I am a fat girl, and I’m not ashamed to call myself that.
I never liked to call myself the “F” word because I thought it was more of an insult than a term to actually describe yourself. For years I would call myself chubby, thick, big, curvy, chunky; pretty much any variation of what it meant to be fat. As I started to get older, I realized that I wasn’t any of those things because the reality of it is that I am not just a little chunky. I’m not a little chubby. I’m more than thick and big is not doing it justice. I realized that the word “skinny” is widely used to describe people in a positive light, whereas “fat” isn’t.
I admitted to myself not too long ago that I was a fat girl, and I’m unapologetic about it.
I began to get bullied in the 6th grade; people would make fun of me to the point that I began to skip lunch in school and drink water for 8 hours a day. The bullying was bad to the point that I remember losing it during my math class one day at the end of the year. I mean, it took a visit to my principal and the guidance counselor from my parents to finally stop the bullying, but it doesn’t mean the image of being “the fat girl” ever went away.
Of course, as I got older, I began to gain more weight; it’s life. When I was 19, I had to get my gallbladder removed because I was beginning to get unbearable pain from it, not realizing that once I removed it, it would cause such a rapid weight gain. I gained 60 pounds in a matter of four years, and I am currently at my heaviest. I can share this about myself because I am now trying to get lose the weight that I gained, and not so I “feel better about myself”, but because I want to get healthier.
My weight does not make me ugly. “Fat” isn’t a term you call “ugly girls”. My weight does not limit me from doing everyday activities, although it does make some things more difficult to do than others. I can walk, I can run, I can stand, I can love, I can be sexy, I can have sex, and I can be appreciated in someone else’s eyes.
Fat people are still people.
Fat Girl/Fat Guy Love:
People have this assumption that if you are a fat person, your love life is pretty much doomed. People think that fat people aren’t attractive, so they look over them as potential partners (of course, unless fat people are your cup of tea). I will admit, I tend to look over fat guys who don’t appeal to me, and I can say that guys look at me and say the same thing; but why does it have to be that way? Why is it programmed in our minds that thinner people are more attractive? Why are people so turned off by a stomach and love-handles? The fact of the matter is fat people love just as much as thinner people, and we like people and have crushes the same way as well. I had a boy in my middle school tell me once that he didn’t like me because “I didn’t look like his type” and instead proceeded to ask me if I can talk him up to my more thinner, “prettier” friend. Things like that make fat people feel the way they do about themselves, and end up never loving themselves for more than just their body.
After all of the years of being rejected by the people who I liked, I finally had a connection with a person who still thinks I’m cute and pretty and beautiful in my own way. He, of all people, knows that sometimes my fatness can make me insecure, especially in times of intimacy. One of the things that I acknowledged that he began doing was whenever we would just cuddle and fall asleep, he will place is hand on my stomach. At first, it make me feel very insecure about myself, and I would actually move it away sometimes. I realized that after he began doing that, I wasn’t so closed in with my body as I once was. I believe it was a sign telling me he didn’t care about it, and that he loved me for me. Every fat girl or guy should feel that revelation that they can be loved too.
Fat Sex:
Stop thinking that having sex with a fat person is a sin. It’s just sex with a fat person. People have this assumption that fat people don’t have sex. “Fat sex looks like it’s complicated, I mean how is she going to ride? How am I suppose to find the vagina/penis? Is it just fat slapping against each other when you’re doing doggie-style?”
Heh, listen.
Obviously in my situation, I am the fat person during sex; my partner is about 120 pounds lighter than I am, and from what we discussed, having sex with a fat person is just as regular as “average people sex”. I mean, there’s just more thighs, more boobs, and a lot more ass. I am able to do anything a thinner person can do during sex, so why do people think fat sex is nasty or disgusting? I don’t know about you, but sex is such an amazing experience for me, and when I’m in it, I feel confident, sexy, and alive doing it. The Nerdy Nonconformist said it best in her blog post, “Fat and Fuckin’“, that “we have sex lives – often, really really GREAT sex lives – and that we are not all just laying in the bed, huffing and puffing, doing the missionary position only. Or always doing doggie style so we can rest on our elbows. We can bounce like no other and can put ourselves in positions that are AH-MAZE-ING.”
She also points out that just because fat people have sex, doesn’t mean that we are having sex just to have it. Fat people don’t “fuck” anyone just to feel desirable to someone. Fat people, especially fat girls, are not having sex with a man who wanted to have sex with her to say “I want to see how sex with a fat girl is like”. Fat people aren’t an experiment. Stop treating their sex lives as one.
Fat People Haters:
There will always be people out there that deem our bodies as disgusting and disgraceful because “we are killing ourselves with their fat bodies more and more each day and it’s unacceptable to be fat.” As much as you want to punch those kind of people in the face, you simply just need to ignore those type of people. Sometimes, it’s hard to look past all the negative things that comes with the word “fat”. It’s the first thing someone will call you if you’re arguing with someone and it’s the first thing people will joke on. It’s also the oldest insult and joke in the motherfucking book. How about you come for something that might actually hurt me? At the end of the day, people who try to put down the fat community are just upset that we are currently in a movement where fat girls can wear “fat-kini’s” in the summer time and a fat guy can be just as smooth as a skinny one. The fat community is beginning to accept and embrace themselves in ways that we haven’t for years on end.
If you defend yourself and love yourself, your body isn’t going to be the thing people worry about. They are going to be looking at you for your intelligence, generosity, and personality. Even the skinniest people can have ugly hearts and personalities.
Becoming healthier for you, not because you’re fat:
Going back to my story, I am currently on Weight-Watchers because for me, my health matters more. I am not sorry for being a fat girl, and I’ve accepted the fact that at my current state, I am fat. What I won’t accept from it is the fact that now that I’m getting older, my health can begin to take severe downfalls because of the excessive weight gain. I am on this new journey in my life because I want to be healthier and more full of life, not because my fatness is ugly. Stop thinking that dieting is just me trying to lose weight, because while yes, that’s one of the main reasons people do dieting, the other big reason is that people just want to become healthier and adapt healthier lifestyles.
I’m tired of walking up flights of stairs and gasping for breath when I reach the top. I’m tired of not wanting to get the clothes that I like to wear because department stores think that fat girls only wear housewife, looking clothes. I’m tired of not wearing tank-tops in the summer because it’s personally one of my insecurities. Just because I’m tired of feeling this way, doesn’t mean I hate how I look. You should want to change to be healthy. Not because you think you’re ugly.
“Fat” isn’t ugly. It’s natural, and it’s life.
-Liz (:
Letters From Liz. 