“Real Women have curves.”

It was on Facebook today when the metaphorical straw broke the camel’s back. It was one of those stupid posts where there were two pictures being compared to the other, with text overtop of them saying “when did this (insert picture) become hotter than this (insert second picture)”

Horse shit. Poppycock. Insulting. Revolting. Complex and misunderstood. Words that came into my head upon seeing this picture for the fifty billionth time in the past two months on numerous social media outlets, hopefully making feminists everywhere cringe. The pictures and subject matter in question are the weight and body size of women around the world.

The above picture is a good example of the horse shit that is going around social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Imgur, and Reddit. What frightens me more than men posting this picture is when women do it. But I’ll get to that in a bit.

There is such a thing as being too skinny, and there is such a thing as being too fat, and that is all dependant on your body type. There is no body “average.” That would be ridiculous. That’s like saying there is only one type of Cancer. Average is relative to many things, height, age, body type. Sometimes your looks can be deceiving – you might look a little under or over weight to the observer, but you are perfectly healthy. Some people have a fast metabolism and they literally can not gain weight. And the same goes for losing it. These are things everyone should already know – I should not saying anything new here.

Now, this is my blog, so I am allowed to talk about whatever the fuck I fancy. I am currently overweight. I have been trying to lose it, though. I have lost almost 35 pounds and counting in the past few months by eating healthy and exercising almost every day. But I am not doing it so I can be “skinny,” but rather so I can be healthy. I am ashamed to say it took me this long to realise that exercising actually makes you feel a shit tonne better, not only about yourself, but just in general. Must be those endorphins I keep hearing about. (Insert laugh here.) Anyways. The way that I see it, you should not be trying to look like something that society has told you to look like for the past 80 years. You should be trying to look like you. As long as you are healthy and happy, who the fuck actually cares? You. You should be the only one that cares how you look. And hopefully, you are happy about it. Some guy at the bar on Friday referred to me as “the fat one.” And you know what I did? Brushed it off like a boss, drank more beer, and watched him get shut down by the server he was hitting on.

There are the more complex societal issues at hand here, though. “Real men like curves, something about not liking dog bones” (fun fact, if you’re not a dog you probably shouldn’t be eating snosages anyway) and the like are things that really get to me. Real men go for whatever the fuck body type they want. And the same goes for women. I myself have realised that I tend to go for taller, skinny guys. But that doesn’t mean I am opposed to anything other than that. (If it were though, my catch phrase could be “real men look like Waldo.”) Anyways – it is my preference. And I should not have to justify it. Nor should I be pushing it on anyone else.

What really drives me crazy is that it is the same sex, only furthermore perpetuated by stupid fucking magazines like Cosmo, that encouraged and continue to encourage things like the idea of women being thin, shaving their legs, and wearing heels. Things that have only really been in place and accepted for the past 100 years. You never heard about any of that crap, at least not seriously, two hundred years ago.

And now all of the sudden we are seeing this overcompensation for what society has told you since you were a child. “You don’t need to be skinny like Barbie, because being skinny is disgusting.” An overcompensation for years of being berated with photoshopped images of celebrities. First of all, how DARE you. It’s disgusting is what it is. And it’s annoying. And what makes things even worse is when other women say things like this. “Well, she is gross because she is skinny.” YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT SHE IS GOING THROUGH. You don’t know what she has been told, how she reacted, her health, anything. So shut up. Seriously. Real women don’t bully other women into thinking that their body type and appearance defines who they are. Case fucking closed.

My point is simple – stop shaming women into thinking that their body type somehow reflects what is and what is not sexy in society. The same society that told women that they need to be skinny to be happy is now telling them that they need curves to be sexy. I am not going to say that all women are beautiful because I do not believe in a universal law or standard of beauty. What I will say is that all women are women. (Really!?) All women have bodies. Real women are real women, regardless of their size, whether it be 200 pounds or 120 pounds. Stop telling women how they should look and act. It’s unfair. And it is high time that it stopped.