body positivity

Heads UP, Rav readers! JC Penney is launching a new boutique for plus-size clothing and they are not messing around!

A surge of adrenaline hits me. I want to snap a selfie. A semi-nude selfie.

There’s almost definitely a better way to begin this, but I can’t think of one more appropriate. Growing up is really fucking weird. One day you’re having a great time arguing if Doctor Doom would beat Darth Vader in a fight (he would,) and next thing you know you’re worrying about taxes and whatever a “mortgage” is.

We forego doctor visits because we know with near-total certitude that we are going to be told to lose weight. That we don’t need care — we just need to “cut back.”

Of course, summertime also seems to come hand-in-hand with partial nudity. Wearing next to nothing out in public is just as important a part of summer as barbecues and trips to the beach. That is, unless you’re anything outside the socially acceptable body types. Then it suddenly becomes an opportunity for people to dole out their own specific kind of “fashion justice.”

He's a very important member of our little corner of the web, which comes as no surprise, since he seems to be right on course to take over the whole damn world. Crop-tops and good hair for all!

If you asked me to guess what was going through her head, I would say she was in shock that a fat lady would wear a tight skirt, belly in full sight. This feminist act of taking up space, tacitly but clearly making room for myself in a fatphobic culture, is a bold-but-crucial move if you’re my brand of fat babe.

REAL TALK — my body is going to keep changing for the rest of my life. If it's not weight gain, it will be aging. If not aging, it could be an illness. If not an illness, it could be any number of things that will cause inevitable change in which I will be required to learn to love the change.