Body Shaming Comes in All Shapes


The other day, I was browsing around one of the BBW/plus sized forums I’m a member on to see if there was anything fun that people were talking about when I came across something new for me. I imagine it’s not that new, but for me it was a completely new thing. It was a thread all about photoshopping images of skinny women into plus size women.

I did a double take.

I read through the thread, genuinely curious about the conversation taking place around these photoshopped images (they showed before & after, so as to prove their skills). There were some really hurtful things said about these girls, who are likely completely unaware that their images are being used in this manner.

After reading through the thread, I almost wanted to cry. I’ve struggled for a while with public shaming due to my size; despite the shaming coming from random interweb twats, to read hateful comments about size never feels good. I was amazed at the awful things said about skinny women; things like “She could use a few hamburgers” or “Gross, her thighs don’t touch!” and other comments along those lines. Now, don’t get me wrong. I totally understand that each person has a preference for size, but holy fuckballs, Batman!

I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised about this; a while back I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who shot with a SSBBW a year or so ago who got called rude names by fans of the SSBBW for being “too skinny.” Thankfully, my friend in question has been in the business long enough to have much thicker skin than some, and she brushed off the behavior as being immature.

The problem is that people think that physical beauty is all that matters, and that only their personal definition of beauty deems positive attention. The fact is that there is beauty in every body shape, and shaming someone because they’re too skinny or too fat or too short or too tall is just disrespectful and uncalled for.