The Pornography Industry's Obsession With Labels

April Flores A.K.A Fatty D A.K.A Fatty Delicious is a pale, bright red haired, Latina adult film star. She is a large woman with a larger personality and she is out to change the way the porn industry views thicker women. In the porn world larger women are not considered to be attractive in the sense that thinner women are. Thicker women must be confined to fetish groups along with other types of se that are considered abnormal. Larger women, such as myself, are considered lazy, unhealthy, and undisciplined among others. In Fatty D’s article, “Being Fatty D: Size, Beauty, and Embodiment in the Adult Industry,” she discusses the difficulty the porn industry has with the concept of a plus sized woman being sexually desirable. AVN (Adult Video News) was quoted as stating that BBW porn (Big Beautiful Women) allows “allowing those too embarrassed to actually be seen with fat chicks the opportunity to jerk off to them in the privacy of their home.” Plus-sized women are often depicted as disgusting, sexual deviants in pornography. The article noted some of the derogatory titles Fatty D had come across: “Cash For Chunkers,” “All Ass No Face,” “Double Dipped Faties,” and “Fat Cocksucking Whores” are a few. Now this isn’t to say that only plus-sized women are degraded and dehumanized in pornography or in society for that matter because we are all aware that it simply isn’t true. This just provides an example. The fact is pornography simply mimics the society that it is associated with. In pornography it is easy and even accepted to try to confine everyone to neat little categories that we feel they belong to. We have clear definitions of what it means to be attractive, straight, sexy, and so on. But everything is not black and white. Does labeling someone as part of the BBW community really provide those members with community of which they will be accepted or  does it just further acknowledge the fact that they do not meet the qualifications to be accepted in “normal” society?

 

 

 

 

“Being Fatty D: Size, Beauty, and Embodiment in the Adult Industry”-April Flores

Excluded: Making Feminist Movements More  Inclusive-Julia Serano

 

The Race Issue

When I was in my sophomore year at the University of the District of Columbia I met a guy in one of my business courses. He was a southern gentleman who had just come home from the navy and his name was Cody.  I thought he was the sweetest thing ever and I couldn’t wait to tell my parents about him. My mother was happy that I had found someone that shared my values and intellect. I gushed when I showed her his picture that was on my phone. I also showed it to my father as he walked passed me. “I hope you’re not planning on bringing that white man to this house,” he scoffed as he walked into this kitchen. “One day you’re going to find a nice BLACK man to marry.” I’ve never looked at my father as a prejudiced man. He never made any bigoted comments and my schools and, as a result, my friends were widely diverse. And yet still the topic of interracial relationship was a sore was a tender subject. Even after all these years interracial dating is still considered taboo. When most people think of interracial relationships they think of black men running off with white women. We think of comments like Terrence Howard, saying that black women are no good and only bring you down. Black women, especially those in the older generations, still believe that black men who gain success will leave their black girlfriends or wives for more desirable white women. And then when do look at men like Terrence Howard,  Tiger  Woods,  Robert Griffin III, and even Kobe  Bryant who are supposed to be role models within the black community and either only date or cheat on their  black spouses with women of different races. It would seem that this would no longer be an issue and that people should be able to have a preference and love who they choose to love. But when we live in a society when light skin is valued over darker skin, when the black race is even divided between “team light skinned” and “team dark skinned,” when black women are still over sexualized in media and deemed unworthy at home, when a black man, when trying to pick up a black woman, refers to her as “exotic looking” instead of acknowledging her beautiful African roots, we know that it isn’t possible. When a black woman is told that she should straighten her hair because “it doesn’t look,” or that she needs to find herself a white man because at least he will have good credit, when black men are constantly berated by black women on television, we know it is not possible. And as long as we place a  bandage on society’s wounds we  will continue to feel uncomfortable instead of healed.

Where is the Chunky Love?

I am chunky. That is the term I’ve given myself since I have found that since I was a little girl that I have been too large to be considered small and too small to be really accepted by the big girl community. I dreamed to be thin. I had perfected the art of “poking in” my pouch since the age of eight. My beautiful, plus-sized and perfectly round aunt would say “Darice you will never be skinny. But hey, look at me, I’m fat and I’m happy." Those words only seemed to terrify me further. My mother would console me by saying that I would thin out as I got taller but that didn’t happen. I have a short frame, large breast, and a round face and tummy.  I struggled with my weight throughout my childhood and even now. I was always considered cute but not just not the right type when it came to guys. It was almost like the guys at school were ashamed to talk to me.  I had all but completely lost my confidence when I found a guy, out of school, who liked me. He REALLY liked me and was proud to show me off in public. But I began to notice little things about him soon. He always wanted to feed me. I can only really remember one date that didn’t include going out to eat. One day we were leaving the Starbucks where he worked and after he had convinced me that I needed a 550 calorie Caramel Frappuccino I joked “you would think you wanted to get me fat.” But he did. He replied “You would just be perfect if you gained about 20 more pounds.” And that cycle continued for me. Too fat, too small. Too fat, too small. 

Society has taught us that in order to be accepted you must be conventionally beautiful; that you must be tall, slender, and without noticeable flaws. More recently it has become popular to be considered “thick”-having and unnaturally small waist with large breast and an even larger behind. Larger women who are a little more round in the middle are starting to finally be accepted as well. It was great that “Homeland” featured a partially nude plus sized woman during their sex scene. & while I would have preferred that they didn’t choose to have Quinn sober in the scene, further perpetuating the stereotype that larger women are only sexy when intoxicated, they redeemed themselves when Quinn not only took the woman to breakfast but defended her honor in the face of two jerks. I am extremely proud of this. I am happy that I have a plus sized sister who is confident in her own skin and lives during a time where it is acceptable for a large woman to walk down the street of her tall, slim boyfriend with minimal glares. I guess my question remains “Why only the extremes?” In the media we either see the skinny chick or the fat chick. When are the ones who fall just short of one of the categories going to be shown? And when are we going to realize that people come in all different sizes, colors, and shapes and should not be forced to squeeze into molds in which we simply do not belong?