Man Boobs
We’re so entrenched in that snips ‘n snails bullshit, that we can’t accept bodies which don’t fall on either extreme of the gender continuum. […] When my bully grabbed my breasts and called me “Tits,” he was taking what he wanted. He was also reminding me that I was no better than a girl. I was beneath him.
-Matt Cornell “The Story of my Manboobs”
This article touched upon a lot of my own experiences growing up as a fat kid. Early on I experienced the shame and self-hatred that Cornell associates with his ridicule through the internalization of the popular opinion: manboobs were the bane of manhood. Just the fact that I knew that the fat on my chest was gender transgression made me expect and accept any negative reception from my peers. It was my fault in a way, for being fat, so their sizeist attitudes was just a normal reaction that I couldn’t equivocate with racism or sexism or whatnot.
Vulnerability stuck with me.
So when the ridicule came about, I didn’t talk back when the other guys would yell “SCOOP” and cup my chest then snicker off; it robbed you of any respect— just some fat on your chest. Sure this eventually turned into a self-hatred that had me scowling at the mirror every time I’d accidentally turn around to face the mirror before a shower. Sure it motivated me enough to first hide my fat with baggy clothes, but that eventually led to starving it away and, after some reconciling and much work, exercising it away. But any who, the motivation to lose the fuckin’ boobs wasn’t because they were indicative of high-blood pressure or anything like that: it was because I was tired of internalizing the stigma and the subsequent self-loathing/depression.
