Sex and the Fat Girl

Well, fats and nonfats, it’s time for me to get my fat ass on a horse somehow and ride into the sunset. I hope you enjoyed this blog, or at least learned something from it. It would be great if you now have a better understanding of fat acceptance/size acceptance and how to treat fat people (as humans, of course). I’d love if the fats reading this feel more empowered now than before this blog began. Lofty goals, maybe, but I’d like to think we reached them. I appreciate the feedback I’ve received from people who have changed the way they think as a result of this blog. It balances out the pushback we’ve experienced from would-be fat shamers and concern trollers.

For fat people, I want you to know that just because representations of fatness in pop culture skew towards the negative, it doesn’t always have to be that way. We can let media creators know that we expect better from them by refusing to interact with media that doesn’t portray fat people positively. We can stand against the constant barrage of celebrities hawking weight loss plans and diets that simply lead to a vicious circle of weight loss and regain. We can demand access to fashionable clothes in our sizes from designers and corporations that would rather pretend we don’t exist. We can exist as we are and not hide from our image-obsessed society. Just by staking our claim to be treated like a human being, we are bringing the revolution.

And for nonfats, your privilege affords you access to things fat people are excluded from—like humane treatment, the ability to walk into pretty much any store and find your size, the luxury of not having the constant barrage of anti-fat propaganda directed at you, the ability to interview for a job and not worry that your weight might be a factor in whether or not they hire you, and countless more benefits of thin privilege. If you want to be an “ally” to fat people, you must challenge and unpack your privilege. You must be an advocate for fat acceptance and refuse to let fatphobic comments pass under your nose without recognition. A tall order, yes, but it’s the same as not allowing racism to go unchecked, or homophobia, or sexism.

If you’re interested in reading more of my work, you can find me on Twitter as @thefiercestgirl, blogging at Red Vinyl Shoes and Sex and the Fat Girl, I Fry Mine in Butter and after Friday, at Zora & Alice. I’m also part of the Grey’s Bloggers here on Bitch doing a roundtable every Friday on Grey’s Anatomy.

Thank you for reading, listening and participating in this discourse. Peace.

Sorry, y’all, but this blog has got two posts left! So you’re not rid of me yet. I wanted to explore a subject related to FA that Alyx brought up in the comments on the last post—how do we determine what isn’t fat? Where do we draw the line? And what exactly does “average” mean?

What’s interesting about the “average” USian woman is that she’s actually a size 14/16, which would make her plus sized, a euphemism for “fat”. However, average is usually used to describe any woman who isn’t “thin,” but also not “fat.” Of course, words mean things and we can’t just apply any word to any situation. But with a term as nebulous as “fat” gets on the margin, it’s hard to decide exactly when we can apply it. Fatphobes tend to apply the term to people whom they know nothing about at random, depending on body composition, shape, height, etc. rather than any specific size or weight. When we get close to the middle of the body size spectrum, the subjectivity of the viewer becomes a huge factor in how others perceive a woman’s body as fat or thin. There’s no real clear cut way to answer this question except to state that at the margins, self-identification is key.

This ties in to another question asked: How do nonfat people decide when to use the word “fat” to describe someone? I touched on this in the last post, but let me expand on it. If someone doesn’t use the word “fat” to describe themselves, as with any ally you need to respect the words they use. Although we should seek to normalize the word “fat”, on an individual basis, those who would consider themselves allies need to be conscious that not every fat person is ready to embrace being called fat. Support them in loving their body, affirm their beauty, expose them to positive representations of fat, but let them come to their own conclusions.

So what is average? It seems like more of a statistical term than something to describe bodies. Even if you are the fabled size 14/16, all size 14/16 bodies are not built the same. I don’t think it’s offensive to use the term “average” if you really are referring to a statistical average of dress size. But we should not confuse “average” with “normal”, because that implies that anything else is deviant. This is one of those gray areas that must be navigated with care.

Since we’re nearing the end of this blog, I thought now would be a good time to answer a question several readers have asked and basically summarize some of the lessons I hope you’ve taken away from our time together here. These are just starting points—I would suggest you do some further reading about thin privilege as well as how to practice FA.

• Fat people are not unattractive or unable to be attractive simply because they are fat. This became an issue early on in the life of this blog. Fat and beauty are not mutually exclusive. So it follows, saying something like “your face is gorgeous” is really worse than just not saying anything at all. Most fat people don’t appreciate the sentiment that goes along with a statement like that–too bad your body is so damn hideous. You don’t need to comfort or coddle fat people with “well-meaning” pseudocompliments, really. And by saying that I don’t mean you have a license to tell fat people how disgusting you think they are in the name of honesty. This is a situation where the old adage “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all” applies.
• Fat people don’t need you to worry about their health for them. One of the things I hope y’all really take away from this is that fat is not inherently unhealthy or healthy. Therefore, you can’t tell a person’s health by how fat they are. So “concern trolling” really amounts to people getting out their disgust of fat under the guise of caring about the fat person in question’s health. This is why I talk about “concern trolling” so much—it’s not really actual concern and is quite transparent, especially coming from strangers on the Internet. Fat folks can handle their own health issues, thank you.
• Fat is a value-neutral or positive term. The word “fat” doesn’t need to be dressed up with euphemisms. It’s extremely important that we normalize the neutrality and/or positivity of “fat” if we’re ever going to advance fat acceptance. On the flip side, I wouldn’t suggest you come out and call someone “fat” if they’re not familiar with fat being used as a non-pejorative. Yes, some people will still be offended if you call them fat, so try introducing them to fat acceptance gently and let them get comfortable with fat as a neutral/positive term. Tread lightly, however. Here on this blog “fat” is thrown around on the regular, but we do have to face the fact that outside of this place there’s a lot of people who don’t get that it’s OK to be fat.
• Fat acceptance requires acceptance of all sizes and the choices fat people make about their bodies. Note “acceptance” and not “approval” or “admiration.” I’ve said this many times but it bears repeating—fat people are not expecting you to do anything but respect them as human beings and respect that they have the right to decide what they do with their bodies. “My body, my choice.” Sound familiar? Fat people should be allowed agency over their bodies without you up in their faces telling them how wrong what they’re doing is. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to accept it.

I want to reinforce these points because I think they’re crucial to FA. Hopefully you’ll take these ideas to heart and practice them in your daily life, as you interact with fat people AND as you interact with pop cultural representations of fatness critically.

Happy Monday! I wanted to offer something a little light-hearted to start off the week, so I decided to dedicate this post to a few fierce fat female recording artists that have rocked my world and provided a counterpoint to how fat women are viewed in society. These women are all in control of their own image, their own unique styles, and have managed to find success in an industry that isn’t all that friendly to non-Katy Perry looking women.

Martha Wash is a big reason why vocal credits are listed on albums now. Back in the ’90s, she did the vocals for C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat” but in the music video, a thin woman was featured lip syncing to Wash’s vocals. She sued for royalties and won. Wash is actually a favorite among gay men and regularly performs at LGBT events. Her story illustrates the prejudice displayed by the music industry against fat women—they didn’t want Wash to appear in the video due to her size.

Jill Scott also appears on TV in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency on HBO. She’s one of my favorite singers and has always represented fierce fat women to the fullest as well as holding it down for the natural sisters out there. Jill has made forays onto the big screen as well, appearing in Why Did I Get Married? and Why Did I Get Married Too? This video is my favorite of hers, if only for the wig yanking.

Although she’s smaller than when she first came out, Missy Elliott is still larger than your average pop starlet. And when she first came out, she ignored pretty much every fashion “rule” for fat chicks—her first video, “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” featured her dressed in an inflated garbage bag of a jumpsuit. Repping for the smaller fats now, her style hasn’t changed. She’s still as unique (and multitalented) as ever.

When she was nominated for an Oscar back in 2002 (for Chicago), Queen Latifah caused a fashion uproar by simply being fatter than the average screen siren. Designers lined up to dress her for the Oscars, the coming of the plus size revolution was trumpeted, and she got contracts for various cosmetic and fashion companies. It wasn’t until Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe were nominated that another fat actress received the amount of fashion designers fawning over them that Latifah did. Back in the 00s, she was our fat icon.

Fashion’s current fat darling, Beth Ditto, has contributed a great deal artistically to getting representations of fat bodies out there with no holds barred. Frequently appearing naked in magazines, Ditto wears tight, revealing clothing on the regular and has no qualms with showing her body in what many would consider “unflattering” ways. She’s teamed up with UK fat fashion retailer Evans to create two collections of clothes reflecting her personal style. Even noted fatphobe Karl Lagerfeld had to act like he could stand being next to a fat person for a while to take pictures with her at Fashion Week—and she played a private Fendi party.

Adele is a Grammy award-winning fat UK soul singer with an amazingly evocative voice and a quirky personal style. Have you noticed the best soul singers are usually fat? It’s our superpower. Like so many other fat women in the music industry, she’s been thrown shade by the fashion powers-that-be, namely Vogue magazine, but Anna Wintour’s fear of fat has been documented for ages now.

An honorary mention goes to two former fats, Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Holliday (from the Broadway production of Dreamgirls. Here they are belting out the signature song from the movie/musical that made them both famous–when they were fat. Although I think this was shot pre-Weight Watchers for J.Hud. It’s sad to lose them, but odds are they’ll be back. We’ll save seats for you, divas.

For ELLE magazine’s 25th anniversary issue, they featured four different 25-year-old actresses on four different covers of the magazine. One of those actresses is Gabby Sidibe. This choice naturally brought out the fatphobes decrying her health and questioning her level of attractiveness before the cover even came out. Now that it’s dropped, well, there’s a lot for folks to talk about besides playing “guess her health status”.

Some pointed out that she’s lighter on the ELLE cover than she was on the cover of Ebony and in real life. ELLE insists it did not overdo it with the Photoshop, but as with other black celebs, it is a matter of course for any magazine to lighten their skin. It’s not particularly shocking anymore, although that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call mags out for it. Others weeped for the state of Gabby’s weave, which I do have to admit does look pretty jacked up. One interesting criticism of the cover that I’ve read in comments on these articles and elsewhere is concerned with how the cover was shot. Whereas the other three thinner celebrities are featured in full-body shots, Gabby literally covers the magazine. To some, this is an insult regarding her size. I wonder, what’s wrong with looking fat when you are fat?

We all, including Gabby, know that she’s fat. Even if she was shot full-body, she’d still be fat, and people would probably still be upset about it for various reasons including the fact that she’s on the cover at all. There’s nothing unflattering about being fat and appearing fat. So many fashion tips for fat women are focused on minimizing the appearance of our fat, wearing “slimming” clothing and basically trying to look as nonfat as possible. When we see a magazine cover featuring a fat woman not trying to beat back the fat but rather celebrating her size, it goes counter to everything fashion mags try to teach us about camouflaging fatness and therefore causes some to feel that she’s been “done wrong”.

Gabby may take up the whole cover with her size, but her (deserved) self-confidence takes up just as much room — refreshing, to say the least.