Today I read an article by Aubrey Gordon, about how labeling your body as "average" is telling a fat person their body is peripheral. And I was confused, because she is not opposed to using the word "fat" (and neither am I), but thinks that being "not average" or "different" is somehow wrong?
I don't get it. My body IS peripheral. It is not average. I am a size 22, and I am not average in any way, shape, or form. And that's perfectly okay. I don't want to be average. I mean, yes, one day I'd like to be thinner for health reasons (and I have been losing weight for that reason). But average? What does that even mean? And how could someone find offense in that? And how does being peripheral mean something bad? Who cares?
All of these armchair activists and social justice warriors find offense in everything. It's very unnerving.
I mean, Aubrey is right when she says that fat people need better access to healthcare, but just like Virgie Tovar who has a video about how fat-phobic it is to ask the cake cutter at a party to cut them a smaller piece of cake, both of these gals are taking "fat-activism" to extremes. I have asked plenty of times at parties to get a smaller piece of cake because I have reactive hypoglycemia and if I eat too much sugar, my blood sugar spikes, then crashes, leaving me feeling sick as fuck. But Virgie apparently thinks that all women who ask for smaller pieces of cake are being superior and fat-phobic.
My answer to both Aubrey and Virgie is to say "Not everything is about you". In fact, not everything is about any of us, even if we're fat. In fact, again, mostly NOTHING is about us at all, even if it is.
What I mean is, if someone is being fat-phobic to you, it has nothing to do with you at all. It has to do with that particular person and how they are feeling in that moment. It has to do with their past life experiences and everything in their lives up until that moment in time. And none of it has a damn thing to do with us.
If you describe your body as average to me, I won't even flinch, because how can how you describe your body have anything to do with me at all? Yes, you as a thin person may feel fat, as I did when I was super thin. I had body dysmorphia and honestly believed I was fat at 125lbs. I hated myself. But if a fat person asked me to describe my body size to them, I would not have said fat. I would have said average. But deep down I knew I was fat. And I hated myself for it. I didn't hate my fat friends or even gave them a single though about their body shapes. I didn't care what other people looked like, I cared what I looked like. Fatness wasn't gross to me. Me being fat was. It doesn't make any sense at all, I know, but that's how dysmorphia works. You don't see the truth. You don't feel it. And you have no idea how to fix it.
The only thing that fixed me was actually getting fat. I love myself now. I am comfortable (for the most part). I don't feel like a moose anymore, I just feel like me. I think I could be fat or thin or now, and enjoy my body either way. And I stopped thinking the world revolved around me and my body shape, as though the choices of other have anything to do with me at all.
Yes, fat people need better access to healthcare and better seating in certain places, and all that jazz. We need to be seen as valid, normal, and worthy, just like everyone else. But calling people "privileged bodies" just because they're thin separates us even further, and thinking that pieces of cake or someone calling themselves average is offensive to us is just something stupid to be mad over. I am so tired of "fat-activists" hurting the REAL issues behind body positivity, as though these things I am reading about have anything to do with the subject at all. In reality, body positivity is about loving who YOU are, whether your fat, thin, average, short, tall, black, white, Asian, or otherwise. It's about loving yourself, as you are, no matter who you are. It's not about being fat or being thin. It's about YOU. I get we need to fight for better healthcare, but everything else? Can be left at the door. Because I for one am sick and tired of people perceiving slights in the world where there are none.
Eat your cake. Don't eat your cake. Call your body shape whatever you like (as long as it's nice). And be done with it. We are here on a vacation from non-being, so let's make this vacation wonderful, rather than a world full of everyone being angry about silly things, shall we? Just be. And let others be, too. Even if you don't like the size of their piece of cake. Ignore it, and eat whatever size you like and stop thinking their choices have anything to do with you at all. And just be, man. Just fucking be.
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