...I am especially fond of this little detail of this film and the point it makes that maybe there is nothing wrong with your body or your weight. Maybe it's your social fabric, your mental models, your self concept...I was a bag of bones for the first seventeen years of my life. I then put on fifty pounds and I have spent most of my adult life on the plump side.
I have a medical condition so most of that weight is water weight. I have chronic edema and it used to be a whole lot worse.
Between that and being thin during my formative years, IN MY MIND, I'm a SKINNY person just TEMPORARILY carrying a few extra pounds for these last few DECADES and any second now that last little bit of edema will resolve and I will look like ME again.
I'm American and the world sees me as a White woman, so I get high exposure to people with attitudes about how "You can never be too rich or too thin" and nonsense like that. My mother is kind of a mixed bag, nominally agreeing that you NEED to be skinny and, yet, she will try to fatten you up if you get TOO skinny.
...after my older siblings both moved out, my mother began making big pots of German Roulade two to three times per week every week because it was my favorite and I was real skinny and my mom grew up in a war zone, so she likes to FEED skinny people.My dad was part Cherokee and his attitudes helped me resist pressure to starve myself into thinness, which helped save my life.
In my twenties,... I was quite heavy and I made the conscious decision at some point to not cave to social pressure to count calories and try to starve myself to a socially acceptable weight. I decided to put my health first.I've known men who were involved with me or attracted to me who gave me hell about my weight and I've known men who liked it like that and made me feel good about my body and their interest in it.
In my thirties, while out hiking for exercise, some drunken soldier who was likely nineteen or twenty years old -- aka NOT too many years older than my CHILDREN -- once said something to me like "You would be cute if you lost a few pounds."
So...I'm not too OLD for you? The age difference has not made your radar? But you got an issue with my WEIGHT?
It is simulteneously one of the most flattering AND one of the most insulting things anyone has ever said to me and I just have to look back on it like "Dude, you're DRUNK. Go home."
I knew a guy who ran a forum I was on and he would make his own moderators aggravated with DERAILING conversations to have ANY excuse to talk to me AND ALSO spent all his time making sure I knew he didn't date fat chicks and going out of his way to make me feel like "You should just get your vagina removed. It will never see action again!"
I wasted WAY THE HELL too much time trying to figure out how to tell this fool "You know that problem you have with being a lonely, desperate for a date loser? I could HELP YOU with that -- if you would lighten up on your demand for me to have ZERO self esteeem and eat shit as a prerequisite for getting my foot in the door."
Other than what a completely toxic asshole he was, I kind of liked him. He was ONLY like that about "getting a date" and I STUPIDLY thought "I'm the gal who can fix this and we can live happily ever after!"
Yeah, no. Pro tip: Let men like that go PAY for therapy. Don't volunteer to try to "fix" them. You will only be left bitter and with scars.
And on the flipside, do NOT be like him. Do NOT run around throwing your baggage about your weight in the faces of EVERY man you meet and DEMANDING that they PROVE to you they have no issue with it.
He was all "NO WOMAN in her right mind would date me! Simultaneously PROVE to me you would DATE ME and also explain to me why this is not a deal breaker. What in the hell is WRONG WITH YOU that you would date the likes of me when NO ONE ELSE WILL?"
Um, yeah, NO.
If you are doing that, STOP. If you cannot stop on your own, GET THERAPY.
Let MEN decide for themselves what they feel about YOUR BODY. I assure you, they have no problem having an opinion and they can see it with their own two eyes. You do NOT need to INFORM them you are a plump chick and DEMAND a rating. Just flirt back if they flirt first. DUH.
If you are plump and want to have a NICE time instead of getting involved with men who will do their damnedest to make you feel like "You should be GRATEFUL a real catch like me would give a fat cow like you the time of day," I highly recommend you spend your time talking to men who say things LIKE:
- It's more cushion for the pushin.
- I like a chick with about twenty more pounds than photos in magazines say I should.
- Bring those curves over here and warm my lap.
Footnote
Some guy who liked me just the way I was when I was 245 pounds eventually dumped me. I began working on my health and lost some of that weight -- completely unintentionally, as an unexpected side effect of getting healthier because even my doctor was like "Glad you are a HEALTHY WEIGHT. Most people with your condition are a bag of bones." -- and his preference was a BBW and I was less of all that than I had been when he met me.Men who like fat chicks are just as capable of treating women like sex objects as men who like skinny chicks. Don't take it too personally. Just try to find a way to have a better time while plump than you would have with some guy using your weight as a bullshit excuse to crap all over you.
A guy like that, if it wasn't your weight, it would be SOMETHING ELSE. He's just into crapping on women, full stop.
My apologies to the LGBTQ crowd for the heternonormative framing. Just ignore that. Gay people are just like straight people in that regard: SOME get hot and bothered by plump folks and some don't.