Screenshots of a piece of writing I originally posted to my Instagram, about being perceived as a fat woman after an incident that happened during lockdown.
Transcript:
” Car Window (or Being Perceived as a Fat Woman)
You lean out of the car window and jeer at me
You say your mate wants my number
I hear you all laugh
As your car pulls away
This is the reality of being percieved
As a fat woman.
It started just like that
Back in school
A popular boy runs up to me
And says
“My mate thinks you’re well fit”
I see your group burst into laughter
I spit and curse at you
Before I hide in the toilet and cry.
It’s almost Valentines Day
And you, a popular boy, overhear me
Telling a friend I had never received a Valentines card
You come in on the 14th
Hand me a card and bar of chocolate
The card has a monkey in drag on the front
It says “Happy Valentines Gorgeous”
I laugh it off, like I’m in on the joke
And eat the chocolate alone in my room in the dark that night.
I have “boyfriends” in school
One of them is fat like me
But is still ashamed to be seen with me
One of them dates every less desirable girl in school
To hide the fact that he’s gay.
Dating whilst fat is a minefield
On dating apps I loudly declare my fatness
Lest I be accused of lying,
Called a catfish
Men send me messages that say things like
“You’re not fat, you’re beautiful”
As if the two are mutually exclusive
Or they say something sexual, no small talk needed.
I wonder
If their friends know they like fat women?
With every boyfriend I’ve ever had
I wonder
Do they only like me because I’m fat, a fetish?
Or do they like me in spite of my fat, is it something they put up with?
For a long time I couldn’t let my partners see me naked
I would keep my baggy tshirts on during sex
Or cover myself in lacy lingerie
Terrified that if they saw my stomach,
Saw how fat I really was,
That they would leave me
Disgusted.
It always felt like men saw me as fuckable,
Or not fuckable.
To be put into either category feels uncomfortable.
Realising that I am not, in fact, a woman
Realising that I am attracted to women
Has been liberating
Suddenly I don’t hate being naked
(at least not all the time)
Suddenly I am able to fulfil my own sexual desires and needs
Without shame
But that all crumbles away, when a man leans out of a car window
Jeering at me, a fat woman, out on the street.
I am back where I started.
Uncomfortable, lost, my confidence evaporated
Being seen as a fat woman, and nothing else. “
I envision this as becoming a spoken word piece at some point in the future, as I feel it would work well in that context- I get very emotional reading it out and that could work in favour of this writing.
KAT OUTTEN 