Sunday, 22nd of November 2009 at 04:33:10 PM I need a new vocabulary word, please. Maybe you know it. But I am not sure the word or phrase I want exists. We may very well have to INVENT it.
There’s no way to say that one is a big girl without it meaning overweight. There is also no way to say one is large busted, small waisted, and wide hipped without it being a euphemism for being overweight. Big boned, large frame, a big girl, zaftig, voluptuous, statuesque, a curvy girl, pulchritudinous, these terms have been hijacked and turned into a sideways way to say fat.
Granted: The euphemisms happened because we have allowed fat to become the new F word. But that is a whole ‘nother post…
Granted: It is double-plus CRAZY how women, me included, tie our level of fat so firmly to our level of value, so that when one goes up, the other must plummet. But that is a WHOLE ‘nother post…
Granted: This is also a separate issue from my goal here. I am HERE to lose ten pounds, but fot the record, here on the eve of Christmas, I am not currently overweight. Currently meaning, this exact second, and I may well be overweight after lunch because I am, in the immortal words of Bender, “pushing maximum density.” My BMI is the highest number in the normal range, but it IS in that range. I am generally a single, solid pound— two pounds on a good day—under the number that is categorized as overweight for my height on most doctor’s charts, and PS? The charts of other doctors are cordially invited to suck it. This ten week challenge, for me, is about getting to the center or lower half of that range so that I have some wiggle room, both literally, in my pants, and figuratively, in my food choices. But THAT, too, is a whole ‘nother post…
THIS is a post about how I want a way to say that I am built on a big scale and have curves without it sounding APOLOGETIC or like I think this is a bad thing.
I can’t help the size I am. I do not mean my dress size or my weight. I mean the size of my head, bones, hands, and feet, or how long my legs and spine and arms are. It is not inherently unattractive or wrong to be a tall woman with larger bones—just ask my son, who raptly watched every game the American Women’s Olympic Beach Volleyball Team played. Two rounds in, he started TAPING them. *cough*
But the English language would lead one to believe it is wrong and sad to be tall and large, and trying to find a non-pejorative say to say I am BIG makes me feel I should be researching bone shaving plastic surgery and whittling my core down.
Recently I had a conversation with my friend Sara about this. Sara is smaller than me because, well, Sara is smaller than EVERYONE. She can practically wear Barbie’s shoes. She is slim, but under the slim, she has delicate piping bird bones. Even if I lose this last ten pounds here during the TEN WEEK/TEN POUND CHALLENGE (it starts JANUARY ONE here on Five Full Plates, larlarlar, plugplugplug) I will still be bigger than Sara. Because I AM.
If I decided to starve myself to death (I could not. I feel too much passion toward cheese. OH CHEESE! I wish I could quit you. But I never can, Cheese, fear not!) and become one of those sad sad little critters with the tight-to-skull scalp gleaming with naked sorrow through the vitamin-deficient thinned hair and haunted bulgy eyes that are the ONLY things that are allowed to bulge on the whole body and the sad yet creepy arms that look like bug legs, and even THEN, even if I had a BMI so low they had to put me on an IV to keep my life inside my wasted body… Sara would still be SMALLER than me. Because she is small.
And I am built like a Milk Maid.
I was trying to say this on retreat, and no matter how I came at it, it sounded like I was whining about my weight, not stating a fact about our relative body sizes. I came to realize I have NO WAY to express my LARGER-ness to my tiny friends without them eye-rolling at me and saying, DEAR LORD STOP DRAGGING OUT THAT TIRED SACK OF BODY DYSMORPHIA. I have no way of saying I am BIG – which I am, and which no diet and exercise regime is going to change—without it sounding like big is a terrible thing to be. In the same way, thanks to the big crazy of low fat=high value, they have no way of saying. “I am smaller than you,” without making me feel like they are saying, “I am better than you, and PS you are fat.”
I NEED a way to say I am big, because I have a LOT of tiny friends. Karen is built so wee she can borrow the shoes Sara borrowed from Barbie—and once something is double borrowed it is pretty much GONE which explains why every Barbie in my house is barefoot. They are also mostly naked with slatternly matted hair, but this seems to be a personal failing of Barbie’s and cannot ALL be blamed on Karen. Lydia is about five feet tall with narrow, frail shoulders. When I look at her the first thing I see is how she has chosen to part her hair. My friend Julie is TALL, and God bless her for that, but she’s also very slightly built. Her ribcage is so narrow it could not contain a BIRD without the bird developing claustrophobia and requiring psychological intervention. Mir is built so slight that tiny won’t cover it – she is what my grandma would call TEE-niny.
Very few of my friends are TALL, much less large framed, and they tend to be small busted, slim hipped, not a lot of differential between the waist and hips, while I have a 12 inch differential and all pants hate me. I need some double D cupped Amazonian friends with mighty bow-pulling shoulders, VALKYRIE women in winged helmets with smoothly muscled thighs like marble columns. Mostly so that I can borrow their freakin’ CLOTHES.
I cannot EXPRESS this in a sentence or phrase, much less a word. It takes this WHOLE blog entry to say I am LARGER than most of my friends and explain what I mean when I say that.
So. I need a word for what I am that won’t make me feel like this ugly, rough hulking beast slouching toward Bethlehem to eat too much cake. Or perhaps to eat a bowl of teeny, tiny people. And yet I got NOTHIN’ which is tragic because I actually make my living coming up with ways to say things.
How would you say it? And can I steal your phraseology. Or does “I am big,” not even SOUND pejorative to you and this is more fun escape monkeys from my Big Bag O’ Crazy?
I am with you on this. I have the added problem of having the giant honking feet and hands of a man – men’s shoes and watches or special ordering, here I come – and yet, even at 5′ 8″, being the shortest person in my family. Also the heaviest. Because my brothers are all tall tall sticks. Who eat everything and still starve so that every rib is countable. *SIGH*
Anyway, I MEANT to comment in order to cast my vote for Valkyrie. I don’t think anyone thinks of a Valkyrie as tiny, slim, or small. On the other hand, that’s all muscle and boob, baby, not fat. So maybe that will solve our problem. Once we teach the whole world what we mean when we say it, that is.
I like Valkyrie. Although NORMAL should cover it.
Do you have a name for a woman that is short (5’2″) and muscular besides “stump?” Right now I have an extra 30-40 pounds on me so I am a short marshmallow woman but even at my smallest (size 3) and I could crack walnuts with my thighs, I was stumpish.
I really hate size labels. And not just the ones sewn inside our clothes.
What about “large-wristed”? Or JPT (just plain tall). Or “I am not scrawy.” That’s more than one word, but sometimes it takes more than one.
Valkyrie is good. I am NOT currently under the BMI guideline, but even if I were, the only thing that would get me into my sister’s clothes would be an axe. Taking huge chunks out of my torso. And then they would probably rapidly become stained and unwearable, so that’s not a viable strategy. But I am not tall, being just around 5’6″.
Why I got a medium-to-large sized frame and she got the teeny-tiny one is a mystery. Especially since both of my parents are both somewhere in between.
I look OK and could look pretty darn good if I were to lose 10-20 lbs, but it is true that terms such as “statuesque” and “queenly” (wait, that word doesn’t look as if it should be an adjective, or, possibly, even a real word) have been euphemisms for stout for entirely too long. Even “healthy” has taken on a pejorative tone, so, really, the degree to which vocabulary words can be stolen goes beyond reasonable.
And if anyone doesn’t care for “Valkyrie”, we can just go ahead and spell it “warrior goddess”.
You chicks all need your heads clonked together. This is also in response to Mir’s last post. I’m 62, overweight but strong, tall (though I have lost some height), and healthy. I’m all for being healthy. But our bodies change as we age. Do not get caught up in trying to have the bodies you had in your twenties — yes it’s sad that we didn’t realize that we looked great and nothing would remain in the same place it was then.
I realize that there is no good way to make being the healthiest you can be into a competitive sport. Perhaps living health is the best revenge.
I believe (and she can correct me if I am wrong) that Kira likes to say she comes from “sturdy stock.” I think of both you and her as being ATHLETIC (which to me = impressive muscle mass), and I do not differentiate that one of you is tall and the other is not.
Also? I know this is a no-no to southern sensibility but I would CHEERFULLY KILL to have your boobs for a day. So. I know it contributes to that whole “feeling big” thing, but as a member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee, I am envious.
I don’t hear “big boned” as a pejorative UNLESS I am hearing it in Eric Cartman’s voice (“I’m not fat, I’m just big boned”), by the way.
My friend Donna and I (and we are big girls…not fat but well over 5’10′ and we cannot wear barbie shoes…nor can I usually find shoes in my size at most shoe stores) we stopped using the word ‘older’ when we hit 40. We substitute ‘beautiful’ as in ‘as I get more beautiful’…so maybe the same could work for us big girls.
We aren’t bigger we are just more beautiful!
I LOVE Valkyrie! I was going to suggest Amazon, but that’s been adopted to pretty much entirely mean tall. I AM A VALKYRIE and I’m proud of it.
*sigh* I admit it. I’m built like a stump. Short and muscular, these days tending toward extra baggage. But hey, that’s what comes with life right? A love of chocolate has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I like Amazon. Never mind just tall, to me it describes tall, strong, solid and powerful. But Valkyrie would do just as well.
Got nothin’ over here. When I was at my ALL TIME SMALLEST. . .I said to my mother, “Momma, there is just NO WAY my rib cage will ever be smaller than a medium. Ribs don’t lose weight.”
I spent all of my time in Jr. High and High School feeling like the Amazon of which you speak. . .BECAUSE I WAS. . .especially compared to the 4’9″ 85 lb. cheerleaders I hung out with. Seriously. I was the TALLEST, BIGGEST BONED gal in the bunch. Later I got to college and found out that I was, INDEED FOR REAL AND FOR TRUE, Big Boned. They did that whole bone density thing, and my coach said, “You will NEVER break a bone. Your bones are like elephant bones.” Now, to most girls this would have been insulting, but I was like, “Booyah!!!! Finally some proof.”
So I don’t have a word. . .just a rambling “with ya, sister.”
I do not hear Zaftig, statuesque or voluptuous, perjoratively. And ofcourse, while big boned or full framed is actually the most accurate description, they are the worst for secretly meaning fat. I think Valkyrie is an excellent description, and since the Tom Cruise movie wasn’t very popular I don’t think there will be much confusion over you calling yourself a Nazi (or anti nazi. what was the plot of that movie again?). Anyway, I vote for Valkyrie, despite the fact that I have had to retype ot three times because I totally can’t spell it. Or Boticelli babe.
I like Valkyrie but how do you use it in a sentence since it is a noun. I am valkerikesque? Maybe we can shorten it to Valki? Like, “OH you know jennifer? In sales? No? You would if you saw her…She’s that valki redhead?”
I bet we could make that catch on.
What about Xena? Lucy Lawless was this tall, large framed, gorgeous woman. Maybe…. Xena-luptuous?
When my husband and I were on our second date, he held my hand. Then picked it up, examined it closely, and murmured “now those are *working girl* hands.” He didn’t mean street-kind of working, he meant ranch-kind of working which is, well, true. 5’3″ and lived on a ranch my whole life – if you don’t have formidable hips, the steer pull you right out of the saddle.
I really, really like the valki adjective.
My son and I were just discussing this very thing today. He’s 12 and was asking if I knew how “popular” the large-size models are becoming. After telling me how he thought the regular models were prettier, I explained to him that the plus-size models are what “normal” women are like, including me. So would that mean Marilyn Monroe would have been a Valkyrie?
Valkyrie and valki are great, but I have to support curvaceous and goddess, too. I don’t consider statuesque a pejorative, mostly because it always makes me think of the movie “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.” (They describe her as statuesque, and c’mon, have you seen her photos?!)
I’m big literally (5’11″, size 12 feet, broad shoulders, big wrists, etc.) and euphemistically speaking (Ahh! The fat!) so I’m just totally screwed haha. Oh well – one mouthful at a time, taking steps to be healthier…
Actually, Mir, I refer to myself as being from sturdy peasant stock. I usually mean in in regards to childbirth, because I deliver babies like I’m expected in the fields that afternoon. But it applies to all sorts of sturdiness, no?
I had a friend when I was twenty-ish and waiting tables. She was a little younger than me, so she was a hostess. She was this gorgeous, tall young woman with a headful of blonde hair that perpetually looked like it was being attractively ruffled by an off-camera fan. Hourglass figure, not overweight at all, but big. She was just toggled one size up on the VIEW options in life.
One day an elderly man came in to eat lunch and when she approached him to show him to his table, his face lit up, he grabbed her by the wrist, and said, “oh, oh, oh…aren’t you a HEALTHY girl?”
She was quite offended, and kept snarling about him and his comment, but I think it’s a lovely description. Some of us ARE healthy sized. For heaven’s sake.
PS I am OFFENDED by Valkyrie, because I can’t be one because I am too short.
Okay, not offended, but still. YOU get Valki and I get Stump? Life is SO NOT FAIR.
I am of the big-boned(I’m built like a linebacker) and voluptuous (overweight)varieties. If I were skin and bones I would still weigh more than my best friend if she was soaking wet with a 10 lb weight strapped to her behind. However, I am only 5’4″ so Valkyrie is not going to work for me. I always just say that I am “good Irish Peasant Stock”. I’m not sure exactly how that is different from Kira’s “sturdy peasant stock”. Perhaps the Irish portion denotes the lovely bag of crazy that comes with the total package. Though, for the record, it is the “fun” kind of crazy.
My friend Julie suggested Brick House. Mighty, mighty! (And you do nto have to be tall to be one, Kira!)
Julie and I do not, however, let it all hang out. Ever. And neither does Kira. *sniff*
Pandoravox, I personally think that Irish IS the very most fun kind of crazy. She said hopefully. And Irishly.
I was raised southern by a woman who was fat-phobic. HATED fat people. Unfortunately, her oldest daughter (me) was of sturdy German stock and in the average height range (5’7″). No way was I ever going to get down to her 90 pounds and 5’1″ size.. *le sigh*
Now that I have several decades and 800+ miles distance, I can pity her. I like to say that she was expecting a Southern Thoroughbred, but got a Clydesdale instead. When I picture the BEAUTIFUL Budweiser Clydesdales in full stride, I have no issues with that analogy.
Looking forward to this so I can haz stalker motivation from your efforts.
Thanks!
How’s this? “Like a Rolls Royce, built for comfort, not for speed”.
I once had a doctor ask me if I worked out since my shoulders were wide and muscled. After I fell off the exam table laughing I told him no, I’d never seen the inside of a gym! So, at 5’5″ I’m too short for Valkyriism but am willing to be a Valki friend anyway.
Oh Joshilyn, how you make me smile with your clevery writings. Slatternly. Tee-tiny. Yes you are a Southern woman, and I LOVE that you use words like that. But I digress. I was reading your post, going to suggest “Amazonian” or “Valkyrie” and then lo! you used both of those words. Those words to me conjure a vision of a tall, strong, really sexy woman. So claim it girl! I once met Gabrielle Reese, who as you know is an Amazonian athlete who is also quite movie star gorgeous. And let me just say, it was impressive. She is about 6 feet tall, and beautiful with long blonde flowing hair, and she had a wonderful figure, but she was a big, strong girl who could fold a man in half. Not fat by any means, but if you put her next to a regular sized person (say 5’5″ which is average I think), they would look . . . tee-tiny. Tall, big boned women are striking, they wear clothes well, and men like them a lot from what I can see. So there you go.
As far as words, how about lusty, stacked, or statuesque? Brick house? That’s all I got . . .
I’m 5’8 and have fought my weight my ENTIRE life (well, since I was five) and when I successfully starved the fat cells into submission for a few years during high school, I was MORTIFIED that I no matter what I did I could not make my hip bones and ribcage smaller. These days, I cannot find either. BUT, if I were to succeed at becoming fit, I think I might like to be called “Generously sculpted.”
I am Norwegian, Swedish and German, full figured, big-boned, healthy, all of them describe me. I am strong even though I don’t work out continuously. I have a “friend” (I use the term lightly here) who is one of those teeney-tiny women who runs, does spinning class, etc, all the time. She can’t open a jar on her own, if her daughter’s water bottles are screwed on a little too tightly, she sends them to me. She is raising her daughters in the “eat only steamed vegetables for dinner” vein. I am raising my daughters in the “be as strong as you possibly can, eat healthy and enjoy” vein. I am extremely proud when my girls talk to others about how strong their mother is. Even if other people look at me as fat, I know I’m healthy and strong, and so do my daughters.
OK, I did not read all the comments so forgive me if I repeat someone.
I think we should take back words like curvy and voluptuous. They are gorgeous words intended originally to describe gorgeous, sexy bodies, and I want them back.
Like how feminists decided to make the word “bitch” a positive thing, or how other ethnicities will use a word that has previously been derogatory in order to make it their own and take the hate out of it. Not everyone agrees with doing that, of course, but words like zaftig, curvy, voluptuous were originally positive words.
I think we should take back the words intended to describe sexy bodies because they were originally good words until the political correctness police took over the English language.
Also, girl you are an hourglass and I, personally, hate you for it.
Wow. Yanno I adore you, Joshilyn (at least I hope you know it), but I find this post a tee-tiny bit offensive.
Here’s the subtext I’m hearing, “What’s a word I can use to say I’m big without saying I’m fat because I’m not fat and we all know fat is a bad thing and I’m not fat, and it’s not my fault that I’m big (and P.S. Did I mention that I’m NOT fat?).
I am fat. All the people in my family are fat, at least once we hit a certain age. In fact, in genealogical circles, our family line is described as people who are stick-thin in youth and then get really fat. The men all have round pot-bellies; the women are fat all over. We can be thin, but only by following starvation level diets. I eat a very healthy diet, and I exercise regularly, and I still wear plus sizes.
I don’t think the problem is that there’s isn’t a word for “big” that doesn’t imply “fat.” I think the problem is that we attach values to ALL of our sizes. So you hate the word, “zaftig,” and Debra and Leanne hate the word, “stump,” Kira’s colleague hated the word, “healthy,” and Mir probably hates the phrase “small-breasted” (subtext of which probably sounds like, “I have hot hooters compared to your baby buds, you poor, unsexy thing”).
When you post about how to accept your body shape because it’s not fat, you are contributing to the negative stereotype that fat = bad, and that fat people choose to be fat and need to go on whatever starvation diet they have to to change.
I don’t think I’ll be reading 5FP much. Somehow I don’t see the appeal in listening to really attractive, normal-sized, healthy women bemoan the last ten pounds they can’t seem to lose.
Well actually…that’s a WHOLE nother post, Katrina. And something I am going to post about relatively soon. I tried to be sure to say that, right up front.
I also think that subtext is –at least in part — a subtext you are reading, not a subtext I wrote. I’m a reader response girl, educational-theory-ally speaking.
As I said briefly in the front, I agree with you that it’s insane that female size has become equated with female value, especially since 85% of it is in our OWN heads. I think it is SUPER ESPECIALLY insane that we think this is only true for US. In other words, most women don’t see other people —male or female — as more or less valuable based on their size, and yet we consistently see OURSELVES that way.
DIGRESSION: I CERTAINLY see myself that way. That’s some big crazy. My friends and family have loved me at size 8 and size 18, no more no less. And yet, these same women who love me no matter my size, feel they are less valuable when they are heavier, though other’s love for them remains unchanging. It’s bizarre and I think has something to do with Vogue magazine and Pavlov’s dogs.
“My weight does not impact my value as a person” is a thing I know in my head, but the road from the head (intellectual understanding) to the heart (actual belief) is a long long trip. Especially when you are tall like me. *grin* If you don’t have that mental illness then YAY YOU and can I be you when I grow up? But the truth is, it IS culturally prevalent, the word fat IS seen as a pejorative, and calling someone fat is considered mean and hurts their feelings. I am a word person, I like words to MEAN WHAT THEY MEAN. Words that mean what I am —- voluptuous, large framed — no longer mean what they mean. I want a word that DOES mean that, precisely and exactly.
FOR THE RECORD: I DO think it is important to be a healthy weight for your height and size. Healthy is the main word here. I think the extremes are both deadly—anorexia and morbid obesity will flat, freakin’ kill you. In that way, fat IS bad, just as a lack of fat can be bad. In the same way…you need cholesterol to live. HAVING NONE will kill you, and having too much will kill you. It has nothing to do with the person’s human value as a sentient being capable of love, but there ARE many good reasons to be healthy, to watch what one eats, eat more fruit and less Cheetos (even though I LOVE cheetos….oh! love!) and to work out. Many wonderful reasons.
THAT’S what I am doing here on 5FP — although I am a natural bemoaner so there will be some of that, yes—but really? I am here for 3 reasons. To entertain myself and others, to make myself and others think about my food and exercise choices, and to make myself accountable to these other women and to you, because I tend to sneak off and eat 1 pound boxes of Godiva assortments if I am not accountable to anyone. That is not healthy. That is not good for my body, and I want to take care of my body, because I LIVE in it.
It’s indicative of how CHARGED and CRAZY the issue of female body weight has become that I can’t talk about wanting a word for tall and big boned that actually still means tall and big boned without it being offensive. Does it have to mean I am cruelly judging fat people by wanting to be able to say I am big boned without saying I am overweight?
I AM deeply sorry you are offended…I worried about that posting this, and I tried to say up front LOOK! ITS BAD THAT WE HAVE VALUE AND FAT COMBINED but can we put that aside for a second and talk about something that bothers a lot of women, me included? It IS hard to put aside — it is SO prevalent. But I tried anyway. Offending you — or anyone — was not my intent. My intent here was only to express an opinion. And say amusing things about disreputable state of my child’s Barbies.
I quite enjoy the idea of Valki as an adjective. But my personal vote is for goddess, because that is how those illustrations of all the mighty goddesses look. Athena was tall and strong and could probably crush a man’s head with her rack, but she was gorgeous too. And ditto for Aphrodite and Juno and all of them. So you, my dear, are a GODDESS.
I agree with Katrina and I agree with you. That is, I think there’s a deep sickness in our culture about women’s sizes and it’s hard to get around it if you’re part of this culture at all, AND I think that basically any word to describe women that implies any kind of non-tiny size will eventually be tainted with that sickness. Basically, when we’re afraid of something in this culture, the name for it becomes pejorative, and then we try to find a different name to take away the pejorativeness and/or reclaim the power of it. (I’m thinking of the many best-practice names over the decades for different ethnic groups, and also for people of differing physical and mental abilities.) But if the thing itself is what we’re afraid of, changing the name only does so much.
But getting back to the question at hand: myself, I like “zaftig” and “voluptuous”, and don’t actually think they are pejorative. But the term that has really endeared itself to me after a spell of reading the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books is “of traditional build.” I found that after spending some time in the company of the truly admirable and much-desired Precious Ramotswe, I was very happy to think of myself as being of traditional build. Even though I’m not from Botswana. I figure the term can refer to many different traditions.
I always and forever love you Joshilyn. Everything I read that you write makes me skip through daisies. I’m just saying. I’ve been sadly away from the FTK and was directed here by my good friend Erin Anne because she knows I want to have your babies and oh, indeed, I do.
I am *fat*. Of the fat sort. And I am very milkmaid-y and even if I were not fat I would still be milkmaid-y. I’ve got the 36-24-36 of the Brick House, except those numbers are squared. Or some such.
Thing is, I love what you posted. And I love to see how other women work out and work with and work through their body images and their view of others. We have a HARD damn time, I believe, as women, because we are taught from the cradle just ’bout to be oh so concious of the wheres and whyfors of how we look. And then we are bombarded with teh “beauty” that’s airbrushed and touched up and personal trainerized all around us.
My desire for me, is to love *this* me. And then to do all I can to make this *me* as healthy as possible.
As a fat chick, I didn’t find your post offensive. I understand what you are saying. And I hate it that we have to even look for another word.
Big. I’m big. I’m bigger than you. She’s bigger than me.
We’re all made of lovely things, however. And your lovely things just spill right out of your mouth. Or, perhaps, your fingers. Because if they were spilling out of your mouth, that would be right gross.
I’m looking forward to the January Challenge. I’ll play along at home…lol.
Thank you for being utterly squishy.
Josh, I’m built of sturdy German stock mixed with sturdy Irish stock. I lost 80 pounds. EIGHTY pounds. I thought for sure when I lost the weight, I’d be SO, SO small. Nope. I still have big thighs, a full waist, and will never be called teeny tiny. It’s just my body build.
You can borrow my clothes. I’ve got some cute stuff.
Big is always going to be perjorative as long as you think of it as bad, which you do.
Fat is always going to be perjorative as long as it also means that stuff you cut off of meat.
What ever happened to Rubenesque? That’s always my favorite. You can’t deny that those women are smokin’ hot…and way curvy. No rib cages or collar bones jutting out of their skin!
I’d love to be friends with you, but you still can’t borrow my clothes ’cause they’d fall off you. But we can still hang out.
I have loved Mir for years, though I have never met her in person. I was going to e-mail her today and tell her she is no longer my BFF after your description of her! And, good news…YOU, are my new BFF!
And, guess what? I am FAT! And, I am not offended by your post. And, my boobs aren’t even that great. I, too, want to start making healthier choices and exercise more(as soon as I finish recovering from foot surgery).. I have let go of the “want to be the weight I was when I got married…100 pounds ago, ARRRGGHHH. I now just want to be in the healthy range of weight and BMI.
Squishy. Valki (!!). Curvy. Milkmaid(!!!). And “built like Xena” – these are awesome!!
“Built like a brick shithouse” is good too, though I can’t nail down exactly why.
“Goddess” feels dumb: it smacks of trying too hard to cover up low self-image, to my ears. Anyway, that’s what the sexy persons who want us should be calling us, it seems to me (cf. Shakespeare’s “I never saw a goddess go”…….).
“Athletic” is nice too!
As for the short folks: I’ve always said that dynamite comes in small packages……..
I just want to point out the unfairness of the fact that this entire topic does not apply to MEN. Men are not supposed to have petite, small-boned frames. In men, “big-boned” is a compliment and something to be envied because it means that if he puts on any extra pounds nobody will notice because those pounds will just stretch and blend across the massive, manly big-boned frame.
That said, “big-boned” is a term that for women not only implies “fat” but also has the danger of implying “manly”, so it is best to stay away from adjectives for the bones entirely.
I like Mir’s “ATHLETIC”.
Amazon or Amazonian still makes the mind go toward big (unless you are me and it makes you think of books). But add a comparison to a specific pop-culture Amazon like Wonder Woman a.k.a. Linda Carter and you have gorgeous.
I’ve always been big-boned. Even when I was still a wee size 5. I’ll never see that size again, but regardless, I’m sturdy. Tall. Broad in the shoulders and hips. I’m 5’10 1/2″ tall. I wear a size 10 shoe. Dainty I will never be, unlike my sister, who is 5’6″ and wears a size 0. In August I started low-carbing, and I’ve lost over 50 lbs. I still wear a plus size, although I see a future where I won’t. It won’t matter ~ I’ll still be tall. Big boned. And even when I reach my goal weight, the smallest I’ll likely be is a size 10 or 12. Still “plus sized”, as far as a model goes. *sigh*
Personally, I prefer being an Amazon.
I claimed that one when I was the tallest person in my 6th grade class. I’ve never looked back.
Fat. I still am. I started this diet in the quest for a healthier body ~ and I’ve gotten that already. My cholesterol and blood sugar are optimal. The horrible migraines I suffered for 6 years are gone. I no longer require my anti-crazy pills to function in my daily life. I will never be tee-niny again, but I don’t care. I will be healthy, I already AM beautiful, and I will always be an Amazon. Go, me!
Well at least you’re tall! I’m 5’2″ and big boned, etc. I can’t do staturesque (a word I love and don’t think means fat) OR valki. Best I can do is “plump” or “big breasted” or “matronly.” (LOVE that last one…gag!)
I feel bad for my kids though. Cuz our whole family has a certain body type–stocky, muscular–and they are not fat but they have a layer of fat that their skinny little friends don’t have. And they rarely eat junk food and they eat less than a lot of these skinny kids. It’s body type. But will my 12 year old daughter really get that? I’m over 40 now and I will say that “body type” is a very cold comfort.
I agree: there’s no way to say it. I’m tall and Dutch, that’s how I say it—and then “Dutch” sounds like a euphemism for fat. OH I DO APOLOGIZE TO SOCIETY FOR MY ETHNIC ORIGIN AND NON-OSTEOPOROSIS-INCLINED BONES!