Forums » Smalltalk » Fat Shaming/Bullying/Sexualization Vent

Thank you to everyone who shared their personal experiences but I am no longer comfortable having my own shown here in this topic.

What started out as really, just one thing that was said to me, that upset me, turned into a bunch more things happening and being said to me elsewhere, whether in another forum post or I was contacted off of RPR, that just pushed me over the edge. I can't take this anymore. I didn't feel incredibly as comfortable sharing my experiences and posting publicly beforehand, but now I feel completely uncomfortable and unsafe saying anything to anyone in public.

I feel blacklisted, talked about in private, vaguely spoken about in public, avoided, hated.

I received an influx of anonymous asks on my tumblr from people telling me how wrong I was about fat phobia and insulting me around the exact same time people were taking a problem with me on here.

I can no longer have my personal experience posted here without feeling deeply uncomfortable and wishing I had just shut the hell up. Maybe I did say the wrong things. Maybe I am the one who messed up.

I have cried almost every day since I posted this, and my work and personal life is severely suffering the last few days. So, I have to make this incredibly difficult and frankly painful choice.

I'm sorry but I can't take it anymore, being worried about what people are saying about me and feeling a need to defend myself so constantly, so I'm editing out what my story was.

Feel free to share your own experiences with fat phobia, bullying, and sexualization, but I... I can't do this anymore.

I'm so sorry.


I will leave off with just this here.

"One of the biggest things I've been trying to hammer into people brains lately is not only does fat not automatically = unhealthy because of being fat.

But being unhealthy doesn't mean less deserving of respect or human decency.

Someones actual health and/or your assumption of their health should not effect how you think or treat someone. It's ableist to treat someone like shit because you think they might be unhealthy and to spread negativity because you think their body-type is automatically unhealthy, and being unhealthy is seen as the worst thing someone can be."

I bet your boobs are great. All boobs are great.

This is a great topic. It can't be spoken enough about in a day and age when social media get the better of everyone's hearts. Thank you for sharing your experiences- it's a brave thing to do on the internet.

They are I just wish random men & teen boys would stop pointing them out and staring in public lmao.



Thank you. I am heavy into the body positivity thing. The systematic oppression and hatered of fat bodies seems to only be getting worse as time goes on and not better. Which seriously sucks. As does sexual harassment.

I will be honest, I've nothing against the fat people, simply there are people who have more 'mass' than others to put it lightly, If you want to stay that way that's your choice and I've nothing to say in it.
But being unhealthily obese is illness which leads towards other problems, lets don't lie ourselves, that's the truth.
Sometimes it outside cause which someone can't have influence, like genetics.
Other times it's from people gluttony and excess on food.
Point is you have impact on your body and with enough effort you can change your body for worse or better.

Tldr. Point is I'm cool with fat people, obesity is illness.

Edit: Fine. It's an "illness". You're right. I'm wrong for saying your opinion only further harms marginalized people who already deal with oppression and explaining why. I'm super done defending myself and others.

I haven't had the same experience, but I too have struggled with my body... Although it's actually been the opposite for me...

But the idea that people will ridicule or shame others for being different, wether it be size, shape, ethnicity, gender, age... Is awful, and cruel.

Nobody deserves that. Nobody

And girl, you're amazing the way you are, I'm so glad you've begun to feel confident. Be confident!

P R E A C H SISTER, P R E A C H

I myself am not what could be considered "fat", but I've always been a busty/thicc lady. I remember being sexualized ever since I was 12 because I had a D cup by the time I was in sixth grade. I grew up wearing hoodies and baggy jeans because I was constantly being told to cover up and to stop dressing like a slut. I wouldn't wear t shirts without tank tops underneath because I was so scared of showing cleavage.

even when I'm older now and with a DD cup and them thicc thighs, I still get constantly told to cover up and stop dressing so provocatively. it doesn't bother me at all - I'll wear lowcut shirts and short shorts all I want, thx men. I'm gay for a reason.

wear those tight dresses. show that cleavage cause all toddies are great. take pride in yourself cause who gives a *BLEEP* what men think.

for every snobby or trashy dude, there's a lady who thinks you're looking hella fly.

an edit:

nobody asked. this is a post about venting, not whether or not something is healthy. this is not the proper place to try to play doctor.

I am so sorry you had to deal with such injustice. Above all I am glad to hear you where able to overcome everything! People need to stop worrying what the masses think and learn to see the person that people are, and not what what they see on the outside!

I dealt with the teasing and stuff in school due to my size, and I was picked for being really tall as well (Which makes me laugh seeing kids that are 15-16 and stand as tall as I do at 6'5. ). It is sad that people have to deal with these things and all we can do is try and teach the younger generations that looks are not everything, and to value the person as they come, not what society claims people should be/act like.
Not all of us are like that, so don't lump us all together please.

Thank you for your kind words. It means a lot. It really is silly that people are so hateful about bodies and appearance for various reasons. Height is especially strange thing for people to make fun of someone for.

Please don't. We know, and it's tiresome to constantly be corrected when the thing being said is entirely focused on something else. Here there isn't even an explicit judgement being made, it's simply a statement not to worry about what they're thinking, regardless what that might be.

We know.

Thank you for your encouraging words. It is rough, especially lately for some reason.

I'm bisexual but I find myself being more interested in actually dating women because of all the negative experiences I've had in the past with either sexual assault, shaming, or fetishizing. It really sucks to feel too nervous to express all of my sexuality and interest in people.

I know this feeling all too well, but from the opposite end of the spectrum. I've always been very thin and in middle school I struggled immensely with anorexia. I was called a skeleton and a pancake, I was told that curvy girls were better, that guys would never like me, that I looked like a druggie, and I was teased for wearing either baggy clothes or children's clothes. I heard a lot of that from people who I thought were my friends. I guess I didn't know any better...

I've recovered a lot in recent years but being hit with anorexia at such a young age has stunted my growth in a lot of ways. I like my smaller body now, but it used to make me so uncomfortable because, just like you, as soon as I got older the teasing switched over to sexualizing. I think the worst of it was being told that I look "underage" while some creep was actively flirting with me. Anyone who saw one of my more personal posts knows that I also suffer from BDD which I consider another lasting effect. It's more mental than physical, but it's stopped me from doing so many of the things I want to do. I still struggle.

It hurts my heart to know that no matter what kind of body you have, people will find a way to dehumanize you for it. It's a rather disgusting part of reality, but I hope some day we can shift the tide. I can't wait for the day when dudes choose to compliment me on personality traits rather than my appearance (without having to be told I don't like comments on my appearance).

So glad you said it before I did, because you are sooo much better at being polite than I am! xP

Thanks for sharing your personal experience. And for your kind words.

It's not even that I don't personally like being complimented appearance wise, it's the fact that sexual harassment/staring/cat calling/lewd comments, are not actually compliments.

It's definitely frustrating that I'm either thought of as disgusting or lewdness is being tossed at me.

It's exhausting for sure.

Hi guys!

I can see you are really passionate about your opinions and that this is something that you really want to be heard over. The intensity made us a bit nervous, however, so we've temporarily locked the topic.

It's very likely that we're going to unlock it again very shortly! The moderators just wanted everyone to take a quick breather while we put our heads together and came up with some ground rules for continuing, to make sure that you can all be heard in a way that helps people to hear, rather than just tensing up and feeling offended. Plus it will make the mods feel much calmer to go forward with a game plan for referreeing should spirits get too high. Make sense? I hope you'll bear with us while we huddle. I'll have an update for you ASAP!

Thanks for understanding. Go get yourself some food or tea in the meanwhile?

Sorry for the delay, I'm a squeaky wheel right now and was unable to do the requested review as fast as I would have liked.

This topic is now re-opened, as so far even the tenser disagreements in this topic have been handled pretty well.

I resonate with this topic a lot and have been thinking about what to write here since it was posted.

I can't remember a time when I wasn't bullied for being taller and heavier than my peers. I wasn't even really a fat kid at the beginning, I was just growing really fast and towered over kids in my class since first grade, which meant I was hungrier and bigger than them most of the time, and they always made a huge deal about how abnormal I was for it. I remember being 15, cycling home from school after not having eaten anything during the day, snacking on a spring roll (while cycling) and a random adult man yelled at me that I was a 'fatty' and to 'keep pigging out'.

A grown adult man yelling at a 15 year old for having her first food of the day, just because she happens to not look fit. It was one of the many reasons why I still struggle with disordered eating after years of denial.

The thing that really got into my head was how my mom always told me "Don't worry, there are guys out there who like bigger women". All that ended up doing was normalize being fetishized for my size. I felt like I was only worth something when someone liked me for being large, or tall, or both. It made me an easy target for abusive relationships where that was exploited terribly.

Fatphobia also risked my life from medical professionals. In 2011 I was diagnosed prediabetic/type 2 diabetic based on my weight and elevated morning blood sugars. A few years later, I was properly diagnosed with autoimmune diabetes when my diabetes specialist nurse realized I didn't fit the profile despite being fat. Do you know what could have happened if I hadn't been diagnosed properly? Death. I got lucky someone saw past my being fat and tested me, which should have happened years prior. I'm lucky that I have a slow progressing form of autoimmune diabetes so it bought me some years of not having to rely on insulin dependence, but I've reached a point that without insulin I will go into DKA in a matter of days, which is lethal if left untreated.

But you know what really got to me? When in 2016 I went to my endocrinologist and begged for insulin because I was struggling with my oral meds sending me on blood sugar rollercoasters. I was feeling poisoned and awful despite starting a regime of long-acting insulin. It wasn't cutting it, my diagnosis meant I would be insulin dependent no matter what I did. My endo looked at me, my weight and BMI, and advised a drug called Victoza instead.

It's a drug that helps type 2s with weight loss. Here I was, feeling poisoned from inadequate insulin production, struggling to get my values down, starving myself and getting nowhere, and my doctor decided me losing weight was more important than preventing diabetic ketoacidosis.

I hope that's sinking in for most people reading this. A doctor thought my weight loss was more important than living. Literally.

When I finally got insulin on Jan 2nd in 2017, I had a long good cry because I started to feel so much better within hours. A doctor wanted to deny me this because of my weight and misdiagnosis. The kicker is that while I was labeled type 2 diabetic, medical professionals treated me like crap. There's this assumption that if you're fat and diabetic, you deserve it, even if they can't differentiate between the 8 existing types of diabetes.

So fat people can't win. People who aren't privy to my medical history label me as unhealthy, even though I get checkups every 3 months with extensive blood work, eye checkups, ECGs, get checked for nerve damage and so forth. My blood sugar values are almost as perfect as I can get them with my current resources (which is well below the target line set by doctors too). My blood pressure is consistently perfect at 120/70. My healthcare team who know what they're doing (mostly the nurses who treat me) are 100% satisfied with my health. But somehow people still tell me I'm unhealthy and 'obesity will kill me', without knowing one thing about my lifestyle and what goes into my day.

It's exhausting.

And then doctors end up ignoring all of these results and only focus on this one, large number that is outside the norm and none of the above matters, all that matters is getting that number down no matter what. They wouldn't even bother giving me an MRI initially when I was downed with a herniated disc and told to lose some weight to 'fix it'. (I really appreciate the nurses for not having that sort of stick so far up their rear end that they put their patients' lives at risk though.)

Now I'm in a place where I fight with food every day. I could lose weight so fast right now by just not taking insulin - I'll crash super hard into ketosis, burn fat, get skinny, and people will compliment me for meeting my goals. The reality is that I'll be acidifying my body to a point where it'll damage my organs on the short term and can kill me. Despite having told many people I'm at risk for diabulimia, every time I've lost weight nobody asked me if I'm still taking my insulin properly, they just assume 'I'm doing the right thing' to lose weight. I recognize that part of it is that I'm fairly open about my health and won't hide if I'm skipping my doses, but I can just as easily lie to people about it and nobody really asks about it.

So, you know, at the end of the day I only empathize with this topic and people's struggles. To be fat is to be seen as lesser than human. To be fat is to be endlessly judged by people who think they know better, but they actually know nothing and don't want to know anything that will shatter their judgment. I'm still a human being, I deserve more basic respect than I've gotten just for being fat. If someone has more of a problem with my being fat than with how I'm being treated for being fat, they're part of the problem we're seeing described here.

@ Sanne.

Thank you for taking the time to type out such a in depth and serious reply. You really hit the nail on the head with so many things. Our experiences are similar in several ways (including ones that you already know but haven't been written in this post).

It's absoluately exhausting to go through this. Having to chose whether I want to be fat shamed or sexualized when I leave the house is tiring, and mentally and emotionally heavy. A lot of the time even if I dress a certain way to avoid one thing, I end up getting hit with both things anyway.

Having someone who truly understands how oppressive and harmful fat phobia is, is really a breath of fresh air - but I am also really sorry you had to go through all of that.

One of the biggest things I've been trying to hammer into people brains lately is not only does fat not automatically = unhealthy because of being fat.

But being unhealthy doesn't mean less deserving of respect or human decency.

Someones actual health and/or your assumption of their health should not effect how you think or treat someone. It's ableist to treat someone like shit because you think they might be unhealthy and to spread negativity because you think their body-type is automatically unhealthy, and being unhealthy is seen as the worst thing someone can be. Which is so difficult for people with chronic pain and permanent illness. We are never going to be 100% healthy. No matter what size we are.

But it's the biggest problem for people with fat bodies like you said - being seen as less than human, blamed, and shamed for their bodies and any health problems they might have whether they are related to their weight or not.

I've been trying to figure out how to word this for a while, and I think I've finally figured it.

I'm quite a bit younger than a few people who have posted here, and I have not suffered no where near as much as others since I... Well, haven't been alive as long. Even so, I figured I may as well contribute as well since I've had my (un)fair share of hate.

First things first, (this bit is more just so I can get it out of my system so it's not all that important to read since it's already been covered.) Obesity is not a illness. It can lead to some health issues, sure, but it's not always the case and in a lot of situations health problems are caused by many other things. I think people also need to understand that people being fat isn't always their fault- like with me. Some illnesses can make it harder to loose weight and especially easy to gain weight. I've got a health condition with one of my thyroid glands that allows me to gain weight very easily, and makes loosing weight even harder. No matter how hard I try, I always end up either gaining a little more or staying the same.

Now that that's out of the way, I Mays as well contribute my own experience.

I've always been bigger. If you look at pictures of me from when I was 3, I was big then. I always have been. Going through school at an early stage wasn't too bad: little kids didn't really care all that much. However, I think year 4 (age 9) was when things really started changing. People became more judgy, and began to pick on me more. I was called fat, I was tripped over in the playground, and made fun of. It was easy to ignore at first until I lost some close friends because of it.

Me being the stupid kid I was, I had one of those non-serious playtime boyfriends, who I was best friends with. Not only did he seem embarrassed about being around me, but also being with me. I didn't notice at first, and it only hit me after the little 'thing' was over. His best friend told him that being with a 'stupid fat girl' would cost them their friendship and he would no longer be in the social group they were in. And him being 9, believed it and left me. I think that was the first time I can recall truly feeling self-concious and that's the first time my self-esteem tumbled.

After that, light teasing turned into bullying. I began not wanting to come to school, faking being sick and trying to skive as much as I could. It worked for a little while, until people began to catch on and a system was put in place to keep me coming to school.

Nothing much changed though, and I was still harrassed for my weight. I just accepted it, burying the feelings deep down until I needed to explode.

I do remember going a few months with barely eating anything (it wasnt too long ago actually, a little less than year now?) And the only thing that would keep me going would be a sandwich one every two to three days. No one caught on, ever, and no one I know actually knows.

What didn't help me was the fact that my mum would openly say I was too fat, and I needed to lose weight (in public as well). I didn't expect her to say it was okay, because I want to be skinny. But I wasn't expecting her to shame me for being the way I am. That made a large dent in my self-esteem which I have not been able to redeem as of yet.

At the end of the day, you can't change people who shame bigger people, who judge them. Most of them won't change because they want to be seen as right and that they are doing good to help someone. I'd say that everyone should love themselves, and shouldn't care whether theyre fat or skinny. But as much as I want to, I don't feel like it's my place to say as I haven't accomplished those things yet.

I myself am not a bigger gal but have faced and still face issues with my body because i have psorisis- which is a genitic skin condition, sorry i feel need to point this out because of what this issue has caused me in life.

And before someone suggests treatments there actually is NO known cure for psorisis and so this has cost me- jobs, friends, the abality still now at 31 to not feel the need to constantly cover every inch of skin i can. I barely wear shorts during the summer and will NEVER wear skirts, dresses ect. Because of this ive been called a boy, leper, askes if my skin issue is contagious, almost lost a job because workers “claimed” i had infected them.

Been asked if it was a sexually transmitted diease...my life due to this and the fact iam bisexual has caused me to be alienatied so i understand i still dont like when people ask me, useualy in the most hurtful ways about my skin, i hate it because of all the hurtful things thrown at me because of it. Noone should hate themselves and it is not right for people to make others feel they are not amazing and beautiful in there own skin.

Thank you for this and i bet your a beautiful soul inside and out, iam glad this was posted perhaps others will be reminded to build eachother up instead of tearing eachother down...#Everyoneisbeautiful #weareallthesame #Empowernotbreak