I'm fat.... There I fucking said it. In fact, I'll say it again. I, Nicholas Adam Reid, am fat and I'm not talking husky, chubby, pudgy, cherubic, stout, or rubenesque. I'm talking fat with a capital ass. I wont give you my weight and measurements because quite frankly, in spite of the confessional nature of this piece, its none of your goddamn business.
I'm also a feminist. You would think these two things have nothing to do with each other and you would be wrong. You see I'm a feminist because I'm fat. Talk about a mind fuck right? Well let me break it down for you.
I could never in a million years even begin to pretend to know what its truly like to be a woman in this hyper chauvinistic society. To have to check myself in the mirror every time I leave the house after dark, not to see how I look but to ponder if this is the get up that will inspire some inch dicked psychopath to violate me inside and out and I'll never in a million years understand what its like to have the seed of just such a beast growing inside me and having to make the impossible decision whether or not to destroy that demon seed or continue to remain a hostage of my own biology in the name of an unnamed life. No, thank Christ I'll never truly understand that horror....
But I do have some idea of how it feels to be objectified for my body, for something that's not completely within my control. You see I wasn't born fat, in fact as a kid I was a skinny motherfucker, down right scrawny believe it or not, so much so that my parents even worried that I might have rickets because I was so damned emaciated. It wasn't until I started taking antidepressants for O.C.D. and depression that I really began to pack on the pounds, which isn't an unusual side effect of the drug. I found myself faced with a hard decision. Be thin and miserable or be fat and relatively happy. I chose the latter and I think I chose right but that doesn't mean its been fucking easy.
People treat you different when your fat, having spent most of my life crack head skinny this realization was more than a little jarring. Suddenly I was no longer seen as a person but a fat person. My identity was no longer up to me. Other people decided who I was, not based on my character but by the shape of my body. I could no longer eat at a restaurant or shop at a grocery store without being judged by a crowd of strangers who had my whole story all figured out the moment they saw the size of my ass. I couldn't even walk through a fucking locker room or past a construction site without feeling defiled by a cavalcade of jeering snickers and crass half whispered jokes from a posse of muscle bound knuckle draggers, drunk off each others sweaty testosterone. I also couldn't seem to turn on the news without some wispy, new age, weight Nazi blaming me for the downfall of western civilization.
Perhaps worst of all I couldn't seem to make a meaningful connection with a girl without being relegated to the infuriating purgatory of the friend zone. Apparently my flabby body made me permanently un-boyfriendable regardless of my personality. Then again I suppose my karmic taste for skinny girls betrayed me. I know, I know, I'm a fucking hypocrite, especially considering that fat women have it ten times as hard as fat men, but I am who I am. I cant change that and believe me when I tell you I've fucking tried. But is that really so criminal? Should a fat person be any more obligated to date another fat person then a black person is obligated to date within there own race? When did self segregation become a touch stone of political correctness? Anyway, off topic.... Jesus fuck balls! Where in the holy shit was?.... Oh yeah, feminism.
After suffering the humiliating indignities of teenage obesity, my discovery of feminism, through the furious majesty of Riot Grrrl bands like Bikini Kill and Hole, felt like a welcome breath of fresh air in my apnea stressed lungs. I got it. They wanted the same damn thing I wanted. To be seen as a fully actualized human being and not just a set of saggy bitch tits to gawk at. They wanted to be judged based on the quality of there character and not what they chose to put into there bodies. They wanted to be heard and not just seen and They wanted to be taken seriously. In fact they fucking demanded it and they gave me the courage to do the same.
So I'll fucking say it one more time. I, Nicholas Adam Reid, am a fat fucking feminist who also happens to have a dick. Hear me roar! And if any of you chauvinistic trolls out there in motherfuckerland feel like tossing rocks at the girls you call sluts, you best remember those rocks land in my yard too and thanks to bad ass bitches like Kathleen Hanna and Courtney Love I can throw them back like a girl, right in your fucking faces.
Stand strong ladies. As long as my fat ass has you to lean on, you don't stand alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment