Virgie Tovar

I got tired of waking up and being terrified for my health and so I decided to do what I’d been taught to do in moments of distress: craft.

I don’t want to move the line of the socially acceptable body by 50 or 100 or 150 pounds. I want to get rid of the line altogether because the line hurts everyone — even the people who are seen as the “winners.”

Shade is a resiliency tool constructed and wielded by those who have been forced to survive systems of unfairness. Shade isn’t polite, but everyone knows that the high road is over-sold to oppressed people! I knew I had to begin my own complete anthology of fat girl shade. And I thought I would start the chronicle here with Take the Cake. This tale is one from the vault, and it starts in high school.

If you asked me to guess what was going through her head, I would say she was in shock that a fat lady would wear a tight skirt, belly in full sight. This feminist act of taking up space, tacitly but clearly making room for myself in a fatphobic culture, is a bold-but-crucial move if you’re my brand of fat babe.

Fat Girl Scarcity — the sense that we are not enough or that we don’t have enough — permeates the life of a person in a marginalized body.

Fat positivity creates room for fat people to be seen with full humanity — not as failed thin people, but as complete and precious.

I find that clarity is the key to getting the exact heterosexual intercourse you want. Part of this involves taking the gloves off around discussions of my body. So, I said it in the ad:
“I weigh 250 pounds.”

See the way that I show up in the world. Honor that and this girl's heart. See my magic. Love me without agenda. Take no joy in the moments I am weak.

I want to tell you something about me: I’m an obsessive person.

I already feel super visible because I’m a fat woman wearing neon most likely, which I’ll admit I’m kinda into. But add a dude to the equation and all of a sudden I feel like people’s eyeballs are a moon orbiting the planet on which our initial fumbling exchanges are taking place. High pressure.