Height supremacy vs. bodyshaming

I am bit too late to the party but I think as a plus-size woman I can share some thoughts on this topic.

I think the biggest difference is that when you say you want a tall man, you don't impose that short guys have any negative qualities because of this, he is just short. I mean, height is one thing, what about penis size? I think this is even more painful discrimination.

Anyway, what I mean is that I totally realise that not everyone will like me (no biggie, I have more than enough men who find me attractive) but other guys tend to speculate about my other qualities: that I am lazy, that I don't take care of my body (you can't imagine how many comments I've seen about bigger women smelling bad or their vagina being too loose etc), that my only interest is eating etc. Or my favourite messages: well usually I am not interested in fat women but you have pretty face, although if you could lose some weight and have smaller ass... These people know nothing about me and most of the time I suppose just have fear to admit they might be attracted to someone my size. Not talking about men who want a BBW mistress but skinny wife

And all of this is bodyshaming, while when you are short, you are just short. No one tries to impose that you are bad or lazy person, talk negative things about you etc. I would compare it more to preference of eye color or accent or I dunno. Maybe short men also get messages like this, then of course I am wrong and it's shaming as well.

But I think what is most important for us all, is to be more respectful, open-minded and just to be 100% honest with yourself, understand what do you actually want and not try to impose it on people who clearly don't match your wish. Also, it's very important to understand which preferences are social construct and which are your real preferences.

Dating world is very cruel and it makes me sad, I always thought it should be more about pleasure and excitement of meeting new people, but this is definitely a different topic to discuss.

Have a great evening everyone

@*****h29


The opposite is true. Just take a look at any thread about male height and take note how many things are linked to that height and the lack thereof.
In that regard, short men and overweight women are in the same boat and receive a very similar treatment.


It's not comparable to something minor like that at all as it's easily the most widespread preference I can think of. It's one of the information that will be asked on any dating website. Either because it's built-in like here in joyclub or women will ask directly.
Plus, usually there's a certain balance to preferences. As you say, you're a BBW and there are both types of men. Those who love it and those who don't. Yet in 8 years of using online dating I've only ever seen one woman who preferred short guys. "Tall" is as close to an universal preference as you can get.

coming back to the firs question, I think there is a big difference in "stop shaming" and "making equal"
If you start holding yourself, your desires and wishes back to be in line with "political correctness" then you are on a way to enslave yourself and not freeing others.

Unlike controlling your height, controlling your weight is possible. I am not saying that insulting people based on weight, is justified, but this topic is about height.

The only possible vertical alteration one could make would be reduction, and that would entail severing limbs, or waiting for old age to reduce your posture, not really a happy thought. I know of no way to increase your height.

Since my remarks on the thread I have spoken about this to a couple of people, and must say I get positive feedback. If a big guy talks about the "small guy syndrome" in a positive way, it could really make a difference.

Now all we need is for some shorter guys to tone it down a bit on the ego, and then we should be good to go.

@*******Bill
In theory it's possible, yes, to change your weight but this topic is not only about the height if I check how it's named.

But I agree, these two aspects are not really comparable, that's why I suggested to compare it to something like eye color, shape of your feet, nipple areola size. However I think people tend to use everything to discriminate other people, you just need to read any female forum where women ask in fear about various body parts asking if this would be OK or does she need to change etc.

I wanted to pay attention that being fat usually comes with many other negative qualities about personality, than just about someone not liking your body shape.

However @****eee pointed my attention that it's more painful than I think (although I would never call someone 175cm short, for me it would be more <165).

I personally know a couple where a man is 160 and woman is 180. They incredibly love each other but yes, they also get looks on the street.

However usually preferences like this change when media starts changing them. For example, when it will be OK in movies when male actors are shorter than female actors. Usually they also need to wear heals or stand on something to be on a same level.

But I need to say, there are also many men who say how they like short girls and how cute they are. And the short girls complain how no one takes them seriously since they are short. Again, humans tend to use everything to discriminate and select, the best option would be to try to stay open minded and think twice if your words might hurt someone. Probably that's the only thing we can influence.

I think overall body positivity is somehow more about women than men. Same goes towards body shape, fat men are rarely featured or talked about, even here all groups are mostly about women.

But usually this happens when one group is much more heavily discriminated than the other. For many years women best quality was beauty and men best quality was money. So that's why women are trying to get out of this stereotype, while men are fighting against stereotypes like "real men don't cry" etc.

This would be my suggestion why men are rarely mentioned when it comes to body issues.

@*****h29
All of this has the same basis. Height (or the general perception of it) is associated with leadership, assertiveness, confidence, competence, strength and a bunch of other qualities that are usually associated with manliness (or the generela perception of it). This is why a short man is considered so very unattractive, but it's not a problem to be a short woman in that regard. The short man is not being a man enough and lacks those manly qualities. Which is why you can't have a short action hero. It would undermine his manliness.

Women experience those effects more in a professional setting. Their gender makes it already harder for them to be perceived similarly to their male counterparts and the height amplifies that. Fun fact: Most CEOs are on average 6'0 and significantly taller than your average man. Because people associate the qualities I mentioned before with height.

In the same vein, tall women or women who possess qualities that are usually associated with men can experience something similar when they're described as "manly". These ideas about which qualities each sex possesses are very deeply engrained. And going against them will make a lot of people unable to see you as the sex that you are and therefore make it impossible to be attracted to you. Which is crazy when you think about it.

@*******n_78
I don't think the pendulum has swung too far in either direction. Personally, I think it hasn't taken up enough momentum yet. I mean judging by the replies in this thread alone, a lot of people seem to have a really hard time seperating between "you are not allowed to have a preference" and "let's not discriminate based on appearance".Which to me is a clear sign that there's still a lot of groundwork to be done.
But I agree that the discussion should include as many people as possible as body shaming is a problem that will or probably already has affected everyone at some point in life.

This is not an easy topic and there is something to think about

Actually women are at a global scale in a hierarchy below men. Sure it is probably better in western democracies but here we still have issues especially in the economic sphere where companies are also organised like dictatorships and therefore women and basically everyone who isnt white/hetero/male has it way harder to climb the ladder because the people who decide who rises up and who doesnt are mostly white/hetero/male themselves.

So culturally most people have a democratic intuition which means that we oppose hierarchies. Therefore a man who "just wants skinny women" talks from the top down. A woman who "just wants muscular men with big cocks" is opposing the hierarchy by definition as their original role in the hierarchy was to have no opinion whatsoever on who to want (that was reserved for men).

Yeah so as long as there are top down hierarchies in our society (I am not talking about a democratically organised hierarchy in a sports club for example) there will be this issue with "one group can do that but the other cant".

@******rop

I really like this post for a different perspective. But after giving it some thought, I can't agree with the assessment that people oppose hierarchy. My impression is that people go to great lengths to secure existing hierarchies.

For example, if two women, one overweight and one slim, say that they want a tall, muscular man. I'm quite sure the less conventionally attractive one would face more backlash than the other one. Because she breaks the hierarchy by fishing "out of her league".

Likewise, I'm in an interracial relationship. In indonesia, women who aren't conventionally attractive get shit for landing a white guy. Because she breaks the hierarchy by doing so. White guys are sought after, and she should not be able to land one.
The same exists the other way around. A guy who can't survive in his own countries dating world but is succesful in asia will face ridicule from women back home. He "cheats" by breaking the existing hierarchy. He should not have a partner, but is able to land an attractive one by changing his location to a different playing field that benefits him.

If the argument was true, those people should be cheered on. But the opposite happens more often than not.

@****eee I completely agree and of course I simplified that. Of course people work hard to hold up hierarchies and injustices because they profit from that in some way. But in western democracies like the US or many european countries you still have hierarchies like for example in companies and corporations, which are heavily protected from democratic influence, BUT on certain issues the people who protect hierarchies just lost and the hierarchies still are there for whatever reason (that's another topic) but it is accepted that certain people who are below should have a heads up on certain things to compensate their disadvantages. That's a good thing and people who complain about that should start doing that the moment these specific hierarchies are gone.

Interesting but im dont know answer

I don’t see any issue with having preferences and being open about it. We can’t help who we are attracted to.

Regarding your examples, I think it’s worth noting the distinction that while we don’t have control over our height, body composition is something that we do have a fair amount of control over and is directly linked to lifestyle choices.

With that said, to each their own.

I understand that tastes cannot be disputed however, when I happened to hear about this topic in real life, I often perceived a tone of discrimination if not something worse.
I know that everyone has their own tastes and is not required to change them.
Listening to some conversations between adults, both men and women, I felt often uncomfortable with the way they despised some people for their physical appearance. Certain attitudes among young people and adolescents can also hurt a lot because at that age not everyone has developed the necessary self-confidence and self-awareness to ignore certain phrases or react appropriately.
I don't know what sense there is in criticizing someone for something that he has not decided and over which he has no control such as his height or physiognomy. At the limit I would understand some constructive criticism, however, in the case of neglect of one's person, because it is also important to take care of themselves of our external appearance. But it would take tact and respect.
It is not that people are fragile and do not know how to defend themselves, but from the point of view of those who are criticized, a little respect would be a sign of education and sensitivity. From the point of view of those who are in a position to criticize others, it could also be constructive to think that by filtering so categorically those who have the opportunity to know us, they risk denying themselves the opportunity to meet even very interesting people. This is just my opinion and I admit that it is linked to my way of experiencing the relationships with people and living sexuality.

@*******io79 Wise words, indeed. Thanks for this, inspirational.

Being one of those men under 6ft(approx 75% of men worldwide with most of the roughly 20% above 6ft tall men concentrated in Northern Europe), I find it crazy that people get mad about their weight that they can change yet blame me for my height that I have nothing in my power to change despite being taller than a lot of women too.
But that's the oddity of the world we live in.

I think that settles it.
But sadly it is only one-way traffic.
As a guy U get height shamed, dick shamed, performance shamed etc
I guess that's why guys develop a sense of humour esp dark humour.
It is a coping mechanism I think

We aren’t just discriminated against. We are actively insulted. Im a manlet, a zwergerl, a child, a dwarf, and so on and do forth.

If I stand up for myself I’m accused of having a complex. If I fight back I’m a chihuahua. If I don’t it just proves that I’m not a manly man.

I am what I am, and sometimes that means I need to use a step ladder to get things off the top shelf. But I do find it advantageous when women write “1,80 or more” in their profiles. Saves me some time.