I had a movie night with a few friends yesterday for one of our sexuality classes. During dinner, my one friend started talking about her 19 year-old brother who taught her about harpooning over the weekend.
A quick search of Urban Dictonary finds the definition of harpooning to be The act of successfully bringing home a woman equal to or greater than your own body weight in desperation at the end of a long drunken night of being rejected by more attractive and better-endowed women. After successfully completeting this task, a man will be granted his license to harpoon and may continue to indulge in this difficult task.
My friend said that she immediately called her brother out on it, saying that it was a terrible expression and hurtful to women. But she went on to say that her brother explained that it was a good way for boys/men who really like fat women to justify having slept with them. In other words, men who happen to just like the girl can pretend they were out harpooning to avoid criticism.
At first I was outraged that men would be calling women whales while simultaneously using them for sex. But as I thought about what my friend's brother had said, I started to feel pretty bad for the men too.
I think that it is all too easy to believe that we are the only ones who suffer from the "thin ideal" and fat hatred. I think that we leave thin people out of the equation and men as well because we feel that they are our oppressors. But not all thin people have dieted to that weight and hate us for being fat and not all (thin or otherwise) men hate fatties. Some of them are just as oppressed as we are.
Just think about the concept of having a "fat fetish." Why does the concept even exist? Men who date only thin women aren't "thin fetishists." It serves to explain the behavior: "I can't help it, I have a fat fetish. I would like thin women if I could." Similarly, harpooning can be seen as an excuse: "I didn't really like that fat woman, we were just all out harpooning." Nowhere can they say: "I love her (or like her or lust her) and she happens to be fat." And for that matter, nowhere can they say "I think her body is beautiful and that's why I want to sleep with her."
I wonder what goes through my husband's head whenever he introduces me to new people. I'm sure it must cross is mind. I'm sure that his friends from high school or work must think "what's wrong with him that he's with her" or "she must be really funny or something" or just simply "Her?" (Any Arrested Development fans out there?) This may just be my insecurities talking, but I imagine that I would have had less problems with my in-laws when we first met if I had been thin. (They said it was my personality but I wonder if that wasn't exacerbated by my weight.)
The truth is everyone suffers from fat hatred. Thin people suffer, fat people suffer, men who love fat women suffer. Even thin teenage boys who use the term "harpooning" suffer. Somehow, people have to stop buying into a system that serves no one. How can something that is clearly so hard, sound so easy?
Yes! While I do hate the term and it's usage, I must admit that guys have a lot of pressure to mate with a specific type of woman even if it's not their preferred "type."
ReplyDeleteI don't understand this, but I see it. Why guys don't just stand up and say, "I like ___ type of woman" I will never know. I think if they did we'd see a lot more diversity in the dating scene all over the world instead of the idiotic pressure they put on themselves and each other to bag a super model.