This is more of a rant than anything...
I have posted often about the difficulty of approaching and, even admiring from afar, fat men in public. How there is always a bit of worry that my stares will be interpreted negatively. All FA/FFA's have been in this situation before... we see someone gorgeous in public, but we are hyper-aware of our stares of desire being misinterpreted as stares of disgust.
Someone called out societal fatphobia for causing this very situation. And I agree 100%.
Society has told fat people that they don't deserve love towards their bodies. So, getting positive attention in public must be impossible, right? So any looks from others... they must be having a laugh.
And, even worse, I know of fat people who are also on their guard against fat admirers. I don't blame them, if they have actually had a negative experience. But mainstream society says that if you have any kind of positive opinion towards fat, you must have some kind of mental disorder.
So there are two, or really, three obstacles here:
1. Fatphobia causing a fat person to interpret any looks towards them as negative.
2. Awful fat admirers that use their partners, and therefore all fat admirers must be bad.
3. Or society in general looking down on those who are attracted to fat people and think they deserve love.
They can all blend in a way... fatphobia causing a negative reaction to positive attention in public: either because society tells fat people they will never get admiration for their size, or society telling fat people that if they DO get positive attention... the person giving it has some kind of dangerous fetish.
If the world tells fat people that they only deserve attention for weight loss... and the only time they get positive attention is praise towards that goal... I don't blame fat people for being on their guard when they do get attention in public.
I mean, what a mind fuck that is. Your whole life being told that being fat is bad. And if you've always been fat... that can easily be interpreted as "I'm bad, because I'm fat."
The only positive attention you've ever gotten towards your body is when you've lost weight. (Not to mention, losing weight is hard. And I've seen people really hurt themselves while on diets... to the point of needing an organ removed). And yet, torturing yourself like that gets praise and admiration because you've lost weight?!
It's obvious society doesn't care about the physical wellbeing of fat people. They'd rather see someone almost die due to weight loss, than see someone healthy at a big size.
Fatphobia is a serious issue. It's not just hurting people's "feelings"... it's killing people.
Yeah, it's frustrating seeing the benign results of it: the legitimate positive attention towards their bodies always being interpreted as mockery. But, it can be very serious. Fat people hurting themselves to lose weight because their whole life they were told that being fat is bad.
But then the question is: what can we do about it? How can we be the change that we want to see in the world?
I think normalizing fat bodies is a start. Standing up for fat people when we see any kind of public abuse. Speaking assertively and often about fat rights and accessibility.
Also, and this isn't often thought of... NOT talking about someone's size when we know nothing about them. (This is a big one. Years ago, the amount of times I've seen people praise my partner's weight loss, when in fact he had stomach ulcers and was in severe pain. If he was thin and had the same medical issue, people would be worried. But instead it was, "Oh, you're looking great, you've lost weight." And it's like... no shit, he's sick. You're basically praising illness for it's superficial results.)
I'm definitely venting, since I have a lot of anger towards how fat people are treated. Mainly because I've lived it with my partner for almost 2 decades. I've seen how people treat him, in many different phases of his weight and his life. When he's considered very large, people don't really respect him. When he's lost weight due to illness, people praise him. And I definitely harbor anger towards those people. (As a side note: you can bet your ass, I speak up about it, and continue to do so. I don't let them get away with it).
Being sexually attracted to a marginalized group should require a level of responsibility towards fighting for the rights of that group. (Not saying that, if you're not attracted to fat, you shouldn't bother fighting for the rights of fat people... everyone should). It's just more like... how can you be okay with watching someone you care about deal with that level of societal hate and judgment? You've got to speak up. You've got to support them. You're not a responsible FA/FFA if you just use fat people to jerk off, then hide your desire, and leave it at that.
