I ran across this graph right after making the mistake of reading a "fat rant" by Matt Forney. For a guy who professes to find fat women repulsive, he sure spends a lot of time fulminating about them.
I'm perplexed by the obsession with fat girls. I don't find extreme obesity attractive or "healthy" either, but I don't find the people who suffer from this to be "undeserving of love" or deserving of abuse ("shaming," "shunning"). Nor did it stop me from falling madly in love with a guy who was once pushing 400 lbs (he's slimmed down considerably since, courtesy of two bouts of oral cancer). I've never thought it was my mission in life to persuade prospective sexual partners to eat less (unless, perhaps, we were sharing a pizza LOL). Nor do I begrudge my thin friends their svelte physiques (unless we're browsing the sales racks together).
My "fatness" is my personal issue. It's between my doctor and me -- and a handful of intimates in whom I choose to confide. Unless some random stranger is forced to sit next to me on a crowded plane, I fail to see why my girth affects him in any real way.
If it's a matter of his being offended aesthetically, well boo-hoo. I'm potentially "offended" every single day I venture out in public: I happen to think anyone over the age of eighteen who wears a baseball cap looks like a moron. I am not a fan of the shaved head + goatee look either. I loathe clothing with logos on it. Public spitting turns my stomach. And don't get me started about all the truly terrible writing I have to read!
For the most part, I try to ignore these affronts to my delicate sensibilities because (1) they're trivial, and (2) otherwise I would be in a chronic state of rage -- and that's just not a place where I want to live (not to mention it's worse for one's heart than cheerfully schlepping around an extra fifty pounds).
The fact that Matt Forney and his readers don't want to fuck women who look like me isn't really a problem for any of us, is it? In fact, if my rotund body actively and magically repels them, it's kind of a plus in my book.
Look, kiddos, let me lay it on you: No person is obligated to be physically attractive to another person. You are not "owed" a supermodel girlfriend despite what television commercials have been teaching you. The sooner you get this reality through your noggins, the better off you'll be. The only body a person gets to control is his/her own -- and even then, not always (see cancer, above).
Perhaps the crux of the issue is that misogynists don't recognize women's personal autonomy. In their infantile minds, every woman is put on the earth for the sole purpose of pleasing them. It's a little bit narcissistic, wouldn't you say?
Still, the way they natter on about how teh fat kills their boners! Although they claim that they enjoy joking about fat women, they don't seem to be having much fun with it. Indeed, the topic sends them into paroxysms of rage.
And what really enrages them is that when they do decide to "bang" a fat chick (out of sheer desperation, apparently), those "ugly bitches" don't want to be banged by them. How dare an "imperfect female" reject them! How dare anuglyfatchick have any standards of her own?
It seems like Mr. Forney spends an awful lot of time haunting the "fatshionista" blogs and stewing about the fact that a lot of these young women manage to have some well-documented sexy fun despite their excess poundage. Personally, I love seeing a fat girl rocking a bikini. That is not because I think all fat girls should wear bikinis, or because every fat girl turns me on (some do / some don't), but because, well, why the hell shouldn't she?
Self-acceptance and self-confidence do not encourage people to be fat. Probably the opposite is truer. People who like themselves tend to be more active and socially engaged, as well as more tolerant and compassionate of others.
And I am willing to lay odds that if Forney and Friends tried to publicly "shame" these girls they would be met with great belly laughs of derision. Personally, if someone jeered or tried to humiliate me within my earshot, in a bar or a club or anywhere but from a fast-moving vehicle, they'd get a dose of their own medicine.
Some people speculate that Forney is a closeted gay. I don't know about that, but I'm beginning to wonder if he isn't a closeted FA. (That's "Fat Admirer" in BBW circles, a subculture I suspect Matt Forney is already quite familiar with).
Anyway, I stole the graphic from Helen Boyd's En/gender site. I used to read her blog faithfully and participate in the forum, but after a while, suffering from "trans ally fatigue," I fell away. I am now adding her to my blog roll as a personal reminder to check in more often. I am so annoyed that I missed her recent trip to my city. I would have enjoyed going to the event.
I think it's pretty obvious what drives the manosphere's obsession with the fat girls. I perused Matt Forney's and Roosh's blogs, and like most guys who believe in pick up game nonsense, they think that they should be able to attract a near perfect girl. The bulk of their approach is magical thinking at its purest: if they act as though they are entitled to something (act like an "alpha") the universe will bend to their intention and present them with their desired outcome.
ReplyDeleteBut fat girls isn't what they want. It's what they are willing to settle for after utterly failing to attract the type of a girl that they actually want. The rage that they express far and wide occurs when they get rejected even by the overweight women whom they see as consolation prizes. I think that deep down, they all know that they aren't entitled to a beautiful maiden. However, the reality that they are also not entitled to a woman whom they deem to be unattractive comes as a terrible shock. It infuriates them. Before trying they thought that, surely, if desperate enough, they could get with a fattie. But the moment of desperation came, and the targeted fatty didn't comply with the script. And neither did the next one. Nor the one after that. Also, these guys seem to be bewildered by the idea that they need to put the same effort into romancing a woman they find unattractive that they do with a woman they consider beautiful. They see all relationships as transactional, and being sincerely self-centered, they are certain that the value that they assign to any given human being is her actual value in the world. Thus the manospherians like Matt Forney and Roosh consider it an economic injustice committed against them when a fat woman expects the same caliber of behavior, presentation and personal investment as they deem appropriate for a slim woman to expect. After all, in their minds the fat woman is worth less, so why is she as expensive as the slim woman? How dare she? Who does she think she is? It's not like she is desirable! Again, to these guys, their own tastes equal objective reality. They think that the people who disagree with their personal tastes are lying, delusional or have alterior motives.
Consider this example:
ReplyDeleteYou are a manual laborer hard up for money and work. And yet, you dream of a gourmet meal. You wake up hungry in the morning, but force yourself into an optimistic mood. You tell yourself that you'll try hard today, harder than ever before, and by evening, you will make enough for a meal at a restaurant with table cloths. Why not? It could happen! It's bound to be your turn to sample the fine things in life at some point, so why not today? You are a good person, no less deserving than some doctor or lawyer.
But the day doesn't go as planned. Your optimism doesn't pay off. When you walk up to the window of a real restaurant, you can see by the prices displayed that it's out of your reach. This saddens you deeply. But deep down you always knew that this outcome was unlikely. Your optimism was forced to begin with. Starving and desperate, you walk to McDonald's. But once you get there, it turns out that the McDonald's prices you were expecting don't exist anymore. Somehow, a happy meal costs $30! A burger alone is $25. Even a shitty McDonald's meal that you didn't even want, that you were willing to eat only because you are starving is out of your reach! At this point, you will very likely start to become angry because, alright, you might not deserve luxury, but how the fuck can a working person like you be unable to afford the crap that is a happy meal? When you get to Walmart to buy Ramen, they turn you away at the door because your working clothes isn't fine enough to enter the store. Oh, and a packet of Ramen is $20 anyway. At this point, you might blow up. WHat kind of a screwed up world denied Ramen to a starving person? Ramen is basically garbage, and you aren't good enough to eat it? Are you below garbage, according to these people?
You see, since the manosphere sees women as consumable goods, ranks them from 1 to 10 and ranks the fatter ones very low, it's easy to understand why a self respecting woman with standards and/or a happy love life enrages them so much.
Self-loathing?
ReplyDeleteIt is very common among his kind.
Yup, definitely self loathing. He hates on people who represents what he hates about himself.
ReplyDelete