This past Friday, I was a guest commentator on “The Daily Drum”, which airs Monday through Friday on WHUR 96.3 in DC.  The topic was plus-size women and dating and whether a woman’s waistline was directly related to her dating life.  This show was directly related to a post written by “Crunk Feminist Collective” blogger Brittney Cooper.  I may share the link of the show with you all in the near future, but for now, I want to take this post in a different direction.

While the host, Harold Fisher, was pretty adamant about where he wanted his show to go (and kept his questions in alignment with that), there were a number of places this conversation could have gone.  For example, rather than JUST talking about plus-size women, we could have (and should have) discussed plus-size men.  Just as there are men that will not date overweight women, there are just as many women that will not date overweight men. 

It seems recently with posts from Jozen Cummings at “Until I Get Married“, Brittney Cooper at the “Crunk Feminist Collective“, and Alice Randall at the “New York Times“, there seems to be this influx of Black women and weight issues.  I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone of when before it was Black women being single. 

So, as I’m known to do sometimes, I’m going to take this a step further.  I’ve decided to interview 10 people, 5 men and 5 women, married, single, childless, parents, to find out their ideal body type in the opposite sex.  Since it’s going to take me a while to reach out to the people I want to interview, it may be a few weeks before I can post all of their thoughts.  I don’t know if it’s because it’s summertime or maybe the world needs another way to pick on Black women (oops, did I say that???), but maybe’s it’s something that needs to be discussed. 

If you’re interested in being interviewed, feel free to e-mail me at evolvingelle@gmail.com.  I can tell you I already have 2 men and 3 women, so slots are filling up quickly. 🙂  Until next time, I’m just a Southern girl…in the city!

P.S. I realized I didn’t give that much commentary.  In case you missed me on the show, no, I don’t think a woman’s (or man’s) waistline is directly correlated with her dating life.  First, as my auntie Casey used to say, “There’s a taste for every shape.”  Sure, we have “types” that are aesthically pleasing to us and that are going to grab our attention.  A man wants a woman who’s confident, sure of herself, and enjoys life.  But if a woman is unhappy at 250 pounds, unless she makes changes on the inside, too, she’s going to be unhappy at 150 pounds.  Same for a man.  Oh, and my type?  I need a man with some meat on his bones-but not so much meat that he has issues breathing or walking or doing simple day-to-day things without taking a break every 5 minutes.

Related articles

• Are Black Women fat by choice? Apparently so according to black women themselves (bazaardaily.com)
• “How many middle-aged white women fear their husbands will find them less attractive if their weight drops to less than 200 pounds?” (althouse.blogspot.com)
• Big girls need love, too: Reflections on Dating While Fat and Feminist (thesingleladies.wordpress.com)
• HBO documentary ‘Weight of the Nation’ explores nation’s obesity epidemic (wjla.com)