Virgie Tovar

Jealousy is such an interesting thing to me. As immediate and intense as it feels when it hits, it has always struck me as a secondary — a smokescreen for something else.

I’d like to enter the term “thinspreading” into the running for 2017's new word of the year. Fat people are expected to take up as little space as possible.

My sad little girl brain remembers exactly what it feels like to risk everything and get rejected. It happened so many times for me during childhood and then later in my early dating years. I’ve created elaborate systems of avoidance, emotional self-control and pre-emptive rejection. And frankly, girl, I’m tired of it. It’s a lot of goddamn work.

There are a lot of places where fat people don’t feel safe because of fatphobia. What does it feel like to feel safe in your fat body?

It’s important to recognize that tiny or unsupportive seats (no matter how beautiful) send a silent but powerful message about who has the right to sit down. This message has strong ripple effects for a community that is already facing quite a bit of discrimination.

If you like the idea of being with a fat fetishist, I think you should do it. If you hate the idea, then don’t. If you want to experiment with it, try it.

It’s taken me a long time to write about this topic because I’m not an eating disorder specialist or clinician.

October is a busy month for me. It’s one of two peak periods for lecture bookings on university campuses.

My boundaries around how people can talk to me about my body are very clear. I’d like to share with you four body boundary tips for a better holiday.

I understand the connections between the violence that leads to police shootings and the violence that leads people to starve themselves. I know with complete certainty that diet culture is a manifestation of the state’s expectation of assimilation and of social control, both of which are manifestations of institutional violence.