I am reading lindy west's "Shrill" now and she describes all my feelings about always being "the fat girl" 😭
Usually, books about being a fat woman are extremely positive - it was all in my head! I don't care what people think! The thin pretty girl's actually have the exact same problems and in fact, have more! And of course, the writer is never interested in being beautiful or even thin, the writer is never interested in romantic relationships or in being desired sexually. The sexual chapter is usually super short and describes in broad strokes how Rubens painted fat, naked lady's or how there is big lady porn and thus, people like fat women.
I love that lindy West is describing my exact feelings! Always being pushed aside, my Sexuality ridiculed, and how she, too, was actively feeling that if she told another person that she liked them, they would feel violated and disgusted.
She talks about how she saw her peers become beautiful while she visibly didn't and how she hoped to become thin in that tiny window of time where you are still young enough to be sexy and desirable. I never became thin in that window and now it's gone. I'm a fat, flabby 33 year old and I will never know how it feels to be beautiful and desired, I will always stay the attractive equivalent to a pile of wood.
And those are feelings that are real, that I have, but are absolutely unacceptable in society. If you loathe your fat body and the repulsion it creates, no one is on your side, ever. It's a feeling I usually don't talk about and lindy west does, in a book. I feel less alone now in my life.