fat acceptance

Hello, dear Bitch readers. I'm Tasha Fierce and I write the stalled blog Red Vinyl Shoes. If you don't know, I wrote the Size Matters blog series for Bitch last fall. Now I'm back with another column dealing with fat—this time, we're talking about sex and sexuality as it relates to being a fat girl. I feel like talking about sex and fat is something that's rarely done, even though there's so much evidence to support the idea that hey, fat girls like sex too and we're not ashamed of our sexuality. In the media and in life, fat sex is seen as disgusting by many, something that should be hidden away or joked about. I want to celebrate it, break down why there's such a barrier to discussing fat sex and critique the overarching societal values that seek to keep fat girls believing that they can't be sexual beings at the size they're at.

Via What Tami Said, The Fat Body (In)Visible is a neat, new, 25-minute independent documentary about fat acceptance and fashion featuring Keena Bowden and Jessica Jarchow. Keena and Jessica share their experiences of people judging their mere existence just because they're fat, becoming empowered through fashion, the intersection of race and fatness, and finding community. Oh yeah, and there are tons of cute outfits!

the fat body (in)visible from Margitte Kristjansson on Vimeo.

We close week five of our series of movies that pass the Bechdel Test with the first star-making vehicle for a lead actress. Honduran American novice America Ferrera charmed audiences with her feature debut in director Patricia Cardosa's 2002 indie sleeper Real Women Have Curves, which was distributed by HBO Films.

Along with the rest of the ladycentric internet this week (including Bitch), I’ve been following the kerfuffle over Maura Kelly’s post at Marie Claire about how disgusted she is by fat people. The post, ostensibly, is about the television show Mike & Molly, which is a romantic sitcom about a couple that meets in an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. The creator of the show has already fired back, noting that Molly will perhaps cancel her subscription to the magazine in an upcoming episode, and making the point we've all been thinking: the show "is just about human beings."

As to the merits Mike & Molly particularly, I have only this to say: I watched a couple of episodes at the beginning of the season, thinking I might cover it for the blog, but ultimately the show itself is very bad, and very bad shows don’t tend to provide me with much meat for critique. So I let it go.

Two fat people sharing a moment together. How DARE they! And right in front of us, too!

Holy fatphobia, Bitch readers! Marie Claire blogger Maura Kelly had some very uncool and uninformed things to say about fat folks yesterday, starting with her belief that they should not be shown kissing on television. (Y'know, because eeewww!) Since we try to combat this type of size-based vitriol around here, I thought we might as well take a look at her "arguments" against ever seeing fat people do anything ever.

Well, fats and nonfats, it's time for me to get my fat ass on a horse somehow and ride into the sunset. I hope you enjoyed this blog, or at least learned something from it. It would be great if you now have a better understanding of fat acceptance/size acceptance and how to treat fat people (as humans, of course). I'd love if the fats reading this feel more empowered now than before this blog began. Lofty goals, maybe, but I'd like to think we reached them.