Showing your ass when you're fat is a militant act

Marine, 31, @metauxlourds on Instagram, is one of the French muses of the body positive movement, which aims to promote all physical models. She recounts her journey towards self-acceptance, within a still grossophobic society.

“To be fat is to build yourself in opposition to society. It is linked to a permanent oppression. As soon as you step outside the standards, it's hell: a woman must be beautiful and desirable. We show you unattainable models, we tell you “love yourself as you are, but differently. »

I've been tackled a lot, not just because I'm fat, but because I like myself the way I am. If you're not perfect, you have no right to say that. It's like people are projecting their insecurities.

It’s a complicated issue, sexualization. No matter how hard you try to free yourself from the gaze of the other, sometimes you like to please, to be sexy. And at the same time you're fat, you're one of those chicks that we should make fun of and not desire. So I put things into perspective, I tell myself that if a guy checks out my photos and says "I'm hard", I've accomplished something, deconstructed the idea that fat women are unfuckable. And at the same time, as soon as I take a sexualizing comment on Instagram, I block it and I feel bad, it's a disturbing side-effect, it's not for this purpose that I do it.

My life changed when I started blogging 6 years ago. At first, I only show my face. One day, I take the plunge, I do an article called "I'm fat", where I show myself entirely. Admittedly, dressy, with flattering angles and heels to elongate my legs, but still, it's a first step.

Then I was contacted by a lingerie store designed for girls with different bodies to pose for their lookbook. Well, in these photos, the rolls are erased, you're photoshopped... You're the "big maid".

At the time, I didn't yet identify as body positive, I didn't even know the word. But I already felt that showing your ass is a militant act! This makes it possible to offer other models, other boxes. I take a new step when I meet the lesbian porn director Sarah de Vicomte. She offers me a shoot. We talk, I get naked, I start posing. Always the same type of pose: breasts out, you bring in your belly, you “show off your shapes”. When you're fat, you have to outperform on femininity. She stops me, says “what are you doing here?” She shoots me naturally, with my belly, my rolls… And the result is magnificent! Today in my photos, you can see my cellulite, my dark circles, my stretch marks.

How far I've come since I was 13. For years, I was really bad in my body, I had a complicated relationship with food, permanent guilt. As a kid, I was very thin, I was a 38, but they made me feel fat. So I grew in the space of my complexes. ://t.co/I4ezcNJgGu - How to Act Elven at School).

There were traumatic moments. At 21, I organize a great party for my boyfriend, but I find myself too ugly, I can't get out of the room... I find myself disgusting. For years I slept with any guy to feel wanted, in my head they were doing me a favor. I was constantly in competition with the other chicks. I fell into self-destruction, I put myself in danger, because I told myself that I was worth nothing.

My look, my green hair, my tattoos, all that came when I finally learned to validate my choices instead of building myself according to what was expected of me. Tattoos are a bit like the scars you choose. Conversely, I learned that you never lose weight for yourself, it's bullshit. You lose weight for others, for the social gaze, so that we leave you alone. The fact of being out of standard gave me the opportunity to work on myself, to look deep down and say “I like what I am”. Even if there are days when I look in the mirror and I want to cry about my race.

I have nothing against being called fat; this is who I am. It bothers me in the mouth of people for whom it is an insult. Lately, some misogynistic asshole called me fat fat behind my back. It didn't traumatize me like it might have done a few years ago. But there is always this break. As soon as you press on it, it sticks you on the edge of rupture. You may be deconstructed, surround yourself with super caring people, when life hits you hard, this little voice comes back to tell you "you're disgusting, you have no right to exist."

The group dynamic helps to move forward. Most of my friends are non-standard: Afro-feminists, queers, neuro-atypical, green-haired chicks… There is a culture of compliments in the body-positive tribe. We value the other. We are so good! There is much less judgment than elsewhere.

Body positive also taught me sexual liberation and fulfillment. Before, I was in a sexuality of representation, like many women. If you desacralize your faults, you respect your desires, your desires, you learn to know yourself. »

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