Like many, I also saw a blurb on CNN bright and early Monday morning, about BeautifulPeople.com, the site that booted 5,000 members for having gained weight.  Like Kate Harding, I didn’t particularly care.  Why?  Because, as Harding points out, of course a site like that will be discriminatory.  Members accept a discriminatory process when they sign up, so why should they, or anyone else, be outraged when it works against them? 

But I liked Harding’s challenge at the end of her article –  “how about we save our furious blogging energy for challenging those stereotypes?”  Well, this is my way of answering that question.

Not everybody hates fat.  Not everybody thinks it’s gross and unsexy.  Not everybody thinks fat = unattractive.  Not everybody is hung up on finding that perfectly formed cookie-cutter partner.

The fact is, I’m a female fat admirer. 

Yes, I've written about food addiction, and how difficult it is for me to witness.  But just because I recognize unhealthy behaviors doesn't mean I equate fat with unhealthiness, unattractiveness, or undesireability.  

Believe me, I don't.

While my female counterparts are busy swooning over Brad Pitt or George Clooney or those disconcertingly pretty boys from the Twilight movies, you know what caught my eye recently?  Nick Frost mostly naked in Pirate Radio.  (Let's just say I'm looking forward to the movie coming out on DVD.)

So is this adolescent confession the scope of my stereotype-bursting revelation?  Well, yes, but it’s bigger than you realize.  I wish more people like me – people who like bigger bodies – would say so out loud.  That’s the thing about busting up stereotypes – you have to contradict them in order to start making the cracks appear.  And not just once.  You have to keep doing it over and over and over again in order to truly weaken it. 

Let’s get cracking, then. 

The thing that bothers my FFA sensibilities the most is that bigger people are sometimes met with an attitude of ew, that’s gross which I find completely offensive.  Gross?  Why?  I honestly don’t get it.  When did we decide that “ew” was the appropriate reaction?  

What's behind the "ew?"

We could play blame the media on this one, but that game is getting old.  All the media does is hold up a gigantic mirror.  We’re forever holding ourselves up to impossible standards, thinking that we all have to look like Keira Knightley or Brad Pitt or whoever is the hot star of the moment happens to be.  And it translates over – models and actors are told to lose weight to get work.  Studies have shown that there is discrimination from hiring managers when it comes to overweight job candidates.  It’s not just them – it’s all of us.  Our worlds mirror each other.  (It might be a funhouse mirror, but it’s a mirror, damn it!) 

So Nick Frost has a mostly-nude scene in Pirate Radio, and there was some talk about it.  Even Frost himself made a few jokes.  There was also the implied nudity displayed by Faizon Love in the recent comedy Couples Retreat.  That was funny, right?  Those movies, those scenes?  We all laughed.  It was funny. 

Here’s a cruel fact: what Frost and Love have in common is that their performances, nudity and sexual references included, were meant to be comical and were accepted because of this.  Thus their funny, lovable characters escaped the scathing commentary hurled at Philip Seymour Hoffman about two years or so back.  Anyone remember a little gem of a movie from 2007 called Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead?  It wasn’t funny.  It was, in fact, a rather disturbing movie.  It opens with a sex scene between Hoffman and Marisa Tomei, an opening likely meant to catch the viewer off-guard, but well done and not overly salacious.  Hoffman’s performance throughout was as intense and amazing as usual, but when I took to the boards, I found that even as he was praised for his acting, he was lampooned by amateur critics for his larger body type.  Some called the sex scene inappropriate, some wailed that there was too much of Hoffman shown and not enough of Tomei.  One detractor even stated that the movie was unrealistic because a man like Hoffman, even within the realm of fiction, could not possibly have a wife who looks like Maria Tomei. 

We have a serious problem here.  The only way it’s okay to be fat and nude is if it’s done in the context of comedy?  If it’s not done comically, it’s open for ridicule and criticism?  If it's not funny, then it's not realistic?   The ridiculous but unfortunately pervasive belief that big dudes don’t, can’t, or shouldn’t land hot chicks?  Wow...that's really offensive.

I need to speak up about that. 

Now, I’m not an activist in the traditional sense of the word.  You probably won’t see me on a picket line or attending any sort of rally requiring bullhorns and slogans and monetary donations.  I do, however, buy into the notion that being outspoken is a milder form of activism, and one that all of us could and should employ when it comes to issues we care about.  Therefore I encourage anyone who has or has ever had a partner, lover or spouse who is considered fat, overweight, chubby, curvy, or full-bodied to say out loud how attracted you are/were to that person.  If you think an overweight celebrity is hot, tell everyone who will listen.  (Nick Frost!  Pirate Radio!)  Shut people down when they label fat people as gross or make fun of an overweight person.  Harness the power of Google to post a picture of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s very attractive girlfriend on the film chat board to make an ass out of the guy posting comments about how he could hardly do as well in real life.  Question parody –sometimes instead of just laughing blindly, we need to stop and think – why is this funny? What's really going on? 

In fact, let’s just contemplate it now:  what is at the root of the fat people make for good comedy schtick?  They're gross, but they're funny, or are they funny because they're gross or gross because they're funny...?  It makes one's head spin.  Why do we freak out when the fat guy having sex isn’t presented as comedy?  It’s a complicated answer, and I suspcect it’s about fear.  We fear fat.  Why?  I don't know exactly.  All I know is that we fear becoming fat or remaining fat.  BeautifulPeople.com is another manifestation of that fear – it doesn’t bother me because it doesn’t surprise me.  It doesn’t surprise me because it’s so pervasive.  It’s so pervasive because we’re so afraid, so obsessed.  But why?  Where did it begin?  I don't know.

I do know how we can put a curb on it.  We, as  a culture, desperately need to redefine sexy.  We need to smash some of the traditional molds of hot and make it a little more all-inclusive.  We need more tolerance.  We need more acceptance. 

We need more fat admirers. 

I am part of a breed that seems to be associated with sub-culture and fetish.  That’s not completely accurate.  Fetish implies physical objectification, and I like the whole person – the personality, the attitude, the self-confidence, the who behind the what.  FAs and FFAs, we need to speak up!  We need to not be made to feel ashamed about our preferences any more than an “overweight” person should be about their body.  We need to shatter the illusion that we’re all fetishists or feederists or, as one website I read stated, that FAs are largely contained to the gay male community.  We are gay and straight, we are men and women, we are thin and fat, we are all over the place and a lot of us are too afraid to speak up for fear of ridicule.  If fat people are perceived as gross, what does that make us?  Are we gross, too?  Are we misfits and freaks and weirdos?

The answer to that would be a resounding NO!  We're the mold-breakers!  We're the stereotype shatterers!  We should be proud!  We need to overcome our own insecurities and not let thin-seekers tell us what we should be ogling or aspiring to.  We have to stand together!  We have to speak up!  We have to come out! 

 Because what if - just what if - we lived in a world where fat was as sexy as slim?  Where fat appreciation wasn't relegated to silence or fetish? What if the phrase "fat admirer" didn't have to exist as a separate part of desire because it was already a part of our collective unconscious of desirability?  

Okay, so  I’m hardly philosophical or charismatic enough to lead that particular parade.  But I’m going to start by simply making open and loud confessions, and hope that it becomes contagious. 

Hello, OpenSalon.  My name is K.C. Morley.  I like bigger body types.   I will vigorously defend people with bigger body types against personal criticism or unjust commentary.  I will question the merit of the fat parodies and satires, and attempt to correct the language and contexts which I feel are disparaging to fuller-bodied people.  I think big guys are hot.  I will admit proudly that I like looking at women as much as I like to look at the men – I appreciate the female body, and that I feel that fuller bodied women are just breathtakingly fantastic.  I will tell everyone who will listen that my XXL-sized husband is the sexiest man I know and I simply can't get enough of him.  I will proudly admit that my Google image search history contains dozens of pictures of Nick Frost.  And as of today, Philip Seymour Hoffman as well. 

Come to think of it, Hoffman was also in Pirate Radio. 

Damn, I gotta find out when that’s out on DVD.