Not Hot

Its amazing how one simple comment can manage to turn an entire morning sour.

When I drive to work in the morning, I frequently listen to Preston and Steve’s morning radio show on 93.3 WMMR.  They’re funny, they provide entertainment news, and when they get too raunchy (which happens occasionally) I just change the channel.

I haven’t precisely met these guys, but I have seen them up close.  The company my husband used to work for won a contest to have them come out and broadcast from a location of their choosing and I went out to watch the show.  It was a really fun time, and they seemed nice.  In appearance, they both look like the tall, broad bodied Philly guys you see drinking beer and yelling at football on a Sunday afternoon.   I don’t know them so I can’t say what they’re truly like – but on air they tend to come off like they view women as an entirely separate species from men, not just a different gender.  In other words, there’s people – and then there’s women.

Last Wednesday they were discussing the tendency to look at boobs, which according to research is something that both men and women do when they’re on display (ie. when a girl is wearing a low cut shirt).  I can’t argue that point as I myself have noticed that when a woman has an outfit on that leaves a lot of them hanging out there or if her cups runneth over, I do glance.  It’s not sexual interest on my part, it’s just a kind of reflex.  They’re there, they’re out, so your eyes automatically drift over the area.

If people look at my own chest I don’t notice it, not even when I’m wearing one of my low cut shirts.  To be honest I even don’t notice the trend when I have one of my corsets on, which do display the twins rather nicely.  I’m either oblivious or I’m somehow escaping people’s tendency to look.  My husband looks at me of course, but he’s flat out obvious in his abundant admiration so that’s impossible to miss.  If he’s ogling other women as well, he’s so subtle about it that I have never once noticed him do it.

At any rate the conversation was about boobs, the fact that they’re pretty, and that all of us seem to like to see them.  Simple enough.

I’m trying to remember precisely how it was put, but I’m paraphrasing.  At one point during the discussion one of the guys said something to the effect of: “You look at them even if the woman isn’t hot, if it’s a big girl that doesn’t make any difference – you still look.”  He wasn’t trying to be mean when he said it, the statement about heavier women was relayed as though it was a factual matter as obvious as the blue color of the sky above.

I’m sad to report that this offhand, bigoted remark managed to tank my entire mood.

Believe it or not I actually do sometimes manage to forget that I’m fat.  I can go about my day feeling like a reasonably pretty, leonine thirty-something of decent height with an epic, ruby red dye job and an amazing rack.  And then boom, you hear something like this and are forced to remember the truth:  oh… right… I’m not hot.  Sorry, I forgot for a few seconds there, I’m so glad you reminded me.

Yeah, I know – it’s just the opinion of one small minded jerk.  Big girls are not hot – period.  Yeah, I know a lot of open minded, amazing men who think this kind of generalization is flat out stupid.

Look, I get that everyone is entitled to their own opinion on attractiveness.  Personally I can see beauty in almost everyone.  This is because I look for it.  I look at a person and ask myself – what’s beautiful about them?  When you deliberately do this it’s actually pretty easy to see.  And this isn’t to say I don’t have my preferences, most of my friends are aware (with fond amusement) of my fascination (*cough*obsession*cough*) with pretty guys who look like Tolkien elves.  Sure, generally I don’t like hugely muscled guys – but I’m not blind, Vin Diesel is still very attractive to me despite this fact.

The point is that my particular favorite type of male appearance doesn’t prevent me from seeing the beauty in each and every one of my male friends in their unique and wonderful ways.  Heck, I was watching an episode of Deadliest Catch the other week and it occurred to me that one of the Captains was attractive.  He was a big, grizzled, fuzzy fisherman guy who was missing half a finger – but he had a warm, appealing personality and nice eyes, and I realized I was sitting there thinking that he was really cute.  My personal preferences do not prevent me from seeing the beauty in variety.

I am not married to some unrealistic fantasy elf.  I am married to a very real, tall, gorgeous, rumply nerd with silver hair like the pelt of a timber wolf and graceful hands.  His face is the most beloved to me in all the world – and as such it’s also the most beautiful.

This radio dude made a sweeping generalization on what is allowed to be hot that I would never make.  Not even just in everyday, private conversation, let alone on a public radio show where many of the people listening to me might be “big girls” or “big guys”.

And as always, it’s totally okay to negatively stereotype an entire group of people so long as it’s fat people.  If he’d said: “You look at them even if the woman isn’t hot, if it’s an Asian that doesn’t make any difference – you still look.”  Think that would go over with nobody objecting?  Of course not, because it shouldn’t.  It's bigoted as well as being obviously untrue.  Although it's also bigoted and untrue for heavier women, nobody seems to care and it's perfectly fine and acceptable that this asshat announced it on morning radio.

So thanks dude, you just broadcast to a portion of your listener base that despite whatever else about us may be true – whether we’re sexy, or funny, or beautiful, or stylish, or brilliant… in your opinion if we’re also big, we’re not hot.  End of story.

Thanks.  Thanks for the reminder.

Dressed up for the guy who appreciates me, and whose opinion on the matter is the only one that counts.