There IS a difference: BBW vs. fat, performativity & porn
riotsnotdiets:
Very recently, I was out with my dear friend Jessica, a fat fashion maven and FA activist I met through the fatshionista livejournal community. We both live in San Diego, and we like to go out and “be fat in public” together, whether that means shopping or sunbathing at the beach or just eating delicious juicy burgers at a neighborhood diner.
Jessica and I were at an event at Great Curves, a plus-size consignment shop, lured there by a woman who insisted we should meet this great plus-size pinup photographer. For full details, you should read Jessica’s blog post about the experience. It was awkward and weird and NOT at all what we expected. (AKA porn.) So that was interesting… and even MORE interesting, at least to me, was the inability of any woman at the event to say the word “fat”.
So by now y’all know that I identify as fat. In the past, prior to finding fat and size acceptance, I identified as other things: curvy, voluptuous, well-proportioned, “bigger,” plus-size, and—at least in health contexts—morbidly obese. I don’t call myself these things anymore, and when I’m having a bad day and am feeling insecure, I no longer turn to shitty platitudes like “REAL women have curves” to make me feel better. But I used to. It’s important to acknowledge this because I need to be reminded how these euphemisms can sometimes feel like a fat girl’s only allies in a fat-hating world.
Some of these words, like curvy or voluptuous, still don’t really bother me all that much. Everyone, by virtue of having a three-dimensional body, is curvy. And voluptuous means curvy and sexy (at least according to my dictionary)… many things (people, art, landscapes) can be voluptuous, not just fat women. But these and other euphemisms for the fat female body are a problem if they keep us from truly accepting our bodies just as they are. “Fat” will always have a particularly loaded meaning and power over us if we can’t find a way to reclaim it, if we choose to hide behind “curvy” and pretend that no one else can see our fat if we don’t say the word.
And really? The need to justify one’s body by degrading the bodies of others (“REAL women have curves”) is just gross and pathetic. Body acceptance means loving and accepting all bodies, regardless of shape or size (or gender, or color, or ability, etc.). And who are you to say what a “real” woman is anyway? Fuck that gender normativity.
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Guys this is a FAB post and totally summed up what I tried to say here but more eloquent and what have you :)
