I am fat. In fact, I am obese. I have struggled with degrees of fatness since I was 9 years old.
But I no longer believe that it makes me less lovable, less worthy, less valuable. I no longer believe it is something I should feel shame about. I do recognize that it makes me less sexually attractive and that is the single most painful and difficult thing I regularly have to deal with emotionally. (It is definitely true that fat girls are better in bed because we have to try harder. Showing up isn’t enough. If it weren’t I never would have had a sex life at all!)
I give the background of who I am to say: “fat” is not a slur or an insult. It is a statement of fact used to refer to people who have an unusually high percentage of visible fat.
Of course the way people say it can easily convey the fact that the person who said it means for it to be hurtful, but that still doesn’t make the word itself a bad thing.
People who are fat who are offended by being referred to as fat are projecting bigger issues on to it, and I think that’s not good - it kind of suggests a level of denial that you want the whole world to get on board with. That’s not healthy. You need to acknowledge the truth about yourself whether you want to change it or not. it’s not reasonable to expect people to find some less accurate alternative than fat if you are 100 pounds over what is considered healthful.
I feel exactly the same way about other words that political correctness has been chipping away at: retarded, for one. It is a perfectly harmless and accurate description of the condition of being of significantly lower intelligence and capability than most people. Just because some stupid people inject a tone and an attitude and use it as an abusive noun “RETARD!” towards people who are not actually retarded (usually) is no reason to buy into the idea that it’s a bad word.
Off the top of my head I can’t think of any euphemisms that I think are genuinely helpful, and they are mostly annoying and wordy. “retarded” is much simpler than “developmentally delayed”
But of course, as with just about everything, my complaints aren’t going to change anything. I just felt like sharing after reading a story about a bakery shop owner who called a potential customer a “fat cunt” after the woman expressed her offense at the bakery’s advertising slogan “So good they make fat people cry”.
The first paragraph of the story clarified the “cunt” part, but the headline said “North Carolina Cupcake Shop Calls Customer Fat, Halfheartedly Apologizes”.
The last line of the story does ask the question:
And I think it’s kind of messy and unclear what’s going on.
The cunt part was flat out unacceptable. Are you kidding?? Cunt is widely accepted as the rudest word in the English language to direct at another person (outside of racist words).
But the initial slogan? I don’t have any fundamental quarrel with the use of the word “fat” to describe fat people, as I said. What bugs me is the mockery of fat people’s situation. As far as I’m concerned it’s really no more acceptable than saying “Our cupcakes are so good they’d make a bullimic cry!” Or “Our Scotch is so good it would make an alcoholic cry!” or “Our appetite suppressant is so effective anorexics can finally get thin enough that you can watch their hearts beat!” (just before they stop, of course)
Being called “fat” is no more offenseive than being called “tall”, or it shouldn’t be. Being mocked for your issues with food that could be killing you and which are definitely painful and difficult, is definitely offensive. (Not that I’m getting my own back up about it… who has the energy, and we’re talking about a business owner. If you want to be offensive in your advertising about people who would probably be interested in your product, you go right ahead and point that gun right at your own head and pull the trigger, I’m not going to argue with you about it. The consequences will arrive without any help from me. )
What say you?
(I started to put this in IMHO, then the Pit… but I figure it will spark a debate. If mods disagree…)
