Rubenesque Me

I was watching E!News last week when they started talking about the winner of the latest cycle of Next Top Model, Whitney Thompson. Thompson is evidently more special than Tyra’s usual winners as she is “plus-sized” at a self-confessed size 10. The voiceover on the entertainment program referred to her as rubenesque.

Am I the only person here doing a double take at that description?! After I picked my jaw up off the ground, I decided to look up the word in case I had mixed up my Fat Girl synonyms.

1. Of, relating to, or in the style of a painting of Peter Paul Rubens.
2. Plump or fleshy and voluptuous. Used of a woman.

This size 10 girl is in no way plus-sized or “fleshy” at any angle! Heck, plus-sized stores like Addition-Elle, Torrid, and Lane Bryant don’t even carry size 10’s for the most part. Would you like to know why? Because only skinny girls wear a size 10 and no self-respecting skinny girl (or former fat girls) would be caught dead in a plus-sized store.

I don’t know if I am angrier with; E! for calling Thompson fleshy in the first place or at the world in general for thinking that someone with a body this great is “plus-sized” just because she doesn’t wear a size 0. I get that I’m fat but this girl isn’t and suggesting that she is rubenesque is insulting women everywhere.

Now, if you don’t mind I’m going to drown my fat girl sorrows in a pint of ice cream. You’re welcome to join me but only if you’re plus sized – you know a size 10 or higher.