it would be cool if fat dudes without big beards were considered hot sometimes too.
I realized today that the main reason for the “hot fat dude must also include beard” thing is part of the whole “fat people are required to perform a higher and more perfect expression of gender”.
like usually this sort of thing is more easily identifiable in fat women, who have to be hyper feminine to be considered “attractive” by the mainstream. but I sort of blinked today and realized, oh. fat men must have beards to be attractive for the same reason fat men must wear suits and look dapper to be attractive, just like fat women have to have perfect eyeliner and wear cute pinup clothing. higher, more intense expression of gender, executed perfectly and without flaw is required for fat people to be seen as attractive.
i think it’s important to mention a major thing a beard does, other than potentially act as part of a performance of masculinity, is cover double chins. i legitimately feel leaving that out is a major oversight. double chins are societally reviled and rarely ever depicted in supposedly fat positive art.
i’ve known fat women to literally tape the skin of their neck up under their hair to try to get rid of them– not to mention trying to contour them away with makeup. (i’ve personally done both. let’s talk about the utter misery of trying to exist in public with your skin taped and painted in place, terrified if any of it fails you will be treated as disgusting.) and fat men must grow a beard, and just the right kind of hyper-groomed beard, lest they be labeled disgusting neckbeards. fat people of all genders are compelled to “learn their angles” for photos, so they can create the illusion of not having double chins if only in still images. do you know how many photos with loved ones your fat friends duck out of because they can’t know how it will turn out, and don’t want to be mocked?
accept double chins as normal. accept that you can be attracted to people with double chins. stop requiring heightened gender performance and discomfort from fat people. stop forcing tape and makeup and beards and tactical angles on fat people.