Polled 134 women in the BBW community on "What's the worst trait a male FA could have?" and here's how the results stacked out:
Approximately 39% said: Closeted (avoids introducing you to friends and family or possibly seeing you in public at all)
17% said: Size criticism (telling women they're too small or not big enough)
15% said: Creepy (sends you unsolicited misspelled or inappropriate messages, sometimes repeatedly)
11% said: Promiscuity (slept with - or tries to sleep with - everyone you know)
5% said: Unsatisfactory penis size (just to put the boot on the other foot)
5% said: Other (something not mentioned here)
4% said: Poor fatiquette (walks too fast when you're out or selects restaurants with tiny booths)
1% said: Lets self become unattractive (please choose this only if it's the person's own fault)
The most alarming stat was the that last one, it doesn't bode well for the stereotype of fat girl desperation that voters would put up with their partner not taking care of themselves or maintaining the body their other half loves. But by a landslide - thank fuck - 39% are not so desperate that they'd knowingly put up with an FA who'd hide them from friends and family. As one reader puts it, "closet cases are the worst by far. The rest are avoidable/ignorable...closet isn't always as obvious until it's too late. Closet cases aren't always 'come over my house at midnight to fuck so I don't have to be seen in public with you.' Sometimes its more like, all the sudden you realize it's been 10 dates and you haven't met any of their friends yet."
I pegged creepiness higher but I guess those guys don't really make it to the dating stage do they (though a few do). Size criticism of women came in higher than expected and doesn't quite jive with the 1% of gals who'll put up with however their man looks. Really, ladies, you have the right to a preference just like we do, and we use it, trust me. Doesn't excuse us telling you how you should look to suit us though. Dudes need to reject more politely, not matter-of-factly tell someone to gain a few, which is just as obnoxious as telling someone to lose some first, fat-positive subculture or no fat-positive subculture.
Some of the comments for 'other':
"For me, the worst personal thing I've come up with for guys is the whole fact that they want to live online and not in real life. I have no desire to just 'talk' about sexy stuff and/or meet ups with people, I want to do it, and yet the few guys who have contacted me only want to live in some fantasy land that stays on the net."
"Someone I know told me recently that one of the things that annoy them is the number of people online who talk a good game about being a FA, and yet this all exists in their head, as they've never actually dated a fat person before. They're like 'put up or shut up,' and I have to say, I agree. I don't mind staying in fantasy land if someone is up front about it, but why so many keep up the illusion that one day they'll move from make-believe to reality is beyond me."
"Has anyone ever done a study to determine where FAs place in terms of mean salary? I'm guessing it would be below average, sadly. Most (not all, but most) financially successful men care obsessively about image, and would be most vulnerable to peer pressure about the type of women they 'should' be worth. Poorer men are often more independent, sooner to flout conventional rules and social strictures -- but that tends not to advance their careers."
"The type that bugs me most is the one who is so completely ruled by his 'FA-ness' that he can't focus on anything else - everything revolves around how much he loves fat and the effects/consequences of it....to the point of mind-numbing boredom that makes me want to jump out a window. When EVERYTHING is about my being fat. All conversation, all sex, all activities. I'm a person who happens to be fat. Fat does not define who I am."
When you put "closeted behavior" on the same list as "lets themselves become unattractive" and ask women to prioritize then, yeah choice 2 will be low on the list. An FA has to be out in the open before a relationship can get to the point where one person starts to let themselves go.
ReplyDeleteI think you should ask the bbws how they actually feel about the unattractive thing to get a better idea about what's really going on there rather an assume we might be compromising. Could be that we are just more open to physical variation than men are, or that we care more about how a guy behaves than we do about how he looks.
I can only echo ckaricai. It's a bit patronizing of you to assume this data indicates that us poor BBWs don't feel entitled to an attractive partner.
ReplyDeleteIt would be patronizing to assume that, but I'm just trying to interpret the fact it only earned a mere 1%, below not only being closeted, but penis size and promiscuity as well. It's a flawed poll because everyone really should have chosen "closeted," but I wanted to see what single issue struck women the most viscerally and it appears looks wasn't it. Maybe this is a good thing, perhaps, a sign of better-understood tolerance than the shallower world understands. But I also believe a fair amount of "poor BBWs" sell themselves short when it comes to what they'll put up with, which is why I wanted to poll in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAgain, maybe you should do a poll specifically asking bbws what they will put up with rather than what they won't tolerate. Semantics? Probably, but I think it makes a difference.
ReplyDeleteWell, the entire point of the poll was to pick nearly all things everyone would dislike to see which one causes the biggest kneejerk reaction. And more than half of the polled women chose ones that weren't "closeted." Except for promiscuity and penis size I can't imagine anyone putting up with any of these in a partner, though some things are less bothersome apparently than others.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, women are generally more flexible about men's bodies than men are with women's.
ReplyDelete