouth-control issues. As you can see, I also have mouth-control issues. Somebody’s gonna cry and it ain’t gonna be me.

No, I don’t go to the gym because leaving the house to exercise gives me one more excuse not to exercise on the days I’m feeling unmotivated. It’s a hell of a lot easier for me to force myself to put on the ol’ sports bra if that’s ALL I have to do. Gotta work with your laziness, kids.

Make It Fat, You Cowards

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Some time back, Twitter user @emilybadly posted the question: “Question for my fellow fat babes: what’s a trait or personality type you wish fat characters were allowed to be more often/at all?”

It’s all linked, so check out that thread and the responses. Feel free to fall down that rabbit hole.

But if you haven’t got the time, allow me to sum it up for you.

We wish fat characters were allowed to be…people.

Fucking wild, right?

It turns out that fat people like myself are looking for the kind of representation that seems only available to thin people. We want to see fat people experience a wide-range of emotions. Let them be allowed to be happy, sad, angry, lazy, indignant, annoyed, ecstatic, depressed, etc. independent of their weight. Not happy in spite of being fat; they’re just happy. Not angry because they’re fat; they’re just angry.

Let them be desired without other people getting grossed out and being all judgy. Let them have sex, good sex. Let them be the object of someone’s crush. Let them hook up with the hot lead. Hell, let them have a long, healthy relationship with the hot lead. Particularly in the case of fat women when it comes to opposite sex relationships. It seems like when it comes to fat men (and their bodies are still played for jokes most of the time), they’re allowed to hook up with thin, beautiful women, but the vice-versa doesn’t play out with the same frequency.

Let there be more than one fat character and not just because you’ve got two of them in a relationship. Fat people are everywhere. You can have more than one, doing different things, having different personalities, relating to different people.

And there’s more than one kind of fat. We come in all shapes and sizes. Big bellies, big boobs, small boobs, no boobs, belly rolls, back fat, flabby arms, stick arms, no butts, big butts, big thighs, skinny legs, thin faces, double chins. Mix and match! And don’t cover those bodies! Let them wear shorts and mini dresses and tank tops and bikinis if they want to. Let them want to.

Let them be brave and adventurous and athletic. Let them be villainous and selfish and greedy. Let them be vain and pedantic and sloppy. Let them be stylish and smart and successful. Let them be actual human beings with a wide range of personalities and moods and issues. Let them be anything. Let them exist without the sole motivation of losing weight or being the butt of fat jokes or eating constantly or getting winded walking anywhere. Let them just be regular people or extraordinary people or anything in between.

I’ll formally throw down the challenge. Make it fat, you cowards.

I am more than happy to offer up my services in this endeavor. If you need a skilled, experienced fat person to assist you, I can be that person. I can be your adviser. I can help you make your fat characters representative of actual fat people.

My rates are very reasonable.

Fat Girl in the New Year

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The new year is ripe for weight-loss related resolutions. Not for me. My commitment issues only allow for me to have half-assed resolutions. My weight requires my whole ass.

Lots of people make weight-loss related resolutions and that’s fine. Some people need that fresh new year to help motivate them in their health goals. I can relate. I always have to start a goal on a Monday. It feels wrong to me to start in the middle of the week.

For me, though, my weight isn’t a resolution. It informs too much of my existence, too much of how society treats me to consider it so casually. And let’s face it. Most people take their resolutions casually, like champagne bubbles made to broken.

It just so happens that I am trying to lose some weight this year and it just so happens that it looks like I started around the first of the year. But this is not a resolution.

It’s like this. In the last couple of years, due to a delightful combination of illness and injury, sprinkled generously throughout with some mild depression, I’ve gained some weight on top of the weight that I’ve already been lugging around and frankly, it doesn’t thrill me.

Now, I’ve tried to get this weight gain under control, but it seemed like every time I started to get back into the swing of taking better care of myself, something would come along and derail it. And then I’d have to go through the struggle of starting all over.

Last month, I put it to my mind that I was going to get back into the habit of exercising regularly. I started around the beginning of the month (on a Monday, of course) and I was doing well with it. And then I hurt myself. Leave it to me to suffer a devastating knee injury while doing holiday baking.

My knee healed enough that I could start doing modified workouts the week of the first (I started on Monday the 31st, of course). And I’ve continued doing them on a daily basis, wearing a brace and increasing the length and difficulty, using modifications when I need them as my knee continues to heal. This regular exercise should help me feel better and help me lose some of the weight that I gained in the last couple of years.

This is a goal. Not a resolution.

When you’re fat, it’s easy for people to assume that when you’re eating a salad, you’re on a diet. They can’t fathom that you might always eat a salad or that you prefer a salad or hell, you were craving a salad (it happens to me rarely and usually in the summer).

When you’re fat and committing to an exercise plan at the beginning of any given year, it’s easy for people to assume that you’ve made a resolution. And resolutions are famous for being quickly disregarded and therefore, aren’t taken seriously. Which is what compels me to clarify my particular position.

This is not a resolution. This is a goal. A goal with the purpose of creating a lifestyle change. A lifestyle change which should help me feel better.

As much as I struggle, I am taking this seriously.

And, weight-loss related or not, casual or not, I’m wishing you well on your resolutions, too.

Warning: Fat Girl Walking

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes, if it’s nice out and I have reason to go, I walk to the post office. It’s barely over half a mile there and back, but I do it to get a little exercise in the course of mailing whatever it is that I need to mail. Plus it feels less wasteful than driving the few blocks there and back (unless it’s gross and/or I’m running a bunch of errands that day, then I don’t have a problem driving).

I’m not the kind of person that likes to walk if there’s not a purpose to it. And for me, walking only for the exercise is not a purpose.

When I was in grade school, I had a teacher obsessed with exercise. As such she’d take us on walks multiple times a week, making us walk long distances as fast as a bunch of fifth graders could manage. My fitness-minded mother often walked in the evenings after all of the daycare children went home. For at least thirty minutes, she’d power walk around the neighborhood to exercise. A couple of times she made my sister and I come along. She complained that we were too slow. We complained that it was pointless.

Now that I’m grown and no longer at the mercy of fitness-minded/exercise-obsessed adults, I only walk if I have a place to go and a purpose to fulfill. That makes sense to me. If I want to exercise, then I do yoga or I belly dance. Walking to the post office to mail something is bonus exercise.

But walking anywhere means that I am a fat girl walking.

For some reason, this is a sight to behold. People seem to find it very interesting. Eye catching, really.

Okay, yes, some of it is my own paranoia and projections, but we all know the truth of which I speak.

People LOOOOOVE to tell fat people to “take a walk, fattie”. And then when the fat folk do, they’re met with looks, glares, smirks, and sometimes even nasty comments hurled from vehicles as they pass. Thankfully, that last one has never happened to me. Most likely because even at my nicest I strike people as someone who will cut you.

If you can picture these two occurrences as a Venn diagram, they’d damn near overlap to form a flawless circle.

Now one would think that people so fatphobic that they offer unsolicited advice about exercising to lose weight would be supportive of someone doing just that. But no! You see, the underlying message here is not only should you not be fat, but you should also not attempt to alter your state of fatness in public. These people are only interested in the before and after pictures on the commercials; they’ve got no interest in witnessing the journey.

Furthermore, if these delightful humans found out that some of us fatties aren’t even walking to lose weight, that this is just a little bonus exercise to get things done, or a preferred method of cardio with an eye on fitness, not the scale, well, I imagine they’d be so offended by the notion that they’d melt from the heat generated by them frothing at the mouth and screaming about why this approach is WRONG.

Or, perhaps what would be the ultimate worst, that some fat people don’t walk for exercise. Not to lose weight, not for any modicum of fitness. They walk because, well, humans don’t hover. Sometimes bipedal transportation is just the only way to go. Think of all the fat people judged because they’re using mobility scooters. Now think about how those same people are judged if they’re walking around.

That judgement doesn’t change much does it?

You know what else doesn’t change?

Fat people walking around in public. That’s going to continue to happen for all of the various reasons listed above. Humans gained the ability to walk upright at some point, have been using it as a mode of transportation for ages, and well, despite all insults to the contrary, fat people are human too. We’re going to continue walking about in places where everyone and your God can see us.

So, if you do happen to see me on one of my post office walks, smile and wave.

Otherwise, keep on driving.

“I’d Never Sleep with a Fat Girl”

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

There’s a flip side to the “I like big girls” coin and it’s called “I’d never sleep with a fat girl” or some variation of that sentiment.

Oh, yes. It is indeed the same coin. Because declaring that you’d never sleep with a fat girl isn’t that different from proclaiming that you like big girls. It all boils down to the same thing.

Centering the conversation around what gets a guy’s dick hard.

Now, in my personal experience, I’ve had more dudes tell me that they like big girls than that they wouldn’t sleep with a fat girl. However, in the case of the latter, it seems to always be a desperation move on the guy’s part. You can almost smell the panic, almost hear the alarm bells ringing in their head.

Oh my God! I think this fat girl might like me! My friends would never stop giving me shit for that! Quick! Say something to reject her without actually rejecting HER.

I am oblivious when it comes to flirtation. I don’t know when people are flirting with me and I don’t realize that others can interpret my behavior as flirtation when I’m just trying to be my usual funny-to-cover-up-my-awkward self. This sort of interpretation leads to the above panic.

And to my own confusion.

I once had a guy say straight out to me, “I would never sleep with a fat girl” and it was so out of the blue that I was momentarily baffled. It wasn’t until later that the I figured out that the guy was having “fat girl panic”.

On another occasion I had a guy casually remark that he could never date a girl with cottage cheese thighs. I can’t remember how this came up in conversation, but it was so oddly offhand. My first thought was along the lines of “Good luck with that”. Again, thinking about it later I identified the comment for what it was.

Listen, fellas, just like it can be cool if you like big girls, it’s also cool on the flip side of the coin if you don’t. If you’re HONEST about why you don’t. And why you feel compelled to declare it.

Would you never sleep with a fat girl because it’s honestly not your aesthetic? You like them just fine as people, as friends, but for whatever reason, a woman with a generous helping of curves doesn’t get your dick hard? That’s cool. No need to shout it from the rooftops unprovoked like a weirdo. It makes everyone uncomfortable and you look like a jackass. Let it come up in conversation naturally, if you must. Or, if necessary, let it happen in private with the fat girl you’re certain is digging on you and the feeling is not mutual.

But if you wouldn’t sleep with a fat girl because what would the guys think? Wouldn’t consider it because the guys would rag on you endlessly? Even if you really liked the fat girl in question? Even if she got your dick hard? Because the guys would just give you way too much shit? Then here’s what you need to do, skippy.

Get new guys.

Because those bros are reading from society’s worn out script. We’re talking cheesy ’80s sitcom worn out, my dude. And not the good kind of cheese either. It’s a rerun even I wouldn’t watch and I watch them all.

Announcing that you would never sleep with a fat girl is doing more than just stating the obvious, sports fans.

It’s also blaring just how cowed by society and insecure about it you really are.

So, no worries there, guys who would never sleep with a fat girl. Fat girls wouldn’t want to sleep with you anyway.

Because that frail ego flailing? Not a good look.

“I Like Big Girls”

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

It never fails. Whenever I point out the bullshit way society treats fat women, drilling into everyone’s heads that they’re somehow unworthy of any sort of love, sex, or happiness, some dude needs to jump into my mentions with the same tired statement.

“I like big girls.”

Really? Well, good for you. If you’re looking for bonus points for bucking society’s rules of attraction, I’m afraid I’m all out of gold stars. Sorry, fella.

Tell me, my dude, since you’re so keen to make this all about you, why do you like big girls?

Do you like them because you’re genuinely attracted to them? Is that the aesthetic that truly pleases you? The image that gets you hard? Or is it convenience that they represent? The worn out thought that a fat girl will settle for the less of the less, any crumb of attention thrown her way, therefore she’s an easy score and good for your ego? Or is it something in between? Sexual gratification solely because she’s fat with little regard to what kind of a human she is? Or that she’s human at all?

I know that guys like big girls, despite what society instructs. Even if I’d never been hit on by a man in my life, the fact that people find my blog searching “mature chubby fucks” would clue me in. And I know, deep in my cold, black heart that for some guys, fat girls are just peachy. They’re into them for the whole package, not just the aesthetic, not just for perceived convenience.

It’s the declaration that grates me right down to my last nerve.

Guys, take a little advice from a fat girl. Instead of loudly proclaiming “I like big girls” at every opportunity, why don’t you put some fucking thought into your words? For clarity’s sake. Saying you like big girls is lazy and muddled. Just be clear. If you get off on fat girls because that’s your fetish, own it and say so. If you like fat girls because you think they’re desperately easy, then say that (I can’t guarantee that this will help YOU out any, but it will do many favors for the rest of humanity). If you dig fat girls because that’s your “type”, then say it plainly. And if you think that society’s rules about who deserves love, who is allowed to be attractive, who is qualified to be sexy is fucking bullshit, then put that thought in the appropriate words and shout it from the fucking rooftops.

The point is that this conversation need not be centered around you, champ. It’s not the time for free advertisement for your dating profile, nor is it a good opportunity to look for a pat on the back.

You can be supportive without involving your own ego.

Try it. You might like it.

At the very least, you won’t be irritating the fuck out of this fat girl.

When I Talk About Being Fat

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Love moreWhen I talk about being fat, I’m not fishing for a compliment. I’m not asking you to run in and tell me I’m beautiful, to tell me I’m not fat. I am fat. I weigh around 240 pounds. If you saw me as a stranger, walking down the street, you would identify me as fat. I am fat. It is an accurate description of me. Not all of the connotations of that descriptor are accurate: I’m lazy about some things, but not my whole life; I don’t eat all the time; I do exercise; I’m not a gross slob; I bathe regularly, thank you; I do have some self-esteem; I do eat vegetables; I do take a walk; no, I haven’t given up on my life.

When I talk about being fat and you rush in to assure me I’m not, you’re not really assuring me I’m not fat. You’re assuring me that I’m not all of those bad things you automatically associate with being fat.

Good news! Your reassurance is lovely, but misguided. I know my personality flaws are independent of my appearance. I guarantee that I could look like a size zero model and I’d still be lazy as fuck about some things. It’s just who I am.

When I talk about being fat, I’m talking about my experience as a fat person and the hypocritical nature of the people that know me. I’m talking about the people who say there should be a weight limit on skinny jeans and take pictures of people without their knowledge so they can post them on Twitter for shaming purposes, but who would be first in line to defend me if someone told me I couldn’t wear my skinny jeans or took a picture of me and shamed me online.

Oh yeah, I see you. I don’t say anything to you because Twitter isn’t the place for it. 140 characters isn’t enough room for you to fit in your tired, bullshit excuses about why it’s okay for you to do that to THEM, but you would NEVER do that to ME and it would NEVER be okay for ANYONE to do that to ME. And frankly, I don’t want to bother with your tired, bullshit excuses. They don’t excuse what you do. And I know so long as you have those excuses at the ready (and I know you do), I’m not going to change your mind. You’ll always feel perfectly justified in your little smidge of fatphobia.

But I see you. Oh yeah, baby, I see you.

When I talk about being fat, I’m not being hard on myself. I’m showing you how society is hard on me. I’m illuminating the things that society thinks about me, says about me. I’m illuminating the things you think about other fat people, the things you say about other fat people, the strangers. The things you wouldn’t dare say to me because you like me.

When I say that I’ll never be pretty enough, never be thin enough, I’m not being hard on me. I’m saying what folks are thinking, what you’ve thought about others. When I say I’m too fat to be loved, you tell me that’s not true. You tell me I’m a beautiful person that deserves all the love and that anyone that doesn’t see that is stupid. But you’ve looked at someone less attractive, you’ve looked at someone fat, and you’ve thought, “How did THEY get someone? Somebody actually fucks THAT?” You’ve thought that about other people and other people have thought that about me.

And if we’re going to be 100% honest, if I were to find myself in the company of a person perceived by society to be out of my league, someone conventionally attractive, while you would be happy for me, I have no doubt, a tiny part of you would also be wondering, “Why are THEY with HER?”

Because it’s an extraordinary thing when someone goes against society’s expectations and instead jives with their heart.

When I talk about being fat, you think I’m talking about myself.

But really…I’m talking about you.