Ugh. It’s happening again. There’s another round of posts/tweets/talk declaring “You can’t force me to find you attractive!” responses to fat activism. Post after post after post from random dudes, usually crawling out of reddit or 4chan, loudly declaring that fat activism has no place in modern society because “You can’t force me to find you attractive!!” It doesn’t matter what topic we talk about, there they are:
“The availability of a full range of affordable plus-size clothes is sadly lacking.”
“You can’t force me to find you attractive!”
“Doctors are failing to treat fat patients with dignity and respect, and this is endangering their health.”
“You can’t force me to find you attractive!”
“Fat women are paid less than thin people for doing the same work.”
“You can’t force me to find you attractive!”
“Fat women cannot walk down the street or be visible online without being abused and harassed”
“You can’t force me to find you attractive!”
“Fat women are not represented fairly in art or media.”
“You can’t force me to find you attractive!”
“Gastrointestinal mutilation is killing fat people.”
“You can’t force me to find you attractive!”
Hot tip fellas – we have never either asked or demanded you find us attractive. It’s pretty certain that if you’re that type of dude, we don’t find YOU attractive, and we could care less whether you find us attractive or not. Fat activism has nothing to do with your boner. It has always been about the rights of fat people to live their lives in dignity and respect, without fear of vilification or discrimination. Standing up and saying “Don’t treat fat people as subhuman.” does not mean the same as “You must find us attractive.” Our demand to be able to walk down the street or be online without being abused and harassed, or to get decent clothing, medical care and working conditions has not one iota of anything to do with whether or not people find us attractive or not.
But that’s the thing isn’t it? Many men only treat women with respect if they find them attractive. It’s the Nice Guy™ phenomenon. Those men who are only “nice guys” to the women they want to sleep with.
Which leads me to the next problem that fat women face – and that’s at the other end of the spectrum. Men who expect us to be grateful that they DO find us attractive. I can’t tell you the number of times I have complete strangers contact me to tell me that they find sexy, as if I’m supposed to care. I write about fat women in fiction – skeevy dudes commenting how they like me in a particular dress, or emailing me dick pics. I even get them creeping me on LinkedIn and GoodReads for fucks sake! I write about harassment online, some rando messages me that he wants to lick my fat feet. I post pictures of my new outfit, some creep follows me on Flickr and favourites hundreds of pictures of me. I say on Instagram that I feel cute today – some dude tells me I’m a hot BBW.
Newsflash – I am not your BBW, whoever you are. I am not your ANYTHING. I don’t know you, and I don’t want to hear about your boner.
When women talk about how they feel beautiful or sexy or pretty, it is not the same thing as demanding or inviting other people to do so. It’s about how we feel, our self-confidence and self-esteem. It’s about our right to take up space and feel good about ourselves. If I post a picture of myself and say “Damn I’m cute!” – it has NO bearing on whether or not someone else feels the same way. It’s about how I feel and if someone disagrees, I don’t care. I am still cute, whether you agree or not. No need to tell me. It’s not about you. I’m not going to click on some strange guy’s photo and say “Dude, I don’t find you attractive at all.” Or “You’re gross.” One, what I think about some stranger doesn’t matter and two, it’s DOUCHEY to try to make anyone feel bad about themselves.
We don’t have to feel or show gratitude for men telling us about their boner. Particularly when most of them would turn and sneer if some random woman who they weren’t interested in approached them. It’s interesting how a man declaring sexual interest in a woman is something women should be grateful for, whether they are interested or not, but a woman showing interest in a man earns her scorn and ridicule if it is not reciprocated.
Because that’s how they’ve set up the parameters around fat women – we can’t win no matter what we do. If we demand to be treated as human, we are either accused of forcing random men to find us attractive, or we’re treated as objects to fuck with no agency or humanity.
To all the fat women out there sick of either being abused or skeeved on by random men – your self-confidence and self-esteem is not determined by other people, it is determined by YOU.
Fat Heffalump 