Melissa A. Fabello

Body neutrality is having hot sex with your partner and never overthinking the way that your ass smacks against their thighs. It’s not being embarrassed that you have fat on your body that is affected both by gravity and inertia, nor necessarily feeling sexier because you have fat on your body that is affected both by gravity and inertia. It’s enjoying that moment of intimacy, being comfortable in your body.

I wake up hungry, but I also wake up lighter, emptier. Something about it makes me feel purer. This is one feeling that’s positive in a sea of negative.

I was jealous of the dog. “That dog gets to be so thin,” I tried to explain, tearfully, to my partner, “and it doesn’t even have to try. I’ll never be that thin.”

So you’re on a diet, and you’re really pumped about it. You truly, honestly believe that you’re—say—“getting your body back” post-partum (that’s a harmful concept) or improving your fitness a la the latest technological tracking device (that’s also a harmful concept). And while I think we need to throw a lot of these ideas in the trash, I’m also understanding of how diet culture makes you believe that these are good things – things, in fact, to brag about.

And it’s that last one that really irks me: that most people — and especially most women’s — new year’s resolutions center on dieting and weight loss as the key to happiness.

The list on the board filled up with words like “ambitious,” “curious,” “intelligent,” and “dedicated.” And as my professor was wrapping up the activity, I sighed and raised my hand.

I finally looked at my syllabus today. It’s been sitting in my inbox for over a week, flashing at me to find out what I have to look forward to this upcoming fall semester – which books I need to buy (and how much money I’m going to drop on them), how many assignments I’ll be graded on, what I need to have prepared before our first class meeting.

And as much as I’m a Swifty, I’m a feminist first (a white one, by the way, at that), and I’m not here for any kind of feminism that would excuse, for instance, Taylor’s misunderstanding that race is irrelevant in pop culture politics (a la the feud with Nicki Minaj that never was).

And so I slid the scale to the back of my closet, started freely eating doughnuts when I craved doughnuts, and simply donated the jeans that stopped fitting instead of holding out hope for them.

Right now, today, as of writing this, I identify as queer. But I didn’t always.