Written by E. Irby
If you’ve always been a traditionally bigger person, you’ve probably experienced the aforementioned headline “I Liked You Better When You Were Fat.” Not gonna lie, it’s a quite perplexing response after you’ve actually intentionally or unintentionally lost weight, especially from supposed admirers…
Paradoxical as it may seem, I can understand the shock if you’ve known someone at one state and they shift to another state BUT (and it shouldn’t have to be said) something personal weight shouldn’t be something that we or anyone uses as their attraction thermometer.
I personally remember more recently receiving a polarizing response from a previous paramour when we last seen each other. He was visibly bothered by my weight loss (not enough to still not pursue me for intercourse) enough to say, “don’t lose all your thickness.”
And the men and people like him mean well in their own twisted way, because as a culture we’ve been programmed to correlate beauty and attraction with social currency. Despite what we say, there’s data unfortunately that supports that how we’re perceived dictates everything from how people treat us to what job opportunities are presented and this even comes down to weight.
So maybe we should also give each other grace and lax with the judgements regarding weight loss when it might not just be submitting to just Eurocentrism but also survival. Under this current administration, like most things under traditional scrutiny, the male form will also be at the forefront, which will affect industries that serve plus men and plus body types in general.
If you’ve made your body your business, you have to either adjust or lean into your brand which is the fickle part of body branding.
This is all not to say that there is also an underlying current of plus men also having the urge to slim down out of just pure conformity, which isn’t necessarily a problem. I just ask, outside of the aforementioned survival, are you doing this for yourself or for fleeting validation because the dangerous thing about external validation is that it doesn’t have a limit to its depth. If you cannot fill that void with something else outside the value you place on your beauty and your body, you’re inevitably trapping yourself (or at least your brand if you care about that more.)
Not to mention navigating that murky space between not being thin enough to be considered skinny but also not thick enough to be considered fat, so you’re just kinda acting like Mystique depending on the response from someone. Mindfuck.
Weight gain. Weight loss. It’s all a serious mindfuck.
What about Body Positivity and the Body Positivity Movement you ask?
Despite the efforts of brands, particularly those that center plus men like Every Man Project, besides blatant capitalism tainting the intention, once it stopped serving the people it wasn’t created for, once they couldn’t figure out a way to co-opt their way in the space and alienate with various fictitious narratives on the questionable “skinnyphobia” lore…. more and more of those people became apathetic and loud about their apathy.
Anyone who was truly served by BPM knows that it is still very active it just doesn’t serve the muscle twinks and “twunks” and now everyone must suffer as a result.
The fortunate thing is that, despite the climate there are still space being created for plus queer black men to join in community and find kinship. I think at any point in our lives, particularly the queer millennials, we need to make sure to remain in community with each other, judge each other less and bring each other in more.
And also, if anyone tells you that they liked you better when you were thicker or fat, I’m not saying block them but definitely examine whether your partner sees you as a person or a fantasy…..
Just something to chew on.
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