Shapely Prose

Okay, not in any legitimate capacity, like, say, my fellow Bibliophilistine. But I got a letter to the editor published (scroll down to “Size Acceptance”)–and I’m especially stoked to see they printed TWO letters from people saying “Hey, thanks for not ragging on the fatties.” And no letters ragging on the fatties! Yay!

The article I was responding to is here, and the whole reason I was moved to write is that it’s literally the first time I have ever seen an article about fat people–especially fat teenaged girls–in a mainstream publication that never once says, “Of course, we all know fat is unhealthy, and we certainly don’t want to encourage the fatties to give up on losing weight or anything.”

Compare the Trib article with this Salon article, for instance. I adore Lynn Harris and generally think she can do no wrong, but she just had to include the fake controversy about whether providing fat teenaged girls with cool clothes will encourage them to, you know, like themselves and thus stop trying to lose weight. Heaven forfend. Because obviously, being able to find trendy tops in their size will completely counteract the eleventy billion messages these girls are getting about how disgusting, ugly, and unhealthy their fat is. Also, obviously, there’s no way a size-18 teenager could possibly be a normal, healthy young woman who has no good reason–other than the miserable social consequencs of her size–to lose weight in the first place. These things are givens.

Harris does, at least, draw conclusions I agree with, but I still think “Nice clothes might make them think fat is healthy!” is an utterly absurd argument unworthy of even a passing mention, and that should be obvious to any thinking person. Yet it appears again and again in every article about the expanding plus-size market, and especially about how fat teenaged girls are–gasp!–now able to indulge in a bit of sartorial dignity, courtesy of Torrid.

So it was very, very cool to see an article that did not include that fake controversy, and instead just said, “Hey, pretty plus-sized prom dresses! Awesome!” I had to read the article like 3 times just to make sure I hadn’t missed the line about how we all know the best thing is still to starve yourself into a standard-sized prom dress, and of course there’s a terrible danger in allowing fat girls to even consider the possibility that they could look pretty. As soon as I confirmed that that line wasn’t there, I sent the Trib a lengthy tongue-bath. Most of it was cut, but hey, they published it.

One small step.