On Being Fat

Here's the end of my Fat Studies paper on The Silence of the Lambs:

"To be a “big, fat person,” then, is to be simultaneously impotent and un-feminine, it is to only be worthy of male attention when on display as a mutilated victim. To be fat is to be alone in the pit with no hope and no power. To be fat is to have a mother who will not describe your body. To be fat is to be coveted for your skin and not your whole self. To be fat is to be an inappropriate embodiment of womanhood, to be rescued from your squalid pit by a sexually attractive functioning subject of the patriarchal structure. To be fat is to be the fatted lamb, bleating in a pit, “Fuck you! You bitch!” while the more appropriate woman stumbles around in the dark."

This is not what it was to me to be fat. Being fat was the avoidance of the male gaze. It was wearing whatever clothes I wanted without worrying about the wrong message. It was to be considered jolly, sweet, non-threatening, friendly, maternal, soft, loving, wise--and to be taken for my merits instead of my assets. It was to be valued for my cleverness and not my measurements. I do not care if I am beautiful. I recognize that I have been called that word many times. But I will never identify as beautiful, and though I recognize beauty in the bone structures and color schemes of the women in my life, I do not value it. It is either the possession of something not worked for or it is the preference of straightening irons and surgery over books and comfort. And very often, it is the performance of self-loathing.

I didn't realize that self-loathing part until after the Disease deflated my body a bit. I loved my rotund mounds of flesh. I hated the sagging skin left behind by rapid weight loss. I bought LOTS of lotion. And belts for my funny, high, wasp-waist. This is because I needed self-soothing to deal with the dreadful new body. Since things have evened out a bit, I love my body again. It is soft, after all. It has mass and takes up space. It is the home of my brain.

I still identify as a fat girl. Yesterday, though, I took a picture of myself that made me realize once I'm down one more dress size, that fat-girl identity will be wrenched away from me. I do not know how well I will do without it. AND, now that I can shop in the Misses department in earnest, I find that the male gaze is turning my direction again. It burns my flesh. I cannot be sweet to strangers in the supermarket anymore, because there is a gap in the perception of that sweetness. I think I am only kind. Men (and sometimes, their wives) think I am only becoming. I really ought to make myself a t-shirt that reads "You and I will get along a lot better if you'll just think of me as one of the guys."I would wear it with tights, a pencil skirt, and a sweater. And then I could help single redneck stranger-men pick out hairbows for their daughters without being asked for my phone number.