#i've just been thinking about my blorbos so much lately that i tend to POUNCE on any small chance to monologue about them. lol

[cockroachmotherfucker10]

Ooh, I love this post, and I'd love to ramble about how I myself am navigating this in my current novel.

The protagonist of my WIP is a visibly emaciated girl with a severe restrictive eating disorder, and the primary theme of the novel is hunger (on a metaphorical level as well as a literal one, naturally). My protagonist needed larger women alongside her, both for diversity and to serve as her foil.

I gave her a roommate, Ari, who is a fat Latina girl. But I wanted Ari to be soft and sad and sleepy...and I knew the lattermost trait came too close to the laziness stereotypically attributed to both fat people and Latinos.

Thus, I decided to balance it out by making her athletic, smart, strong, and reserved yet kind. One of Ari's first scenes shows her offering to carry my very ill protagonist's heavy suitcase with ease. And Protagonist, of course, is hopelessly attracted to Ari's beauty—not in spite of, but in large part because of her size (and strength!). Subconsciously, I think Ari was definitely inspired by my attraction to my IRL partner, which is a sweet little thing I notice while editing.

Ari is my Sleeping Beauty, and I like her character more because I worked to give her a little more nuance than "roommate who's always lying around." She is a beautiful, feminine "princess" with a secret admirer (Protagonist), and she is a powerful fat woman of color.

Now, my deuteragonist is a woman named Hawthorne, whose body is soft and full and voluptuous. I did in fact use the word "Rubenesque" in her introduction; she has that body type revered by all the great painters of centuries past. She's dead sexy, and she and Protagonist both know it.

Hawthorne is a devoted hedonist, which I initially recognized as problematic in that fat people are often stereotyped as greedy and debauched. She had to be tightly composed in other aspects: well-groomed, elegant, and aloof.

Additionally, it's clear her hedonism is not as innate as her body type, but is rooted in a traumatic past marked by poverty (though her whiteness, of course, still allows her access to a lifestyle in which a woman of color would not have the privilege of indulging, through the automatic permissiveness society and individuals grant to her by virtue of her race and conventional beauty).

Finally, Hawthorne's hedonism is portrayed as darkly seductive, but only because Protagonist—an autistic, mentally ill, physically disabled, queer, and deeply traumatized woman of color—has never been able to seek pleasure, instead fighting her own marginalization in every facet of life. Hawthorne's continual decision to indulge is a window into privilege...yet is still criticized under the puritanical standards of a fatphobic, capitalist, culturally Christian society.

She's right to enjoy food, sex, vanity, and every other form of pleasure. We should all be so lucky, and Protagonist finally gets that chance under Hawthorne's wing. In that way, I hope it's clear her body type is neither a symptom nor cause of any moral vice. She loves to eat decadently—good!

In short? It's complicated to write fat characters, as it is complicated to write any marginalized character knowing that you have years of stereotypes beaten into your head through your own media consumption.

I think it's just important to challenge the first heuristic to pop into your head, and to carefully consider how you can flesh out a label (like Fat™) into a full-fledged character with nuance and dimension.

I am 100000000% not perfect at doing that, but no one is. What's most important is to try, and to listen to actual marginalized voices with compassion and empathy as you do so.

Fat people are human beings like any other! Write them as such!!

-Mod Lia

Challenging Fatphobic Language in Writing: Some Alternative Vocabularies

So I’m currently working on a short story for an explicitly fat-positive anthology, and it’s making me realize just how little language I have readily at hand for describing large bodies in positive terms! 

Putting aside for a moment the whole debate over HAES and fat positivity and everything else – and if you clown on this post, I’m simply going to block you, that’s not what we’re here for – sometimes you just want to write a story with a fat person in it and you need some adjectives/descriptive language that isn’t overtly gross and/or fetishistic. 

Well, I’ve got you, fam. I have compiled this handy list of descriptive terms and phrases for describing big bodies with positive connotations.

Why am I doing this? 

Because this:

And this: 

And frankly, we all deserve better. So let’s go. 

Positive (and Neutral) Adjectives for Fatness

Abundant

Ample

Big

Broad

Buxom

Considerable

Curvy

Full

Generous

Heavy

Large

Luscious

Plentiful

Plump

Replete

Robust

Round

Rubenesque

Soft

Solid

Stocky

Substantial

Thick

Voluptuous

Zaftig

Movement Verbs Evoking Fatness

Amble

Bounce

Lope

Mosey

Pad

Plod

Pound

Ramble

Scoot

Shuffle

Trundle

Some Points to Keep In Mind

A big part of challenging fatphobia in writing is inverting or subverting stereotypes. Here are a few lazy/played-out tropes and things to think about: 

Fat = Greedy I think we can all agree at this point that there are better ways to show greed – such as excessive wealth, entitlement, selfishness, and so forth. There is really no need to use fatness or gluttony as a metaphor for these concepts. Just write your greedy character doing greedy things and resist the urge to make them also be fat. If you need a strong visual metaphor, go for opulence and wealth instead. 

Fat = Gross  A ton of media, especially horror, loves making fat people slovenly, smelly, covered in food stains, farting and belching, etc. etc. So if you want a more positive representation, just presenting the character as clean, well-dressed, tidy, etc. actually goes a very long way. Consider playing against type by making your fat character dapper or fastidious about other elements of their appearance, like their hair, or wearing very nice custom-fitted clothes (or even just “dressing up” a bit more than everyone else). 

Fat = Out of Shape Yes, absolutely, many fat people are also out of shape couch potatoes. But so are a lot of skinny people. And fat people absolutely can be athletic – go google “fat athletes” for several lists of them if you don’t believe me! Sure, you probably won’t find a ton of fat long-distance runners, but you’ll definitely find plenty of hefty weight lifters, fighters, folks with physical jobs, etc. A lot of super muscular people are also carrying extra fat, and that is in fact way more common and natural than the super-defined, well-cut muscles you see on TV. Keep that in mind the next time you’re writing an army of strong hand-to-hand combatants – they’re likely to be physically big, not in a bulging muscle He-Man way but more of an “absolute unit” way. Keep in mind, too, that even regular folks packing extra pounds will often tend to be a lot stronger (on account of spending every day carrying extra weight!) You can be fat and graceful, fat and strong, fat and with endurance. Just something to keep in mind. 

Fat = Pig  Pigs have a reputation for being huge, dirty, smelly, garbage-eating slobby creatures, and “disgusting fat pig” and “porker” and their ilk have been insults against big people for a long time. Of course, in reality pigs are also super smart, highly social (and fucking terrifying) but that’s not usually waht gets invoked when people think of them! Really, avoiding animal language when talking about people is often a good idea (since animal comparisons can be dehumanizing), but if you are going to evoke an animal, go with something else. Like a seal (super cute, very graceful in its natural environment) or a bear (big and solid and intimidating) or a bull elk (thick and majestic). 

Fat = Ugly  Fat people can be beautiful. I mean, sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and inner beauty is a thing and all that – but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean that fat bodies are great! They’re warm and soft and huggable. They’re big and solid and comforting. They can be strong and protective. They can be super-feminine and curvy. Cute as a button or powerful and demanding with their presence. 

Obviously dismantling fatphobia is a whole big (ha, ha) topic all on its own, and there’s a ton more to think about. But this is at least something to get you started! 

Context matters a whole lot in description – words can be positive or negative based on how they’re utilized! But these are at least some terms intended to be a bit less loaded with negative baggage than those often used in less flattering descriptions. 

Have you read a book with a fat character who had a great or interesting description? Please reblog, I’d love to see how other authors have handled it!