Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the show where we talk
Speaker 2: to the Internet's characters of the day from time gone
Speaker 2: by to see what their moment says about the Internet
Speaker 2: and about us. My name's Jamie Loftis, and everyone is
Speaker 2: always shocked to learn that I am actually six feet tall,
Speaker 2: which is unfortunate to admit here, but I think it
Speaker 2: is because my personality scans a hard five to six.
Speaker 2: But I use it to my advantage. It's how I
Speaker 2: get people to tell me so many secrets. And today
Speaker 2: we are continuing our discussion of the Curvy Wife saga
Speaker 2: of twenty seventeen. Now, if you haven't listened to part
Speaker 2: one of this episode and aren't familiar with the story,
Speaker 2: I would say go back.
Speaker 3: You gotta go back.
Speaker 2: This episode isn't going to make a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot of sense without at least the context from the
Speaker 2: first part of the series. Last week, I recapped the
Speaker 2: story of I Love My Curvy Wife in detail and
Speaker 2: spoke to Curvywife Guy himself, Robbie Tripp. So again, if
Speaker 2: you haven't heard any part of the first episode, it
Speaker 2: would make more sense to just go back. But for
Speaker 2: those returning, you already know that In the summer of
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, a Utah man named Robbie Tripp posted a
Speaker 2: photo of himself and his wife, his.
Speaker 3: Wife Sarah Trip, at the beach.
Speaker 2: Sarah, at the time was an influencer of in betweeners,
Speaker 2: or as she clarified, people who wore sizes that were
Speaker 2: between extremely thin models presented in the media and the
Speaker 2: plus size section, and this post was heard around the world.
Speaker 4: I love this woman and her curvy body. As a teenager,
Speaker 4: I was often teased by my friends for my attraction
Speaker 4: to girls on the thicker side.
Speaker 2: It keeps going from there again. You can listen to
Speaker 2: part one and the curvy wife post went through what
Speaker 2: listeners of this show will now recognize as a pretty
Speaker 2: typical main character experience. Step one, the post goes viral.
Speaker 2: Step two, it gets a lot of positive attention. Step
Speaker 2: three a significant wave of backlash and negative attention. Step
Speaker 2: four optional but common, the surfacing of old offensive posts
Speaker 2: from the main character. Step five, the public apology and
Speaker 2: disavowal of said posts, and ultimately what they do to
Speaker 2: maintain and build on this notoriety. And this all depends
Speaker 2: on who the main character is and whether they have
Speaker 2: aspirations to stick around. Some people just want to return
Speaker 2: to their lives. Think thirty to fifty Faral Hogs Guy,
Speaker 2: Think Coffee Wife. But others like Robbie and Sarah already
Speaker 2: had big ambitions in the influencing space after the Curvy
Speaker 2: Wife post. Sarah Tripp continued to build her fashion and
Speaker 2: lifestyle commentary brand under the Sassy Red Lipstick banner and
Speaker 2: launched a series of bathing suit line collaborations. Meanwhile, Kurveywife
Speaker 2: husband Robbie Tripp became a rapper who just released the
Speaker 2: song hot Wife. And by the way, after part one,
Speaker 2: a bunch of you commented, does he know what hot
Speaker 2: wife means? And then I had to look it up
Speaker 2: and now I know what it means and I resent
Speaker 2: you all for sharing that with me. Airhorn, Please, It's
Speaker 2: undeniable that there were elements of this story that really
Speaker 2: had staying power. People were talking about the curvy Wife
Speaker 2: post for months and years after the original post, and
Speaker 2: the phrase I love my curvy wife has more or
Speaker 2: less entered the permanent lexicon of people who were online
Speaker 2: and engaged with the story at the time. And the
Speaker 2: reason it's still around is because during its original circulation.
Speaker 2: This story, intentionally or not, touched a lot of nerves, including,
Speaker 2: but not limited to, how men can talk about and
Speaker 2: objectify women, the idea perpetuated by the media that one
Speaker 2: should be praised for being attracted to fat people, how
Speaker 2: fat or curvy women are portrayed by the media, the
Speaker 2: terms curvy or fat and what that meant to the
Speaker 2: person that was saying or receiving them, and the wide
Speaker 2: range of feelings on how those terms are used personally
Speaker 2: and politically, and quite frankly, a very specific strain of
Speaker 2: millennial cringe. And I'll be honest, I did not love
Speaker 2: the Curvy Wife post when it came out or now,
Speaker 2: but I was glad to have the opportunity to talk
Speaker 2: with Robbie Tripp about his thinking behind posting it in
Speaker 2: the first place, because it's my job to give main
Speaker 2: characters their chance to speak on their fifteen minutes of
Speaker 2: fame and reflect. It's just that our conversation didn't really
Speaker 2: change my mind. In our interview, Robbie took repeated jabs
Speaker 2: at white, female, millennial snarky bloggers in New York, which
Speaker 2: I personally feels a lot of qualifiers added to dress
Speaker 2: up the fact that he seemed upset at any woman
Speaker 2: or really any person who was frustrated by his post
Speaker 2: and said something about it. And again, plenty of people
Speaker 2: took no issue at the post. Many felt empowered by it.
Speaker 2: I've heard from a few people to this effect, and
Speaker 2: I don't mean to negate that viewpoint, but disliking the
Speaker 2: Curvywife post had nothing to do with being anti man
Speaker 2: or being a specific type of person. I looked back on,
Speaker 2: the backlash was coming from a pretty diverse group of
Speaker 2: very online people. So yeah, make of that what you will,
Speaker 2: and let's move on, because I think there's a more
Speaker 2: interesting angle to discuss the Curvy wife moment from this week.
Speaker 2: And regardless of my feelings, Robbie and Sarah love each other.
Speaker 2: They recently celebrated ten years of marriage, and their marriage
Speaker 2: is honestly not something I'm interested in dissecting, no matter
Speaker 2: how many Instagram comments I get about it. Lest I
Speaker 2: be characterized as a white millennial snark blogger from New York,
Speaker 2: which is only forty percent true. I want to talk
Speaker 2: in this episode about why the Curvy wife post really
Speaker 2: struck a chord during this backlash, and how that connects
Speaker 2: to how we talk about other people's bodies, and fat
Speaker 2: and curvy bodies specifically, because even if I understand that
Speaker 2: Sarah Tripp does not mind that her husband made this
Speaker 2: post about her, I still cannot find a read of
Speaker 2: this post that doesn't feel centered around Robbie's feelings and
Speaker 2: comes off as condescending to the quote unquote her women
Speaker 2: he is addressing in the post. And a lot of
Speaker 2: people felt the same way. Body positivity and fat liberation
Speaker 2: movements had been going on for decades at the time
Speaker 2: of this post, but had in many activist opinion been
Speaker 2: co opted and deep politicized by mainstream culture in a
Speaker 2: way to either sell you things or tacitly make people
Speaker 2: feel either bad or confident enough about their bodies to
Speaker 2: buy something and nothing more. To feel good about your
Speaker 2: body when you weren't. Finn was a brave act all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, the same way that Robbie saying he
Speaker 2: loved his wife was treated as commendable and not the
Speaker 2: bare minimum from a loving spouse. And this was a
Speaker 2: narrative that was really pushed by media outlets in the
Speaker 2: early days of this story, and not much is outside
Speaker 2: of Robbie's control. Even the term body positivity put pressure
Speaker 2: on people to feel good about their bodies, to demonstrate
Speaker 2: their worth and morality when very few people have a
Speaker 2: day to day simple relationship with their body. A lot
Speaker 2: of people talking about body positivity ten years ago are
Speaker 2: now talking about body neutrality. And so today I want
Speaker 2: to dig a little deeper, understand this story outside of
Speaker 2: the realm of Robbie Tripp and talk to body positivity
Speaker 2: and fat activists to see why after seven years, this
Speaker 2: story still prompts such a response. Buckle in Curvy Wife
Speaker 2: guy Robbie Tripp and curvy wife Sarah Trip. Your sixteenth
Speaker 2: minute continues now, welcome back to sixteenth minute. I thought
Speaker 2: I was doing a little better emotionally and then I
Speaker 2: just reread Charlotte's Web and it made me cry for
Speaker 2: truly three hours. If you haven't read Charlotte's Web recently,
Speaker 2: it is the most beautiful piece of American writing I've
Speaker 2: ever encountered. Hadn't read it since I was seven, and
Speaker 2: it just has so much to say about life and
Speaker 2: death and purpose. And here I am Jamie's book Club.
Speaker 2: Please read this book for second graders again. You won't
Speaker 2: regret it.
Speaker 3: But let's get back to the episode.
Speaker 2: And so today we are continuing our discussion of the
Speaker 2: infamous Curvy Wife post of twenty seventeen, and once more
Speaker 2: at the top of this episode, I do just want
Speaker 2: to say that if this post works for you, that's
Speaker 2: totally fine, But this week I want to examine the
Speaker 2: backlash to this.
Speaker 3: Story more clearly. Not every story I cover.
Speaker 2: Has backlash that, at least in my opinion, warrants a
Speaker 2: closer look, but in the case of this story, I
Speaker 2: think it also offers an opportunity to take a look
Speaker 2: at what body positivity and fat activism meant at this
Speaker 2: moment and what it means now. I'll be speaking with
Speaker 2: Tigris Osborne of NAFA, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance,
Speaker 2: and Kate Navarete of the Body Positivity Alliance. But before
Speaker 2: we jump into my talk with Kate, I wanted to
Speaker 2: give a quick snapshot of we're attitudes toward body positivity
Speaker 2: and fat liberation stood around the time that the Curvy
Speaker 2: Wife story went viral, and this is going to be
Speaker 2: a pretty rapid fire history. So for more nuanced and
Speaker 2: detailed work on this movement, and a link of fumore
Speaker 2: works in the description as well. Fat liberation movements, which
Speaker 2: have gone by a number of names, including fat acceptance,
Speaker 2: fat empowerment, and fat pride, have been in the mainstream
Speaker 2: discourse since the nineteen sixties and is often characterized in
Speaker 2: movements alongside the major feminist movements of the last one
Speaker 2: hundred or so years. In nineteen sixty seven, Fat Power
Speaker 2: activists staged a demonstration in Central Park where over fifty
Speaker 2: people eight held signs with pictures of Twiggy and said
Speaker 2: diet books on fire, Pretty punk rock then. NAFFO was
Speaker 2: founded in nineteen sixty nine by engineer Bill Fabri, who
Speaker 2: started the volunteer driven group in response to the discrimination
Speaker 2: his wife faced in her day to day life. A
Speaker 2: spinoff of this group, called the Fat Underground, began in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two. Texts like Fat Power, Whatever You Weigh
Speaker 2: Is Right by Llewell and Lauderback in nineteen seventy and
Speaker 2: Fat as a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach in seventy
Speaker 2: eight continued to push the movement forward, along with Naffa's
Speaker 2: own Fat Manifesto in nineteen seventy three, which demanded quote
Speaker 2: equal rights for fat.
Speaker 3: People in all areas of life.
Speaker 2: Unquote. These groups were certainly considered radical at the time,
Speaker 2: but they were also often criticized as being flawed in
Speaker 2: the same ways that the feminist movements they worked alongside
Speaker 2: with were. While fat activism was and is considered a
Speaker 2: civil rights issue, NAPA had neglected to meaningfully include non
Speaker 2: white people and black people, specifically under the guise that
Speaker 2: fat activism was not needed as much in those communities,
Speaker 2: something the organization has strived to rectify since here. I'm
Speaker 2: going to quote Tigris Osborne, the current executive director of NAFA,
Speaker 2: writing in a blog post on the NAFA website about
Speaker 2: how discouraging it was to see a dearth of people
Speaker 2: who looked like her when she first got involved in
Speaker 2: fat activism. And since I'm interviewing Tigris later in this episode,
Speaker 2: I asked if she'd read her own words.
Speaker 5: So I'm going to share with you something that I
Speaker 5: wrote for the newsletter for the Nationalist Theiation to Advance
Speaker 5: Fat Acceptance or NAFA, a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 5: as I'm reading it now in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: It still really holds true.
Speaker 6: Here's what I wrote.
Speaker 5: Some key moments we identify as the roots of fat
Speaker 5: lib are really really white moments. And throughout the history
Speaker 5: of the documented organized fat activist movement, what's often not documented,
Speaker 5: especially before the modern era, are the black people who
Speaker 5: were there. I've been going through old NAFA newsletters from
Speaker 5: the seventies and so far I've only seen one visibly
Speaker 5: black person who was unidentified in the photos.
Speaker 6: A couple years later.
Speaker 5: Side note, I've seen only a handful more as I
Speaker 5: continue that project of reviewing our old newsletters back to
Speaker 5: what I wrote. I haven't tracked them down yet, and
Speaker 5: I don't know if I will ever be able to
Speaker 5: track down that person. Maybe this person was having the
Speaker 5: time of their life at NAFA events, behave Sometimes I've
Speaker 5: had a great time despite being the only black person
Speaker 5: in a place. But at other times I've been incredibly
Speaker 5: uncomfortable but made the best of it, and other times
Speaker 5: I've just been uncomfortable. I've felt all of those things
Speaker 5: as a black person in NAFA in the twenty tens
Speaker 5: and twenty twenties, so I can imagine what I would
Speaker 5: have felt in NAFA in other decades. We see black
Speaker 5: leadership in other social justice movements. At the time of
Speaker 5: NAFA's founding, what does whiteness have to do with why
Speaker 5: we don't see black leadership or even much black participation
Speaker 5: in early NAFA. What does anti blackness have to do
Speaker 5: with it? Is there simply more urgency of other issues
Speaker 5: for black folks then now? Or is there discomfort in
Speaker 5: these spaces for black people then now? Or are black
Speaker 5: people simply not interested in NAFA then now? These questions
Speaker 5: feel rhetorical, but they're not.
Speaker 2: By the nineties, BAT activists were picketing in front of
Speaker 2: the White House and becoming increasingly critical of the rampant
Speaker 2: fat phobia present in mainstream media. The nineties and two
Speaker 2: thousands are notable for rampant fat phobia that, whether you
Speaker 2: like millennials or not, did a hell of a lot
Speaker 2: of damage on how everyone, but particularly women and fems,
Speaker 2: were conditioned to perceive themselves. Anecdotally, I started dieting when
Speaker 2: I was eight years old. This was the era of
Speaker 2: Kate Moss's grand ode to internalize fat phobia. Nothing tastes
Speaker 2: as good as skinny feels, and gave way to online
Speaker 2: communities that were centered around encouraging each other's eating disorders.
Speaker 2: And while NAFA had a persistent issue with a lack
Speaker 2: of black leadership and members. Fat activism was increasingly spearheaded
Speaker 2: by black and queer communities when it moved online. I
Speaker 2: remember hearing this poem from poet Sonya Rene Taylor when
Speaker 2: it first went viral in twenty eleven.
Speaker 6: The body is not an apology.
Speaker 7: Let it not be forgive me, not fixed to mattress
Speaker 7: when night threatens to leave the room empty as the
Speaker 7: belly of a crow.
Speaker 5: The body is not an apology.
Speaker 7: Do not present it as a disassembled rifle when he
Speaker 7: is yet to prove himself more than common intruder.
Speaker 6: The body is not an apology.
Speaker 7: Let it not be common as oil, ash or toilet.
Speaker 7: Let it not be small, as gravel stained or teeth.
Speaker 7: Let it not be mountain when it is sand. Let
Speaker 7: it not be ocean when it is grass. Let it
Speaker 7: not be shaken, flattened, or raised in contrition.
Speaker 6: The body is not an apology.
Speaker 2: A link the full poem in the description It's really beautiful.
Speaker 2: But even after fat activism moves online, there are similarities
Speaker 2: between fat activism and feminist activism during this period of time.
Speaker 2: In previous decades, fat activism had been either mocked or
Speaker 2: dismissed by mainstream outlets, but by the two thousands, the
Speaker 2: distinct online communities built led mainstream advertisers to view it
Speaker 2: as an opportunity. What if we took this notion that
Speaker 2: all bodies are worthy of love, removed the politics from
Speaker 2: that notion, and sold it back to consumers. It's not
Speaker 2: quite that simple, but after the success of the original
Speaker 2: run of Dove soap real beauty ads starting in two
Speaker 2: thousand and four, body positivity stripped of politics became an
Speaker 2: increasingly common marketing tactic. The original Dove soap ads were
Speaker 2: rooted in the language of body positivity, but didn't really
Speaker 2: offer any solution or action toward it outside of visual
Speaker 2: representation and buying Dove soap.
Speaker 1: How long have we been chasing someone else's idea of beauty?
Speaker 1: Maybe one size fits all hair, it doesn't fit you.
Speaker 1: Rediscover the beauty of your own hair. Discovered Dove shampoos
Speaker 1: and conditioners.
Speaker 2: But these ads were really effective. After the first series
Speaker 2: of ads featuring a group of women that were comparatively
Speaker 2: more diverse in race and age and less thin than
Speaker 2: women you were used to seeing in soap ads, Dove
Speaker 2: sales went up seven hundred percent. That's an ad from
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, but this campaign has lasted over
Speaker 2: twenty years now. Different eras of Dove ads single out
Speaker 2: the ways that other brands photoshop and marginalize their representatives
Speaker 2: to make the consumer feel bad about themselves, and more
Speaker 2: recently have made short documentaries about how girls become critical
Speaker 2: of their appearance, beginning at a very young age. And
Speaker 2: I don't mean to dismiss this campaign outright, because this
Speaker 2: is all true and makes a demonstrable difference to have
Speaker 2: out in the mainstream, But the common refrain is that
Speaker 2: cannot be the endgame.
Speaker 3: It's not enough.
Speaker 2: So after Dove's success, other brands jumped on board the
Speaker 2: SS body positivity, including brands that had been notoriously fat
Speaker 2: phobic in the past. Looking at You, Victoria's secret put
Speaker 2: Amamas Prado.
Speaker 6: Myself proud to be who I am, proud to be,
Speaker 6: proud to be, proud to be.
Speaker 2: Brands like Airy, Oley and famously Barbie in twenty fifteen
Speaker 2: suddenly featured a wider range of body types than ever before,
Speaker 2: and every time it prompted controversy in the mainstream media
Speaker 2: because in one sense, this was a wider range of
Speaker 2: body representation than mainstream audiences were used to seeing, but
Speaker 2: there was never a political goal attached to this representation.
Speaker 2: The goal was to sell products more effectively. And it's
Speaker 2: during this era of body positivity in the early to
Speaker 2: mid twenty tens, that Sarah Tripp launches her blog Sassy
Speaker 2: Red Lipstick, and it was a fashion blog. It wasn't
Speaker 2: launched with the intention of being a source for body positivity,
Speaker 2: but over the years, Sarah would often be candid about
Speaker 2: her relationship with her body and being this quote unquote
Speaker 2: in between her making a name for herself in an
Speaker 2: industry and an influencing space that was obsessively thin. She
Speaker 2: wasn't trying to or explicitly doing activist work. She was
Speaker 2: speaking honestly about her own experiences and certainly as the
Speaker 2: blog continued, she opened the floor to women of all sizes,
Speaker 2: so body positivity was discussed. But it wasn't like she
Speaker 2: was doing on the ground organization work and wasn't aspiring to.
Speaker 2: She was and is an influencer who loves her body,
Speaker 2: and that's great, but it does provide some context or
Speaker 2: when the Trips were suddenly made the faces of American
Speaker 2: body positivity, while some fat liberation activists were kind of
Speaker 2: annoyed about it because not only were the Trips not activists,
Speaker 2: there was also this glaring issue of inclusivity and this
Speaker 2: persistent issue of CIS white bodies within fat activism being centered.
Speaker 2: Sarah Tripp is a CIS white woman from a lot
Speaker 2: of money, and while that doesn't negain any body discrimination
Speaker 2: she's experienced in her life, it does make a difference
Speaker 2: in the ways that she and her husband were subsequently
Speaker 2: able to turn this into a career, because, as has
Speaker 2: become obvious over time, the way that black and brown
Speaker 2: women are treated online and in the real world is
Speaker 2: with continued degrees of mistrust, neegging, and even violence. Thankfully,
Speaker 2: there are and always have been, many people working in
Speaker 2: that space that aren't SIS white people. I don't mean
Speaker 2: to erase them. I am curious to ask whether this
Speaker 2: story would have gotten the attention and media prioritization it
Speaker 2: did if the couple and the bodies at its center
Speaker 2: weren't SIS, straight and white.
Speaker 3: And I can't stress this enough.
Speaker 2: This is not Sarah's fault, right, She was just trying
Speaker 2: to exist and have a career online and this became
Speaker 2: a launching point that she told Rebecca Jennings was very
Speaker 2: uncomfortable and anxiety inducing for her because Sarah wasn't inviting
Speaker 2: this conversation about her body and didn't personally prompt it.
Speaker 2: It was her husband and the media who started this conversation.
Speaker 2: So on one end, her body is being centered without
Speaker 2: her consent by the media, and on the other end,
Speaker 2: there were fat activists who seemed frustrated with Sarah's body
Speaker 2: were not being fat enough to warrant such an outsized discussion.
Speaker 2: And so my next interview was with a person who
Speaker 2: had an especially fresh perspective on the curvy wife saga
Speaker 2: because she was a child when the story happened. My
Speaker 2: interview with Kate Navarette. When we come back, welcome back
Speaker 2: to sixteenth minute. I found a white eyebrow hair this morning,
Speaker 2: and here is my interview with Kate Navarette of the
Speaker 2: Body Positivity Alliance. This interview has been edited for time
Speaker 2: and clarity.
Speaker 5: Enjoy.
Speaker 6: My name is Kate Nevadet. I am the founder and
Speaker 6: executive director of Body Positive Alliance, which is a nonprofit
Speaker 6: organization dedicated to promoting the representation, fair treatment, and equity
Speaker 6: of all bodies, regardless of appearance or identity. We started
Speaker 6: back in twenty nineteen as a local high school club
Speaker 6: and have since expanded to a nonprofit and have been
Speaker 6: operating for about four years now as of five oh
Speaker 6: one and c three. And in my personal life, I
Speaker 6: am a current undergraduate student at Emory University. I'm a
Speaker 6: business major, and I'm super passionate about all things pop
Speaker 6: culture and I think that what we're about to talk
Speaker 6: about today dives really deep into that, and I'm excited
Speaker 6: to chat.
Speaker 3: I know that you are.
Speaker 2: So you're a college student and we're talking about a
Speaker 2: story that happened seven years ago.
Speaker 3: Now, the Curvy Wife Saga. You were a full child
Speaker 3: for this.
Speaker 6: I think I was about twelve when this happened. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I think. I think twelve is painful to hear. But
Speaker 6: the truth is the truth.
Speaker 3: So were you familiar with the story at all? I
Speaker 3: was not.
Speaker 6: No, this is all news me.
Speaker 2: I'm really interested to get your take as a first
Speaker 2: time I love my Curvy Wife Saga experiencer. What do
Speaker 2: you make of this story?
Speaker 6: What's really interesting is that, at first glance, I think,
Speaker 6: in the line of work that I do, I was
Speaker 6: really quick to judge. I think that at first glance
Speaker 6: it seemed kind of odd whereas I think for people
Speaker 6: who maybe don't have as much exposure to body positivity
Speaker 6: would jump toward more reaction of admiration our praise, which
Speaker 6: I think is what a lot of people did at
Speaker 6: the time. It seems like when this came out there
Speaker 6: were certainly some good components to what was posted. I
Speaker 6: mean this bringing attention to how women are marginalized based
Speaker 6: on narrow appearance ideal or fighting conventional norms of attractiveness,
Speaker 6: and supporting the idea that you can experience love regardless
Speaker 6: of what you look like, you know, even like finding
Speaker 6: things that traditionally aren't considered attractive, like fatness in the
Speaker 6: Western world attractive. I thought there were good nuggets overall.
Speaker 6: I just thought it was really odd from just a
Speaker 6: personal lens of it felt weird for this to be
Speaker 6: coming from the perspective of this woman's husband. I think
Speaker 6: that was what stood out to me immediately is something
Speaker 6: that was a bit off putting, because if this was
Speaker 6: a woman speaking to her experience dealing with body image
Speaker 6: and talking about her journey marrying someone who more narrowly
Speaker 6: falls in line with those ideals on the like male
Speaker 6: end of the spectrum, and then also you know over again,
Speaker 6: like overcoming this personal struggle, that would be something that
Speaker 6: I think would be really endearing and really positive for
Speaker 6: people to see. But just this whole idea that it
Speaker 6: was coming from him, and it was using such I
Speaker 6: wouldn't say vulgar is the right word, but using just
Speaker 6: language that was so body focused and also at the
Speaker 6: same time giving himself kind of a pat on the
Speaker 6: back for liking curveer women when that's just something that
Speaker 6: some people do. I think was it was a bit odd.
Speaker 6: I think I'm teetering on icky. But for the time being,
Speaker 6: just with what I've seen, it has felt kind of odd.
Speaker 2: If this was a post by a woman talking about
Speaker 2: her own body, I feel like it's not it's not
Speaker 2: even a news story because it's.
Speaker 3: A man talking about his wife.
Speaker 6: Like you're saying, right, it feels like a very conventional
Speaker 6: trend cycle, slash media headline, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 6: It seems like he's kind of made a career off
Speaker 6: of this, almost not you know, I look at his
Speaker 6: profile here, He's about half a million followers. He has
Speaker 6: continued to produce content around liking curvy women and celebrating
Speaker 6: curvy women. But again, it just feels really objectifying. It's weird.
Speaker 6: It's weird that this is coming from a male perspective
Speaker 6: because it's not exactly like either he's celebrating men or
Speaker 6: you know, people who like identify within the confines of
Speaker 6: his gender identity. He is exclusively celebrating women in a
Speaker 6: way that I think a lot of people would interpret
Speaker 6: as fetishizing people with this particular body type. And I think, again,
Speaker 6: it's great to challenge norms of romantic attraction and challenge
Speaker 6: beauty standards and challenge the way that we're perceiving bodies,
Speaker 6: but again, it's really hard to do that without objectifying people,
Speaker 6: and especially when he's looking at it through clearly such
Speaker 6: a sexual gaze. And again there's also this added component
Speaker 6: of he considers himself brave for this, which to me
Speaker 6: is so ridiculous, Like you are not brave for finding
Speaker 6: your wife attractive, you know, if anything like credits should
Speaker 6: go to her for her however, she has navigated the world.
Speaker 6: And also I just want to say too, she is,
Speaker 6: you know, not the largest woman in the world, right,
Speaker 6: like she pretty much has Like I'm you know, I've
Speaker 6: seen her, and you know, I'm not gonna like label
Speaker 6: her body one way or the other. I believe in
Speaker 6: individual like autonomy there. But from what we can see
Speaker 6: on the census data of the average size of an
Speaker 6: American woman, pretty standard, right, And I completely understand that
Speaker 6: the ways in which women are portrayed in the media
Speaker 6: versus what the actual average American woman looks like, there's
Speaker 6: a huge discrepancy there. I will never discount that, and
Speaker 6: in fact, I will do everything I can to challenge that. Again,
Speaker 6: this attribution of bravery courage for liking this woman, that's
Speaker 6: where I kind of feel the fetishizing coming in, because
Speaker 6: it feels like, despite you being considered ugly to everyone else,
Speaker 6: I still love you. And men, if you like ugly
Speaker 6: women out there like I do, it's okay. It's still
Speaker 6: perpetuating a narrow confine of beauty rather than trying to
Speaker 6: expand it. And you know, that is one approach. I
Speaker 6: don't think liberation comes from expanding the definition of beauty.
Speaker 6: I think it comes from deconstructing beauty in its totality.
Speaker 6: But and then it also kind of begs the question,
Speaker 6: if I'm sitting here criticizing it, then how can we
Speaker 6: really tackle all these systems or all these nuances with
Speaker 6: one individual's response, we can't, we can't, he can't accomplish everything,
Speaker 6: and I can't expecting too. But again, I think my
Speaker 6: overall thought here is just that it's uncomfortable that this
Speaker 6: came from her husband's perspective instead of her own, because
Speaker 6: I think that just again perpetuates objectification and misogyny. Honestly,
Speaker 6: that beauty standards create and uphold.
Speaker 2: Something that always rubs me the wrong way about this
Speaker 2: story is just her like Sarah Tripp's removal from the story,
Speaker 2: because completely at the time this was posted, she was
Speaker 2: you know, I think she had a couple hundred thousand
Speaker 2: followers and she was an influencer for I think she
Speaker 2: could called it at a time like in between sizes
Speaker 2: where she was between plus size and has like normal
Speaker 2: store sizes in the way that it was presented, and
Speaker 2: that was sort of her whole beat was exploring that
Speaker 2: and like, how do I find clothes that fit me?
Speaker 2: If you have the same sort of frustration while shopping,
Speaker 2: here is what I do. So she was directly interacting
Speaker 2: with this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's also what you said too about her having
Speaker 6: her own Internet personality and you know, propagating something that's
Speaker 6: coming from really personal and probably pretty painful experience of
Speaker 6: trying to navigate shopping as a non standard sized woman.
Speaker 6: That's something that should deserve way more attention than you know,
Speaker 6: a man calling his wife hot, Right, Like, why are
Speaker 6: we even test? Holiday said in an article with people,
Speaker 6: Why are we giving men trophies? Why are we giving
Speaker 6: men trophies for being attracted to women who don't fit
Speaker 6: conventional beauty standards. I think also if people are only
Speaker 6: attracted to what is considered conventionally beautiful or the beauty standard,
Speaker 6: that should signal to us that there is so much
Speaker 6: more we need to address and that there are so
Speaker 6: many problems out there in our society that need to
Speaker 6: be tackled. And I think that's part of what he's saying, right,
Speaker 6: like the fact that he was quote unquote bullied for
Speaker 6: liking women who didn't fit this conventional norm. But again,
Speaker 6: he there's been some other stuff that's come up. He
Speaker 6: has made transphobic tweets in the past, and I'm not
Speaker 6: sure what he didn't necessarily to rectify that, but he's
Speaker 6: made transphobic tweets towards trans women specifically, and that's something
Speaker 6: where I think to myself, if you're not going to
Speaker 6: support all women, then you're just sort of narrowly opening
Speaker 6: the door for a woman who's maybe like myself, closer
Speaker 6: to like a size twelve or whatever, you know, come through,
Speaker 6: come through the door, and then quickly shutting it for
Speaker 6: everyone else. Right, it's not incremental progress. That just kind
Speaker 6: of creates a debate around incremental progress. But I yeah,
Speaker 6: I just found it. I just found it really hypocritical,
Speaker 6: Like you are questioning and criticizing these beauty standards, but
Speaker 6: then also simultaneously putting messaging out there that would indicate
Speaker 6: that you don't support all women, and that again you're
Speaker 6: maintaining that narrow beauty ideal or just narrow idea of womanhood.
Speaker 6: To some extent, women just aren't appreciated in the media
Speaker 6: or listened to in the media in the same way
Speaker 6: that men are. And so when a man decides it's
Speaker 6: okay for a woman to love her body, then we're
Speaker 6: allowed to love our body, right, Like, yeah, we need
Speaker 6: permission to feel attractive or to feel worthy of love.
Speaker 6: And that's exactly what this post exemplifies. And it's so
Speaker 6: transparent as to what the media cares about, which is
Speaker 6: the perspectives of men, white men at that white straight men.
Speaker 6: That's incredibly frustrating. And he's making a career out of this,
Speaker 6: which is, I mean, just kind of disgusting.
Speaker 3: If I'm being honest, this is clearly the wrong approach.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit about the work
Speaker 2: that you've been doing and how it sort of evolved
Speaker 2: in the four years that you've been doing it.
Speaker 6: Definitely, I got my start doing body positive adocacy work
Speaker 6: really inspired by my personal struggle with body image and
Speaker 6: ultimately the struggle of the people around me. I noticed
Speaker 6: that this was an issue that was really pervasive in
Speaker 6: my community, and I started a body positive club as
Speaker 6: a sophomore in high school and drew like a pretty
Speaker 6: right just like a decent community. It was friends, I
Speaker 6: like got my favorite English teacher to sign on as
Speaker 6: our sponsor. It was very casual, and we just had
Speaker 6: an opportunity to talk about body image in a way
Speaker 6: that I hadn't really done before, and in a way
Speaker 6: that I had increasingly started engaging with online because I
Speaker 6: was really trying at this point to recover from my
Speaker 6: eating disorders. And so what ended up happening was the
Speaker 6: pandemic hit around March of sophomore year of high school,
Speaker 6: and I started doing public addicacy work online, not dissimilar
Speaker 6: from what Sarah Tripp was doing. I was advocating for
Speaker 6: body positivity on TikTok. I amassed a small but mighty
Speaker 6: following from that, and I got some really cool opportunities
Speaker 6: because of it. But I just was led to this
Speaker 6: place of feeling very objectified, and especially being that young,
Speaker 6: being fifteen and sixteen and doing this work, it felt
Speaker 6: a bit uncomfortable for me to be doing, especially so
Speaker 6: new into my recovery, and ultimately I wanted to do
Speaker 6: something more substantive, and so the path I took then
Speaker 6: was to expand my organization from just a club to
Speaker 6: a nonprofit, and we've been operating as a nonprofit ever since,
Speaker 6: you know, and I started a podcast surrounding it, speaking
Speaker 6: with activists in the space, and really over time developed
Speaker 6: a broader understanding of body positivity that went beyond feel
Speaker 6: good about yourself and you know, we can we can
Speaker 6: help you with your relationship with food, to what are
Speaker 6: the systems in place that are making people feel bad
Speaker 6: about their bodies and also contributing to the oppression of
Speaker 6: people based on their physical appearance, and how can we address,
Speaker 6: educate about those and deconstruct them. And so our work
Speaker 6: now focuses much more on the socio political context of
Speaker 6: body positivity, as is true with the original intention of
Speaker 6: the movement, which emerged as a byproduct of fat liberation
Speaker 6: during the Civil rights era in the United States. And
Speaker 6: I really found that this approach just opened my eyes
Speaker 6: in a way that I had previously not been exposed to,
Speaker 6: in a way that surface level and mainstream body positivity
Speaker 6: is failing to encompass. And it's because this part of
Speaker 6: the movement, and this radical part of the movement, it's
Speaker 6: not as palatable and it's not as digestive as some
Speaker 6: of the mainstream messaging that we're seeing. And so while
Speaker 6: it's great to say that everyone is beautiful, we should
Speaker 6: also be challenging the idea of beauty in and of itself, right,
Speaker 6: the idea that we need to be beautiful or need
Speaker 6: to expand this definition of beauty. And it's tough because
Speaker 6: in the society we live in, expanding the definition of
Speaker 6: beauty is really the most realistic path forward to liberation, right,
Speaker 6: like representation and the importance of representation, but also behind
Speaker 6: the scenes, there need to be people who are deconstructing
Speaker 6: this idea altogether. And so my messaging now more so
Speaker 6: revolves around the idea that you should be allowed to
Speaker 6: feel good about yourself and feel good about the way
Speaker 6: you look, but you should also know that you are
Speaker 6: worthy and you are good beyond the way that you look.
Speaker 6: And so I think in this respect, I understand I
Speaker 6: don't know. I wouldn't say I necessarily understand his intention,
Speaker 6: but I understand why his wife was okay with it
Speaker 6: happening and what maybe felt like positive validation for her,
Speaker 6: And I want to say this without being patronizing or
Speaker 6: like infantilizing her. I also think, though, that there is
Speaker 6: arguably a need for transparency and the real motivations behind
Speaker 6: maintaining this. And is that something that's monetary or is
Speaker 6: that something that's the basis of ideology, because if it's
Speaker 6: based on ideology, that could use some correcting, right, multiple
Speaker 6: things can be true at the same time.
Speaker 2: The last thing I wanted to ask you about I'm
Speaker 2: ten years older than you, but also so much of
Speaker 2: the way that I perceived my body for better and
Speaker 2: for worse, Like the Internet, both empowered and encouraged an
Speaker 2: eating disorder that was, you know, raged for me throughout
Speaker 2: high school into college, and the Internet was instru mental
Speaker 2: in me finding people that were extremely like critical in
Speaker 2: my recovering and healing from it. I would love to
Speaker 2: hear a little bit about, you know, whether it's your
Speaker 2: experience or people you've spoken with through your advocacy, how
Speaker 2: you know we conceive our bodies with the internet, how
Speaker 2: and if you have any feelings on how to form
Speaker 2: a healthier relationship with perceiving your body on the internet.
Speaker 6: Totally, and I really resonate with what you said. The
Speaker 6: Internet was arguably a large contributor to my body image
Speaker 6: struggles and why it developed my eating disorders, but it also,
Speaker 6: again like you said, was instrumental in recovery. Some of
Speaker 6: the early recovery influencers that I found, especially because I
Speaker 6: was recovering during the pandemic, Exposing myself to this changed
Speaker 6: the trajectory of my life and I'm so eternally grateful
Speaker 6: for that. And I think that a lot of my
Speaker 6: life has been spent trying to navigate what social media
Speaker 6: can look like in my life, and that's a journey
Speaker 6: that I'm still on. I've been on social media for
Speaker 6: more than half of my life now. I got my
Speaker 6: Instagram account when I was nine years old, and I'm
Speaker 6: now again. Like I said, funny, I've been around the
Speaker 6: Internet for a while now, and I've also I've taken
Speaker 6: breaks from it. I think there's no shame in taking
Speaker 6: a break from social media. There's this constant fear of
Speaker 6: missing out, but I promise that there is. There's so
Speaker 6: much more to life than what is on a screen.
Speaker 6: And I also think that something that I've done because
Speaker 6: often I think this guilt of sometimes, you know, as
Speaker 6: someone who struggled with binge eating disorder, find myself kind
Speaker 6: of replicating the same behaviors when I'm using social media,
Speaker 6: which is to say that I am scrolling for a
Speaker 6: really long time. Then I feel really guilty about it,
Speaker 6: so I delete social media the next day, and then
Speaker 6: I re downloaded, and then the same cycle repeats over
Speaker 6: and over. And something that I really tried to incorporate
Speaker 6: recently is setting aside like five ten minutes maybe fifteen
Speaker 6: each day to go on social media and making that
Speaker 6: time intentional and it doesn't have to be the same
Speaker 6: time every day, but making the time that you're spending
Speaker 6: on social media intentional rather than a passive scroll. You know,
Speaker 6: while you're waiting in line for you know, a public bathroom,
Speaker 6: or just like you know, you're sitting at lunch and
Speaker 6: your friend hasn't showed up yet. In these waiting moments,
Speaker 6: I think can be something that plagues our mental health,
Speaker 6: but being intentional about it is something that's really important.
Speaker 6: And I also think to the same degree, be intentional
Speaker 6: about what you're consuming. If you are looking at people,
Speaker 6: even friends, who make you feel bad about yourself. I
Speaker 6: think the mute feature is great for friends because you
Speaker 6: don't have to unfollow them, but you also don't have
Speaker 6: to see their content. I do this with people. I'm
Speaker 6: not going to be not going to name names, but
Speaker 6: there's people that you follow, even that you're friends with,
Speaker 6: that you're close to and you love, and a door
Speaker 6: that you look at their Instagram and think, oh my gosh,
Speaker 6: I need to look like that, then mute them. It's okay.
Speaker 6: Set boundaries. Put yourself first, you know. I think that's
Speaker 6: what's really important here. And sometimes it's really difficult to
Speaker 6: control what we see. And I also, I'm going to
Speaker 6: be realistic, right we live in an age, and especially
Speaker 6: when you're my age, like a college student, you need
Speaker 6: to be on social media for clubs and for communication
Speaker 6: and whatever it may be, especially in my case, like
Speaker 6: maintaining long distance friendships, which I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 6: us who totally you know, our adults can relate to.
Speaker 6: And so I see the value in it, and I
Speaker 6: think that suggesting we all delete it entirely is not
Speaker 6: productive or feasible. But again, being intentional with your usage,
Speaker 6: moderating your usage is really the biggest thing that I
Speaker 6: can offer as a piece of advice. And also just
Speaker 6: know that we're all figuring it out. Being kind to
Speaker 6: yourself and knowing that even if you doom scroll, you
Speaker 6: don't have to completely cut yourself off. It's okay, And
Speaker 6: we're all figuring this out together, and we're all guinea
Speaker 6: pigs in this new age of communication and life, and
Speaker 6: it'll take some getting used to for sure.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much to Kate, And you can learn more
Speaker 2: about the Body Positivity Alliance in the description when we
Speaker 2: come back. Tigris Osborne of NAPA, Welcome back to sixteenth minute.
Speaker 2: I have been watching YouTube videos theorizing about why Mormon
Speaker 2: influencers specifically, are so successful.
Speaker 3: And it's blowing my mind.
Speaker 2: And this is part two of our Curvy Life series.
Speaker 2: My final talk is with Tigris Osbourne, the executive director
Speaker 2: of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. She's been
Speaker 2: entrenched in fat activism for a long time. She's a
Speaker 2: gen xer and has a different free and post internet
Speaker 2: take on this story. And as always, this interview has
Speaker 2: been edited for time and clarity. Here's our chat.
Speaker 5: I am ty Chris Osborne. I am the executive director
Speaker 5: of NAFA, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we've already sort of started diving into the
Speaker 2: curvy wife saga.
Speaker 3: Were you aware of this story when it first happened.
Speaker 6: I was.
Speaker 5: I wasn't following it super closely because to me, it
Speaker 5: was just like just another fat admirer guy talking on
Speaker 5: the internet. And I've seen a lot of that over
Speaker 5: my years. Before I became involved with NAFA and became
Speaker 5: more of an activist and advocate in the fat space,
Speaker 5: I was a plus sized nightclub promoter and so I
Speaker 5: started a club in Oakland in two thousand and eight
Speaker 5: called Full Figure Entertainment that was, you know, a nightclub
Speaker 5: party for plus sized women. We used to say bodied
Speaker 5: ladies and their friends and fans of all sizes, And
Speaker 5: so I was exposed to a lot of guys who
Speaker 5: are sort of like waving the flag of like, I
Speaker 5: love big women, and so to me, he was just
Speaker 5: like another guy waving the flag of I love big women.
Speaker 5: And the main thing I remember thinking at the time was,
Speaker 5: your wife is not even that big, dude, This is
Speaker 5: not like you're really gonna die on this hill of
Speaker 5: I love big women, and she's only big compared to
Speaker 5: like the most mainstream of beauty standards. So that's what
Speaker 5: I remember my reaction being at the time.
Speaker 2: That's something that I've heard come up a lot, and
Speaker 2: it totally makes sense, and I feel like, does even
Speaker 2: more to pull curvy wife into.
Speaker 3: This story kind of against her.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, and there's always that sort of question of
Speaker 5: where the male gaze fits into body positivity, right, like
Speaker 5: how much are feelings and especially at that point in
Speaker 5: the trajectory of body positivity, so like how much our
Speaker 5: feelings are influenced by what men think of our bosodies
Speaker 5: and or how much we do not care or only
Speaker 5: care when it's our own man, but don't need anybody
Speaker 5: else kind of going around making pronouncements, and you know,
Speaker 5: I think people have a lot of really mixed reactions
Speaker 5: to a moment like that based on where they are
Speaker 5: in the trajectory of learning to you know, love and
Speaker 5: embrace their body for whatever it is. And you know,
Speaker 5: body positivity is interesting because we've been using the phrase
Speaker 5: body positivity for decades, like fat activists and and you know,
Speaker 5: and other advocates for sort of body freedom have been
Speaker 5: talking about body positivity for decades. The organization the Body
Speaker 5: Positive is I think twenty five years old. But when
Speaker 5: we think of body positivity or we're really talking about
Speaker 5: what happened on Tumblr and Instagram around body positivity in
Speaker 5: the twenty ten ish era. And so in that time,
Speaker 5: body positivity went from being sort of like the most
Speaker 5: rebellious you know, the bipock people and the queer people
Speaker 5: and the disabled people and the people with you know,
Speaker 5: visible differences in their bodies and faces, and then you
Speaker 5: know sort of like inched its way over to people
Speaker 5: who kind of look like models already but are just
Speaker 5: a tiny bit bigger or a tiny bit different in
Speaker 5: some way. And I think those folks need positivity too,
Speaker 5: they're living in the same culture as the rest of us,
Speaker 5: but the way that they are disenfranchised from the culture
Speaker 5: is a little bit different, or sometimes drastically different. And
Speaker 5: so I think a lot of reaction from people in
Speaker 5: fat activist community if they knew anything about curvy wife guy,
Speaker 5: was that sort of like, here we go again, centering
Speaker 5: someone who is barely outside of the norm and making
Speaker 5: a whole big deal about that. And then, you know,
Speaker 5: especially folks who have a more feminist or womanist orientation,
Speaker 5: we're just sort of like, and we got to be
Speaker 5: validated by some dudes, right, Right.
Speaker 2: This is something I've wanted to get a little more
Speaker 2: into because you've been working in this space for so
Speaker 2: long now, that moment in the twenty tens where body
Speaker 2: positivity is kind of corporatized, I feel like, in the
Speaker 2: way that we see a lot of movements corporatized, and
Speaker 2: you know how you see pride flags outside of banks
Speaker 2: and all of this stuff, Right.
Speaker 3: How did you have to move with that moment?
Speaker 2: Because this story feels sort of like a very kind
Speaker 2: of sanitized presentation of anything, and so I'm curious, you know.
Speaker 3: How you sort of navigated that shift.
Speaker 5: Sanitize is an interesting word I think. I think I
Speaker 5: think the word I would use is depoliticized, like or
Speaker 5: a political It's just like I'm going to say a
Speaker 5: nice thing about bodies. I'm not going to talk about
Speaker 5: any of the politics of why we don't usually say
Speaker 5: nice things about bodies, or how these bodies are actually
Speaker 5: treated out in the world, like or the access Like
Speaker 5: I'm not out there, you know, fighting for more access
Speaker 5: for my wife so that she can have better clothes
Speaker 5: or you know, more job opportunities as a plus sized person.
Speaker 5: I just love her and I want to sing about that,
Speaker 5: and like I want to sing about how I love
Speaker 5: myself too. I'm not hating on this man for loving
Speaker 5: his wife. I mean, there is a little bit of
Speaker 5: a sort of like you actually want a lot of
Speaker 5: congratulations for something that you are just supposed to do.
Speaker 5: But there's a little bit of that. But in terms
Speaker 5: of like how it sort of represents what happened with
Speaker 5: body positivity. Part of the challenge is we want the
Speaker 5: concepts of body positivity or in our case, you know,
Speaker 5: fat liberation, fat activism, fat rights movement, we want the
Speaker 5: concepts to get more mainstream. That's the point of the work.
Speaker 5: But when they get more mainstream without any of the
Speaker 5: politics still attached, what you get is like a really
Speaker 5: hollow version of what it is.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: I want anthems. I want to shake my butt to
Speaker 5: songs that sound like they are written by people who
Speaker 5: want to see me shake my butt, although I still
Speaker 5: question with him whether he actually wants to see me
Speaker 5: shake my butt at you know, my size twenty six
Speaker 5: butt is not the same as his wife's butt, But
Speaker 5: that's neither here nor there. Like you know, I want
Speaker 5: the fun times and the good times too, but then
Speaker 5: I want the people behind that to show up when
Speaker 5: there is real work, So like I want the Robbies
Speaker 5: of the world to sing the anthem and then to
Speaker 5: also give money to fat activist causes and show up
Speaker 5: when there's a rally and sign the petitions and do
Speaker 5: the testimon like you you know you could do. I
Speaker 5: love my curvy wife as a senate testimony when we're
Speaker 5: fighting for a civil rights law, right, And that's kind
Speaker 5: of what it is, the same thing with the sort
Speaker 5: of mainstreaming of body positivity. It takes all of the
Speaker 5: fun parts, It takes all the feel good parts and
Speaker 5: blows them up, but it leaves all of the work behind,
Speaker 5: all of the struggle and commitment. But that is where
Speaker 5: body positivity started, right. It started with again, fat activists,
Speaker 5: queer people, especially like Lee readership, from black women and
Speaker 5: fems in internet spaces, and from feminists and queer women
Speaker 5: and non binary fems, and like, you know, all of
Speaker 5: these folks who are living on the margins, folks who
Speaker 5: are disenfranchised from our systems of power. If you leave
Speaker 5: all those folks behind, then what you have is just
Speaker 5: a bunch of slogans and a feel good campaign.
Speaker 2: So it's the liberation aspect in the political work that
Speaker 2: is sort of absent from these kinds of stories.
Speaker 3: And I'm curious also how this.
Speaker 2: Applies to a media perspective, because something that always kind
Speaker 2: of struck me about this story is that, yes, Robbie
Speaker 2: made this post, but no one forced the media to
Speaker 2: cover it in the way that it did.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it really became a sort of like
Speaker 5: a juggernaut of you know, like this little body positivity
Speaker 5: moment or whatever. And I think some of that was
Speaker 5: just the media fumbling around looking for anything to capitalize
Speaker 5: on the popularlay of body positivity. And you know, and
Speaker 5: it's a little bit of a as they say, a
Speaker 5: dog bites man story, right, like, we're you know, we're
Speaker 5: supposed to be like what he actually loves something that
Speaker 5: everybody else doesn't love, and we're supposed to be like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, he's such a hero for standing up
Speaker 5: for his wife this way. And a lot of people
Speaker 5: genuinely felt like that. You know, a lot of people
Speaker 5: genuinely like revisiting the story and seeing comments from people
Speaker 5: about how it made them feel to finally have somebody
Speaker 5: not be closeted about liking a person who was like them,
Speaker 5: because a lot of plus sized women in particular, and
Speaker 5: I'm sure that this happens across like genders and sexual
Speaker 5: orientations in some way, but but I think especially like
Speaker 5: heterosexual women dealing with this gender men, there are a
Speaker 5: lot of plus size women who have experienced the dude
Speaker 5: who likes them in the dark, but who does not
Speaker 5: like them in public, you know, who will not tell
Speaker 5: his family and friends who will not certainly won't make
Speaker 5: a big pronouncement about it. And there are a lot
Speaker 5: of guys who have genuinely been like harassed by their
Speaker 5: friends or you know, or left out of social situations
Speaker 5: because that was their preference. You know, I've known guys
Speaker 5: like that. I had a partner who spent years with
Speaker 5: his friends like teasing him all the time because he
Speaker 5: liked bigger girls, and even at NAFA, you know, our
Speaker 5: origin story as a civil rights organization is a story
Speaker 5: of a man who was passionately in love with his
Speaker 5: wife and wanted to make a better world for her
Speaker 5: because he was seeing all the ways that anti fatness
Speaker 5: was affecting her like emotional landscape, but also was affecting
Speaker 5: her in the practical world. And he was thinking about
Speaker 5: things like the jobs she was confined to when she
Speaker 5: wanted to get a job in their town, and he
Speaker 5: was thinking about things like wanting to buy her a
Speaker 5: blouse for their anniversary and not being able to find
Speaker 5: anything at all in the town where they live that
Speaker 5: would fit her. But he will also talk about being
Speaker 5: a very young man and his friends talking, you know,
Speaker 5: teasing him for wanting to take a chubby girl to
Speaker 5: the prom. He's eighty two years old. And when he
Speaker 5: tells that story about the prom date he wanted to
Speaker 5: go on, you can you can feel the way that
Speaker 5: he felt, you know, othered and shamed by the other
Speaker 5: boys in his life, and and that that's the story
Speaker 5: that a lot of men who date fat women have
Speaker 5: And so I think it was really affirming for a
Speaker 5: lot of women, the you know, the curvey wife letter.
Speaker 5: But I also think it was affirming for a lot
Speaker 5: of guys. And there is something important and powerful about that.
Speaker 3: We just have to do more.
Speaker 5: With it than like a two minute segment on the
Speaker 5: Today Show patting him on the back for loving his
Speaker 5: wife right right.
Speaker 2: And because it's the Internet, some people, you know have
Speaker 2: talked about curvy wife guy as if he should be
Speaker 2: you know, drawn, and quartered others have been overly.
Speaker 3: Defensive of him. And then there's people at the heart
Speaker 3: of this story. So it's just inherently a mess.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I'm just like, I don't want to like,
Speaker 5: I don't want to be the champion of curvy wife guy,
Speaker 5: but I also don't want to be the crucifier of
Speaker 5: curvy wife guy. Like I think, especially for folks who've
Speaker 5: never been introduced to a more radical politic, or even
Speaker 5: a politic at all, around body acceptance, body liberation, body sovereignty,
Speaker 5: Like people who would be like, what are you talking
Speaker 5: about when you say those things? It just feels like
Speaker 5: a really nice thing sometimes if you are the person
Speaker 5: who's always been told you weren't good enough by the media,
Speaker 5: by your family, by other people you tried to date, whatever,
Speaker 5: to see somebody kind of champion the like, I think
Speaker 5: you're good enough and and I think it's still true.
Speaker 5: Like looking at his stuff now, like was looking I
Speaker 5: was looking at his YouTube channel, and I just wandered
Speaker 5: into the comments, and you know, on the folks who
Speaker 5: are following him. Now you know, there's no like, let's
Speaker 5: have a meaningful conversation about whether this is objectification of
Speaker 5: women or whatever. There's mostly just people being like, I
Speaker 5: feel so relieved to know someone feels like this, or
Speaker 5: it's about time to hear some of the guys who
Speaker 5: feel like this actually admit that they feel like this
Speaker 5: instead of slinking off into a corner somewhere, or you know,
Speaker 5: being real obvious when they're trying to holler at me.
Speaker 5: But then when I want to go out to brunch,
Speaker 5: they don't want to go right, So become you become
Speaker 5: the guy who is the champion for curvy girls. But
Speaker 5: all you do is make booty anthems. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 5: we need some booty anthems, that's great. You know, what
Speaker 5: do you do when you do want to take your
Speaker 5: curvy wife out to brunch and the restaurant doesn't have
Speaker 5: a chair that fits her? What are you doing about?
Speaker 5: What are you doing about that? Are you that dude?
Speaker 3: R hey?
Speaker 6: Are you?
Speaker 3: Are you that partner?
Speaker 5: You know, there are a lot of couples like Robbie
Speaker 5: and Sarah, and there are a lot of guys who
Speaker 5: they're response to having been told that their attraction or
Speaker 5: adoration of larger women at whatever range of that larger means, like,
Speaker 5: there are a lot of those guys who have been
Speaker 5: like their reaction to having been told that they were
Speaker 5: wrong is to double down on it. And they've got
Speaker 5: the I love my you know, I Love Curvy Women
Speaker 5: t shirt and they've got and there is an audience
Speaker 5: for that. There's an audience for people who see the
Speaker 5: guy in the I Love Curvy Women t shirt and
Speaker 5: are like, hooray, finally someone. And then there's like a
Speaker 5: whole segment of people who are like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: here this guy, like, you know, how is he trying
Speaker 5: to manipulate women with this? Or how is he trying
Speaker 5: to make himself popular? With this or how is he
Speaker 5: like it's never you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 5: reactions of like, it's not actually about the women, it's
Speaker 5: all about him, and I think that was part of
Speaker 5: the real time reaction from a lot of people.
Speaker 2: I would love to take some time to talk about
Speaker 2: what NAFA is doing and has done that does address
Speaker 2: that political angle, because for whatever reason, if this story
Speaker 2: like appeal to someone at the time but did like
Speaker 2: lack that political angle, let's get them into it.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And to be fair, I want to also just
Speaker 5: like be transparent that there are lots of moments in
Speaker 5: napa's history where NAFA was doing the feel good thing,
Speaker 5: where NAFA was just you know, doing the the community
Speaker 5: building thing of connecting people, including connecting people for dating.
Speaker 5: I mean historically there was actually a program called NAFA
Speaker 5: Date that was about helping match people to you know,
Speaker 5: to someone that they wanted to be with. Or there
Speaker 5: were people who would come to NAFA conventions, you know,
Speaker 5: hoping to find the love of their life. They weren't
Speaker 5: coming to you know, to see how we can protest
Speaker 5: at the airport for better airline seating. NAFA was doing that,
Speaker 5: but there were people who were coming that were not that,
Speaker 5: and sometimes there were quite toxic people who were coming
Speaker 5: who were not that. We perfect that at NAFA either,
Speaker 5: just because our origin story starts in a you know,
Speaker 5: starts in a place with a romantic couple that was
Speaker 5: actually where the and are actually did show up as
Speaker 5: a real ally, That's not what all the dudes did, right,
Speaker 5: That's not what all people did. But what we hope
Speaker 5: we are doing better today is approaching things in a
Speaker 5: much more intersectional way so that everything at NAFA is
Speaker 5: not built around heterosexual dating relationships. And I would like
Speaker 5: to see more cis gender men come around to help
Speaker 5: do the work. And what some of the work looks
Speaker 5: like is just fun community building stuff because we need
Speaker 5: places to celebrate fat bodies, and at NAFA we always
Speaker 5: use the word fat. We really believe in destigmatizing that
Speaker 5: word by using it in neutral and celebratory ways. And
Speaker 5: wherever you are in this sort of spectrum of fatness, like,
Speaker 5: you're welcome in our spaces.
Speaker 6: But we want to always.
Speaker 5: Remember that the people who are on the larger end
Speaker 5: of that spectrum are facing different kind of societal barriers
Speaker 5: and different kind of systemic challenges than people who are
Speaker 5: more like Sarah the Curvey wife, Right, We want to
Speaker 5: always remember that in our work. One of the things
Speaker 5: that we are doing is working on legislative change. So
Speaker 5: we co founded the Campaign for Size Freedom with our
Speaker 5: friends at FLAIR, which is the fat legal advocacy organization,
Speaker 5: and it works towards supporting the passage of laws that
Speaker 5: add height and weight to protected classes under anti discrimination law.
Speaker 5: The political work that we're doing within the system is
Speaker 5: all about that. It's all about, you know, advancing civil
Speaker 5: rights law so that big bodies are protected by those laws.
Speaker 5: And we also know that legislation and liberation are not
Speaker 5: the same thing, right, and that working within the system
Speaker 5: can only do so much, so we try to support
Speaker 5: other kinds of grass proofs, organizing a small and definitely
Speaker 5: under resource movement. I mean, another thing we're doing is
Speaker 5: talking a lot about getting more funding for this very
Speaker 5: important issue. So many people think of they just think
Speaker 5: of body positivity, and they think body positivity has solved.
Speaker 3: Everything for larger people.
Speaker 5: They either think body positivity or ozembic is going to
Speaker 5: be the solution to every problem that fat people face,
Speaker 5: and neither of those things are true. So we work
Speaker 5: a lot on narrative change just to get people to
Speaker 5: change their minds, But we also work on narrative change
Speaker 5: to get people to understand that this is a movement
Speaker 5: that needs funding, just like other social justice movements need funding.
Speaker 2: The last question I had was because this is a
Speaker 2: story that is now seven years old, which is but yeah,
Speaker 2: the story is from twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: Now we're in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: In that span of time, ish, have you noticed any
Speaker 2: meaningful changes in the way media handles these stories?
Speaker 3: Has it improved, has it worsened you? How do you feel?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 5: I mean, one thing the media did since twenty seventeen,
Speaker 5: between twenty seventeen and now is just decide that Lizo
Speaker 5: was the solution to everything, right, Like Lizzo is fat
Speaker 5: representation or Lizzo is you know, curvy representation. That's all
Speaker 5: we need. So if we've done our Lizos, we don't
Speaker 5: have to talk about anything else. And you know that's complicated, right.
Speaker 5: There are a lot of complications around Lizo for a
Speaker 5: variety of reasons. And from a like purely representation standard
Speaker 5: love it. We we've also seen a lot more representation
Speaker 5: in body positivity. We've seen some of those you know,
Speaker 5: businesses that sort of co opted body positivity and helped
Speaker 5: corporatize it, I think was the word you use. We've
Speaker 5: seen some of them be a little bit, a little
Speaker 5: little little bit responsive to the feedback that they were
Speaker 5: not doing enough. Don't you think it's so much better now?
Speaker 5: And like yes, and no, if you can you name
Speaker 5: anyone Curvey other than Lizo, because if you can't, then
Speaker 5: we're not on equal status with other, you know, celebrities,
Speaker 5: And I don't I don't want all of our definition
Speaker 5: of success to be built around celebrity culture either. But
Speaker 5: you know, but like, but this is the world we
Speaker 5: live in, right, and representation matters, and we're still dramatically underrepresented,
Speaker 5: especially compared to our percentage of the population. We hear
Speaker 5: all the time about, you know, how many Americans are fat,
Speaker 5: and then we don't see any fat Americans, so that's
Speaker 5: not representation. So it's sort of like we've had some
Speaker 5: advances in talking about this stuff. I mean, I think
Speaker 5: there's been a lot of sort of two steps you know, forward,
Speaker 5: two steps back. And of course I am loath to
Speaker 5: talk about this as the Ozembic era, but the reality
Speaker 5: is we are living in the world of ozembic and
Speaker 5: all of its ripple effects and the way that that
Speaker 5: dominates the media has tremendous impact on how we see
Speaker 5: fat people, whether we think it's okay to be fat,
Speaker 5: whether we think it's fat people's own fault that they're fat.
Speaker 5: And also it dominates the politics because a lot of
Speaker 5: the money and energy is going into like the insurance
Speaker 5: companies and the pharmaceutical companies fighting over who's going to
Speaker 5: make the close billions of dollars matter the most in
Speaker 5: terms of covering these drugs, and then gets left behind
Speaker 5: in politics is no, there's not a miracle solution that
Speaker 5: gets rid of all the fat people. We still need
Speaker 5: to actually do political work to make sure that fat
Speaker 5: people are treated as equal members of our community. So,
Speaker 5: you know, I wonder what would have happened if Curvey
Speaker 5: Wife Guy had debuted in the ozembic era. It is
Speaker 5: good to see people like like Pretty Big Girl Movement,
Speaker 5: the Dance Troupe, or like we do have some anthems
Speaker 5: that are coming actually from female performers, not from men
Speaker 5: objectifying women or even you know, celebrating women, but like
Speaker 5: people like El Bias, who's just gotta you know, I
Speaker 5: gotta love my body anthem. That is all about her
Speaker 5: loving her body. It's not actually about men looking at
Speaker 5: her body and deciding whether they love it or not. Right,
Speaker 5: there's a little bit more celebration of that space, for
Speaker 5: that acceptance of that TikTok viralness of that, you know.
Speaker 5: And you know, you can ask questions about all of
Speaker 5: those two things too, but at least there's more of
Speaker 5: a diversity of voice. Especially younger millennials and Gen zs
Speaker 5: are are better at sort of you know, looking at
Speaker 5: the stories and being like, okay, but what else though,
Speaker 5: or okay, but what's behind this? And I do think
Speaker 5: that there is some generational difference in reaction. It's not
Speaker 5: only a generational difference, but you know, in reaction to
Speaker 5: things like the actual curvy wife Guy post or just
Speaker 5: the sort of like the career of Curvy wife Guy
Speaker 5: after the fact. Like, I do think that there is
Speaker 5: some like we never got to see anything even remotely
Speaker 5: like this reaction from folks, you know, like my gen
Speaker 5: X cohort and folks who are older they can't even
Speaker 5: imagine a moment like that. That then there is from
Speaker 5: people who've seen those moments throughout their life, and they
Speaker 5: might still want to deconstruct the moment or critique the moment,
Speaker 5: or you know whatever. But at least it's not the
Speaker 5: first time they've ever heard of it, right. If you've
Speaker 5: lived your entire life on social media, it's probably not
Speaker 5: the only time you've ever seen a guy be like,
Speaker 5: I love big girls, right.
Speaker 3: Right, right.
Speaker 5: And so there is a little bit of a difference
Speaker 5: there that again I wouldn't attribute only to generation, but
Speaker 5: I do think that that is part of the impact
Speaker 5: on how differently some folks see it. We do have
Speaker 5: more dialogue around like the male gaze and you know,
Speaker 5: and how media feeds it or upholds it or whatever,
Speaker 5: and where we just don't care. There's like a lot more,
Speaker 5: especially in social media, a lot more self created media
Speaker 5: by women and fems that is about how that's very
Speaker 5: nice for you that you love curvy girls. Go over
Speaker 5: there somewhere and do your thing right, because over here
Speaker 5: we don't care what you think. We're just here to
Speaker 5: do that with just live in our best last with
Speaker 5: or without you and what you think.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: I think there's a little bit more space for the anthems.
Speaker 5: I think there's a little bit more space for the
Speaker 5: people who don't care.
Speaker 3: About the anthems.
Speaker 5: I mean, I do think there is something to think
Speaker 5: about too, in the viralness of this and the fact
Speaker 5: that it was a white couple, you know, like there's
Speaker 5: always an aspect of race in how we think about
Speaker 5: which bodies are appropriate or whose bodies are desirable, you know,
Speaker 5: And there is this stereotype that also we saw in
Speaker 5: a viral moment around Test Holliday years ago that had
Speaker 5: to do with like people's assumptions about black men loving
Speaker 5: bigger women. And and I do wonder like if a
Speaker 5: black husband had written that, if people would have just
Speaker 5: been like, yeah, well that's what black guys think and
Speaker 5: moved on, Like if if you know that racial element
Speaker 5: where it's like.
Speaker 6: What a white guy who.
Speaker 5: Likes big butts and he cannot lie, Like if there's
Speaker 5: like a you know, I think it's I think it's
Speaker 5: important to consider the question, both in terms of his
Speaker 5: race and hers, about like what where that contributed it
Speaker 5: to the moment blowing up in the way it did,
Speaker 5: And if you know, if that could have happened with
Speaker 5: different races involved. Definitely, if it could have happen and
Speaker 5: with you know, different sexual orientations involved. You know, if
Speaker 5: this had been you know, a gay man writing about
Speaker 5: how he loved his curvy husband, like, would we have
Speaker 5: seen that on morning talk shows?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: Right, So you know there's not It goes way beyond
Speaker 5: this dude and his wife and their viral moment. You know,
Speaker 5: at the same time that he was going viral for that,
Speaker 5: there were you know, hundreds and and I would say
Speaker 5: thousands of men all over the country going to places
Speaker 5: like my nightclub looking for the curvy girl of their dreams, right,
Speaker 5: or looking for the super fat women of their dreams.
Speaker 5: Not just the sort of like you know, barely bigger
Speaker 5: than socially acceptable curvy girl, but like actually looking for
Speaker 5: and preferencing you know, much larger folks. And he's just like,
Speaker 5: you know, he became the poster child for something that's
Speaker 5: not just about him. And there's way more nuance in
Speaker 5: the thousands of relationships that develop out of you know,
Speaker 5: that develop with those guys, at least in some of them, right,
Speaker 5: some of them are just gonna be caricatures, And he's
Speaker 5: kind of a character. He's kind of caricature at this point.
Speaker 5: To me, if we got to hear more stories and
Speaker 5: see more stories about fat people in love, then it
Speaker 5: wouldn't seem like such and other people in love with
Speaker 5: fat people, people of all sizes in love with fat people.
Speaker 5: Then it wouldn't seem like such a breath of fresh
Speaker 5: air to people when we got to hear like the
Speaker 5: one guy who wrote a long caption on Instagram say
Speaker 5: that he likes his wife.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Tigris and you can read
Speaker 2: more about her work and follow her and Nafa at
Speaker 2: the links in the description. And this concludes our two
Speaker 2: part series on the curvy wife saga. And again I
Speaker 2: realized that it is impossible to summarize the history of
Speaker 2: the fat liberation movement in the space of one podcast episode,
Speaker 2: so I encourage you to check out the links in
Speaker 2: the description and learn more. And to close out, I
Speaker 2: have a confession to make. I've had Big Girl Banger
Speaker 2: by Robbie Tripp stuck in my.
Speaker 3: Head for three weeks. See you next time. Here's your
Speaker 3: moment of fun. Uh got hot wife?
Speaker 6: Real nice? Oh, got a hot wife? What a good life?
Speaker 2: What a hot wife?
Speaker 6: Real nice? Hot wife?
Speaker 3: Good life?
Speaker 6: Okay, I've lost I've lost the thread. I can't Talk.
Speaker 6: This first.
Speaker 2: Sixteenth minute is a production of Pool Zone Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: It is written, posted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans reganizing.
Speaker 2: Ian Johnson is our supervising produce U and our editor.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Sat thirteen and Pet. Shout
Speaker 2: outs to our dog producer Anderson, my cat's fleeing Casper,
Speaker 2: and my pet rock Bird, who will outlive us all
Speaker 2: by bye