Dangerous Curves Ahead

Sports Illustrated made headlines today when it was announced they would feature their first plus-sized model in a bikini photo shoot. They selected the luscious Ashley Graham, pictured below:

I was already familiar with Ashley. When I was researching size-16 girls for my GROUPIE novel to have a physical representation of the Every Woman, I found several gorgeous models who didn't fit in the size 0-4 media sweet spot. The average size American woman is size 12-14, though the models we are shown (in addition to being ridiculously photoshopped,) are much smaller than the average American woman, weighing 23% less.

As someone who has been considerably larger than "average," it really started to stick in my craw that most of the heavier chicks I read about in fiction were depicted as the funny comic relief, the sad sack wallflower, or worse - the eager virgin who has never been kissed. Since this was never my experience, I wanted to write stories that starred women who looked a little more like me and a little less like whoever is starring in the latest movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book. Some might consider this a niche market because thin women don't want to read about fat girls finding love. Not sure why, considering I've read hundreds of books about thin women finding love and it was perfectly fine.

It was particularly empowering though when I started reading books by those authors who dared to color outside the lines, casting atypical heroines in romance novels. It inspired me to cast all kinds of women in my books, with a focus on the plus-size perspective since, y'know, write what you know.

One of the reviews of GROUPIE came from an admitted plus-size woman who voiced her skepticism that a size-16 woman could have both a hot rock star and billionaire media mogul fighting over her. It made me sad. Sadder still when I realized that "Can a good man love a size-16 woman" was a major search criteria to bring people to my blog. My goal, from my very first "Rubenesque" romance, was to make every girl/woman who read my book believe that she was worthy of her very own Happily Ever After without changing one damn thing.

See, that's not a message that we hear day after day. Our media bombards us with this idea that we have to change who we are to gain love and acceptance. Gray hair? Dye it. Wrinkles? Botox it. Full hips? Spanx 'em. Tiny boobs? Here's a pushup bra. Blemishes? Here's some makeup. They will find anything, from rough feet to wimpy eyelashes, to sell you a a product/magazine or service. For women, maintaining their sexual desirability is part of their job. And we've just all kind of accepted it as the way things are, even when it fucks with our daughters enough to start dieting at age 8.

Yesterday I was going through some old photos with my son, and he saw this picture of me.

He didn't see a fat girl there, but I sure did. I was doing everything I could to change myself from the age of 14 on, often with disastrous, though typical, results. I virtually dieted myself into obesity simply because I could never accept that girl in that photo as being perfectly fine the way she was.

Tragic, that.

Some will couch this shaming bullshit under the heading of "health," pointing to the War on Obesity as reason enough to shame family and friends by reminding them they're too fat. For the most part, however, the level of disgust, disrespect and downright vitriol towards plus-size women is based on one universal message: You're-Just-Not-Fuckable-Enough.

In 2014, Meghan Trainor (size 12) released her song, "All About That Bass," which was essentially an anthem for any girl who felt lesser than because of her size.

You know I won't be no stick-figure silicone Barbie doll/
So if that's what you're into then go ahead and move along

Y'know, no hard feelings. You're not into me so I would never be into you. It's not the end of the world. There are more fish in the sea - for both of us.

But if you want to see how people respond to a woman owning her curves and giving other women permission to think they're perfect "from the bottom to the top," then look at the comments for the video:



Some folks don't take kindly to the fact you're not doing everything you can to attract them to you, regardless if you know them, know anything about them, would be interested anyway.

So I fully anticipate that the Haterz will be out in full effect to rail on how showing a woman who isn't 23% underweight somehow promotes an unhealthy lifestyle, when no one gives a good goddamn what the health is of a woman who falls in the "normal" size range. It's all part of an overall system that works to keep us women divided and tearing each other down.

I realized this earlier when reading the comments on my Facebook Author page for the Sports Illustrated article. Everyone was so stunned that this beautiful curvy goddess was being treated as a plus-size. And why shouldn't they be surprised? At a size 16, that's an inch or two away from the average, which really doesn't make her "plus" at all.

That is, of course, unless you're listening to the fashion industry, who starts their plus-size models at size 6. To put this in perspective for you, here are some familiar faces that would quality as "plus-size" by this standard:

Christina Hendricks, who wears anywhere from a 10-14, putting her squarely in the "average" range, is continually praised for her courage to "flaunt" (i.e., not conceal) her ample curves.

In fact, the only thing more controversial than Sports Illustrated introducing a plus-size bikini model is deciding what plus-size actually means. From what I can tell judging it, like in life, rests in the eye of the beholder.

But it got me thinking, what is plus-size anyway? I mean, there's no minus-size, is there? We can be too big, we can be too small, but we're only isolated as a separate group when we're overweight. What is the purpose of separating "plus-size" from "average/normal," other than to divide and - in a subtle way - degrade the woman who just wants to buy a new shirt. They used to call us "queen-sized." Now we're just plus-size, and we're supposed to jump with joy that the closer you are to the more normal sizes you are, the better chance you have being featured as a progressive "plus-size" model for the industry.

Anything else encourages an unhealthy lifestyle, and that's just irresponsible. We have to homogenize the media with a certain standard of beauty to discourage those who might be tempted to gorge themselves and become a statistic.

As we all know, that approach has been working flawlessly so far.

OR... we could celebrate women in all their shapes and sizes for the sum of their attributes rather than condemn and isolate them over some arbitrary number on a label.

You can read GROUPIE free from Amazon, All Romance Ebooks, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, iTunes and Kobo.