Fatsronauts 101

Fatsronauts 101 is a series in which I address assumptions and stereotypes about fat people that treat us as a monolith and are used to dehumanize and marginalize us. If there is a stereotype you'd like me to address, email me.

[Content Note: Fat bias.]

#23: Fat advocates want to force people to find fat people sexually attractive.

Nope.

I am tempted just to leave it at that, because, seriously: Nope. But I'll just briefly add: This is a pretty common accusation levied against anyone who advocates on behalf of fat people, and especially anyone who challenges the notion that fat is axiomatically ugly.

Brian has effectively addressed that crap here, from a fat man's and fat admirer's perspective.

I will just briefly add, from a fat woman's perspective, that the mendacious misrepresentation of my asking people to respect my humanity as, instead, my demanding that people find me sexually attractive is:

1. A useful red herring to turn a valid argument about basic humanity into a garbage debate about how unfair and unreasonable fat advocates are. Suddenly we're not talking about, say, an equal right to access healthcare but instead what "delusional freaks" fat people are who want to force thin people to be attracted to us.

2. Indicative of the pattern of any woman asking for recognition of her full humanity being audited on the basis of her sexual appeal and availability, because misogynists who view women as a sex class value us on the basis of our fuckability. So when they hear any woman saying, "I want to be valued," they hear, "I want you to find me attractive." Because women have no other conceivable value to them.

This, again, is why fat is a feminist issue.

[Related Reading: The Fat Body Visible and Beautiful.]

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Previously:

#22: All fat people are lazy and/or weak.
#21: Fat bodies have no feeling.
#20: Fat people aren't that bright.
#19: All fat people hate/want to change their bodies.
#18: You can diagnose fat people's health issues by looking at them.
#17: Fat people's choices are always dictated by their fat.
#16: You are helping fat people by shaming them.
#15: Fat people hate having their pictures taken.
#14: All fat people are unhealthy.
#13: Fat people looooooooooove Twinkies!
#12: Fat people don't like/want to see media representations of themselves.
#11: No one wants to be fat.
#10: Fat people need you to intervene in their lives.
#9: Fat people don't know how they look.
#8: Fat people don't deserve anything nice.
#7: Fat people are permission slips for thin people to eat what they want.
#6: Any fat person eating a salad or exercising is trying to lose weight.
#5: Fat is axiomatically ugly.
#4: Fat people eat enormous amounts of food.
#3: Fat people are jolly/mean, and fat people are shy/loud.
#2: I can tell how someone eats all the time, because of how they eat around me.
#1: Everyone who is fat is fat for the same reason.