Fat Sex Therapist Sonalee Rashatwar

Friend and loyal reader of my blog, Emily Joy, pointed me to this article about fat sex therapist Sonalee Rashatwar, and after reading it I knew I had to amplify their voice to all of you. (The article uses female pronouns but Rashatwar’s Instagram profile states she/they pronouns should be used.) They are a Philadelphia-based trauma therapist and a non-binary fat person of color.

What particularly stood out to me about Rashatwar is that their approach is intersectional. They link sizeism and fatphobia to all other kinds of oppression, as it should be.

Source: https://www.inquirer.com/news/sonalee-rashatwar-fat-positivity-body-acceptance-sexuality-therapy-20190703.html

Rashatwar’s Instagram is bright and colorful and peppered with challenging statements that are expanded on in their comments.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/thefatsextherapist/

As I scrolled through, I felt the weight of each statement and nodded along my agreement. Fatphobia’s tentacles reach far and wide, and we need voices like Sonalee’s to tear down the walls fatphobia has built.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The whole reason for my blog is that I’m frustrated at not being able to find things in my size, and here is someone reminding me that even my ideas of size inclusivity are too narrow. I hope to be able to interview Rashatwar for my podcast one day, so watch this space. In the meantime, follow them on Instagram and have your mind and ideas expanded.

Singing the Praises of Belt Extenders

Air travel is uncomfortable for almost everyone; the seats are cramped, there’s little leg room, the aisle is small. But flying while fat comes with other landmines to negotiate, many of which can get you unceremoniously kicked off a plane with no recourse, leaving you potentially stranded in an unfamiliar city or country or forcing you to miss important business or personal appointments.

I was recently on a flight to Dallas from my hometown of Philadelphia. My wife and I were attending a wedding in north Texas. We are fortunate enough to be able to book first-class tickets for most of our domestic travel, and we were blown away at the accommodations we had for this particular flight. The plane had come in from an international location, so the first class cabin had lay-flat seats and more leg room than I’ve ever had on any flight, first class or coach. I noticed that the seat belt had a lot of length to it, but nevertheless, I deployed my belt extender. I purchased one a long time ago so I could stop asking the flight attendants for them and bring attention to my fat self.

The flight had already been delayed a couple of hours because of weather in Dallas, and it was taking a long time for boarding to finish. Being up front, I heard the flight attendants checking in with each other in a controlled but semi-frantic tone. A passenger needed a belt extender and they were having trouble locating one. Apparently there were none on board. The safety instructions were delivered via video on that flight, so the belts used for demonstrations were absent.

The longer the search went on, the closer I paid attention. Our lateness and the time it was taking to look for this belt made me worry that the passenger in need would be asked to deplane so we could get underway. I resolved in my mind to give my belt extender to that passenger and take a chance with my own seat belt rather than have that happen.

Fortunately, the gate agent was able to get two belt extenders down to the plane rather quickly and we departed. The rest of the flight was uneventful, but my mind kept drifting back to that fellow fat passenger. The flight attendants were nothing but kind and diligent in looking for the belt, and showed no signs of malice or frustration at needing to procure one. But I knew things could have gone badly wrong for them.

So, if you’re someone who has even once used a belt extender on a plane, whether you fly frequently or not, it is my recommendation that you invest in a belt extender for yourself. You can get them on Amazon for as little as $10. Some will note that they are FAA approved, and if something like that matters to you, go for it. I have never had anyone question my extender when I’ve used it on a plane. Note, though, that Southwest’s buckles are different, so make sure you know what you’re getting. I did buy two back in the day because I was flying Southwest every so often.

Does having my own belt extender mean I am guaranteed to never be kicked off a plane? No. But it does mitigate having attention drawn to me. A passenger might still complain about having to sit next to my fat body, and if they kick up enough of a fuss, I could still be asked to leave. Having my own belt, though, gives me one tool to use to try to keep my seat.

Also, if you’re having trouble with the seat belt in your car, I recommend a belt extender for that, too. I have used mine for awhile now, and I feel so much safer with it. I even took it with me to Dallas because I knew we’d be getting a rental car and I had no way of knowing how the belts would fit (or if they would fit).

I resisted these tools for a long time. There is so much shame attached to admitting that you need something extra. Finally, I had to place my own comfort and safety above the shame, and my life is better for it. It’d be wonderful if the world considered our fat bodies while making things like seat belts, but until they do, I encourage you to obtain the tools you need for yourself.

Sit Your Butt Down (If You Can)

This article, part of a series on being fat in college, got me thinking about seating and seating options in all kinds of venues. I had similar experiences that the people interviewed for the article did. My whole college experience was squeezing into a series of attached chairs and desks, or worse, lecture halls with desk surfaces that swung up on an arm. I went to an institution that was started in the late 19th century. Many of the buildings dated back to the 1960s and 70s, and all had similar accommodations. Only the few newer buildings on campus had any kind of variety of seating option. Also, I went to college just before having laptops in class became a regular thing, so desk surfaces did not need to be adequate for a computer. A notebook was enough.

It never occurred to me then, almost 15 years ago, to complain about the size of the desks or chairs. I just squeezed and made do. Like the article’s author, I blamed my own body instead of the inadequate desks for my discomfort. It’s just the way it was. I struggled all through high school, too. Why should college be any different?

Adequate seating for fat bodies is a perpetual topic. For me, personally, there is always a calculation about where to sit everywhere I go, including other people’s homes. Is that couch too low for me to get up from unassisted? Maybe it’d be better if I sat on the dining room chair instead?

But what this article and my recent trip to Broadway made me think about was venue seating specifically, if you can consider a classroom a venue. In this case, I mean any place that seating has been mass purchased and is generally uniform for everyone.

My experience has been that the older the venue, the more uncomfortable I am in my seat.

I go to a lot of live theater, as much as I can possibly afford, most of the time with the full knowledge that I am going to be squished into an uncomfortable seat for the duration of the show. The last time I saw Hamilton on Broadway (one of my favorite shows, by the way), I was in tears both because the show always makes me cry AND because the back of the seat in front of me was digging painfully into my knees. I left the theater bruised on my hips and knees and limping from the pain. The Richard Rodgers theater was built in 1925.

Contrast that with Circle in the Square Theater, originally built in the 1970s and reopened in its current incarnation in the late ‘90s. It has wider, much more comfortable seats similar to ones that you might find in a movie theater (that doesn’t have reclining seats). There’s enough leg room for a person of above-average height to be able to shift position without having another seat digging into their legs.

Historical buildings and institutions are unlikely to have seating that accommodates fat or tall bodies, much less both. The best bet at getting a seat that won’t injure you in these settings is an accessible seat, which limits you severely on your seating choices, usually down front and off to the side somewhere. Or if there are stairs in the venue, in the rows at the back, closest to the doors.

The seats in the Jacobs Theater, where I recently saw Betrayal, weren’t the worst I’d ever been in. It helped we had paid a premium to sit in the orchestra, rather than the balcony. I had about an inch or two of leg room, but my hips were squished badly and there was nowhere to put my arms. I have had people in similar venues be very angry about having to sit next to my fat body, to the point where they actually left the show and didn’t return.

It’d be great to think that as we move ever forward into this century that these historical buildings and institutions—like colleges, universities, stadiums, and theaters all up and down the East Coast—would invest in overhauling their seating to accommodate the maximum number of different types of bodies possible. But we know that won’t happen.

I went to the baseball stadium in Philadelphia, Citizens Bank Park, not too long ago. It was built in 2004, replacing the much older Veteran’s Stadium, and has a capacity of ~43,000 people. And the seats are barely large enough for me. I am still squished uncomfortably in the seat, the seat in front of me digging into my legs, my knees dangerously close to the head and shoulders of the person in front of me.

The problem, like with airplanes, is capacity and how much can be charged to put a butt in that seat. It doesn’t matter to the person collecting the fee if your butt can actually fit or not. Is it any wonder that fat people feel marginalized, when popular entertainment, even the oldest kind of popular entertainment in the world, doesn’t feel welcoming?

Exhaustion

I am so tired. I’m the kind of tired that makes you irritable and antisocial and mad at everyone. There are a lot of things pulling me in various directions, all of them stressful and contributing to the exhaustion.

But fat people, especially fat women, aren’t allowed to be tired. We aren’t allowed to prioritize rest and self-care because we have spent most of our lives being told we are slothful and lazy because of the size of our bodies. It can become this almost pathological guilt about staying on the couch and watching TV or going to bed early. We push ourselves to be everything to everyone because we’re told that’s how we get people to value us.

So, I’ll say it again for the people in the back:

• Fat people are people

• We deserve the same basic human dignity as everyone else

• Fat and lazy aren’t the same thing

Whatever rest or care you need for yourself, I am personally giving you permission to take it. If that looks like sitting on the couch and eating ice cream for you, then I say go for it. Personally, I am going to bed.

When Fitspo Tries to Masquerade as Body Positivity

When I first started hearing about Brittany Runs a Marathon, I saw a lot of images of a fat woman running and a lot of commentary about how “inspirational” the story was and “daring.” I thought for a brief moment that it might actually center a true story of a fat person learning to love movement for the sake of movement and not to lose weight, which is the most common narrative.

Then I watched the trailer.

The very first scene in the trailer is the title character going to a doctor and being told that she should get healthy by losing 55 pounds. I immediately rolled my eyes because here we go, the false equivalence that weight loss equals health. And then things got worse from there. Suddenly Brittany’s out-of-control life—her inability to get a job, her loneliness, the way she’s treated by other people—all starts to get better. The pieces miraculously fall into place as she loses the weight while training to run the NYC marathon.

I could not physically roll my eyes any harder.

But I didn’t want to rely on my own perceptions of the movie from the trailer, especially because I no longer had any desire to see it. This article from a fat runner in Runner’s World gave me an interesting perspective on just what the movie gets wrong about running while fat, something I think I knew instinctively but needed someone with real experience to say:

Dr. Kate Brown, Runner’s World

Dr. Brown goes on to say that she herself is a fat runner who weighs the same as she did when she started training 5 years ago.

Dr. Brown, Runner’s World

I am very lucky to follow several other people doing the same kind of work I am. One of them writes on Medium and Twitter (among others) as Your Fat Friend. She saw the movie and wrote one of her incisive analyses of media and the world that I have come to rely on. While the movie claims body positivity and that “You running this marathon was never about your weight. It was about taking responsibility for your life.” that message is subsumed by the entire set up of the film.

Source: https://medium.com/@thefatshadow/brittany-runs-a-marathon-and-thin-fantasies-of-fat-lives-f0496408a2aa

I’m glad that Your Fat Friend saw the movie so that I didn’t have to. From the trailer I instinctively knew that this movie was not written for me. Just seeing a thin actress in a fat suit “get thin” told me that. This movie is for thin people to feel validated in their treatment of fat people. That if only fat people would take responsibility for ourselves and lose the damn weight, we’d suddenly be worthy of the same basic courtesies that thin people offer each other. If I suddenly lost weight, then people would hold doors for me, too, and I’d suddenly find the love and fulfillment my life is lacking.

Except that I already have an amazing life full of love and a career that I like, the respect of my peers, and yeah, people hold doors for me. Why? Because it is the right thing to do.

All over my time at Dragon Con this year, I noticed it. People showed me basic decency and kindness because I was one of them, regardless of my fat and disabled body. More than that, I was shown respect for my knowledge and experience and volunteer status.

Brittany Runs a Marathon never contemplates that Brittany’s life could be complete exactly as she is. That finding focus and discipline as she learns to enjoy healthy movement through running is the larger factor in her life than her weight loss (which is also unbelievable and as we have learned through studies, likely unsustainable).

As much as I wanted to feel like this movie would be something I could enjoy, it is clearly not for me. I so wish it was, but in the end, I choose not to subject myself to this kind of message.

*Side note: Hello to all my new followers! If you’ve found yourself here based on my surprise plug during the David Tennant panel at Dragon Con, I hope you enjoy yourself. I publish on Mondays and Wednesdays more or less regularly and hope to have my podcast up and running by the winter. It will drop monthly to start, unless I find I can realistically do more.

Brief Hiatus for Dragon Con

Hi folks! I first want to say thank you so much for reading and sharing this little experiment. I see you out there and I appreciate it.

I will be going on hiatus for a couple of weeks while I am at Dragon Con (and then recovering from Dragon Con). If you aren’t already following me on Twitter, I suggest you do (twitter.com/inmysizeblog) because I expect I will tweet as I see cool things around the con.

Hang in there with me and I’ll be back soon!

Let’s Talk About Sex

CW: Mentions of sexual assault, explicit content

If it comes as a surprise to you that fat people have loving and fulfilling sex lives, I’m going to need you to check your assumptions. Back when I was a single person, I could literally have all of the sex I wanted. It wasn’t hard to find people who were interested in fucking me. And I had my own period of exploring my sexuality and learning through experience what I did—and definitely did not—want.

Through all of those experiences, I learned that sex was not just reserved for the skinny, beautiful people I saw on TV. I learned that I did not need to make myself into something or someone else to be found desirable. And I learned how to communicate my desires to my partner and expect them to be honored.

The first time I had sex, I was in my freshman year at college. I was with someone I liked A LOT, and I was astonished to find out that he liked my mind and my body. I was very lucky to have a first experience with someone like that, and we’re still friends today. But as I look back on it now, it’s the astonishment that he would want me that bothers me.

I had never had the slightest bit of sexual attention paid to me in high school, and I’m not sure I would have known what to do with it if I did. And I thought, that’s just the way it was supposed to be. The fat girl never gets the guy, always the sidekick, the bridesmaid, etc. That’s the trope that so many narratives are built on.

That’s why this post in ScaryMommy got my attention: It is based on a group page in Facebook and conversations surrounding fat bodies. The article summarizes some of the most common themes we see when it comes to sex and larger people. The comments and quotes were all shared to a wider audience with permission, and I am so happy this page came across my awareness. For each point, I was internally shouting, “YES. YES. YES.”

The most telling and powerful theme is that sexual assault doesn’t have a size limit. Yes, we are also the targets of assault, often because we are told we should be “grateful for the attention.” My first sexual experience could have been very different in the hands of another person because I believed that I should take whatever attention I could get. I didn’t know then what I know now about how valuable I am, and that I am in control of who touches my body and when.

Fat people are out here living our lives just the same as everyone else. We’re loved and lovers, or not. And frankly, I can’t sum up this post any better than one of the people who contributed did:

Let Kids Live

It’s bad enough that the diet and weight-loss industry spends so much time targeting women and making sure that none of us really likes our bodies no matter what we do, now they are targeting kids.

WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers but they’ve gone through a rebranding to attempt to change their focus onto “health”) has developed a new, free “nutrition and weight-loss app for kids as young as 8, and up to 17” according to an article in Time.

According to the article, the initial announcement that WW would market a weight-loss app to 13 to 17-year-olds drew a hefty amount of criticism. But instead of making WW stop and think whether this was a good idea, they decided to make an app for kids that are even younger.

Source: Time.com

My horror at the news of this app was palpable and this story immediately went to the top of my “to blog” list. It threw me right back to my earliest diets, and I can easily imagine being a kid with a parent who is logging every bite of food that gets put in my mouth.

Source: Time.com

The fact is that the influence that parents have over the way their children will approach food as they grow up can’t be calculated. It must be a nearly impossible balance to strike between letting kids make their own food choices and encouraging them to live healthy lifestyles. But imposing an app that has numbers children can’t possibly be able to comprehend and contextualize is not the way to do it. All it does is set up a good/bad dichotomy and lead to an increased risk of disordered eating. Even ScaryMommy had a few things to say, courtesy of actress Jameela Jamil:

Source: https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1161533115510218753

We have become so worried about our kids being fat because we’ve seen how the world treats fat people that we’re willing to subject them to shame and disordered eating to prevent it. I can’t agree more with Jamil… if you’re worried about your kids’ health, there are ways to address it that don’t involve an app. And parents especially have to work hard not to fall into the trap of thinking that a fat child is an unhealthy child. How many kids do you know who are thin and do nothing but play video games all day? Are they healthier than the fat kid who rides their bike and plays with their dog? I know my answer to that question.

Also, whatever you think of an individual parent’s decisions to feed their children, keep it to yourself. I guarantee you do not know better than that parent what is good for that child, and you do not know what that child’s own preferences are. Stop treating kids like they don’t have agency in their own choices. Let kids live the best, healthiest lives you can offer them.

Practicing Body Neutrality

While fat phobia and fat discrimination knows no gender, it is women who are most publicly and predominantly held to the ridiculous standards of beauty that subject even those who are thin or thin-passing to scrutiny, comment, and criticism. As an audience, women are served a seemingly endless diet of commentary on other women’s bodies to the point where only the smallest few of us can honestly say we are happy with our bodies exactly as they are.

But there is danger in thin and thin-passing women claiming space in the fight for fat positivity. Columnist and author Laura Jane Williams wrote about this in an article for Red in 2018. In the article, she discusses the ways in which she in her “slightly-above-average-sized body” has “never truly known fatphobia.”

Source: Laura Jane Williams, 2018

I think Williams is completely spot on with her take and the voices she chooses to amplify. When thin and thin-passing women participate in discussions about their bodies, regardless of their intent, the idea that bodies should be discussed and commented on is reinforced. I particularly love this quote Williams uses from Bethany Rutter:

Source: Laura Jane Williams, 2018

Thin and thin-passing women must endure commentary about their bodies, yes, and that commentary can be hurtful; but they will never know what it is like to step outside their doors braced for the day and the onslaught of micro and macroaggressions against their bodies. They will never fear stepping onto the beach because someone might call them a beached whale and get their friends to laugh at her. They will never fear going to the gym and being secretly filmed, their unconsented-to image posted online to be served up for ridicule.

Source: Laura Jane Williams, 2018

Which is why an Instagram post from Hilary Duff like this one doesn’t truly help:

This is from 2 years ago, but I came across it the other day, reposted in a Facebook group with the hashtag #bodypositivity. It’s obvious that Duff posted this picture of herself so that paparazzi and tabloids wouldn’t be able to use it against her. This is a thin actress who has perfectly normal thighs for someone with a body talking about her “flaws” and extolling women to “stop wasting precious time” wishing we were different or better. She talks about her body being “healthy,” which we have culturally decided is the same as “not fat.” And by characterizing any part of her body as having flaws, Duff only reinforces the idea that bodies HAVE flaws.

Contrast this with Jameela Jamil’s approach. Jamil is a diet survivor among many other things and she has been leading the fight against photoshopping her image in any instance, including promotional images for her show The Good Place:

What is important to me, and where I think Jamil and Williams are in line with each other, is that Jamil points out that she is not telling us that WE have to celebrate our back fat. She seems to recognize how bananas a sentiment like that is coming from “some slim actress.” I love her hashtag #letabitchlive. Yes… just let us live. All of us! Normalize fat bodies and disabled bodies and dark-skinned bodies and trans bodies and all the other kinds of bodies out there!

The way to normalize all human bodies is to stop analyzing and critiquing them and commenting negatively on them. And definitely don’t comment on other women’s bodies to anyone. Keep that poison to yourself. You don’t have to be body positive or fat positive all day every day, but practicing body neutrality with yourself and others goes a long, long way.

"Con"ing While Fat and Disabled

I go to three conventions a year, each one a different size. One is very small that I run with my best friends. It maxes out at bout 40-50 people a year and most of them have become close friends over the almost 15 years that the convention has been running. One is a small to mid-size convention, about 2,500 people, that’s been running for decades. The other is a long-running, large multifandom convention that has been getting upwards of 80,000 attendees each year for the last several years. Each convention comes with different challenges as a fat, disabled person.

Source: https://twitter.com/dragoncon

The smaller conventions have fewer challenges that mostly have to do with me not overdoing it and being too tired to have fun or negotiating too-small, overcrowded hallways with a device that takes up even more space than I usually do. Then there’s Dragon Con.

It is the biggest, most exhausting con I have ever been to. This will be my 11th year going, eighth year volunteering, and second year using an assistive device. This con takes up five hotels, multiple ballrooms and meeting spaces, and is spread over four or five city blocks. At night, the lobbies of most of the hotels turn into cosplay-filled party scenes with loud music and crowds in various states of drunkeness. Which makes getting past people with any politeness almost impossible. I have used a cane to literally shove people out of the way before. I have used my elbows and my stage manager voice.

Getting around this con as an able-bodied person is a challenge, with 75,000-80,000 people all trying to get somewhere at the same time as you. When you add an assistive device, the challenge easily triples or more. Most of the hotels have one central bank of elevators with a varying number of elevator cars to transport all of those people between convention spaces. There are also a series of escalators around that are generally a quicker bet to get you from one place to another. Finally, there are plenty of available stairs.

Before I started using my rolling walker for Dragon Con, I knew where every escalator was and the fastest route between one place and another. All of that changed when I added an assistive device. Suddenly I went from worrying about how to get around on two feet to getting around on two feet and wheels. Using the stairs or escalators was out, which meant cramming my fat body and my wheels onto predictably overcrowded elevators.

The unofficial rule at Dragon Con when it comes to elevators is that if there is space, get on it. It doesn’t matter if it’s going the opposite direction of your intended destination. Go up to go down or vice versa. When you have wheels, having enough space for yourself and your device is tricky. And it’s not uncommon for people to flood into an available elevator without even realizing you’re there. The official word is to always allow people who have assistive devices, who clearly need to use elevators, on first. But over the years, i have witnessed the way in which people, wrapped up in their own needs, blithely ignore the needs of others.

Anticipating the con last year was an exercise in anxiety. I didn’t know if I’d be able to get around, if I’d be able to see and do all the things I wanted to, or if I’d have any fun. So, I was pleasantly surprised when negotiating the elevators was the least of my issues. People were incredibly kind and attentive and helpful when they saw me waiting for an elevator. More than once, people who might have originally stayed on the elevator got off and used the stairs or escalator, or let me get on before they did. One time someone even pulled their friend out of my way so I could get to an elevator before the doors closed. There were no harsh words for me, at least that I could hear. In fact, the worst part was all of the people who kept getting stuck on my brake cables or walked into my wheels, not realizing that they were there.

Fortunately, I am not shy. Especially with the shield of my volunteer badge and lanyard and my experience as a self-advocate. I have a loud voice and I’m not afraid to use it. But my experience is certainly not universal, and there have been more than a few negative stories about getting around and through con while disabled, Dragon Con or otherwise.

If you are disabled and trying to get around Dragon Con, here are my top three tips for you:

• Give yourself enough time to get from one place to another. Then add some more time. It will take you longer than you think and most people are only concerned with getting to where they need to be.

• Use your outside voice. People are concerned with their own needs, wondering if it’s worth standing in that four-hour line to get into that panel. Sometimes they stand in walkways and pathways while they are thinking. Using your outside voice with a polite “Excuse me!” will usually get a hole opened for you to get by.

• Be as patient as you can. There are 80,000 other people around who are not thinking about you and how they are getting in your way. We are all taking up space and a little kindness and patience will go a long way to make it easier for everyone.

If you are NOT disabled and are getting around Dragon Con, here are my top three tips for you:

• Let wheelchairs/walkers/assistive devices ON and OFF elevators. Scooters, walkers, wheelchairs, etc can be difficult to maneuver. We are trying really, really hard not to run any part of you over, which means you might have to give us more personal space than you would give another person.

• Don’t block pathways (or bathrooms!) while taking pictures . There are 80,000 people around! You can’t stand 10 feet from your subject and expect everyone to stop moving while you precisely line up your photo. Take the photo and move on for everyone’s sake.

• Keep moving through skywalks, habit trails, at the end of escalators and when you get off elevators. There is nothing worse than trying to get off an elevator and someone just stops right in front of you. Pull off to one side if you need to figure out where you are or where you need to go. But also realize that not everyone walks as quickly as you might, so move at the available pace.

Above all, just be kind to one another. You don’t know what someone might be going through, and we’re all part of the same community.