There have been a few ‘interesting’ articles which have recently raised the popular axe-grinding issue of encroachment while flying (please Google if you’re interested—there’s unfortunately no shortage of these screeds, and I’m loathe to link them). Anyone who has flown more than a few times experiences some form of encroachment: a stranger’s leg/thigh/shoulder/seat-back touches you, the narrow space allotted by most airlines becoming even more cramped, your likely uncomfortable flight becoming instantly more uncomfortable than usual.

In our fatphobic Western society it’s not surprising that these articles are largely framed as some undue outrage on behalf of thin people who have the ‘right’ not to be touched or want to be touched, and yet are being ‘forced’ to by fat people who are ‘taking up more space than they deserve.’

This argument is frankly silly. Everyone has the right not to want to be touched, but in cramped public transportation you do not have the right not to be touched. If it’s that big of a deal to you buy first-class tickets, buy two coach-class seats, or fly on a private jet. Those ideas not affordable/practical? Then why make the argument that fat people should do those things if they want to have the luxury of flying at all?

That is, what about the fat person’s right not to be touched? Is it dissolved because they somehow ‘deserve’ to be encroached upon by virtue being larger? It seems strange to reframe the argument as thin people encroaching on fat people, but bear with me. Call it a thought experiment. The fat person doesn’t want to be touched, in general, any more than the thin person. The fat person feels robbed of the ‘right’ amount of space for his/her body which is, given the average seat width is about 17.5” and getting narrower by the year, not really an unreasonable amount of space. It only seems unreasonable because the ‘average’ has been redefined as fitting an ever-shrinking fraction of the adult population comfortably.

The fat person, in general, doesn’t want to have to fight with you for arm/shoulder space or to have their thighs bruised by the armrest as they attempt to avoid being singled out by a flight attendant (who can bump them off their flight for such an egregious indiscretion). They don’t want to have to push themselves into the aisle or window-seat wall cavity in order to touch their neighbor as little as possible. Yet this is the reality of the vast majority of ‘unacceptably’ fat people who fly coach.

Not only does the fat person face the sure prospect of an extremely physically uncomfortable flight, but they must also worry about invoking their neighbor’s ire or the ire of the flight attendant. Each possesses the ability to make their life a living hell before the flight takes off (kicking them off Kevin Smith style), during the flight (by showing disgust or making rude comments, or by the neighbor ‘fighting back’ by purposefully jamming their legs/elbow/shoulders into the fat person’s body), or after the flight (by writing a nasty, vindictive article on how fat people on planes are the scourge of the righteous thin).

Again, what about the fat person’s right not to be touched or unduly harassed? Yet it rarely comes up in social discourse. If it comes up at all, it’s taken as a given that fat people ‘deserve’ to be mistreated, don’t deserve a reasonably comfortable flight or space on an airplane or any of the things the fatphobic acceptably-thinner fliers demand.

At bottom, no one has a right to the things the fatphobic fliers demand. All arguments making the case that a certain amount of ‘real estate’ is afforded by a coach ticket are arbitrary and have as their premise the idea that the too-fat body is less deserving/has less rights/etc than an arbitrarily-acceptable body. When it comes down to it the real misconception is that cramped transportation like flying on an airplane should offer you a comfortable amount of space, and that you should never have to brush another person’s body, or smell them, or hear them.

Blaming fat people for the nature of coach-class airplane travel is absurd. Instead of pitting people against each other, classifying them and dividing them by body type, use the marketplace to ‘demand’ a more comfortable flight. That is, eschew airlines which cram you in like sardines, or email the airline about your space complaints. Drive or take a bus. But don’t blame fat people for your uncomfortable flight. I guarantee you, they’re just as if not more uncomfortable than you are.

And yes, their comfort matters just as much as yours.