When "thick" originally became an acceptable way to refer the body type of women, I thought that it meant plus-size. Slightly over the average weight for a woman's height but appears curvy. I would never have described these women as thick. A slab of wood can be thick or a piece of steak, a long book, winter jacket but not a human being.
Then I started to hear men actually use the word thick. Men, not women. Men would describe women of a perfectly average and healthy weight as thick. Curves, I think, are what men use as a defining characteristic of the body type. If you aren't the flat chested, skin and bones, model type then you're thick.
Men think that they're giving you a compliment. Like when your boyfriend tells you that you look "fine" in that dress. He really does mean well. He's just too dumb to recognize that fine is only sub-standard and that is unacceptable.
To girls, being called thick is the new fat. It means, yeah you diet and you go to the gym but it's not enough. It's an attack on something that you can't control. Thick is an attack on your genetics, your biological chemistry and your metabolism. It is an attack on your ability to gain muscle weight. An insult to the way that your body burns calories and fat. For some girls I know, being called thick is like telling them to stop eating, or throw up their lunch for weeks at a time.
Obviously this purge never works. At the end of those few weeks of starvation you're tired, angry and still thick. Because the way that the female body works from puberty on up is incomprehensible to men. The fact that our bodies are supposed to be more fat than muscle doesn't make sense to them.
No, I cannot eat that doughnut and not worry about it. Because my body doesn't work that way. My estrogen levels want me to hold onto the delicious fat that the doughnut provides me. I don't know science so if you want a lesson on the anatomical differences between a man and a woman's metabolic system you're going to have to google it.
So I want to know why one gender believes that they are complimenting a person of the other when women so clearly are not flattered by the word thick. Tell me I look thick in my bathing suite and watch me reach for a t-shirt. Tell me I'm thick when you flirt with me and watch me get up and leave. When she tells you she's offended apologize. Don't defend what you thought was a compliment.
Maybe you look that thick is beautiful and you are entitled to that opinion. But she doesn't want to be thick for you. She doesn't want her body type to be defined by what you think is beautiful. She doesn't want to be thick. She told you that it hurts her. So stop.
If you are a woman and you do not take offense to the word thick, this doesn't apply to you. Obviously, you are beautiful and a word cannot take that away from you. Maybe you do find it to be a compliment. "Thick" may be the body type that you strive for. All body types are beautiful. There are certain ways to describe and to label those body types, however, that aren't going to hurt people. Call her curvy or maybe just don't comment on her body shape and weight. All women, all people, are beautiful and no one deserves to be called something that makes them feel as though they need to cover up or eat less.
So, can we all just stop calling women thick. Not to their faces and not to your friends. Don't comment about how thick her thighs are on her Instagram. Don't send her beach selfie in a group chat and fan-girl over how thick she is. Let's just not comment on the bodies of women. Because maybe I'm wrong and maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean when you call me thick, but it feel objectified and I feel fat. Maybe being thick is sexy, but being called thick is degrading.
