The narrative explores themes of body image, societal pressures, and the journey toward self-acceptance, intertwined with the complexities of female relationships and personal experiences. It delves into the protagonist's struggle with self-perception, her experiences at fat camp, and her evolving understanding of beauty and worth.
Pornography, Feminism, and Self-Image
The story begins with the narrator and her best friend, Olivia, attempting to watch feminist porn. The narrator expresses her aversion to pornography, describing the discomfort and cringe it evokes. The narrator's resistance to porn stems from a deeper discomfort with the artificiality and performance of desire, a stark contrast to the genuine emotions she seeks in connection and intimacy. She is constantly bombarded with societal expectations and the male gaze, which influence her self-perception and body image.
Olivia, on the other hand, is portrayed as more sexually liberated and adventurous, with a passport full of stamps, a wallet full of condoms, and a bookshelf full of books on polyamory and BDSM. Despite their differences, they share a close bond and a business centered around feminist activism.
The contrast between the narrator's discomfort with porn and Olivia's openness highlights different perspectives on sexuality and body image within feminism. The narrator's struggle to reconcile her personal feelings with the expectation of being "sex-positive" reflects a common tension experienced by many women.
The narrator and Olivia run a business that involves the color pink, tiaras, a selfie stick, and yelling their poetry at college students to teach them that rape is bad and often has nothing to do with a ski mask or an alleyway. In the videos they post of themselves online, men’s rights activists refer to Olivia as The Skinny One and the narrator as The Hippo. The audience winces. It’s part of their schtick. They’re making a difference.
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The Search for Connection and the Discomfort with Artifice
The narrator reflects on her past relationships and her attempts to conform to societal expectations of being "sex-positive" and "cool." She admits that watching porn with her partners made her love them a little less, highlighting her discomfort with the inauthenticity of the act. The narrator describes how she would leave her body to watch her body, analyze the angles of herself, conduct her back to arch, fix her hair to appear bohemian but never unhoused. She’d whisper, When in doubt, remember how the body flattens while on your back.
The narrator finds solace in movies where actors openly admit they are acting, contrasting this with the pretense of reality in pornography. She recalls moments from films like Titanic, The L Word, and The Notebook, where the actors' performances evoked genuine emotions and a sense of connection. The movies allow her to project herself into the scene, feeling the emotions and experiences vicariously.
The narrator's preference for movies over porn underscores her desire for authenticity and emotional depth in sexual expression. She seeks narratives that explore the complexities of human relationships and the vulnerability of intimacy, rather than the objectification and performance often found in pornography.
The Discovery of Destiny Smith
In the midst of their research, the narrator stumbles upon a familiar face: Destiny Smith, her old bunkmate from fat camp, performing on a feminist queer porn site. She comes alive to me again, a decade and a half older, and I can only guess what’s happened since I saw her last, and what’s brought her here--to this shamelessness in her body.
This discovery triggers a flood of memories and reflections on their shared experiences at fat camp and the societal pressures they faced as young girls struggling with their weight. The narrator's reaction to seeing Destiny in this context raises questions about body image, empowerment, and the choices women make in navigating their sexuality.
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The narrator is afraid to tell this story. She is afraid to tell you about finding her former fat camp friend on a feminist queer porn site. She is afraid you will ask what everyone always asks. The question our culture revolves around. The question she revolves around: What does she look like now? As if there is only one way to survive this story.
Flashback to Fat Camp: A Microcosm of Societal Pressures
The narrative shifts to a flashback of the narrator's time at fat camp, where she and Destiny devise a plan to sneak out and escape the restrictive environment. The year is 2000 and Destiny and the narrator are girls again with a plan. It’s been eleven days in the making, which in sleepaway camp time is a month, and in fat camp time is about two years. They bring the counselors their spare diet Cokes stashed from last Sunday’s snack, carbonated collateral until they can deliver on the promise that their parents will leave them big end-of-summer tips if they let them hang.
The fat camp serves as a microcosm of the societal pressures and anxieties surrounding weight and body image. The girls are subjected to constant scrutiny, strict diets, and a pervasive sense of shame. The counselors, Brooke and Charlie, who both put a little spandex in the waistband of the rules, are not immune to these pressures either, highlighting the widespread nature of body image issues.
The girls' rebellion against the camp's rules symbolizes their resistance to the societal norms that dictate their self-worth. Their act of sneaking out and indulging in forbidden snacks represents a small act of defiance against the restrictive environment and the internalized messages of self-denial.
Bonnie, Nutrition Classes, and the Weight of Expectations
The nutrition classes at fat camp, led by Bonnie, a blonde actress who has rehearsed these very lines all week, reinforce the message that even salad is dangerous now. Bonnie's emphasis on calorie counting and making "responsible decisions" at fast-food restaurants perpetuates the idea that the girls' worth is tied to their ability to control their bodies. She lets out a girlish gasp as if surprised, as if she is not a blonde actress who has rehearsed these very lines all week.
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The girls are weighed regularly, and their progress is tracked on progress charts. The room is decorated with posters the narrator is learning to memorize: the ancient pyramid of food, pictures of hands that correlate to serving sizes (two fingers is a serving of cheese, one is chocolate. Two open palms, the portion for berries. Meat and fish are your hand. Pasta, a fist.) The key to the cabinet is on a string, around her neck, safe, under her shirt. Sometimes she fidgets with the key-pendant of the world's worst necklace-slides a nail along its teeth, tastes the metal in her mouth, then tucks it back in, next to her heart. Bonnie gets to know the girls' weights, because she's the one with the clipboard. She's the one who pulls out our progress charts from the filing cabinet that stays locked.
The narrator reflects on the science class, where Mr. Chavez told them that matter is not created or destroyed, so she has no idea where fat goes when you lose it. Maybe it leeches on to someone else who is not working as hard as you, doesn't want it as much. Maybe the fat flies through the air like a ghost until it finds another body to haunt.
The narrator's observation that each time she steps on the scale, she weighs less, highlights the unrealistic expectations and the pressure to conform to an ideal body type. The absence of a talk with her mother after each weigh-in, as opposed to the doctor's office back home, suggests a more supportive environment, but the underlying message remains the same: weight loss is the ultimate goal.
Kendall's Obsession and the Unattainable Ideal
Kendall, a returning camper, is portrayed as obsessed with weight loss and maintaining her "perfect" body. She is allergic to nothing, but on the intake forms she claimed anaphylaxis to anything she knows she can get a better substitute for at camp. Kendall's body is somewhat of a legend around here. People don't even bother to pretend not to stare, eyes stalking her outline as she passes, making her way down Lover's Lane, down to the pool-in a two-piece. She embodies the unattainable ideal that the girls are striving for, yet she is also deeply insecure and vulnerable.
Kendall is pleased with the narrator. They line up before breakfast on the stairs outside the nutrition room, wearing the lightest clothes in their wardrobe so as not to sway the scales against their favor.
The narrator's realization that Kendall is not even a full fucking pound from her goal, leads her to question the value of the fat camp and the pursuit of an ever-thinner body. The narrator is looking at her body now, four foot ten, and for the first time she can really see. She's not sure how much more she could lose. And from where?
Visiting Day: A Glimpse of the "Real World"
Visiting Day offers a glimpse of the "real world" and the temptations that await the girls outside of fat camp. The narrator's mother takes her to the mall, where she is bombarded with images of perfect bodies and consumerist desires. The mall is only forty minutes away but it feels like entering a new world. A museum of smells. The real butter of popcorn, the fake leather of Payless shoes, the chicken teriyaki samples held out on tiny toothpicks and offered to everyone who passes, the Vanilla Cupcake Yankee Candle that makes the air edible, makes me dizzy with want.
The narrator's encounter with Amber, a girl from horse camp, triggers a moment of panic and insecurity. She has always despised the crack in the dressing room door, through which someone might see my unclothed body, but right now she peers through it, scouting Amber in the sliver's crosshairs. The narrator's desire to disappear and her mother's willingness to help her escape the situation highlight the emotional toll of body image pressures and the lengths to which women will go to avoid judgment.
The narrator's reflection on the choices she might have made in the food court, where I could have learned what kind of woman I'll be on the other side of summer, underscores the transformative potential of the fat camp experience.
"Fat Girl": A Poem of Reclamation and Self-Acceptance
The poem "Fat Girl" serves as a powerful statement of reclamation and self-acceptance. The poem is a beautiful example of taking a term that has been used against her and making it a part of her story of empowerment. Falley puts words to the feelings that haunt us at dusk and delight us at dawn.
The poem lists a series of associations with the term "fat girl," challenging the negative connotations and celebrating the narrator's strength, resilience, and self-love. The narrator never makes excuses for how she feels; both her shame and her pride do not need an explanation or justification. She is taking us on her journey. She doesn’t need excuses for her truth.
The poem's crescendo, with lines like "Fat girl, heart so fat it needs it own zip code" and "Fat girl, dance anyway," embodies the spirit of unapologetic self-acceptance and the refusal to be defined by societal standards of beauty.
Megan Falley's Journey: From Fat Camp to Feminist Poet
The narrative weaves in details about Megan Falley's life and career as a feminist poet, highlighting her commitment to challenging societal norms and promoting body positivity. Falley's work explores themes of queer love, femme invisibility, and the complexities of body image. Megan is intensely clear on where she stand, and are unafraid to make that clarity known in often difficult spaces.
Falley's poem "On Being One of the Skinny Girls at Fat Camp" acknowledges her thin privilege while also addressing the harassment and shame she has experienced for her body. She is trying to acknowledge that she still struggle with the issue of loving my body, even as someone who has built a platform on body-positivity.
Falley's teaching and her willingness to share her personal experiences have inspired many students and readers to embrace their own voices and challenge societal expectations.