It was only about 6 or 7 years ago that I thought that I could accept my fat if I could just be “the good kind of fat.”
I thought that if I could have that really hourglass figure that plus size models often seem to have, then, and only then could I accept my fat.
Of course, that got me nowhere since it’s pretty impossible to change your shape without a bunch of cosmetic surgery, and “elective surgery” is not really in my vocabulary.
Curvy Privilege?
I hadn’t thought about wanting a different kind of fat body in a long time, but this concept came up with a client recently. She said that from my pictures, she thought I had that “good kind of fat” body and worried that I might not understand what it’s like not to have that. This client is actually quite a bit thinner than me, but she thought that I was “very curvy” and therefore wouldn’t understand what it’s like to have a less curvy* fat body.
I found this very interesting on a number of levels, and I found myself reassuring her that I, indeed, did not have a very curvy body (there’s about a one inch difference between my hips and my waist) and that even if our body types are not alike, that I can still understand and empathize with her, since that’s what I do for a living!
But beyond that, I got to thinking about how “the good kind of _________” shows up in various minority groups, where the “good kind of” whatever is always whatever looks the most like what is prized in the dominant culture. If you have the “right” skin color or hair color or nose shape you might just pass for the dominant culture and get whatever privilege may be attached to that.
And so I think the same thing happens with fat. If you’ve got “curves in all the right places” and you’re fat, you may get snippets of thin privilege that would be denied to a fat person of relatively the same size but with a different shape. Of course, I’m talking about female identified people when I’m talking about curvaceousness. Perhaps it works the opposite way with male identified folks, but I’m not sure.
I recognize that I get little snippets of thin privilege myself — because my hips are relatively narrow, I don’t have to worry about things like sitting in airline seats, and I don’t have to deal with people looking at me with dread that I might (OMG!!!) sit next to them (the subway, however, is a different story). But I’m fat enough that I can’t ever “pass” for thin-ish the way I did when I was a size 14/16.
Going Forward
Going forward, I think it’s important to acknowledge the ways that these “good kind of fat” conversations happen, and do our best to be aware of it. I don’t think it does anyone any good to make body acceptance about imposing the same beauty norms from the dominant culture onto fatter bodies. We need to explode those beauty norms as best we can, by acknowledging the amazing diversity of bodies.
Your kind of fat IS the good kind of fat.
*This is one of the reasons why I hate the word curvy as a euphemism for fat.
Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. To learn more about Golda and her work, click here.
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Your fat IS the “good kind” of fat! – @bodylovewellnes http://t.co/pTkNVNsZUB
hi there.
i’m built like that. christina hendricks, yes? i promise you from the bottom of my weary heart that it makes very very little difference. maybe it’s changed a little bit now but when i was younger it just made me a target. & it made me a target quickly cos people were INFURIATED w/ me cos they thought i could look perfect if i only tried & i clearly was too lazy or too crazy or to something to make the effort.
it does attract men. it does, i wont lie about that any more than i will about anything else. but they are the most FURIOUS of all. they think it is their right to possess someone who is the media ideal, in order that they might impress their friends. & they are angry at themselves that what they are attracted to is not what the media tells them they should want, & every successful man has. & all of this gets taken out on the person w/ the biggest b00bs they have ever seen [& the reason they went out w/ the owner of that particular breastplate in the first place].
again: it does not, i promise you, make any difference. we need to fight the fight for all of us, no matter what we look like, for so very many reasons & an exponential number of people. & to do that we must not even call ourselves things like “hourglass” or “apple” or “pear” or, well, anything—& we mustnt think of ourselves as any of those fruits of denigration too.
this is a battle that has been going on, very slowly, for almost half a century. since before many of us were even born. i think it’s finally winnable. forget about the divisions imposed upon us by people we will never even know. push the rotten remnants of misbegotten thought & wretched words away. at long last, it’s time.
[ps. apologies if this is not as well written as i would like. i have had a pretty exhausting week. the sentiment is still valid. & important, & kind, no matter who says it.]