Dialogic essentialism and protecting against stigma within the fat admirer community

ABSTRACT

Fat Admirers (FAs) represent a group of stigmatized individuals who challenge Western ideals of beauty. Using an internet ethnography, I analyze the sharing of stigmatizing experiences among FAs on the Dimensions forum, an online community for FAs and FFAs (female Fat Admirers). This research explains how individuals shape their understanding of an FA identity and how the use of self-protective strategies promote increased importance, validation, and protection of a stigmatized identity. This research adds to previous work on self-protective strategies against stigma. I argue that a new strategy, dialogic essentialism, is employed. Dialogic essentialism describes the process by which FAs converse with similarly situated others in attempts to normalize their essentialist beliefs, thus protecting against possible stigmatization.

KEYWORDS:

• Fat admirers
• stigma
• self-protective strategies
• internet ethnography

Disclosure statement

There is no potential conflict of interest.

Notes

1. I do caution readers about assuming homogeneity within this community (Pausé 2014).There are individuals who are FAs/FFAs <Fat Admirers, Female Fat Admirers> and also identify as fat. These narratives illustrate the nuances of being fat and admiring fatness. Elsie stated “I already feel better about myself. Knowing that I’m not alone as a BMH/FFA <Big Handsome Man/Female Fat Admirer> and being a BBW <Big Beautiful Women>.” Contrarily, Kelly wrote “I feel marginalized because I’m a BBW <Big Beautiful Woman> that is attracted to BHM <Big Handsome Men> … ”.

2. McKee and Porter (2008), Boellstroff et al. (2012), and Flicker, Haans, and Skinner (2004) suggested that researchers who study virtual spaces must consider ethical concerns in advance. Eynon, Fry, and Schroeder (2012, 286) stated that “if the data is not controversial, or if anonymity can be ensured, then this [confidentiality] is less of a concern compared to controversial research topics … ” Davenport et al. (2019, 281) stated that sites are public if they do not require membership, passwords, or are blocked by a search engine. BecauseReview Board (IRB) approval was granted, this dataresearch project followed ethical guidelines. are publicly available and Institutional

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elyse Neumann

Elyse Neumann is a PhD student at the University of Kansas. Her work involves fat studies, gender, and Medical Sociology.