*CONTENT NOTICE: sexual assault and fat-shaming 

A 17-year-old young woman in Canada was sexually assaulted by her taxi driver. The 49-year-old driver, Carlo Figaro, tried to kiss the victim, licked her face, and groped her according to her testimony. The trial was presided over by Quebec court Judge Jean-Paul Braun and, while he ultimately found Figaro guilty, he first took the opportunity to try to chip away at the idea of consent, engage in fat-shaming, and perpetuate the extremely disturbing idea that sexual assault can be viewed as a favor to fat women.

During the trial, the judge said “The consent to kiss someone is not the same as the consent to put, as they say, his hand in the basket.”

In fact, consent should be required for all sexual touching — including having your face licked by a taxi driver.

As for the victim, the judge felt the need to share with the entire courtroom “You could say she’s a little overweight, but she has a pretty face, huh?” He then suggested that the victim might have been “flattered” because “it is perhaps the first time that someone is interested in her.”

A world in which fatphobia suggests that fat women are undesirable, and then uses that as a defense of sexually assaulting fat women isn’t new. Quantisia Sharpton was one of the several women who accused R&B singer Usher of not disclosing his herpes diagnosis before having sex with them. No sooner did Ms. Sharpton appear in public, than the Internet attempted to build a “defense” for Usher based on nothing but fat shaming — insisting on his innocence based on the premise that Usher would never have sex with a fat woman. As BET pointed out, this was layered with elements of racism, including the view of Black women as less innocent than white women.

The #MeToo hashtag, initially started by Taranda Burke and recently re-ignited by Alyssa Milano, continues to encourage people to come forward with their stories. And this ugly relationship between fatphobia and sexual assault makes the situation far more difficult for fat victims who want to speak up. We can all see fat-shaming cyberbullies use sexual assault in their abuse, whether they say that nobody would even rape a fat woman, or suggest that a rapist would be doing a fat woman a favor. There are also some who suggest that fat women can’t be raped, which Beck Cooper addressed beautifully in her spoken word piece “Rape Prevention Potluck”

And, it’s not just internet trolls, but also people ranging from fans of Usher to Canadian court judges. The fear of not being believed looms over sexual assault victims of all size, but if you know that people believe it’s impossible for someone your size to be the victim of sexual assault, if you know that if you take your abuser to trial a judge might suggest that you were (or should have been) flattered by sexual attention of any kind, if you have seen a perpetrator of sexual assault be supported by people because they don’t want to believe that he would have sex with a fat person, it can take the fear of opening up about what happened to you to a whole other level.

It’s in this way that the #MeToo movement isn’t the same for, and isn’t necessarily inclusive of, fat people.

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As this year draws to a close, gyms in the US are starting to gear up for their “New Year’s Resolution” advertising. Which is to say that they are writing checks that their actual results can’t cash. But don’t worry, when their promises turn out to be not worth the annoying postcards they’re printed on, they’ll blame you for failing, and try to sell you the same thing again next year.

Gyms will promise almost anything to get you in the door – weight loss,  a certain look (“long, lean muscles”, “sculpted muscles” etc.)  But they can’t provide a single study that shows that more than a tiny fraction of people achieve these results, let alone maintain them long-term.

If gyms were honest, I think they would say something like this:

Thanks for considering joining our gym. We want to tell you up front that we can’t guarantee anything, and any gym that says they can is trying to take advantage of you. Our bodies – including their size, shape, the type of muscle we build, health, abilities, and athletic potential  – are complex and influenced by a number of factors, many of which are out of our control.

Evidence suggests that exercise is a good way to help increase our odds for health (which is not an obligation, a barometer of worthiness, or guaranteed under any circumstances.) Exercise is always optional, and if you’re just starting out, or starting over, that’s great. Remember that, regardless, there’s no need to go too hard too fast – unless you want to be the fittest person in traction. Besides, the research shows that even a little bit of movement can be beneficial and most of the benefits of movement can be gained from about 30 minutes of movement about 5 times a week. And it can be any movement, it can even be broken up into smaller bits.

We know that the research shows that internal motivation works better than external motivation, and that the first step to deciding how you want to take care of your body is realizing that your body is worthy of care, so you won’t find any body shaming trainers or messages here. We recommend that you find some movement that you really enjoy at a time that is as easy as possible for you to make.

That’s what I think gyms should say if they were telling the truth. If they were really trying to do the best thing I think they’d also say:

You’ll notice that our gym has instructors, trainers, and pictures with positive images of people of all sizes, because of course “fitness” and “health” are not a body size.  You are not a “before” picture and there is no “after” picture, there’s just “during” and we’re glad that you are here.

Regardless, if you’re contemplating joining a gym (or any fitness center) remember that they work for you, you do not work for them. Your goals are what is important here, not what goals they might want you to have. You have ever right to approach your movement using Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size, and to find a gym and fitness professionals who will support you in that.

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Reader Ashley wrote me with a question that is something that a lot of parents go through. She has given me permission to quote the question and answer it here:

I have a problem I don’t know how to deal with. I used to homeschool my kids and therefore outside pressures were extremely limited. However a few years ago I got very sick and am now disabled and had to enroll my kids in school. I’m sure you can imagine how much they’ve gotten the message that fat is an insult word. I do everything I can to fill them up with truths at home. I have a daughter who was a huge baby and has always been big and thick. She’s now 8 and is best friends with another girl at school who is larger than her. On the school bus my son called her best friend fat as an insult and made her cry.

This had be raging on many levels. First, that he would use his words to hurt somebody. But second, that he wielded the word “fat” as some great insult. I had a long talk with all my kids about it but I don’t know how to handle the mother of the child he called fat. I called her and left a message bc that’s what I would do in any case when my child is in the wrong. I had my son write an apology, careful though not to apologize for the word “fat” but rather for trying to be mean. If she calls be back and takes extreme issue with him calling her fat, how do I handle it? How do I scold my kid for being mean while telling him calling someone fat isn’t mean? His intent (self admittedly) was to be mean as revenge for something she said, so I was able to address it. But in the future, my kids may casually mention someone is chubby (bc I have taught them that is a descriptive word not an insult) but how do I handle any backlash?

I tell my kids commenting on anyone’s body is not necessary nor entirely appropriate, but I just don’t know how to navigate all these pitfalls.

This is so tough because there are so many layers to it. There’s kids being mean to each other which we obviously don’t want. But choosing to be mean to each other using fatphobia as a basis makes things much more complicated.

Ashley has done a great job creating a basis to have these difficult discussions.  It’s important that we talk to kids about this. In this article I’ll focus on fatphobia and weight-based oppression, but of course we (we being especially people who are privileged and not affected by a particular marginalization) need to talk to our kids about racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and other types of oppression.

When it comes to fatphobia, it’s important that we try to immunize kids early and often from the weight-based oppression they will see and hear (and possibly experience) in the world (especially since stigmatizing fat children all too often passes for healthcare.)  I’ve written before about specific ways to do that.

But once you’re kid has committed fat-shaming, you have to have a couple of different conversations. The first is about not being intentionally mean, the second about not being a bigot.

These two conversations are intertwined because you have to explain that not only was it wrong to be intentionally mean, but that there’s nothing wrong with being fat, and that by trying to use fat as an insult, then you are hurt all fat people.  Explain that bodies come in lots of different sizes, shapes (abilities, and colors, genders) and no body is better than any other body. Explain that there are a lot of people who are confused about that – explain the concept of being prejudiced, and why it’s not something that you want to be.

This is a talk you’ll need to have over and over again because your kids are going to be bombarded with negative messages about fat people. At some point you’ll also want to talk about healthism since that’s so often used as a defense for fatphobia.  Explain that there are healthy and unhealthy people of all sizes and that health is not an obligation, barometer of worthiness, entirely within our control, guaranteed under any circumstances, or something to tease someone about. Explain that while there’s nothing wrong with bodies of any size, some people are uncomfortable with having their bodies talked about and that there is almost never a need to comment on body size anyway.

To answer the question as to what to do if another parent contacts you because your kid fat-shamed their kid, this could be tricky because you don’t know what kind of fatphobia the other parent might harbor.  I would make it clear immediately that you understand that there is nothing wrong with fat bodies – or bodies of any other size – and that you’ve made it clear to your kid that all bodies are good bodies and that being intentionally mean was wrong and is unacceptable.

We grew up in an increasingly fatphobic world. Kids now are growing up in an increasingly fatphobic world (that is also awash in racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and other types of oppression) so it’s important – in addition to the work that parents of marginalized kids have to do to help them navigate the world –  that we talk to kids early and often about their own privileges, how they can spot injustice and oppression, and things they can do to dismantle it, and help them find social justice warriors to be their role models. The more young activists we have, the better things will get.

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