#fat-phobia

[thumperdaetime]

"Ok, but like. i Want to wear these things. I have even bought these things before. But a lifetime of fat-phobia has made me feel exposed and self conscious when i actually put them on to go places 😞"

this is an understandable feeling. its really hard to unlearn systematic self hate. (especially when most of society still wants you to hate yourself)

Pro Tip: Play dress up at home! on a day you're going to stay in anyway, instead of keeping/putting on the same "im just doing cleaning and videogames today" outfit. try making a Look just for yourself (or your housemate who i Hope aren't the type to make you feel self conscious (if they arent i recommend getting new housemates, good luck with that <3))

put on the riské item(s), and spend some time finding what other clothes you can pair it with to feel comfortable in them. if you want you can even do makeup and hair and grooming and such if thats a thing that will make you feel extra attractive.

!!! at first you may still be a bit self conscious. the point of this is to help you get used to the feel of new types of clothing on your body. as well as find ways to style the clothing in ways you feel cute in, your not going to solve that within the first hour!!!

and then do things you were going to do around the house anyway. the goal here is to just forget your trying a new thing. get so lost finishing the laundry that you aren't thinking about your exposed stomach. make a lasagna so complicated you stop trying to adjust those lycra shorts. spend so much time in Stardew Valley that you don't worry about this dress being this revealing.

try to stay on the clothes for as much as the day as you can. feel free to re-style if something isn't working. and i highly recommend taking a picture, when you decide to change into new clothes. this way you can document how cute you look, and make judgement about how you feel about being in that outfit outside of the physical discomfort of trying a new thing.

after you change you can feel good about finally wearing that thing you bought a year ago and haven't worn yet. you can also sit in your super comfy pajamas and sort threw/edit your selfies so you can remember how cute you looked when you tried something new.

!!! doing this once will likely Not solve all of your self consciousness around the clothing you tried for that try doing this frequently. making sure to try other outfits, making sure to Not avoid mirrors, and eventually running quick errands in your cute look. the point is to slowly let yourself first learn that you wont get in trouble for trying these new styles. and secondly that you can look hot wearing those things!!!

also i know this post is about us fat people, but this technique can work for anyone who wants to wear a thing but feels they ''''can't'''' because of other people's options. there are ""fashion rules"" for all body types that can make anyone self conscious. And while fat people are one of the most stigmatized groups in beauty culture, most body types are told they have flaws to hide that may keep them from trying new things. (also this is a fantastic way to start playing with gender nonconformity)

Listen to me. You can wear a croptop even if you're fat. You can wear a bikini. A short skirt. A dress with an open back. Biker shorts. You can wear whatever you want.

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Nuances of Healthy and Unhealthy Fats with Practical Tips

Eating fat is essential to lowering body visceral fat and staying healthy, but not all fats are healthy. Over the years, I have written extensively about ketogenic diets and the critical role of fat in our health. Recently, I shared an article on the benefits of being fat-adapted, outlining compelling reasons and practical tips for readers.  One of the most common questions I received from new…

[bacchicly]

A few imperfect thoughts about writing fat characters respectfully

By me :

A short (5'2"), fat (approx 300 pounds), middle aged (turning 42 thank god), married to not a fat man, mother of a pre-teen, white, CIS, Anglo, Canadian, upper-middle class woman who writes fic (including smut) about a character who is fat by TV and Hollywood standards (Penelope Garcia)

Note: fat hate or debates about whether being fat is healthy or not will not be tolerated on this post. That is not what this post is about. This is about giving some insight into what writers may want to consider when trying to respectfully include more fat characters in their work and generally moving towards writing doing less harm to fat people.

This post started with me wanting to respond to someone honnestly asking "how do I write good descriptions of fat people" because they wanted to write more fat characters and write them authentically (and I assume in a way that would be respectful to fat people) which is an awesome! ...Or maybe it started a few months ago when a writer friend asked about whether a fat character in a fic borrowing a shirt or hoody from her fit boyfriend made sense. ...Or maybe it started way back when I started writing my first fan fic featuring Penelope Garcia partly in response to being irritated about how so many writers wrote her as a young woman and were often silent on her size or spent a lot of time on her insecurities about her body... anyhoo that's where I come from... doesn't make me an expert except maybe on my own unique experience with a fat body...rather more a fellow muddler / fat character writer enthusiast.

THE BASICS

This first part is a quick list of basics you'll read in other posts about writing characters in general - but we'd better get them out of the way because they apply:

Every character is unique and they way they act and think and feel tends to be a product of some mix of what they look like, how their body works or doesn't, how their brain works and doesn't, their "personality", what they were taught, their unique experiences, and the situation/society they are currently in. There are patterns (which is why we get tropes) but the fun thing is that small things can make big differences. So to write an authentic character, it helps to have a fairly clear sense of at least some of those elements and do some imagining about how all of that would funnel into the moment your writing.

The amount to which you describe character bodies and the style which you use to describe them tends to depend on genre, what the heck is going on in your story, the pov you're writing from, the reason you're writing etc. So their are no hard or fast rules. There may be norms for certain styles of fiction, but then it's up to you to decide if it's stronger for you to lean into those norms or to write "against" them at a particular moment.

In order to be more respectful and less harmful to fat people (especially if you see value in actively challenging the anti-fat status quo), you may have to change how you describe all bodies in your work, as well the attitudes both fat people and non fat people have about bodies in general.

Now that that's out of the way... let's get specifically to my thoughts on writing fat characters. I'm going to divide this part into tips for DESCRIBING FAT BODIES, FAT BODIES IN SPACE, and THINKING AND FEELING IN A FAT BODY.

TIPS FOR DESCRIBING FAT (OR OTHER) BODIES

I would say that both consistency and diversity across the work is important, by this I mean :

Consistently describe bodies in about the same amount of detail across your work for the same type of character regardless of body type. So protagonists should get about the same depth and breath of body descriptions as each other regardless of body type. Same goes for vilalns, supporting characters etc. Sometimes people are mute about the look and shape of "strait sized" character bodies (because what's to describe - they are just "normal") but then spend a bunch of time on "other sized" bodies or vice versa (in this case, the fat body is erased usually because of some form of internalised fat hate or phobia paired with "if you can't say anything nice" don't say anything at all.) If you're doing either of these things, I'm not saying it's wrong and has to be fixed- I'm just saying it's a flag that you may want to think about why you are writing differently about different body types and what your work is saying about what bodies have value and which don't.

Diversity Bodies in the real world come in a lot of different shapes and sizes (I know I know obvious woman strikes again) but if you are writing stories with fairly large casts and everyone has the same body type - there better be a good reason for it within the narrative. Truthfully there are cases where this does make sense to some degree... if you're writing about a group where there are physical requirements and standards for the folks in that world (ballet dancers, fire fighters, cops, soldiers, fbi agents) there may or may not be less diversity in body type and more homogeneous attitudes to body norms within the group - and certainly those who are outside of the norm may be commented on or feel like they are "other". But if you are in a more free setting - if you write without a diversity of body types - especially in settings where there is diversity - that is probably a clue that you're not thinking enough about what your various characters look like and may be "normalizing" one type of body over others. Similarly, if you are writing about a real time and place where there is evidence that there were fat bodies and you have none...that's another flag to ask yourself why.

The magical tools in your toolkit for describing fat and other bodies: Body neutrality and POV

Body neutrality is about not loving bodies and not hating bodies just accepting bodies as they are....or in this case describing them as they are. No poetic language. No judgement. Just this is what this character looks like. If you're struggling to do this, I suggest doing a body map for at least two characters with different body types - possibly one that you find easy to think of positively (in this case likely someone thin or at least fit) and one that you find more difficult to describe positively (in this case someone fat).

Describe them head to toe, naked and then clothed, in detail - acurately but not poetically. Start with their feet and then work up bit by bit. Pay attention to things like hair, scars, shape of joints, acne, tightness or looseness of skin, colour of skin, nails, fat, lack of fat, muscle tone, where do they hold their stress, what's in the bowels, how well they do or don't work, do they have their appendix, what they ate last, proportions (is their torso long or short compared to their legs), lungs - how much do they hold, are they healthy? - now describe their throat, shoulders, hands, hair, then end with face.

The only rule is no positive or negative connotations to anything. it's neither good nor bad that they have stretch marks - they just do and they have faded to silver. Now that you "see them' clearly - now look at them through the eyes of someone who loves them in a familial way...what do they see most? what words do they use? now through someone who is attracted to them sexually and love them and aren't ashamed...what do they see most? what words do they use? Now through the eyes of someone who hates them or wants to change them? or a child? or a dog? Now... how does your character feel about these descriptions? Now you have a variety of words you can draw on to describe the body and you also should have a fairly good idea of what is a more skewed view of the body and a more realistic view.

Also...it can be helpful to remember there are no consistently good or bad words to describe bodies - it depends on context and who is using the words. It's a lot like how sick can be used to describe something negatively or positively depending on the agreed upon meaning of the word by a group.

DESCRIBING BODIES IN SPACE/MOTION

Ok here's the thing - for every activity you can think of - there is a fat body that does it well and a fat body that can't do it easily or at all and there are a lot of reasons for both. Often it has to do with the fact that a lot of equipment is built for people who are 250lbs or less; and anything for bigger people tends to cost a premium. Also, if it's not an easy new skill to acquire with the body you've got...it may take longer and more bravery to keep pushing through to achieve mastery. People may try to discourage you from pursuing things. Sometimes out of prejudice, sometimes out of impatience, sometimes out of caring.

So deciding what your character's body can do easily and what it can't and why is more important than me giving you a list of words for how to describe fat movements.

My suggestion is: do your research. What sorts of body types have done the activity in the real world? What are the exceptions? What changes? So for example if a fat person is climbing a mountain - do they need more help? Different equipment? A different route?

Things to consider:

- equipment / things that can have weight limits: bunk beds, roller coasters, scooters, waterslides, camping chairs, elevators, trampolines, some bikes, life jackets (finding one that fit was a nightmare), exercise balls, airline seats (learning to ask for the seatbelt extender without second thought or shame was a lifesaver)

- not all fat people have pain, those who do will move taking into account the specifics of the pain - same as a lean person

- when I was pregnant I just got more cylindrical and did not get a classic belly. I moved well and easily all the way through my pregnancy, I had none of the back pain or ankle pain some people get. I stood for a lot of my labour. I gave birth on my hands and knees. Other fat people will have had different experiences of pregnancy...but that was mine.

- clothing can have a huge impact on what bounces or jiggles and what doesn't

- most (but not all) fat people I know are particularly sensitive to appearing sweaty or smelling bad

- how winded someone gets is not directly correlated to body size, neither is heart rate or breathing style; I have theatre training and grew up swimming - I breath very slowly and very deeply normally - so when I talk a slow deep breath...it is very slow and deep indeed. I have always been fat but can swim forever - I have always gotten winded and kind of dizzy running... Other fat people may be opposite.

- people do not "see fat" consistently. People regularly underestimate how fat I am (by 100+ pounds or many clothing sizes) because I am short, well spoken, proportioned in a way that is seen as fairly typical, and very mobile and very light on my feet. Someone who weighs less than me but is slower moving, dull witted, in a sour mood, is illl, or poorly dressed may be perceived as much heavier than than someone the same weight or heavier who is behaving/clothed differently (which can change how much fat hate someone experiences) and definately heavier than they are. Height also changes how people perceive weight.

- many stores still don't carry plus sized clothing, but eventually i sort of got used to it - although some days it makes me angry and other days sad

- chairs with arms or the occasional booth can be uncomfortable or just plain impossible to sit in, it's probably partly my ADHD but I often forget this until it happens; for taller and fatter people than me this can be a much more regular occurrence.

- once (if) a character figures out how to dress/move their body in a way that feels comfortable and meets general standards (or at least theirs) of respectability - they may not think that much about their body...or at least until something external draws attention to it

- I don't like feeling like I'm squishing people, so I will make myself small and still on buses or at the theatre, I also don't like sitting on laps or being lifted or carried.

- I often feel much taller than I actually am - except when I am standing right beside someone taller or am trying to reach something on a high shelf. The same principle applies - I feel larger next to smaller people and smaller next to larger ones.

- clothing and what I'm carrying also changes how I move (just like my lean counterparts)

- I don't lounge, my car seat is set almost straight but I sit further back than my brother in law who has a similar height and weight - he leans the seat back but pulls closer. I don't nap. My leaner husband both lounges and naps.

- some fat folks eat, walk, and move quickly - some slowly; figuring out which your character does, when they behave "out of character", and why these are their preferences will go a long way to creating an authentic feeling fat character

- acne is a thing and learning to accept ones rolls and tummy aprons (and thus take care of them properly) is a common challenge; although many do it naturally without thinking much of it. You lift your breasts and wash underneath - you lift you belly and wash underneath.

- fat bodies have the same reactions as everyone else: they tingle, burn, get numb, get goose bumps, like to be touched in certain places and in certain ways, feel the breeze, get hot, get cold, shiver, stretch, relax, get aroused, feel release, hold tension, feel capable and strong, feel weak...no matter who you are sitting in a chair that's too small for you will put pressure on your body and feel uncomfortable or safe ..you can explore what that is like. Sometimes it is a reassuring sensation. Sometimes it is uncomfortable. This is the same for fat bodies. It just may happen more frequently and depending on your character's context and experience the emotional reaction / thoughts that are generated may be a bit different.

THINKING AND FEELING IN A FAT BODY.

I think I touched on some of this in some of the earlier sections...but here I want to talk a bit about my experience of being fat and my thoughts about it - your fat characters may or may not feel similarly...but my hope is that you at least think about options as opposed to only writing one or two types of fat character.

I mainly "feel" fat in moments when it is pointed out to me or I am limited in what I can do because of it

I quite like my body, it is my home and I feel very connected to it's features. In my experience this is unusual for many people in North American society regardless of actual body shape or weight. Sometimes I feel guilty for not hating my body the way "I am supposed to" and wonder vaguely if my body would be different if I could hate it more (although as I get older I doubt it).

I do feel some pressure to be a cheerful "good" fat person as a way to stay safe and survive.

Nothing makes people more uncomfortable than me calling myself fat without judgement or asking for accomodation matter of factly. It took me a long time to feel comfortable doing so, but I do it now all the time and it makes my life better.

I felt some pressure to be the fun friend who people feel comfortable eating whatever they wanted with and I often felt like I was depended on to order dessert so they could too. This may have been all in my mind though.

Fat bellies can be very intimate places.

Not all fat people have dieted, but many have. I was lucky enough to never be forced into a diet. I did try keto once but it was a bit intense and nuts so I stopped. I learned a bunch doing it though.

Medical people not treating you appropriately when your fat is 100% a thing.

Internalised fat hate and fat phobia is a thing for many fat people and it pops up at weird moments.

I don 't.give a damn about being in a bathing suit. As long as it fits and my boobs and butt.aren't.falling out - I am happy and feel very attractive. In fact I am probably at my most comfortable in a bathing suit or naked. My body is mine in both those instances.

To reach the "healthy weight" for my height - I would have to lose half of my body mass. That is a lot of me to loose. Embarking on something like that would be totally different than loosing 5 or 10 pounds. Trying to navigate the various medical opinions about whether being fat is bad or not is exhausting.

For me, being fat and older is easier than being fat and younger. This could easily be the opposite for someone else.

Some fat people are into sex, some are not . Some folks are into sex with fat people and some are not. Some are nice about it. Some are not. Some want nice. Some do not.

Fat people are all around you living their best life or their worst life or somewhere in between. We know we are fat. We sometimes care and sometimes don't.

Ok that's it. I don't know if it will help anyone or if it's just a collection of rambles - but at the end of the day...fat people are just people. We are not going to go away. We are all sorts. We are the heroes of our own stories. We are people who are loved, depended on, hated, ignored, and/or spotlighted.

Some fat people think about being fat all the time. Some rarely. Just please don't erase us or other us.

Just by taking the step to interrogate your own biases and any feelings / assumptions you have about fatness/thinness is a huge step and will help limit the harm you could unintentionally do to fat people...actually to all people. Like all forms of hate and intelorance - Fat hate hurts EVERYONE. I would argue it privileges a few...but even that can be excruciating for the individuals who strive to retain that priviledge. We need to dismantle it.

[zenaidamacrouras1]

If you doubt the fat-phobia at all I have a million examples but I will just say I am naturally thin which doesn't actually mean I am magically healthy.

As a thin person comparing my medical experiences with fat friends is DISTRESSING. You have a cough and fluid in your lungs? Have you tried losing weight? Bitch, it's pneumonia. (A friend of mine had an experience this statement draws from)

In contrast, I have had numerous times a doctor said "you're at a weight I like so obviously you know what you are doing and are very healthy" when I was very much not doing well but also I only like going to the doctor for broken bones, vaccines and antibiotics so nodded and got out as fast as I could.

My mom actually died because a doctor misdiagnosed her because she was fat soooo fuck off with it -- doctors are fucking killing people with this shit.

Listen, I'm a firm believer in evidence based medicine. I don't have the kind of mistrust for medical science that leads one to be anti-vaxx or go into crystal healing or homeopathy or whatever. I generally agree that the first person you should ask about your health is a doctor.

But like

But like

After AIDS was mistaken for "a cancer caused by being gay, maybe a symptom of the Disease of Gayness" and all women's issues were chalked up to "hysteria" (aka - You Have A Uterus Disease) and all the many

many

many

many

racist medical practices that have gone on and still go on

I just do not understand the very specific kind of left-leaning individual

who can understand all of that

and is like "No but fatness is the one kind of human diversity that actually just is itself an illness and actually you can just diagnose someone with Being Fat and not explore their healthcare further. Go lose weight if you want basic dignity, chubbo."

Like sometimes I'll get these replies to some of my posts and I'll go to the blog (to block them) fully expecting to see, like, a racist or a troll or something and I find the blog of an otherwise seemingly somewhat socially aware thoughtful individual who apparently lost all their compassion and critical thinking skills the second a fattie was mentioned.

It's not the only marginalized category of people that experiences this phenomenon. But that doesn't stop it from being infuriating. There's a very specific kind of despair and helplessness felt when looking at someone who by all rights should by an ally and hearing them say "We need to end all human suffering.

Except you."

[victoriadallonfan]

Can people not be awful for five fucking seconds!?

[aimfor-theheart]

Why is it that dc such as r@pe, sa, and incest is totally okay to write about and romanticize but y’all draw the line at racism, fat phobia, and homophobia *talking about the writings creators make, not personal beliefs*? Whats the difference between these things? All of them are hurtful and affect people in real life, so why is everybody on here choosing and picking one and not the other? Do writers on here think that they are not comparable or that one is okay to romanticize and the other is going way too far?

Im just genuinely curious as I have seen this topic be brought up again and again, which has made me realize this and Id like to see it from someone else's pov.

hi! there is a lot to answer and unpack here and i have every intention of doing so underneath the cut. forgive me if this gets long, but you’ve asked me 4 very massive questions that i think warrant detail, nuance, and thought. there is a lot i’d like to say here.

that being said, mind the content warnings and protect yourself.

cw: mentions of rape, incest, racism, homophobia, fat phobia, discourse in general

firstly, i am going to choose to give you the benefit of the doubt in assuming you are actually curious in hearing another side and you are not simply looking to stir a pot or pick a fight with beliefs you have no intention of changing or having an open discussion on. your accusatory tone in the first half indicates otherwise and kindly, i am not an idiot. but i want to earnestly talk to you about this and again, will think better of you than you perhaps have indicated you think of me.

secondly, you do not have to censor words like rape in my inbox. that sort of censorship has become wildly popular because of tik tok and other money-hungry social media that also desperately want to silence people. do you know why you have to censor words like that on tik tok? or words like genocide? suicide? racism? 1. so that they can make money and market and push their squeaky clean algorithms but 2. and perhaps worse, so they can silence victims. if social media platforms and capitalism and the systems of powers had it their way, you would never utter these words again—whether to call someone out for justice or to have an open discussion like this one. i encourage you greatly to think critically about this and how you choose to use censorship and why.

now, to your questions.

to preface, i am interpreting this ask as being anti-dark content in fiction as you state that ALL these subjects harm people in real life. or at least, you are being critical of all dark content in fiction and the way writers engage with them, effectively ‘picking and choosing’ which are deemed acceptable and which aren’t, when they are all hurtful. i apologize if that wasn’t your intention/what you believe, but regardless, i’ll endeavor to answer you.

i personally have drawn no lines about dark content nor spoken about any of these topics specifically really, which indicates to me you have a different narrative and/or are coming from more inflammatory arguments that are always circling fandom lately. in the post i most recently reblogged, i spoke mostly of violence. which, of course, all of those things can be. but i didn’t name one of those topics in particular.

regardless, i don’t believe in the censorship of any dark content in art, but rather advocate strongly for critical analysis on a case-by-case basis. in general, i encourage thinking critically about every aspect of the world around you.

i do not believe that rape, incest, and sa are okay to write about or create art about but racism, homophobia, and fat phobia are not. i believe all of those topics are ones that can, should, and will be explored in the safety of art. all to varying degrees of success, earnestness, impact, and intent. you’re right that these are real things, that can hurt people, and the fictional work about them can have impact on our society that is tangible but the actual art or fiction created is not real. and again, this is all to varying degrees on a case-by-case basis.

art and fiction also historically and massively do discuss these dark content topics and have actively swayed the public’s opinion on matters, whether for better or for worse. throwing away all dark content in art and fiction because it is ‘harmful’ is deeply, deeply dangerous and reductive. a lot of art that engages with dark content actually makes very succinct points about it—i think of vladimir nabokov’s lolita or octavia butler’s bloodchild or speak by laurie halse anderson.

this is where we must exorcise critical thinking. some pieces of work will handle dark content poorly—white saviors making art on racism. men making art about a woman’s experiences that (as you are so interested in) romanticize her pain. etc. etc. and some art will handle it’s dark content incredibly and be transformative, perhaps even revolutionary in how we talk, perceive, or acknowledge systems of oppression, violence, and dark content in this world. some dark content in fiction will have damaging beliefs and effects on society, some will not—we must also look at scope for this, at the writer perhaps, the historical moment, their audience etc.

(for example, there is a significant difference in a main stream male writer, writing of a woman’s experience with rape in a published book in a way that makes it sound romanticized, sold to thousands and thousands of general public vs. a woman using fanfic to explore rape, take control of it, or whatever in a fanfic for a small online community where there are warnings on it. indicating she is aware of its potential damage in a way her male counterpart is not…)

but i still believe in dark contents’ existence in art. of course there is differences between all of these topics you brought up, but i don’t think their differences matter in this answer. i believe in their right to be explored in art. i am talking broadly of media/art here, which i think is the more relevant conversation, but i think you are actually more interested in a much smaller scale of people. ie. fandom. ie. mostly marginalized people in small communities online writing and creating dark content.

people will choose and pick which ones they’d like to create art over and which ones they don’t, which ones they read and which ones they don’t. there’s no ‘hard line’ drawn anywhere. and i can’t control it and neither can you. perhaps you think violence is okay to be explored in fanfic, but racism isn’t. someone else will have different preferences. i do not believe in its censorship.

now, let’s move onto your interest in romanticization and what i think you are more pointing to, which is fandom. you are specifically referring to people in fandom who write about rape, incest, etc. and ‘romanticize’ it—ie. they write about it in a way that is a fantasy. it is perhaps supposed to be horny or sexy. so let’s talk about it.

i must remind you that these topics you’ve brought up (rape, incest, sa) being written are fiction and it is (most often) done by someone marginalized who has either experienced this or is in threat of experiencing this under a patriarchy. i assure you, they are aware of its harm. hence the copious warnings in fandom spaces.

if i can be candid, sometimes i think that people forget how systems of oppression work when discussing fandom and whether dark content being created should be allowed or not.

for example, i sometimes think people who are anti-dark content in fandom believe that a woman or afab person writing a fictional fanfic about rape or sexual violence then influences people to go out and rape people or that women actually like it. when the reality, in fandom spaces, is that rape and sexual violence happen frequently under the patriarchy and then these women in fandom write fictional fanfic in response to cope, explore, take control of, etc. etc.

to insinuate that women or afab people (which fandom mostly is) exploring dark content safely in fiction then causes their own oppression and harm or trauma is rather victim-blame-y to me. fandom exploring dark content does not cause these things to happen in our society….these actions (rape, incest, sa) happen in our society or systems of power and fandom reacts to them in their art by exploring it in dark content. do you understand what i’m trying to say?

it’s not a matter of what is ‘okay’ to romanticize and what isn’t. i do not think the romanticization that fandom does with dark content (ie. my kidnapper actually loves me! or this sexual act that i did not consent to…maybe feels good) is not actually romanticizing but coping because of the systems of power that i described above. and this can be coping with anything—shame of sexuality, shame of fantasies, trauma, fear, etc. etc.

as i said in my tags in that post i reblogged and as plato said, dark content in art is a safe place to explore what would otherwise be harmful and dangerous in real life. it is cathartic. potentially even, a purging.

and even if it isn’t all that—maybe it just is trashy fantasy. it is still playing pretend. it is still fiction and in fandom spaces, it is still most likely being created by a marginalized person. and again, even if it isn’t, we don’t get to censor it. we can be critical of it or wary or whatever, but to censor it, is a slippery, slippery slope. do deem some topics as “acceptable” and others as “unacceptable” is dangerous.

just like kids play pretend where they ‘fight’ or ‘kill’ or ‘kidnap’ or ‘shoot’ each other in games of cops and robbers or heroes and villains, they are safely exploring adventure, dark content, fantasy, tragedy, and higher emotions. adults can do the same in fiction and with adult topics like sex.

and at the end of the day, we don’t get to demand the credentials to do so either. we don’t get to censor them or control them and nor should we be allowed to. i cannot stress enough that i encourage you to be critical of censorship or the absolute disgust in dark content and at those (again—often marginalized people) who engage with it in fandom. i believe it is deeply puritanical, conservative, and dangerous.

you don’t have to like dark content or consume it at all and fandom makes it easy not to with all the warnings and tags, but you cannot control others or police them. nor should you want to.

and at the end of the day, i have some questions for you. you don’t have to respond to this, perhaps they’re just things to think about. what is the end goal here? what is the point in harassing, shaming, attacking, criticizing, or interrogating people in fandom spaces who create or support dark content? do you believe that if it is purged from fandom, it will be purged from our society? if you want it purged from society—shouldn’t you start there rather than in the inbox of marginalized writers in fandom? people in fandom did not create rape, incest, and sa nor do they in their exploration of fiction…they are merely reacting to a world that did create it.

i hope at no point i came off as rude to you, as was not my intention. i intended to stand up for myself and respectfully state my opinions and thoughts on this matter. i’m sorry it got long, but also i don’t believe in being brief on such complex matters. i am a writer who engages critically with the world around me and sometimes, things cannot be made into short, snappy answers. sometimes, we must unpack.

genuinely wishing you well.

[fatphobiabusters]

so to keep a long story short I'm forced to hear and watch the Big Bang Theory and h o l y shit is is fatphobic. Like I knew it was juvenile and mean spirited but wow. The ableism I heard a lot about but fatphobia is off the charts.

-mod squirrel

[whatbigotspost]

I’ve never thought about this before but literally as a cis woman you’re told your whole fucking life how bad it is to have “a gut.” Muffin top. Fupa, whatever. Belly fat is the worst most shameful and anti lady like way to carry fat (most lady like = hourglass, bc big ass/hips and tits are great so long as your waist is “snatched” right!???)

And there’s ONE (1, uno, eins) circumstance in which the EXTREMELY LARGE GUT is allowed to be seen on a woman and it looks like this and this alone:

(All of these ripped from my own feeds of people I personally know irl….they’ll just have to forgive me if they ever see this bc my point here is real and it’s not about the individual pregnant people who are celebrating their pregnancies.)

What I’m driving at is if these pictures so cute when someone is pregnant, do I REALLY need to feel like shit just for existing day in, day out?

I’m not even wanting to celebrate my gut. I just wanna be left alone about it.

Everyday for approximately 25 years I felt extreme shame because I am fat and I carry my weight around my mid section aka I have A Gut. If I wear just the “wrong” kind of dress, people have asked me when I’m due* It’s so fucking annoying.

Related to what I wear and how I react, I’ve moved passed caring at this point thank god. But it was HARD getting there.

All I’m really saying here is that the contrast in comments when someone posts a picture like these versus when a fat person is just wearing a crop top, is stark, unnecessary, and upsetting. If we are capable of seeing the beauty in a pregnant person’s radically altered and temporarily distended bodies, I don’t understand why we can’t just let fat people exist day-to-day.

And don’t even get me started here on the layer of this, which is all kinds of misogyny, about how motherhood is the ultimate peak thing a woman could accomplish… until you are a woman who actually does become a mother. The moment that baby is born, you are cast to the side and discarded. No longer your own person and no longer worth marveling at.

Now that I’m on a tear about it, of course I’m aware of the impacts of white supremacy and transphobia afoot as well. It’s all always connected.

[fatliberation]

how is obese a slur? (genuine question, not rooted in hate! )

isn’t it just a word for when someone is more than just a tad overweight? like, for if they’re… i guess the word is obese. doesn't it just mean fat?

again, no hate, just a genuine question from someone who belives everyone should love themselves and have the ability to travel with comfort… but maybe being morbidly obese shouldn’t celebrated?

do you hear yourself?

no hate, but I think your body is morbid.

no hate, you should love yourself, but I don’t think you should exist in that body.

you should be able to travel (aka the world should be accessible to you), except I draw the line at what I deem is “too big.”

you are part of the problem.

[hiyyihrts]

I think the only reason ppl don’t like the idea of s3 focusing on Penelope/Colin is simply because the season focuses on characters who in every other show or story are always meant to be just side characters (the overweight/ugly wallflower best friend and the comedic side friend who is just a funny charmer that no one ever takes seriously) who no one ever really sees any potential in or reason to give them their own stories. but this is why their story IS important. They’re two characters who everyone enjoys but as soon as they’re (specifically Penelope) shown in a romantic or sexy vibe everyone suddenly thinks it’s a waste of time or waste of a season when they could have the ‘more conventionally attractive and interesting characters’. Just say you all think poorly of these characters and that their stories aren’t worth telling or seeing because it doesn’t pertain to YOU and YOUR fantasy’s/sexual fantasy’s you’ve dreamed about in your own head and go wait for another season or smth to come out instead

[guzhufuren]

synopsis for the novel that Meet You At The Blossom is adapted from:

The son of the wealthiest man along the Jiangnan region falls in love with an icy white-clothed “beauty” due to an unexpected meeting, but the true identity of this “beauty” is actually…

Handsome and distinguished with an outstanding temperament: Jin Xiaobao is not fated to be described as such. But as the Young Master of the great Jin family, who is funny, considerate and generous, he would be a good match even if the other person was the emperor’s daughter!

The pitiful Jin Xiaobao, whose marriage proposals have all failed; just when multiple doors have closed repeatedly for this little young man, he actually coincidentally picked up a fairy on this very night?! Gazing at those incomparably beautiful features, staring at that imposing, cool as an iceberg manner, – dad~ mom~ your son has found his wife!

But this future wife, the young lady Huai'en, seems to have aroused a lot of enmity. Once again on another dark and windy moonless night, a bloody night, a heavily injured Huai'en was tainted by aphrodisiac from the enemy. – Such a good opportunity for the handsome hero to save the beauty! The Young Master of the Jin family who made his glorious debut, was actually valiantly pushed down by the “wife”?!

---

so what i'm reading here is that a pathetic cringefail loser bisexual Jin Xiaobao meets someone who he thinks is a young lady, who is very cold to him, falls for her immediately and decides to marry her. that young lady in fact is a guy Huai'en who has lots of enemies, he gets poisoned with aphrodisiacs by said enemies. when Xiaobao runs to save him, Huai'en, high on aphrodisiacs, saddles Xiaobao, pins him to the ground and has his way with him. and bts footage showed that this whole aphrodisiac scene is included in the show exactly as it is. this is a wild plot to have as the first ever uncensored chinese wuxia bl tv series. and that's beautiful

(bisexuality was confirmed by a teaser video, aphrodisiac scene is in the picture and gif above where Xiaobao with his golden bracelets is under Huai'en)

[nosolaceofastraightanswer]

in a lot of ways tua s4 is great at show don’t tell, they just also forgot the show part!!

[liquidpaperfoundation]

Is there a middle ground between toxic diet culture and fat activism? I'm really sick of the only sides of discourse being either "IF YOU HAVE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST HINT OF BELLY POOCH OR GOD FORBID CELLULITE YOU ARE A DISGUSTING PERSON" or "ACTUALLY OBESITY IS ALL GENETICS AND BEING 400 POUNDS IS HEALTHY ACKSHUALLY". Like, You Are Both Insane.

Yes, obesity is unhealthy. It increases your risk of so many problems, like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, skin infections (from moisture trapped under fat rolls), blood clots, infertility, and so much more.

No, shaming people is not kind or helpful in any way.

Yes, genetics, chemical exposure, mental illness, and so much more can make it difficult to control your weight. Yes, different people have different natural body types.

No, weight loss is not impossible. No, you are not "genetically" 300 pounds.

Yes, society's beauty standards for women and men are ridiculous and even contradictory and have nothing to do with what a healthy human body actually looks like. Yes, you can't necessarily tell if somebody is healthy just by looking at them. Yes, BMI is BS. Yes, the ghouls are always making up some shit about cellulite or buccal fat or hip dips just to make you feel bad about having a perfectly normal body.

No, that doesn't mean that all bodies are healthy. Eugenia Cooney is too goddamn thin and Tess Holliday is too goddamn fat.

Toxic diet culture tells us that our bodies are bad and morally wrong and we should be willing to do anything to get thinner. That's bad.

Toxic fat positivity tells us that becoming addicted to junk food and getting morbidly obese is "self love" and that wanting to eat healthy or exercise at all is tantamount to anorexia, and that if you don't want to be hundreds of pounds overweight you are a bigot. Also bad.

People really need to stop spitefully taking the most extreme opinions. It helps nobody except the jerks who want to sell us stuff.

[nomoremrnicefat]

even if being fat was unhealthy, you dont mistreat someone for smoking, drinking beer, vaping...

my dad takes MORE of 4 beers A DAY, i haven't seen a soul tell him to worry about his health, when he gets sick no one says is cause he drinks beer either, but when i feel sick is magically cause im fat, even tho im naturally fat all most of my family also is.

it was never about health, y'all dont worry about our health.

[n-00-nes]

Learning from love goddesses

The representations below were created hundreds or even thousands of years apart by groups that spoke different languages and lived in different climates. Despite differences in their style, function, and degree of realism, they share common features.

The love goddesses typically have an hourglass figure, with a small waist, larger than average breasts, and pronounced hips. They have a moderate, healthy weight: fairly slim, but not skinny. This Indian statue is two thousand years old.

These two Minoan examples are more than three thousand years old.

Never were obese women widely preferred. Rubens is often cited as a counterexample to conventional beauty standards. But his corpulent figures, such as the image below, are exceptions in a long history of love-goddess representations that fit the general trend. Outliers like this don't nullify the rule.

While fleshier Venuses are seen more often around 1600 AD, Rubens' were heavy even by the standards of his time.

Obese prehistoric figurines like the 30,000-year-old “Venus of Willendorf” are also frequently raised as counterexamples. But they don't qualify as love goddesses. The “Venus” appellation is arbitrary and disputed by scholars. These figurines weren't found with a label, and their true meaning and function are unknown.

"We dug up some stone carvings of fat women" is simply not good evidence that obesity is or ever was considered beautiful.

And there is, in fact, no shortage of ancient figurines which do exhibit the hourglass shape common in verifiable love-goddess representations.

[chilewithcarnage]