Why Fat Shamers Are Delusional

The Fat Shamers are out en masse in 2016. They tell themselves and everyone who might listen that they are doing it for the good of all us poor, sad fatties! We need help, they tell themselves because we are too stupid to understand how fat and disgraceful we are. We’re saving their lives! Obviously, they don’t know they’re fat – and they’re too stupid to read a scale, watch tv or listen to their doctors…so we’ll shame them into fitness!

News Flash Assholes: Shaming people rarely has a positive effect, you’re not saving anyone’s life by ridiculing them – you’re more likely driving them to eat and actually gaining more weight. You want to Fat Shame someone? Fine! Own it but don’t try and convince anyone else that you are doing it for a greater good. You’re doing to feel morally superior and because you enjoy hurting people, especially weak people, not helping them. You obviously have some major insecurities causing you to seek redress with someone you feel is more deserving of ridicule…more deserving than you.

I have heard some of the stupidest reasoning behind fat shaming. My favorite was that the Fat Acceptance movement is somehow requiring/demanding that men change their innate desire and find fat women hot. Wow…you really think our big, fat bodies could actually make that leap?

You are D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L!

Fat Acceptance is first and foremost about people ACCEPTING and LOVING themselves for who and what they are. How insanely criminal, right? Secondly, it’s about allowing us to live our life how we choose to live it — without ridicule.

It isn’t about you fat shaming assholes at all, I mean, it’s not a miracle movement. It most certainly isn’t a movement that is demanding that anyone actually change what they find sexually appealing. We actually need very little help in that regard. There are more than enough people (men and women) who actually find thick, chubby and fat sexy. You don’t and we’re fine with that. I don’t find insecure little assholes sexually attractive either – so it’s a win-win, as they say.

In closing, I would just like to say that this is a big world and we should all be able to live in peacefully and we should all be treated with respect. If you want to be a fat shaming asshole, be the best fat shaming asshole in the world…I support you! But don’t be a liar. Don’t lie to yourself or try lying to the rest of us about why you do it…because we know why and it’s not about being helpful. It’s because you’re an insecure person who thinks that self-confidence comes from bloviation and bluster. It doesn’t, you know…you have to find that inside yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’d Be So Pretty If…

“You’d be so pretty if you lost some weight” … I can’t tell you how many times I heard that one while growing up. So I’d like to dedicate this piece to all those “helpful” souls who offer this advice to their chubby friend/sister/daughter/cousin/co-worker/whoever.

Telling us we’d “be so pretty if …” is NOT FUCKING HELPFUL! What you’re really saying is that we’re NOT pretty. You’re telling us that our worth is based only upon our weight, and we’re NOTHING unless we conform to what YOU believe is “normal.” In other words, you’re NOT helping, not one bit.

You’re NOT the first person to tell us that we’re fat. WE ALREADY KNOW! All you’re doing is killing what little self-esteem we have. If we’re foolish enough to listen to your “advice,” we’ll be allowing you to treat us like shit because we think that we deserve it. We’ll also end up fatter, lonelier, and more depressed, causing us to take stupid health risks and have risky sex in order to regain some semblance of our shredded self-esteem. News flash: being fat does NOT mean we deserve ANY of this!

I listened to this advice and it fucked my mind up something fierce. I thought of myself as something less than human, unworthy and unlovable. I blamed my weight for everything that went wrong or didn’t happen as I wished because I never thought there was any other reason. This made me close myself off from people, causing me to be unapproachable. Assuming no man would find me attractive, I used humor as a shield from their perceived rejection. This caused men to view me as aloof, and THAT was why they didn’t approach me!

As I got older, I continued to blame my unhappiness on my weight, even though it was never the problem. I put damn near every man that was interested in me in the friend zone because I did not believe they saw me as worthy. My self-loathing was boyfriend Kryptonite and I became very cavalier about men. I never gave any man more than two dates … often less. Sometimes I just randomly made out with guys at bars, took their numbers and didn’t call. I was afraid of being hurt, so I gave no one a chance, and I used them so they wouldn’t use me.

I eventually decided I should marry because I did want a family. Naturally, I chose someone who found my weight to be a problem. I’m not going to bash my ex-husband because we have two sons together and are on good terms. Really, my own belief that I was less than is what led me to choose that path. I think on some level I did this because I figured that would motivate me to finally be thin. It didn’t. You should not ever be with anyone who doesn’t think you are all that and then some; it’s a dumb thing to do. He should have chosen someone else, and I should have too.

Considering all the mistakes I made, here’s some advice that will actually help my fellow big girls: Be yourself. Love yourself. Tell yourself daily that you are awesome, beautiful, and sexy and eventually, you’ll start to believe it. It took me 40 years and plenty of tears to realize what I should have always known – that I’m beautiful, sexy and a damn good catch – and I write this with the hope that I can reach someone and help them get their self-esteem sooner rather than later.

Just remember, you’ll be so pretty if … you ignore the opinions of others and simply believe it’s true!

 

 

 

How to Date a Fat Admirer

The list all of us Big Girls have always wanted and NEEDED. My husband, an unabashed FA from way back, put a list of rules on how to successfully date FAs.

Insecurities from years of ridicule caused many of us Big Girls to make the same mistakes with men over and over.

Take this advice and go out and find love!

Trauma Central

Yesterday, my wife linked the post “How to Date a Fat Girl” by blogger Adipose Activist. In her manifesto, Adipose lists her eight ironclad rules that she believes men must abide when dating – or trying to date – fat women. While I agree with her for the most part – most men don’t know how to talk to women in general – I felt that fat women might also benefit from a few rules for dating fat admirers, aka “FAs.” It should come as no surprise that I’m a big girl lover from way back; my wife’s blog is The Big Girl’s Guide, for crying out loud! Anyway, in my dating experiences, I’ve noticed a few annoying traits that many of BBWs continue to indulge in … even when they should be long past these immature “stages” mostly associated with our teenage years and early…

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Goddess or Doormat

Pablo Picasso famously called women either Goddesses or Doormats and through the years many have tried hard to define which was which. I find it simpler to just go with the obvious and look at the dictionary.

Goddess: a female god or a woman whose great charm or beauty arouses adoration; a woman who is adored or idealized, esp by a man

Doormat: someone who is treated badly by other people and does not complain. Someone who allows others to use them and toss them away when they finish.

There are many women walking around believing themselves to be Goddesses when they are nothing more than doormats.

So, for all you ladies out there, I am going to focus on doormats since this tends to be the thing we allow ourselves to blindly become.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you give more than you get?
• Do you sacrifice and accommodate to please because you fear losing your man’s love?
• Do you get super excited and subtly or overtly design your life around your man- becoming too available?
• Do you compromise your values to keep his love or put your dreams aside?
• Do you put his needs before your own and believe that by fulfilling him – he’ll be loyal, giving and desirous of you?
• Do you allow him to use you for sex (real or virtual) knowing he is married?
• Did you become the “other woman” only to be tossed away like garbage when the affair was discovered?

If you answer yes to even one of those, you are currently or have been some man’s DOORMAT.  There are ways to take back your power but the first step is realizing that you or rather your lack of self esteem is the problem.

You can never be a Goddess with someone who treated you like a doormat unless you repair yourself. Truthfully, why would you want to be with someone who treated you like you didn’t matter? The answer is you don’t but you do want to stop attracting men who see you as their next target. How do you do that?

Stop believing you’re unworthy, stop thinking that you can’t do better, stop looking at your flaws and telling yourself that you can’t have what you want because you’re fat now, had a shitty childhood, you’re ugly, you have children. Don’t mistake being a vengeful angry bitch with being a strong Goddess. Goddesses don’t need to be angry nor vengeful, they don’t need to be a bitch, they don’t need to be “maneaters”.  That’s insecure thinking and behavior. The male equivalent to this is what we call an Insecure Beta.  Insecurity is what caused you to be a DOORMAT in the first place. Treating men like shit does not make you strong, it makes you weak and sets you up to be used by a stronger personality. A truly secure person wants the same in a mate. They won’t allow themselves to be used, to be 2nd best, to whore themselves for some payment be it money or some other golden nugget. A secure Goddess will not tolerate being treated poorly, they demand better or they walk away with their dignity.

You need to build yourself up, to believe you are worthy and wonderful. To look at your reflection and see the amazing, sexy, beautiful and unique creature that you truly are. Tell yourself everyday that you are until you start to believe it.

Everyone has baggage. Everyone has things they carry and I’m not saying that you should only be with someone who is perfect. You should choose your equal though. You need someone who gives you their shoulder, as often as you give yours. A person who wants to fulfill your dreams, wants and desires as much as you want to fulfill theirs. A person willing to work hard through life’s bumps rather than runaway. Someone who would run into a burning building to pull you out, as you would for them. Someone who will not allow others to treat you poorly, someone who will stand up for you and defend you against your attackers….as you would for them. Someone who will both love and respect you. Someone who will forgive you as you forgive them…as none of us is perfect.

That’s what you should want, that’s what you should have and that is what it will be, if you are a Goddess.

 

Fat Shaming

Fat shaming is something ALL Big Girls experience, some men experience it but I think on a lesser level. Women are always judged on a superficial level, hence the higher incidence of shaming that comes our way. So, what exactly is fat shaming?

Weight stigma and bias can be:

• practical (for instance, medical equipment or seats in most public places that are too small to accommodate obese persons);
• verbal (such as insults, ridicule, teasing, stereotypes, derogatory names, or pejorative language); or
• physical (such as bullying or other aggressive behaviors).

In some cases stigma results in discrimination, such as employment discrimination wherein an obese employee is denied a position or promotion solely or primarily due to aesthetic revulsion at his or her appearance, despite the individual being appropriately qualified.

Most of us hear the “helpful” derision from people who are supposedly only looking out for us, but they aren’t doing that. They are using that as an excuse to make themselves feel better, to make us feel like shit or simply because they are assholes.

I was recently accused of fat shaming someone because of something I wrote in my post on how to find a mate. What I said in the post was advice and not shaming someone because of their weight.  To recap:

My husband has a FB “friend” that does this and it’s pretty laughable. Her pictures all suggest that she should be a small girl but in person she’s probably pushing 300 lbs. There is NOTHING more dishonest than that. Use good angles but not to the point that you are actually dishonest about what you really look like.

That is about being HONEST about who you are and be accepting and proud of it. It had nothing to do with her weight and everything to do with being honest when using dating sites.  If you lie, you and whomever you meet will be very disappointed. That’s not fat shaming, that’s INTEGRITY.

The best part of the whole thing is that I WAS NOT even referring to the girl who got upset with me but that’s the problem with insecurities and low self-esteem…you always see an insult, even when there isn’t one and you always think it’s you being insulted. The girl is NOT friends with either my husband or me. Though I did at one time think I could be friends with her at some future point, she made it clear to me that we can’t with a very strange message full of crazy untrue accusations and lots of projection. I hope she reads my post on insecurity and checks that demon that is controlling her imagination and emotions.

Here’s the bottom line, I would NEVER shame another person because of their weight. I’ve had it done to me and it fucking hurts. I would not attack someone based on the package they come in, I look within the person and judge them by what they say and do. That tells me who they are…you can put a turd inside the most beautiful package and it’s still a piece of shit, right?

Look for the gems and don’t judge the area you mined to find them.

 

 

Insecurities

We all have insecurities no matter how amazing we think we are. The key to overcoming them is to face them head on, confront them outright and make friends with them and then move on.

Why should make friends with your insecurities? Because it takes away the power they have over you. Insecurities are so powerful that they can cause you to do things that sabotage yourself in relationships – all relationships romantic and platonic. They are like a dark force and the more you believe the negative the stronger they get. You must learn to smile at your fears, smile at your pain and tell yourself over and over that you are amazing. Don’t let that dark shadow demon win the battle in your head.

When you are losing the battle, you see everything negatively. You believe people are seeing you the way your insecurities are framing things in your head. Then you lash out, get angry and try hard to hurt the people that your demon shadow has convinced you are hurting you.  The irony, of course, is that the people you try to hurt have not been demonizing you at all. That’s all in your own head space but now you’ve pushed them away.  How many friends or potential lovers have you lost because you read the situation wrong? Because your own demons took over and made you lash out, you now stand alone in your pain. The only winner in this is your demon.

I did this over and over because I believed that I was unworthy of love. I projected this belief on others without any real evidence. I mean I thought there was evidence but that’s only because my demons had such control over me that I was weakened and unable to see things rationally. I drove people out of my life faster than I let them in. I had very shallow relationships with people because it made it easy to toss them out when my demons took control.

Insecurities are something we all have and something that will never go fully away. The key is to face them, acknowledge they exist and take away their power. Insecurities have a lot in common with vanity to the point that some can’t tell them apart. They both make you look very self absorbed. Insecure people, like vain people, see everything said, done or written to be about them, when they are not. Vain people think all good is them, insecure think all the bad is about them. The truth is that most people think more about themselves than they ever will about you – good or bad. So, fight the demon.

How do you do that, you may be asking? Practice.

First, always tell yourself that you are worthy of love and happiness. Stop obsessing about your flaws. Stop assuming others are only seeing your flaws because they aren’t. Being chubby is less of a flaw than being an asshole and our insecurities make us really big assholes.

Second, forgive yourself and be especially forgiving of others. True forgiveness means “give” as you did beFORE you were hurt. That’s true forgiveness. When you GIVE of yourself like you did before you were hurt, then you know you’ve truly forgiven. Sometimes those who hurt you don’t want the forgiveness, in those cases…just walk away. Sadly, not everyone wants to be friends but as long as you try, you will succeed.

Last, stop with all the projection. This is a big one. Insecurities make us project shit onto other people and that is seriously fucked up. We do this thinking it shows how secure we are but really all we are doing is telling the world EXACTLY what we are insecure about. Click that link and read about it. A truly secure person does not have to cut down another, a truly secure person builds up not only themselves but others as well.

Hopefully, we can all beat down this dark shadow in our minds and walk away friends. Smile at your demon and take away his/her power.

 

Be Fierce

I’m sitting here digesting my yummy breakfast and I’m thinking what should I post on my blog.  It’s getting hot, the kids are ready to swim and I remember…the big girl in the swimsuit I wanted to link that.  Her name is Jenny Trout and she said something that is the running theme of my blog and my life:

“The reason these people do not want to see a fat body in a bikini is because traditionally, that garment is something a woman earns by proving herself attractive enough to exist. If fat women begin wearing them without shame or fear, what’s next? Will they have self-esteem? Will they demand respect? Then what will keep them in their proper place? How would conventionally attractive people judge them?

As a society, we need to be more honest in our discussions of other’s bodies. If we can’t avoid those totally unnecessary conversations, then we should at least admit the truth to ourselves: That this has nothing to do with health, and everything to do with the control we believe is our right to exert over others.”

She’s totally right and it’s why I started The Big Girls’ Guide by telling society to go fuck themselves. Big Girls are no longer going to sit in the back in our over-sized clothes hoping to go unnoticed and by unnoticed I mean mocked and shamed for being big girls. We are done with that shit. We are big beautiful women and we are gonna step up and take our place right next to everyone else. We are gonna wear what we want, be sexy, have sex with the lights on and eat real meals with dessert, if we choose to do so. You can shove your shaming tactics up your ass.

So, in case you missed it, read this: I wore a Bikini and Nothing Happened.

 

 

Can a Big Girl Be Sexy?

First off, we should talk about what sexy is and what it isn’t.  Things can be called sexy and none of them have anything to do with sex, a good example of this is cars.  Things can have an appeal but unless you have a fetish for those things…they are NOT actually sexy. We just broaden the term to mean appealing but sexy is more about sex and desiring sex than just appealing. A juicy hamburger appeals to me when I’m hungry, I have no interest in fucking it. So, while we refer to “things” as sexy, they really are not.

Sexy is a mindset, it’s that certain something that makes people think about and want sex.  Most of us think that sexy is the perfect body. A great body is definitely helpful but what most people don’t realize is that we all have different ideas about what that perfection actually is. Everyone assumes it’s what we see on T.V. and magazines but I’m here to tell you…that’s bullshit.

We all have certain innate things that we find attractive but that is not the whole of it.  The biggest driving force behind being sexy is not the single digit size tag from your favorite designer; it’s self confidence.

That’s right! There is simply NOTHING sexier than believing that you’re sexy. Not in an arrogant or stuck up way but just saying to yourself that you are totally hot and presenting that image to the world. Stop buying clothes that are too big to hide your body, get your hair done, do your make up, use sexy scents. Face the world looking and smelling the best you can every single day.  Don’t be ashamed of your curves, embrace your hotness. If you have a big rear end, don’t buy clothes to minimize it show it off. Big boobs? Low cut shirts and push up bras. Do you know how many people pay good money to have a bigger butt or bigger boobs? If you got it….FLAUNT IT!!!

Stop looking at your body and finding imperfections. One person’s imperfection is another person’s sexy playground…

 

How Do You Have Sex?

Starting out with a bang…literally!

First the question: “I’m not sure how to put this so I guess I’ll just be blunt. My boyfriend wants sex and I don’t feel sexy because I’m much heavier than I used to be. We’ve been dating a short time and I’m really just scared he’ll see my body and dump me. Is it okay to have sex with my nightie on and lights off? How can I hide my fat and still enjoy it? HELP!!!!!!”

The answer:

Is it okay to have sex with the lights off and your nightie on? Sure, if it’s the middle of the night and your man rolls over on you with a boner. Outside of that, I don’t recommend it. This is something all of us Big Girls go through, the inability to connect the dots and I was the same way.

Allow me to connect the dots. You say you have only been dating your boyfriend a short time, which means you were a Big Girl when he met you. He wants to bang you, which means he’s attracted to you. Unless you’re a mistress of illusion, he not only knows you’re a Big Girl but he likes that you are a thick and curvy lady. Whether or not you think you’re sexy, know this…your man does. Capisce?

Men are visual. They need and want to look at you, it adds to the excitement. So, that means lights on and nekkid! Now, if you just can’t do that and be comfortable, then try sexy lingerie.  When you see his eyes glaze over with excitement your confidence will rise faster than his manhood. Go with it and enjoy the experience. If he starts removing your lingerie, don’t stop him. Let him look, let him show you how sexy you are to him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Do You…?

I am going to do a series of posts called “How Do You…?” These posts are going to be answering direct questions from Big Girls all over. So, if you want any specific question answered you can email me directly at: rosie(dot)ribner(at)gmail(dot)com or hit me up on FB or even Twitter (@QueenofAllEvil).

Nothing is taboo and all answers will be detailed. Your name will be kept confidential. The goal here is to help as many Big Girls as I can, as we all share many of the same insecurities.