My perception of their beauty has nothing to do with my sexual desire. In fact, quite the opposite - I find them beautiful. Still, at no point in my interactions with them do I find them disgusting. I am not physically or sexually attracted to any of them. The problem is that this awful behavior is learned behavior, culturally acquired, and culturally sanctioned.Įvery day I interact with thin people, fit people, muscular people, men and women, young and old. I see them point and giggle among themselves, assessing their value as greater than his simply because of his size. I hear them snicker when he walks by, or as he carefully bends over to pick something up. I stand next to the man I love, my grand husband, as people look through him or, worse, chastise him with their eyes. Many go so far as to make rude faces, poke fun, give unprompted advice on diet and exercise. Most Americans see grand people as unappealing, even disgusting. I don’t say this to shy away from the fact that, to me, “grand” = “fat.” I say this to help reshape people’s perceptions, in the hope that the beauty of the word “grand” somehow makes “fat” a little less ugly.
Therefore, for the rest of this piece, I will use the term “grand” when describing the kind of man I see as beautiful. So much so that I fear that it will get in the way of any point I could ever hope to make. But that, of course, is not “normal” - we aren’t supposed to find fat people beautiful, never mind sexy.Įven the word “fat” itself has strongly negative connotations it’s one of our go-to insults, a favorite self-criticism. I am in awe of their beauty, which moves me and inspires me in ways I never knew possible.
They are to me more beautiful than any sunset, landscape or work of art. Not just that - the fat men I am attracted to are, without a doubt, the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. I do this all the time, because I see beauty so differently than most people. Instead of looking beyond physical beauty, then, we should take a long, hard look at it. We pretend that beauty should be based on who we are, not how we look.īut we also know, deep down, that that isn’t true. So we tell ourselves and each other that we must dig deeper, find what makes us special, unique, radiant - you know, beautiful on the inside.
Nobody wants to be judged solely on how they look.
Let’s face it: beauty is in fact skin deep.