Virgie Tovar

Would you date a fat fetishist? It always feels complicated to answer this question, but I promise an honest one by the end of part two.

Fat girls have less latitude in every arena – clothing is no exception with high school dress codes. Fat women’s bodies are constructed as “outlaw” bodies.

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

I was taught that weight loss was self-care, but then I did a bunch of research and realized dieting is actually the patriarchal destruction of my body.

This week in Babecamp we were talking about Sarai Walker’s novel Dietland.

Dieting is a socially sanctioned method of mentally high-tailing out of whatever is going on and keeping you entirely in your head, laser-focused on your next bite, your scale, your plate.

So, recently I started dipping my toe back into the poisonous dump site that is straight dating. Deep breath.

This is a love song for those who showed me there was a thing called freedom, and it wasn’t closed-legged, and it wasn’t passable, that it was expensive and gaudy, and I wanted it, and I didn’t want it.

My jaw clenches in judgmental discomfort whenever I think of any event with "BBW" in the title. To me, the term "BBW" is coded. When I hear that word, my eyes begin a preemptive roll as the keywords "heteronormativity," "hookup," "gendered labor," "mansplaining," and "ugh" scroll past the neon pink kiosk in my brain.

Fatphobia is not safely in my rearview mirror. Trying to heal from something as painful as fatphobia (which attacks us to the core!) is a daunting task.