Culture

Thin Privilege Doesn’t Exist

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Females love to rationalize. Fat females love to rationalize even more. Sometimes, we get a rationalization so big it must be called out. Today is one of those times.

This is thin privilege.

Seriously…this is a real website.

The Definition Of Privilege

Let’s first define what exactly constitutes a privilege. And to show how moronic this website is, let’s even use the definition of privilege they point to themselves:

Privilege is any right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person or group beyond the advantages of most. At TJLP, we think of privilege as an unearned advantage that a dominant group has over marginalized groups…A key aspect of privilege is that, due to its unearned nature, those who have privilege often do not realize they have it. In other words, they don’t see the access and opportunity being a member of a dominant group affords them.

(Emphasis in original)

For example, under this definition being born white is a privilege. It is “unearned” in that you have no control over it. Again, only under this definition, being either male or female can be considered a privilege because again, you do not earn this designation. You are born this way.

Thin Privilege Doesn’t Exist

Being thin is not an unearned state. How do I know? Well, besides the obvious fact that one can exercise and eat right and magically morph from being fat to thin, I have personally gone through this. During my early years in college, I was 198 pounds and 6’0. My max bench was 45 lbs. So that should tell you the body type I had…zero muscle, all fat. I never exercised. I would eat pound-sized burritos with nachos and then gorge on multiple cookies after smoking some weed. I was a chubster to say the least.

What was the result? I never got laid. I had less respect from my friends and rightfully so. I still had a lot of friends and had a lot of fun because I was in college, but it ended there. I was not happy and decided I needed to make a change, so instead of writing a blog about why it’s ok to be fat, I actually did something. I stopped eating like a pig. My diet consisted of egg whites, grapefruits, chicken breast and veggies. I would not eat after 6pm. And no matter what, no matter how hungover I was from the night before, I would run 4 miles every morning. What happened was I went from 198 to 154 in three months.

Whether that’s the best means to lose weight or not  — who knows? But guess what: I wasn’t fat anymore. People were complimenting me left and right. I snagged my first girlfriend. I was actually hooking up with girls instead of just staring at them. I was able to move around the basketball court instead of just posting up and backing down my opponents. All these benefits that were now conferred on me were earned. All my hard work, self-control and dedication paid off.

Nor am I on the only one. Numerous people I’ve personally known have done the same thing. Hard work, exercise, and diet, and somehow their bodies decrease in size. Ever wonder why in America hot girls drive Range Rovers and fat girls have jobs? It’s because the men that buy said Range Rovers have options, and would never take up a fatty. The hot girls, on the other hand, are going to yoga, pilates, boot camp, the gym; they are the ones eating kale at Whole Foods for every meal. Again, they work for their bodies and the associated “privileges” that come with it. Go outside the Western world and you will find many svelte women. Why? Because they barely eat and walk 5 miles a day (in heels at that). Again, effort and a concentrated desire to not get fat yields these results. Therefore because these are earned rights, by the very definition used in this poor excuse of a blog, thin privilege doesn’t exist.

It’s All An Excuse

Some of my closest family members are overweight. And while I love them, I don’t sympathize with them. I’ve seen the way they eat and there is no effort whatsoever to change. They keep hoping that it will just go away. They keep citing the latest craze relying on a magical shortcut to just develop.  But it never will. They know deep down in their hearts what it takes but rather rely on excuses, supposed genetics, or society like these blubber bloggers do.

Perhaps, just maybe if the authors of this blog spent a little more time in the gym instead of spending all their free time constructing 451 pages of babble, they’d earn some of that coveted thin privilege…

thinpriv

Read Next: Open Letter To Fat Girls

65 thoughts on “Thin Privilege Doesn’t Exist”

    1. Yikes! I clicked on the photo & wish I hadn’t! And to the point of the article I couldn’t agree more. Your weight is not a privilege – you have free will, use it.

      1. Normal human standards? I have seen girls who simply have very curvy bodies, who run miles every day for cross country and who don’t eat mountains of junk food be called fat when they simply aren’t the ideal super slim girl. human bodies are diverse and there isn’t just one standard.

  2. For contrarian’s sake, I will say this: there is a such thing as being in shape and having a high weight…I am 5’10, 190, but I am also a stadium vendor as a side job. That requires an intense amount of physical effort, plus I exercise regularly aside from that, especially diring the offseason. I can accept being bigger but also in legitimately good shape. Sadly, this type of thing requires work, and it is something I never see championed by the fat acceptance movement. The whole idea that society at league should praise and accommodate the lazy fatasses of the world should be wholly condemned.

    2. Of course .. weight per se is not the real issue, but whether someone is fat and flabby or fit and firm, at whatever weight. Men especially, who can naturally build more muscle mass, can be very fit but weigh the same as another guy who’s fat. The difference is that the extra weight will be muscle, not fat. At 5’10 and 190 I’d say you’re doing fine. Doesn’t sound to me like you’re some fat dude 🙂

      1. I credit your perspective to the distorted American standards, because at 5’10 and 190lbs, unless he is packing lots of muscles he is seriously overweight.

        1. Hmm on second thoughts maybe you’re right .. probably an average fit lean weight (but not ‘bodybuilder type’) for that height would be more in the range of 80kg or so, which is 176lbs if I’m not mistaken. Let’s say 175 – 180 (there is some variation in individual structure heaviness). To be 190lbs with not much extra fat would require some 10 – 15 lbs of extra muscle more than a lean but not heavily built guy, which is significant. Although even if those 10 -15 lbs were fat, it’s not like he’s grossly obese either. Losing that amount is very doable.
          I got the conversions messed up in my mental calculations .. can’t be American standards misleading me since I’m not American 🙂 Thanks for your input!

        2. At 5’11, 190lbs… I definitely do not have a bodybuilders physique, but 30years of martial arts, strength training and a healthy lifestyle has afforded me a very ‘noticeable sculpted shape’. Some would simply describe as a ‘strong statue’.
          I have plenty of male friends, and coworkers who are around the same height or taller, weighing either the same or slightly below…yet their body proportions are quite sloppy due to lack of a consistent…anything!!!
          Functional muscle is indeed heavier than fat!
          On another note:
          What’s surprising is that most women will use the excuse for not exercising as to avoid bulky muscles. They claim to not want the masculine appearance they see in fitness models or popular female athletes. What they are missing is that a simple change in diet (clean diet)…and some form of ‘movement’ is all it takes.
          It’s simple:
          If an overweight person simply drank plenty of water, walked every morning for 1 hour, and ate reasonable sized meals throughout the day….for 3 months straight…they’d be a changed individual!
          There is absolutely no need for anyone to be overweight…especially if ‘said’ person is other wise capable of intelligent decision making.

        3. I assumed you were American because you used pounds and feet instead of kg, meters. My whole point was that in the US an unfit 5’10, 190lbs man is labelled as normal whereas in other in other places they will call him outright fat.
          It is some sort of visual brain phenomenon, so that after spending too much time with heavy people the brain adjusts things so those fats are the new normal and visual judgments made afterwards are based on those new standards.
          It is the same thing that happens when one spends too much time in a place with too ugly or too good looking people. I think there was a post about, it was called the chile or peru effect

  3. Amen.
    Of course, the true purpose isn’t to show the privilege of the thin. It’s to show the victimization of the fat. The thin have what I can’t have; the thin get what I can’t get. It’s almost as therapeutic as guilt eating. Each puts off responsibility on something/someone else and eventually digs them into deeper hole. It’s not my fault I’m fat – I’ll just eat more ice cream. It’s not my fault I can’t fit into this size 18 dress – this evil corporation just doesn’t appreciate my body type.
    The whole thin-privilege/fat-victim movement is hypocritical, anyway. The fat fat-shame the fatter. Don’t tell me a 200 lb girl doesn’t look down on a 400 lb girl. A big girl loves to see a morbidly obese girl – it’s an automatic self esteem boost. She’s not the least desirable cow anymore (cow, not heifer….).

  4. For example, under this definition being born white is a privilege. It
    is “unearned” in that you have no control over it. Again, only under
    this definition, being either male or female can be considered a
    privilege because again, you do not earn this designation. You are born
    this way.
    ————————————————————————————————-
    Your definition of privilege lacks the fundamental logic that should prevent its misuse; as your “male” and “white” example do.
    A “privilege” is always something granted to a less powerful person from a more powerful person.
    Driving is a privilege granted to you by the state.
    They can take it away.
    Thats what makes it a privilege.

    2. I understand and you understand what privilege actually is, but what the writer was pointing out was that this is the definition of privilege that particular website uses- along with many other social justice bloggers. It’s a sort of “sociological definition”, not the actual definition. Just as racism and sexism mean something different to these people than what we have all learned and what is actually the dictionary definition.
      I’ve been reading a lot of the SJ crap lately and it seems they can magically change the definitions of words to mean what they want them to mean, and in certain contexts. Must be a nice superpower to have!

  5. Being unearned is different from being unjustly acquired, something privilege whores never understand. Only something that is unjustly acquired can be penalized.

  6. for reference, google defines privilege as: “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.”

  7. Great read btw, and very good motivational piece.
    “Some of my closest family members are overweight. And while I love them, I don’t sympathize with them. I’ve seen the way they eat and there is no effort whatsoever to change. They keep hoping that it will just go away. They keep citing the latest craze relying on a magical shortcut to just develop. But it never will. They know deep down in their hearts what it takes but rather rely on excuses, supposed genetics, or society like these blubber bloggers do.”
    gold.

  8. You sure are using entirely too much of that patriarchal male privilege called “logic.” And you must stop!
    Your hypocritical judgementalism is hurting these fatties self-esteem, and regardless that I am now seeing them eat nutella covered rocky road ice cream, draped over a industrial size stick o chocolate chip cookie dough is actually not a problem; though strangely, my inner butt hurt mangina alarms are confused on my need to hurl food I have not eaten since walking three miles already today. But your cisgendered abilism of those sexist, totally victimized and repressed women who are lording it over their grass eating cousins is totally offensive fuck you very much!
    Keep up the good work. Because if I am going to make a gourmet kitchen in my house my wife better eat kale while I eat like a king. Then that kale will transfer to enough energy for my daily blow job.
    How it should be amiright?

  9. Instead of saying eat less and move more, we should just simplify it and say just “EAT LESS CALORIES!”. Exercise alone is a shitty way to lose weight, because it’s almost all diet and how many calories you eat. Make people aware that the one donut in their hand has that leaves them hungry has enough calories to a be a half foot subway sandwich that would definitely fill them up.

  12. I made it to page 6 of 452. An anonymous women posted a longer story about fatshaming in Russia. She wrote about the following incident:
    ” A woman in Australia was working in preschool and one girl there was only allowed to eat one meatball for lunch and nothing else, as instructed by her mum. Why? Because she was from a Russian family and mum said in order for her to not die poor and lonely, she would have to marry a rich guy and for that she had to be skinny.”
    Does this not confirm what most of you say, when you tell stories about russian women.

  13. If you click on the Tumblr pages of the four people who contribute to that blog, it shows that they are feminists and LGBT activists. Who would have guessed?

    1. I could be considered a feminist and I’m definitely a LGBT activist. I think that the concept of “thin privilege” is total bullshit. I just also happen to think women should have equal rights as men and gays equal rights as straights. Not sure how that conflicts with seeing thin privilege as nonsense.

  15. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! I am SO TIRED of hearing about thin privelage or that I’m “lucky” or I “don’t understand what food cravings are like.” Yeah, I understand food cravings. The discipline, motivation, and determination it takes to resist ice cream, cookies, and M&Ms every day is HUGE. The discipline, motivation, and determination that it takes to get off my ass and exercise every day is HUGE. But I do it. Because it’s healthy for my body, my mind, and my dating life. It’s not luck, it’s hard work over a long period of time. Although, on second thought, maybe thin privelage does exist — if by “privelage” you mean that I have the privelage of being thin because I work so very very hard to achieve it. Then yeah, I’m a privileged woman.

  16. First of all, since when does a Tumblr blog constitute as a “real” website? It’s no more of a real website than the one that posted the drivel I just read. Nonetheless, I congratulate you (genuinely) on your weight loss and getting yourself into shape. I think a lot of people do lack the initiative it takes to stay healthy and fit. But your overall message and the fat shaming that’s happening on this website null any credibility your real-life experiences give you in this area.

  17. Ok. So….I don’t eat kale at every meal, barely work out, and my thighs still don’t touch and I get hit on constantly. It’s just the way my metabolism works. It could be argued that my body is unearned. On the other hand, there are people that work out every day, eat very healthy and while they may lose some weight they are still considered fat. How can you shame these people in good conscience?

    1. Give it time becky, if you don’t work at it, you’ll be fat soon enough. Sure if you are young like under 25, yes you got the youth thing going for you along with the metabolism that comes with youth. Come back in a few years and let us know how you are doing. You can argue for the sake of arguing, but the value of a woman is her youth, beauty, fertility and femininity. Deep down inside you all know it. For fat chicks it is just found at a much deeper place.

      1. “The value of a woman is her youth, beauty, fertility and femininity.” You sir, are a cunt, and do not deserve a woman in your life.
        It’s fucking 2013, surely we’ve realised by now that women are more than trophy-dolls/sex-toys/baby incubators?
        The value of a woman is her intelligence, character, self-confidence and ability to prove assholes like yourself wrong. And I say this as a 21 year old degree-educated, independent, pretty, confident, 105lb, kale-munching, gym-going, fertile (but childless for now) straight woman.
        If anyone experiences this ‘thin privilege’ it’s me, but I refuse to acknowledge it because I refuse to reduce all of myself down to two attributes – pretty and thin- which equate to about 2% of who I am. This blog is bullshit but idiots like you are the reason they exist!
        Now please go play in traffic.

        1. What’s funny is that you are arrogant enough to think, you (a girl), can change what men find attractive simply through shame. Or to think that culture as a whole can shame a man into changing what he finds attractive.
          Attraction isn’t a choice, we don’t control it, therefore, we cannot change it.

        2. There is a difference between stating what you personally find attractive and defining the value of half the population.
          “The value of a woman is her youth, beauty, fertility and femininity. Deep down inside you all know it. ”
          Speak for yourself. Not everyone is stuck in the 1950s. I care quite a bit about the conversations I have with people, women included. Personally, it doesn’t matter how pretty someone is if I don’t enjoy their mind. All the men that don’t want or care about having children would disagree about the fertility point as well. The fact that “Milf” porn is one of the most looked up types of porn shoots the youth bit in the foot as well.

        3. Actually, in biological terms a female’s value is her reproductive ability. This ability ( fertility) is shown through health, youth and femininity. Also there is a difference between attraction for simply sex and attraction to a potential life long mate. Milfs may be attractive for the ease of sex however, those in their youth are generally more attractive due to being at the height of fertility.

  19. I guess when education is not libertarian, the oppressed’s dream is being the oppressor.
    you were picked on when you were chubby. this hurt your feelings very much and now you turn on the ones that look like you used to look. it’s quite sad really. and a bit pathetic.

    1. It could be he is just annoyed like I am of having fat women act like they are desireable. And forcing us to consider fat women attractive. Only chubby chasers consider fat women attractive. And I am sure chubby chasers are perfectly sane lol.

  20. Lol I hope you have a 6 pack and a great set of arms. After all, there’s no excuse for you NOT to have the perfect body, right? And if you don’t have the perfect body then please, kill yourself
    And for the love of all that’s holy don’t reproduce

    1. I don’t think that you get it. It is not that we have to be built like a bodybuilder to get pussy, but pussy has to be pleasing to our eyes to attract us.
      Why this works is simple: women are attracted to men with power, because such men have high status and plenty of cash. Those men are often built like Henry Kissinger who was never short of a bedmate back in the days when he was Nixon’s Secretary of State. Men just want something arousing so that they can stick their dicks in it.
      In other words what attracts a female mind is not the same thing as that which interests that of a man.

  22. And even if thin privilege did exist… so what?
    Every human being should be grateful for whatever advantage they have, and try to exploit it to the maximum. Not grovel and feel sorry for those who don’t. It’s called competition. What is this self loathing bullshit?

  24. What the ever living fuck. “Fat girls have jobs?” What the? Who the? How can you even say something like this with a straight face?
    Look, I’m a slender vegetarian who works out, married young, and values looking good. I love my husband, and I know he’ll be happier with an aesthetically pleasing wife. I also value my health and taking care of my body. I can’t stand all this thin privilege whiny BS I see from the fat acceptance movement. I think “this is thin privilege” is the stupidest blog I’ve ever seen.
    But girls only work because they have to because they can’t snag a rich husband? Look, I don’t know what Mississippi bayou you redneck losers crawled out of, but in the civilized world, women don’t work because they are ugly and lonely. I have a husband who could support me, but I still work. Because I am a person who values being intellectually stimulated and challenged, and who wants to contribute to the world outside my home. Because I have skill sets that are valued, and I have a job that I love, that helps others, and that I excel at.
    Literally every woman I know who is attractive and married to a successful man works. Is that really what you’re going to teach your daughter if she’s pretty? That that is the sole contribution she is expected to give to the world? Don’t bother developing your mind or your skills, don’t have any ambition or aspirations, because only ugly girls do anything other than shop with their husband’s credit card.
    You would have had me if not for that pathetic, sexist little gem. I honestly don’t know how it is possible for you to be so ignorant that you honestly think only ugly women work, which of course implies that no woman WOULD work if she didn’t HAVE to. Nope, all any of us really want to do is drive around in range rovers from one mall to another. That truly is living the dream.

    2. Agree with every word of this comment, spot on. And full respect to you for being an attractive, intelligent and successful woman.

  25. Just to illustrate the article…my ex boyfriend invited me one summer to met his friends. I am pretty thin, a size 6 with a very slander waist but a natural round breast nonetheless. When we arrived I met his long-time friend and….their fat girlfriends. They were all ranging between sizes 12 to 16 easily. And they were all immediately hating me. I spend the whole WE struggling with their comments on how I should eat more because I was only bones, how I was starving myself (ie not binge eating greasy stuff and deep fried sh*t).
    At one point we went on a river to do kayak. The tenant asked us which size we all were for the life-saving clothes we had to wear. I felt almost like I had to apologize to ask for the smallest, tightest size they could get me.
    And of course this nice bunch spend the WE not talking to me unless they felt forced to, making fun of me when we were in the swimming pool because all their boyfriend would closely look at my toned body in my bathsuit (not an inch of fat, yes, I had to actually be sorry not to be fat). They made fun of me on the way I swam, made fun of me on my hair, their color, called me names, always refering to my light weight…etc…
    That’s when I realised how much mean can we girls be when we are jealous. I used to be fat also I fought back my nervous bulimia, I got the body I deserved…only to be “thin-shammed” the whole week-end of a nightmare: :-/

    1. You see, all those mean comments from those fatties, that was your thin privilege. If you find that contradictory, that’s because you hate fat people.
      Seriously, I’m going to say this for the first time in my life.
      You go girl.
      Don’t let the landwhales bring you down with them.

  26. Why would they shame women who worked hard loosing weight saying it’s a priviledge?! Aren’t women supposed to be proud of who they are and others accept that? Oh no, but not when you are thin and beautiful.

  29. Listen, Asshat, the reason you never got laid in college is because you’re a shallow, pretentious prick. And nobody, male or female, fat or thin, wants to fuck a shallow, pretentious prick. You are such an awful person on the inside that you needed to lose weight to feel good about yourself and gain the confidence necessary land a woman. But that wasn’t good enough, was it? You can’t help yourself, you have to keep putting down fat people in order to feel good about yourself.
    You’re a psychopath. Please do the world a solid and just die. Thank you.

    1. Have another doughnut, dear. All that rabid typing blew you out at least 300 calories, I’m sure.

  30. That Thin Privilege blog is pure gold. You should definitely grab a beer, put on some upbeat music and read a few pages. The levels of delusion and entitlement are off the bloody charts! I think I’m going to make an account just to troll the hell out of these fools.
    They are even attacking eachothers!!!
    “Thin Privilege is Being Allowed to Think You Don’t Have Thin Privilege
    It sounds kind of counter intuitive, but somehow it’s a thing. My roommate has been stick-thin her whole life, probably even underweight. Well over a year ago, she underwent surgery to fix a problem that has made her sickly her entire life. My roommate is a very fragile person, and became very sedentary while she healed. Not surprisingly, she gained some weight… (to ask her, it was more like 300lbs. to look at her it couldnt be more than 30lbs) Though as a fat person, I would not qualify her as fat at all. She is still quite thin, fits into most clothes, and has not experienced any notable discrimination due to her weight (I would have heard all about it). (if she was as short as I am, I would easily be twice her size/weight) However, she is convinced that she is as marginalized for her weight as I am, as any other fat person is. And, because she has not experienced notable discrimination, she is convinced that fatphobia really isn’t that bad. When I try to explain that yes, people die from fatphobia, she brushes it off. When I try to explain that doctors and medicine in general are extremely prejudiced, she scoffs. I haven’t even tried to introduce her to the concept of discrimination/marginalization towards fat people existing on a continuum…
    Because it’s not really thinsplaining if you think that you have it as bad as someone 2x, 3x, 4x, your size amirite? haha”

    1. Here’s another great example: woman can’t buy boots because her legs are too fat. Get’s mad when told the obvious.
      “Thin privilege is being able to buy boots
      I went to buy boots just a couple days ago, I was excited to see all the amazing stuff they had on sale and I fell in love with a pair of black knee high boots. I was disappointed when I tried to try them on and they just weren’t big enough for my legs. I asked the clerk if they didn’t have bigger ones and she looked at me as if I was crazy and shook her head. She was thin and tall and I could just read her mind, she was basically laughing at the fact that the boots didn’t fit me. She had obviously never went through this and couldn’t understand how difficult shopping is for people who aren’t priviliged. I went through a couple more stores but my heart sank each time because none of them had what I needed.
      I couldn’t help but cry when I got back home. I felt so heartbroken to not even be able to find a pair of boots that fit me. It was humiliating to see all those thin women being able to buy anything they wanted because everything is designed to fit them, I’m an adult woman and I can’t even choose the shoes I want to wear which is ridiculous. They have way more options than me just because of their weight which enrages me and the fact that people don’t see that this kind of stuff is a real issue enrages me even more.”

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