In all shapes and sizes...

I like fat women.

Yes, I've alluded to this in passing, but in truth I feel so strongly about it that I need to say it baldly, right there so you can't misinterpret me. Just in case, I'll say it again:

I like fat women.

Nearly everyone I have dated through my life would fall into the obese or morbidly obese category. There have been three people dear to me who have astounded doctors with their level of physical health despite their obesity. Ask a really fat person about the last time their blood pressure was taken. Chances are the doctor left bruises and obtained a normal reading.

And yet...

What's your first reaction upon seeing somebody that weighs, say, 300 pounds? Pity? Anger? Disgust? All of the above? And while you're thinking about that, does your attitude towards that tub of guts change if said tub of guts is a male?
It's funny, you know...I have no studies to support my belief, but I'm willing to bet only women would find a 300 pound man intrinsically disgusting--and maybe not even a majority of women. But I'd be willing to FURTHER bet that 90% of both sexes find a 300 pound women gross in more than a literal sense.

Think what that woman feels like.

Especially if she is, like many, many overweight people, eating "right", exercising "right", doing everything "right", and watching the pounds stubbornly refuse to melt off. Yeah, just imagine what that feels like.

I bet there's a few of you out there looking at that last paragraph and questioning it, poo-pooing it...'well, obviously, she must be doing something wrong if she's not losing weight.' That attitude is maddeningly pervasive. Okay, we've got our diets, let's line them up from Atkins to the Zone and everything in between...surely one of them's got to be "right", eh? And since everyone our hypothetical tubbo meets just swears by a pet diet, and they're every last one of them different, well, then she should just try all of them in succession until the weight magically disappears, never to return? Is that how it works?

Well, guess what. Diets don't work. That's been proven in countless studies, too many to begin to cite here, and yet there's still this multi-billion dollar industry out there pushing the next cure-all, capitalizing ruthlessly on people's (largely women's) shoddy view of themselves.

My gut feeling, pardon the pun, is that people should be loved for who they are. For me, a 300 pound woman just has twice the body to love, nothing more and nothing less. But chances are she doesn't feel that way. I've met countless fat women--I'm drawn to them, somehow--and the first one to fool me, to successfully fake total self confidence, was the one I married. Oh, Eva had a good deal of self-esteem, much more than your average obese woman, but she'd managed to create a very convincing 'holograph' that amplified and projected her sense of self-worth. It was a bit of a shock meeting the woman behind the curtain. I think she'd say it was a bit of a shock for her, meeting a man who wanted to look behind the curtain. In any event, I've done my best to tear down the curtains, open her blinds, and then open the window and let some fresh air in on Eva's perception of herself.

And it occurs to me that this is what I was put on earth to do: to go around uncovering angels.

There are an awful lot of angels out there who happen to be overweight. An awful lot. And the living hell of it is, they think they're nothing but husks. Large, empty husks.

We've heard stories of virgins approaching 30 years old, who've never so much as had a date. The first thing they'd think to look for when asked out by a man would undoubtedly be a bucket of pig's blood. (For those of you who have not read or seen Carrie, just let that reference slide, okay?)

I think this is a sad state of affairs.

I think it's time something was done about it.

And so, Eva and I are in the preliminary stages of starting up a support group for overweight people. NOT a diet group. NOT an exercise group. If our clients should choose to exercise and/or lose weight, good for them. But this group--very tentatively called P.A.L. (Plump And Loveable)--won't focus on weight loss. It will treat fat people as fat people ought to be treated. Like people, in other words. There's a hell of a lot more going through the mind of your average overweight person than the next fad diet. Or at least there should be.

Stay tuned as this develops.