Men, Media, and that thing called Curves

The idea for this post has been germinating for a few weeks. It’s been a season of relentless fat shaming—from the Halloween letter in place of Halloween candy that turned out to be a hoax but not before Internet commenters everywhere voiced their two cents on fat America’s candy consumption  to Lululemon founder and the fact that we larger women are ruining his pants.

It’s hard  to watch a wonderful video’s like this one of an Ellen interview with  . And not be completely perplexed that a size 12 is plus sized according to the fashion industry. It’s weird to me that Glamour is finally discovering that a tiny pooch over the g-string is featuring something wild and provocative. Good on GQ Australia for featuring Robyn in its FeelGood Issue.

All of this body hatred and weirdness is sold to us in the guise that men will not want us if we are fat. We won’t be worthy of love if we’re curvy.

I get where this comes from. When I was 19 years old, I fell for a misogynistic ass named Patrick. I kind of feel sorry for him sometimes. Clearly, he was attracted to larger women (I wasn’t his first) but his social conditioning he inherited from his father was deplorable. His father treated his mom like garbage and she had her own body issues that she liked to pass on to her daughter and me. But what made me hate Patrick at the end of our three long years together (yes, it took me three years to get out of an emotionally abusive relationship) was his smug attitude. He tried to make it some sort of gift that he’d be with me. That I should be happy to have him because after all, I was a size 14 at the time. He made 14 sound like 44. He made me constantly self-conscious about my weight, what I wore, what I ate. Under his influence, I threw up my dinners (which I suspect his mother did as well). In three short years he got me from feeling positive about myself to self-loathing. Thankfully, I cheated on him with a man that was all sorts of positive about me and my body. I didn’t run away with that man, but I sure did love how–just like at the end of the fairytale–he woke me up and broke the spell.

So that’s what I’m getting at. Men. There’s good men out there to be um, had.  Since I was 21, men have never made me feel bad about myself, my weight, etc. Plenty of women have in that time, but no men. Was I just lucky?

Well for starters, I’m good at learning lessons. I didn’t date any abusive assholes after him. Period. I found, though, that most heterosexual men out there crave this beautiful cocktail of woman that requires a woman to be funny, smart, witty, and interesting and hot. I can so do that. But here’s the other thing: I don’t care what they want. I am funny. And smart. And curvy. And fun. And hey, I better the hell find YOU interesting.

Women I’ve known however, have not been nearly as body positive about my body or theirs. I once had an employer have me help figure out her schedule around her impending breast reduction surgery. Her breasts were already two sizes smaller than mine to begin with and right in the office she said,”I’m having this done because no one can take a woman with big breasts seriously.” This was in San Francisco no less! Or the woman whose kid used to go to my kids’ daycare who once remarked at pick up time that she couldn’t believe I had such great clothes since clearly my ass was too big for normal clothing stores. What do you say to people who say such things? Other than of course, did your mother not teach you any manners?!

I’ve largely ignored media portrayals of women. Media hasn’t done me in nearly as much as these examples of bad women behavior I’ve given you. And of course there are way more than those two incidents. And since for the last 20 years I’ve heard many positive things about my body from men. Hot men. They are not my oppressor here. I’m sure there’s still jerk men out there. My ex-boyfriend is undoubtedly torturing some poor woman somewhere with his insecurities. But really, outside of frat boy/rape culture, good men exist and they appreciate women more than they are given credit for.

So I’m glad we’re getting plus size models; I’m glad the designers at modcloth aren’t shying away from the lucrative XL + market. Good on Glamour and GQ and other magazines deciding that perhaps depicting non-starving women instead of starving girls might be alluring.

But if women ourselves treated each other better? Hell, that’s what I’m waiting for.