Virgie Tovar

I want to tell you something about me: I’m an obsessive person.

*Spoiler alert: some character-specific plot point reveals for the films

My favorite thing about this trip was that I spent my time in Vienna with fat feminists by my side every single day.... Occasionally, our bellies bumped into one another and then rebounded for just a second, like balloons. The familiar physics of fatness multiplied by two or three. I felt like we spoke in shorthand, the language of shared experience.

It’s hard to be fat in this culture (period), but it feels alchemical to me to watch these stars rise to the top — highly visible, on screens all over the world, navigating the entertainment industry and also regular everyday boring ol’ fatphobia as well.

This week I went to a networking event and had feelings about it. This is the story of those feelings. 

Fat positivity creates room for fat people to be seen with full humanity — not as failed thin people, but as complete and precious.

The 3 Levels of Fatphobia are intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional. Yes, everyone is affected by fatphobia. But the follow-up question is: How?

In the wake of America's "crisis of adulthood" and in the middle of a city known for Peter Pan Syndrome, I find myself feeling that I too have gotten an extension on my adolescence. It has become a time for me to heal, center myself in a way I never could in childhood, and figure out what I want for my life.

I don’t drink much, and embarrassingly I don’t even know how to smoke, but I do have a tendency to use experiences the way addicts use substances, because I learned addictive behavioral frameworks growing up.

If you like the idea of being with a fat fetishist, I think you should do it. If you hate the idea, then don’t. If you want to experiment with it, try it.