Guys Who Like Fat Chicks

According to the man born Anthony Ray, that’s not at all what he meant. “I’m talking about the dumbbell shape. The coke bottle,” he clarifies over the phone from Atlanta. “I’ve seen girls that look like me and been like, ‘Ohhhhh, I’m Baby’s got Back!’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no.’ It wasn’t ‘Baby Got Back and Center, and Middle, and Front.’ ” He does understand, though, why some of these FA fellows might get confused. “Obviously, more white people like the song than black. Black people kind of view ‘Baby Got Back’ as like, ‘Oh, yeah, we already knew that.’ It’s not even an issue to them. They wouldn’t even think to sing about it. Whereas white guys are kind of like, ‘Yeah, finally!’ ” (See the full Sir Mix-a-Lot interview here.)

Maybe so. Yet the cultural stigma of fat is spreading globally. Rapidly. Arizona State University researchers asked residents with an average BMI of 25 from 10 places like American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and Mexico—places where both fat and thin bodies were traditionally attractive—to assign true or false beliefs to cultural statements like, “People should be proud of their big bodies” (false in every country surveyed but Tanzania) and “A big woman is a beautiful woman.” The latter was, in every country, deemed false. “Fifteen years ago in American Samoa, fat bodies didn’t have a negative salience, and that’s shifted,” says Alexandra Brewis, executive director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, who oversaw the April 2011 study. She fingers the spread of American media and the moral implications of the War of Obesity. “There’s a lot of people who didn’t realize that they should be ashamed of their bodies are now probably learning to be.”

“Fat is a risk factor,” argues one thirty-something New York–based physician who is African-American and also identifies as a Fat Admirer. “It’s also a proxy, but also an inaccurate proxy. Some people work out every day and are still fat; some people don’t work out at all and are fat; some people don’t work out at all and are skinny; some people work out a lot and are skinny. It’s very individual. You can’t be so declarative about it.” (The standard medical response is that nearly all people with a BMI over 30 would be healthier at a lower weight.)

“One statistic I’d really like to know is how many people have banged a fat person,” wonders Dan. “I’ve heard guys I know say, ‘I wanna see what it’s like to sleep with a 500-pound woman.’ There has to be some idea that it might feel good, or that it could be interesting to say that—you’re not going to say, ‘I’m going to sleep with a porcupine just to see what it’s like.’ It’s not that I defend closet FAs, I’m just very interested in not dismissing them. Let’s say half or more than half of our population is dormant and nothing is being done with them.” 

Dan likes to imagine a Guys Who Likes Fat Chicks census. “So many girls end up entering the community just because of one guy,” he says. “Just discovering ‘Wow, I can be attractive!’ And that changes your life. It just never occurred to you before, which is so weird,” he pauses. “That’s why I’m willing to put my life—if you want to call it that—on the line for this.”

cdodero@villagevoice.com | @camilledodero