Photo: Instagram
Or like, for any reason actually?
By Rebecca Jane Stokes — Written on Mar 29, 2017
Plus-size supermodel Ashley Graham recently was photographed wearing a mesh swimsuit looking like a goddamn heavy-metal mermaid.
TMZ posted photos of it, being like "damn, nice ass," and while I'm not ever going to be okay with reducing a woman to an object, I gotta give it up to the website for looking at a woman who is fat and going "yes please, break me off a piece of THAT!"
It's refreshing to see a tabloid website embrace a body that, while clearly sexy, doesn't also adhere to the limited spectrum of what it is acceptable for the body to be.
Because guess what? Fat woman are sexy. Fat women have sex. There are men madly in love and lust with fat women. I haven't run the numbers on this, but I'm pretty sure that at the very moment of writing this some lucky fat woman is getting laid right now!
Also, let's get this out of the way right now: Ashley Graham is a goddamn supermodel. Like, she is paid to look amazing, and power to her. I will never look like Ashley Graham, and that is fine. I celebrate her for being a voice for body positivity in a world where how much you weigh and how you look can make or break you. That's not easy.
I also know that I will never look like a model, and guess what? That is also fine. I still have sex. I still have days where the odd homeless man will ask me to back that thang up. I get just as much as objectification as the next gal, thank you very much.
While TMZ's coverage of Ashley Graham in a swimsuit is awesome as hell, the comments are ... decidedly not so.
TMZ
I'm no fool. I know that the comments section on any website is where sense, kindness, and humanity generally go to die, I've been writing on the internet for 10 years, I've got that sorted.
But there's no denying that the comments on major websites can also give you a pretty clear sense of how the general public feels and how they think.
And guess what?
The general public still reallllly hates fat people.
That's what's distressing to me.
If it was just a sea of "she's fat, I'm not into it" posts, that would be one thing, but the raw malice that comes out when a fat body is sexualized blows me away.
People literally talk about harpooning her.
Which is, you know, murder.
To not be attracted to something, I can get. I'm not attracted to men with delicate features or men who wear mesh tank tops sincerely or men who think it's okay to call me babe. I get not being attracted to someone.
But wishing someone DEATH because they dare to simply have a body?
That is insane, it's dangerous, and we need to stop it in its tracks.
I go back and forth when it comes to dealing with trolls.
By and large, I think I've settled on the policy on never engaging with them directly. That's akin to spritzing a fire with gasoline.
But I do think it is totally okay to post a statement of your own explaining why it's not okay to wish someone death for existing.
Frankly, I have no idea how Ashley Graham deals with these people. Probably the fact that she is insanely wealthy, beautiful, and getting more hot ass than anyone spewing vitriol at the sight of her fat ass could ever dream of, helps.
I am not naive that this is something that is going to change overnight.
But maybe if we all start calling out this ridiculous behavior when we see it that could help.
Ashley Graham is just as entitled to having lumps on her butt as any other human woman.
The fact that trolls on the web think that makes her "less than" is a joke without a decent punchline.
