this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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About fatphobia, how do you stay proudly loving your body and showing yourself off despite other's self-projections of their own insecurities onto you? (hexbear.net)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by HexaSnoot@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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I don't think I'm paranoid that people quietly think them. I may not always know when, but I know the sight of my stomach triggers people's insecurities.

One time I saw a woman with a stomach as big as an exercise ball in a crop top, and I've aspired to rock out as shamelessly as she did in her fully exposed stomach ever since.

This matters to me: I don't think she was pregnant. And I feel that means she didn't need a pregnancy as "excuse" to know she's entitled to proudly showing off her belly.

Btw, I think we've got to depict bellies as a sexy part of the body more. Even on abs, imo, a little pudge can look nice.

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[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

How about starting when you are at home with more revealing clothes to get comfortable with them. Then you start showing more and more skin around other people, in appropriate settings. Eventually it could become natural feeling and you will not feel you are doing something exceptional and weird.

Personally I like being covered when in public because it makes me feel safe. Not because of what anyone else might think, just for my own comfort of having some protection around me. I don't think that needs to change.

[–] HexaSnoot@hexbear.net 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I love crop tops, but idk how to deal with having a hanging belly for the first time. I think its unflattering. Strange because that girl with a large belly in a crop top was way fatter, and I my first thought was "WOAH She rocks!"

[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

tie your shirt up in a knot under your boobs and see how you like it

[–] HexaSnoot@hexbear.net 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I don't like it, but I know for most of my childhood I felt I could never wear a crop top in my life even though I was already thin. Then, 15 lbs less than now, I did it comfortably when I was a little fat. In retrospect, as a child I was the one projecting my own shame on my stomach, and I know I'm doing it now. Especially when someone obese like comedian Stavros Halkias frequently goes shirtless, has a shirtless statue of himself, and describes how he feels absolutely dashing about his looks. But he's immensely confident, with great assertive comebacks to any insult I've heard people tell him at his shows, and I'm not. Maybe I just need to build an arsenal of simple responses to someone acting disgusted at my stomach.