Revisiting Fat Euphemisms
The Rotund writes about reclaiming the word fat.
That’s why I object to “overweight” as a descriptor. Over what weight? The weight other people think I should be even though they have no experience with my body composition beyond looking at me? The weight a BMI chart says I should be? The weight a fashion magazine thinks I should be? The only thing I’m over is all the effort to Other my body.
This sent me looking back at one of the earliest BFD posts, about this very topic. (Although I called “overweight” a term that is “as neutral as it gets.” Which, see above.)
Interestingly, many of the terms used to describe overweight men could be considered positive. Like “beefy” or “burly” or “brawny” or “stocky,” these words imply physical strength and substance and are only applied to women when we want to say “big and butch,” whereupon they become negative again.
Although many of my ideas have evolved, and I no longer hesitate to use the word fat, it was an interesting entry to revisit. I was curious to see how the terminology has evolved, so I typed “fat” into the search box at Urban Dictionary. And, wow, I do not suggest doing that. Especially not when the synonyms include words like “bitch,” “stupid,” “whore,” “vagina,” “woman,” “smelly,” and “girl.” The number one definition is this:
According to Hollywood, What you are if you are a female weighing over 100 lbs. Nicole Richie apparently thought she was fat, now she looks like a nine-year old boy.
Ugh. Clearly a dude who thinks he’s being progressive, but really is just body-shaming in a different direction—and of course, focusing only on women and their bodies. Of course.
For “overweight,” the terms that come up include “nail the whale,” “buffet queen,” “fat chick,” and “fattractive”—again, none of which I suggest you look up. I mean, just yesterday, Urban Dictionary was very helpful in explaining to me what the new “double rainbow” meme meant. But that is some ugly, fatphobic, misogynistic stuff.
Hey, the new “related posts” feature just found another post where I looked up fat on Urban Dictionary! Plus some interesting comments, with people objecting to the word “fat” and “fatty” as well as making some observations on race.
Okay, enough going down the rabbit hole of my own previous posts. It’s been two years, which means I think it’s time to ask again: what euphemisms do you love, and which do you hate? What’s your favorite word to describe your body? If you’re thin, do you get tired of being called “scrawny” or “skinny” and told to eat a sandwich? If you’re fat, do you call yourself that? And what do you think of the word “fat” in general?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: BFD Classic, Fat Positive, Fatism, Feminism, Question
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I worry about this in my own blog posts. I sometimes use euphemisms like “larger than life” (or just “larger”) “plus-sized”, and “big girls” but often wonder if these terms aren’t more hurtful than helpful. Sometimes they feel like they distance us from what really are as if we should be ashamed. Then again, I don’t want to say fat every other sentence. Can’t wait to hear what others have to say on this topic.
I am a big girl who wears big girl sizes…and proud of it!
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that “overweight” makes sense to and for me. It’s the world I prefer to use to describe myself.
I have a physical handicap and being significantly over a weight that I personally believe is reasonable *for me* does make a difference to my physical wellbeing.
I think the BMI is bull (and that’s being polite) and I have no urge to be anywhere near a stick figure, but I feel comfortable referring to myself as overweight. I feel less comfortable calling myself fat. Go figure.
That’s just how I see things for myself and for no one else.
I like to keep it simple and mainly use the word fat. I jazz it up on occasion and may describe myself as a fat chick or chubster but it is always done in loving, joking way. I do believe that it is something I have the right to say about myself. For instance, to uses an extreme example, I don’t mind if a rap artist uses the “N” word in a song but I sure as hell would not use it. I think that people should use the same caution when using the “F” word, many bigger people may use the term to describe themselves but it is not appropriate for someone used the word to humiliate or be nasty to them.
I don’t think a euphemism having positive connotations necessarily makes it entirely acceptable. Being euphemistic about fat is being euphemistic about fat, and there should be no reason to avoid saying that you’re just fat. Positive descriptors of fatness are nice, but not when they’re being used to hide or minimise said fatness, or to single out specific types of fatness as acceptable (e.g. stocky guys good, flabby guys bad). Of course, in basically exactly the same way as Marianne discusses, those euphemisms don’t apply to every fat guy–“stocky”, “brawny”, etc. just aren’t appropriate descriptors for a lot of fat bodies, so I’m not comfortable with them being used either as general terms or replacements for fat.
Depends on who I’m talking to – because I have learned that it’s easier to respect other people’s delicate sensibilities, often tied up in their OWN weight issues, than try to condense the “If I’m comfortable enough with my body to make a joke about my ‘bingo wings,’ why should that make you UNcomfortable?” issue into a passing exchange.
If I’m referring to myself, I’ll say “overweight” (because as a matter of fact, I AM over the weight that I’m comfortable with, and even THAT weight is well over the weight everyone ELSE wants me to be at) or “fat;” if I’m referring to someone else, depending on how well I know them I’ll use “heavyset” or “person of size.” (Which I actually hate, because it’s taken from the airlines’ policies which are perhaps not INTENDED to shame and marginalize large people, but are certainly EMPLOYED to that effect. And “person of size” is even MORE nebulous than “overweight” – we are ALL people of one “size” or another, unless we’ve figured out a way to exist in the form of pure energy! So on the one hand, I feel like “person of size” subtly reminds the listener that fat people are PEOPLE just like thin people and tall people and short people and medium people – every single one of us is a “person of size.” Most people won’t get that, but I can hope… And finally, “person of size” meshes nicely with “person of color,” which is my preferred generic alternative to “minority.” If one is referring to a specific person who is a specific ethnicity/heritage, then of course one can use the appropriate and accurate indicator, but when discussing systematic abuses and discriminations of, say, police departments against people of varying ethnicities/heritages/etc., I find that “people of color” is a good catch-all term.)
When I am asked to describe my body shape or size, I say that I have an “hour-and-a-half-glass figure.” I have a clearly defined waist, and well rounded bust and hips, and I tend to gain or lose weight more or less proportionately – I basically have the classic “hourglass” figure, just… much more of it.
My mother – who has spent all her life dieting, to the extent that she now has severe osteoporosis from the years of starvation diets – refers to fat men as “heavyset” or “stocky” or “a big man,” and fat women as “oh that poor thing.” So I have spent many, many years wrestling with these ideas in my mind, and coming to the conclusion that I don’t see any reason to let other people’s discomfort with their own (or other people’s) bodies interfere with my comfort level in MY body.
Context is everything. Using “fat” for shock value is a really good idea at a International No Diet Day Rally or politically charged venue, I think. But shock value kind of shoots itself in the foot, if you’re trying to respect sensibilities, as you say, and engage somebody in a real conversation that will maybe nudge them in the direction of accepting my fat body and theirs. The main reason for me to use the word fat has been desensitizing MYSELF to the shock and ickiness, learning that I can really love saying the word in the same way I can really love the reality of my body’s size and shape. The more comfortable I am saying it, without wincing or waiting for the other person to, the more it feels normal and matter-of-fact to me, and usually to them, too.
I have on occasion been known to use ‘plumptious’, but perhaps that speaks more to my unhealthy love of portmanteau words than anything else, and the fact that people’s eyebrows tend to shoot up into their hairlines when I say it.
I am trying to purge my vocabulary of euphemisms for fatness – I suppose I use ‘big’ and ‘plus-sized’ the most. I am working up to using ‘fat’ more often, because I agree that it should be a value-neutral term, but the rest of society obviously has a way to go on that.
Love Elayne’s “hour-and-a-half-glass figure”! I used to have what I called a “year-glass” body: fat and damn proud of how I looked. Now, I am merely large, and that’s such a wishy-washy sounding word.
The word FAT says it all: if that’s what you are, then stand up & OWN it! Euphemisms are often such a cowardly way of dealing with truth, and in the case of fat, the truth is indeed out there for all to see;there’s no need to “cutesyfy” it, just to claim it as your own and call it what it is: FAT…it’s where it’s at.
I like using “fat,” but have two small issues with it:
1. People who don’t understand FA feel the need to throw in, “Oh, you’re not fat, you’re ____” because they think you’re being self-deprecating, and then you have to explain the whole thing, which gets cumbersome occasionally.
2. I don’t trust other people to use it in describing me unless I KNOW they’re down with FA. LOL, I suppose it’s the old “It’s okay if we say it to each other, but you can’t say it” thing.
Issue 1, yeah. Totally. Issue 2, I’m not sure about – I mean, I don’t talk about my body shape and size with people I don’t trust, other than doctors, and random stranger assholes whose word choice is the least of my worries.
I like “heavy” because it’s less arguable.
“Portly” and “husky” are the traditional guy-fat words, which women might reclaim. There’s a poster at Shakesville (I think) who calls herself The Portly Dyke, and in my head she totally wears a waistcoat and spats and a monocle, and, damn, is she dignified.
I just say fat.
To my fiancé’s family I’m considered “skinny” because most of them are larger than I am. It annoys me when they say that because not only is it not true, I’ve gone through a lot to accept that I’m fat.
For myself, “big girl” has always felt the best. I’m fat, tall, muscular, and loud – big in every sense of the word. Plus, I love the connotations and associations of “big”: I’m a big deal, got a big heart, big ol’ brain, living large! :)
It’s funny how I am ok to use the word fat, but only sometimes. I usually say chubby. But that’s what I USED to be – chubby. I surpassed that. But the word sticks.
The one thing I hate more than anything? When my coworker, when describing a friend or someone that has stopped by my desk while I am away, will say it’s your one friend that is a)Smaller than you b)bigger than you or c)big like you.
Pisses me off! Is she so incapable of saying your friend with curly hair, brown hair or even I don’t know their name?!
GAH!
I like fat the best, but I’m still uncomfortable saying it sometimes–conditioning, I guess. Occasionally I’ll catch myself saying “overweight” or “heavy” or something like that. I never ever used to talk about my weight or FA with my very skinny friends, but recently talked to them about it (with the help of way too much vodka), and they were all really surprised to hear that it’s okay to say fat. Like, shocked. I thought that was interesting; I’m so used to it from the internet, I’d forgotten the real world is different!
I like the word ‘fat’ too – I was weirdly relieved when I was finally fat enough to just be ‘fat’ rather than ‘overweight’ or ‘chubby’. My fat housemates and I all describe each other as fat quite happily. But I do have the problem that it appears self-deprecating to some people, so if they are of delicate sensibilities I like to describe myself as a ‘larger lady’, which seems to suit my slightly eccentric persona. Or big. Or whatever.
Speaking of words other people use, one of the nicest times someone else called me fat was an old lady who was simply describing someone and added, “She was plump, like you”. I’m not crazy about the word plump, but I liked that to her it was a description and not an insult of any kind.
I don’t really mind voluptuous or curvy, which both describe my body quite well, they can be a tad euphemistic, but in a nice way. One well meaning person (who also called the people with disabilities that we work with “these people” once) was recommending places to buy clothes and said, “They’d have *your size* there too”, which was actually kind of annoying, even though I know she meant to be polite.
I’ve always enjoyed the term “Festively Plump”. That’s right, I’m jolly & proud! :)
I can’t remember where I got this phrase–possibly from here!–but I like a fella who’s “Homestyle Chunky,” like the soup. Weirdly, though, I associate this only with men.
In terms of describing myself, though, I’m more at a loss. I’ve tried to reclaim the word “fat”–it’s honest, after all–but people’s reactions vary so wildly. My sister recoils dramatically, and will often burst out “Don’t SAY that!” to me, as if I’ve viciously insulted myself. I know that it’s HER thinking of the word as an insult, rather than a fact, that’s the problem, but I’m kind of stymied as to how to talk that one through.
“If you’re thin, do you get tired of being called “scrawny” or “skinny” and told to eat a sandwich”
Hell yeah I get tired of it. I call myself thin or slim. Skinny I find okay too, depending on the context, but never scrawny or any other name. And I definitely hate the term underweight, which I am by BMI standards…and it’s a crock.
I’m so used to being in fat positive environments, that the other day I used “fat” to describe myself and one of my friends freaked out.
I prefer to use “fat” or “big,” because they’re true.
I’m kind of in the camp of “there’s no way to reclaim a word with a negative connotation,” namely because that word will always mean something bad to someone, somewhere. I use what words I feel are appropriate for me, but I take into account the people around me as much as I can.
When not being ironic, I use “fat” and combinations of it (i.e. “fat chick”) to describe myself, but that tends to make other people uncomfortable, because then they feel obligated to do the “oh, but you’re not fat!” thing, which is bullsh*t, but that’s another story. More often than not, I use “big girl” because it’s a pretty non-offensive term, and it doesn’t require anyone to try to give me compliments or try to bring up my self esteem or anything.
It’s one of the things I hate about being fat—that I’m OK with it, but no one else is OK with my being OK with it. I can’t call myself fat or big, even if it’s true, because that’s somehow self-deprecating? Why aren’t we allowed to speak about our bodies objectively, rather than having to either pick them apart like the media would have us do, or think they’re the sh*t? Why isn’t apathy — which is an active, neutral position, by the way, not negative — an option?
A gay friend once made a point about embracing who you are when he proclaimed, “I’m not gay, I’m big boned!”
I’m fat. That’s all.
That’s hilarious.
The trouble with euphemisms is that they frequently get loaded with the same negative connotations as the words they’re euphemizing.
“Fat” is okay with me. What’s important is not the word, but the ‘music’. Meaning that if you can’t say it nicely, or at least neutrally, then don’t use it.
To me, “brawny” and “beefy” describe muscularity, not fatness.
The word “fat” has been a big hang up for me in the past. I don’t know if I can ever get into embracing it, personally, just because it’s so loaded. I’m more of an inbetweenie right now anyway (long ED’d past…been thin, been fat, my natural body is somewhere in the “chubby” zone) but why does it bother me so much anyway? When I’m so into fat acceptance? It’s like I don’t know how to desensitive the word, so I don’t want to call myself that and it still makes me cringe to hear other large women call themselves fat no matter what size. I would one day like to not see the WORD fat as the equivalent to making degrading stereotypes of one’s self.
Right now I like to refer to myself as curvy, or thick, or chunky/chubby. I mean I am curvy…but so is Kate Winslet, and we don’t exactly have the same shape, hah, so maybe I’m kidding myself.
oh yeah and I wanted to add that for me the word “overweight” bothers me even more than fat for some reason. It just enrages me.
Over WHAT weight? Some stupid, bull shit standard that I never asked to be a part of and my body wasn’t made to fit? Why do I have to go around with the knowledge every day that according to these standards I’m a burden and a health hazard to the country…
I am naturally skinny.
Uch, I don’t like that word.
Or thin, scrawny, tiny, teensy, most words that associate with being skinny.
Whenever someone calls me “teensy” and pinches my waist I feel defensive and enraged. What? Do you think I’m some bulimic anorexic who needs to be fed and taken care of? No, I do not want a sandwich shoved down my throat! Ergghh!
Sometimes these comments are delivered by people who are significantly shorter and smaller than I am. I feel smothered and mothered much too much by them, which results in frustrated sighs and eye rolls.
Sigh.