Easy Wind and Downy Flake

According to my friends at Merriam-Webster’s Online, the word “FAT” is an adjective that has numerous meanings including:

1 : notable for having an unusual amount of fat: a : PLUMP b : OBESE c of a meat animal : fattened for market d of food : OILY, GREASY

2 a : well filled out : THICK, BIG [a fat book] b : full in tone and quality : RICH [a gorgeous fat bass voice -- Irish Digest] c : well stocked [a fat larder] d : PROSPEROUS, WEALTHY [grew fat on the war -- Time] e : being substantial and impressive [a fat bank account]

3 a : richly rewarding or profitable [a fat part in a movie] [a fat contract]

Hmmm, I don’t see lazy, ugly, or societal problem *anywhere* in that description.

The word 'fat' is a description. I don't when or who decided it was a bad thing, but *I* never got the freaking memo. In many societies, especially in African and Asia, fat is associated with wealth, health and beauty. I guess one of the gifts of growing up in a Black household is that no on ever told me I wasn’t pretty just because I was fat.

I like the word fat as a description and I use it to describe myself and others. That’s my prerogative and screw anyone who doesn’t like my use of that word; that’s their problem and they’ve got to deal with it. I’m not compelling you to use it, but do you have any idea how *freeing* it can be? It's just a matter of taste. And anyway, if I can't be alive in my own skin and name it and love it, how the hell can I expect anyone else to?

What about those gentle euphemisms? BBW? Zaftig? I have a real antipathy for phrases that sugar coat the truth. (Let's be honest, not every big woman is beautiful as much as not every thin woman is beautiful). I think those phrase are coy and twee and I’m just not one for beating around the bush. I don’t want to see the world shot through gauze and Vaseline. (Truth in advertising, I do use them occasionally if I am in a forum where that is the common currency)

So what about people who say, “Ewww, I hate going to the beach and seeing fat people with all that flesh exposed!” Well, I don’t particularly enjoy seeing women whose backs have the appearance of a piece of velvet draped over a wire hanger. Some people look so frail and underfed and I would like nothing more then to buy them a sandwich and encourage them to eat a little more often.

Now I’m not blind. There are some fat people who don’t look good in bathing suits. There are some smaller people who don’t look good in bathing suits either. (Uh guys, Speedos are for speed swimmers and Europeans *only*, okay?) Life is not an episode of The OC, you’re going to see people who don’t meet your stringent standards of beauty all the time. Get a life and get over it.

(BTW: When I go to the beach, I’m more concerned with baking my brown ass in the sun and relaxing with my friends. You’re so bored that you’re making note of every jot and tittle of humanity that offends your aesthetic sensibilities? You, my friend, are an ass clown with too much free time on your hands. Go do something productive for humanity.)

Dating. That scares some of you, huh? Can someone answer a question I’ve had for years? Why is it that if a man only dates redheads, no one calls him a “red chaser” but if his buddy only dates fat girls, people call him a chubby chaser? How does one get to be a preference and the other a fetish? What’s the damn difference?

In my life I’ve dated two kinds of men, those who were attracted exclusively to fat women and those who enjoyed a broad spectrum of body types from petite to super sized. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever broken up with me just because I’m fat. If he did, sucks to be him because I’m a hell of a girlfriend.

Let me close this by thanking the medical profession for inventing and pushing a procedure that has a death rate of .05%. That means that about 1 in every 200 operations will result in fatality. WTF!! If 1 in 200 went blind as a result of laser surgery do you think the FDA would have approved it? But that’s okay, it’s only fat people, they’re going to die anyway, right? If the whole “problem” of fat can be solved by reducing your stomach to the size of a tennis ball, then why not just go on the same restrictive diet and starve yourself to your goal weight? Oh yeah, they do this to kids too but no one is sure of the effect on growing bodies. Nice.

Boy, there’s a lot of stuff that pisses me off.