I know I might get some flack for this, and perhaps it's been discussed before, but I think the size-acceptance community should, to the best of its ability, put a moratorium on the use of "Big Beautiful Woman," "Big Handsome Man," and their corresponding acronyms.
These phrases implicitly assert that all big people are physically attractive. That's clearly not the case. Not all fat people are good-looking, just as not all thin people are good-looking. Making the opposite claim has a distinct air of protesting too much, as if fat people are so insecure with themselves that they need to make a preemptive claim on attractiveness to shore up their self-esteem. Imagine how ridiculous it would sound if all thin people insisted on being called BW or HM.
These terms also serve to linguistically support the false idea that all it takes for FAs or FFAs to be attracted to someone is that they be fat, since, apparently, all big people are also beautiful or handsome.
Now, I realize that in the community at this point, BBW and BHM just mean "fat girl" or "fat guy." Many people in the world at large, however, are not as inured to the use of these terms and justifiably take them at face value. IMO, it does not do the size-acceptance movement any favors to use language that suggests to the thin world that fat people need an attractiveness handicap to feel good about how they look. I would humbly suggest a switch to "FW" and "FM," (although yes, I know that this is like asking people to stop using LOL and WTF).
These phrases implicitly assert that all big people are physically attractive. That's clearly not the case. Not all fat people are good-looking, just as not all thin people are good-looking. Making the opposite claim has a distinct air of protesting too much, as if fat people are so insecure with themselves that they need to make a preemptive claim on attractiveness to shore up their self-esteem. Imagine how ridiculous it would sound if all thin people insisted on being called BW or HM.
These terms also serve to linguistically support the false idea that all it takes for FAs or FFAs to be attracted to someone is that they be fat, since, apparently, all big people are also beautiful or handsome.
Now, I realize that in the community at this point, BBW and BHM just mean "fat girl" or "fat guy." Many people in the world at large, however, are not as inured to the use of these terms and justifiably take them at face value. IMO, it does not do the size-acceptance movement any favors to use language that suggests to the thin world that fat people need an attractiveness handicap to feel good about how they look. I would humbly suggest a switch to "FW" and "FM," (although yes, I know that this is like asking people to stop using LOL and WTF).
