Fucking Catcalls; or, The Wages of Visibility; or, I Don’t Give A Shit If You Don’t Like It

Well.

To set the scene: I am fortunate enough to live, with my dear husband, in a condo on a fairly popular beach. I won’t go into which beach, and where, because that’s not really pertinent to the story.

During the summer, I go out to the beach quite often – even after work, on weekdays, since this time of year sunlight persists past 8pm at my latitude. Some days I go with company, some days by myself. I don’t so much go for tanning purposes (I’m heartily committed to SPF-A-MILLION sunblock), but because I enjoy the beach, and the sunshine, and the ocean, and find my time there entirely relaxing and restorative.

Today, while waiting to cross the street to actually get on the beach, I got catcalled. By a slender white girl (teenaged, I would guess) riding in a big white SUV with an unknown number of other teenaged slender white girls. The car slowed down, and the sneering girl in the passenger seat yelled out the window at me, “Hey baby, can I hit that?”

In the hundredth of a second I had to respond, I did what came naturally, as if it were a remark leveled by a teasing friend. I smiled salaciously and called back with an exaggerated “Yeeeaaaah.” And then I laughed. This elicited astonished looks and peals of nervous, brittle laughter from the occupants of the car, which then quickly sped away.

I knew, as I always know, that this couldn’t have been intended as anything other than a sarcastic and just plain mean attack. It’s been years – years! – since I’ve been catcalled like that, with unabashed malice as the motive behind it, so I was a little taken aback. I made my way onto the beach, down to where the quiet surf was beating the sand; I laid down on my towel and folded my arms under my head and thought.

It was gnawing at me.

I get angry when this shit gnaws at me.

I began my initial engagement with fat activism over ten years ago. Why the fuck can these experiences still gnaw at me? Why is it still possible for this to get under my skin, to unnerve me, to distract me from a beautiful afternoon on a beautiful beach? Who the hell do those people think they are, to feel entitled to fuck with my happiness, my choice to be out in public, to go about my life without being made to feel like a lesser being, like something that does not deserve these things? What do they gain by trying to ruin my day?

And then I thought: This is the wages of visibility.

This is what I get for being visible, for daring to go out, alone, dressed for the beach. This is what I get for refusing to hide, for refusing to apologize, for having the audacity to leave my house and live as though I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. To a casual observer, it makes me a target. It makes me a fool. It makes me a pushover, an easy mark, a laugh. People will always want to remind me: You’ve got no right to be so happy with yourself. Fatty.

Catcalling sucks, no matter the circumstances. If it’s sarcastic, it implies that no one could ever possibly find you attractive. If it’s genuine, it implies that your body (and by extension, your sexuality) is public property and simply being outside is an open invitation for commentary. Either way, it’s depersonalizing, and objectifying, and it sucks. I tend to think the long absence of the sarcastic catcall from my own life is likely rooted in my carriage and self-confidence; it’s difficult to effectively tear down somebody who’s obviously not feeling badly about herself, and I expect that my unhesitating reaction to the catcaller today was the reason for the astonished looks as the car drove away. I also think my built-in catcall-avoidance is at least partly a result of my age; women who aren’t so young (I’m only in my 30s, but still) are seen, culturally-speaking, as less sexual, less objectifiable, and thus their fatness is less an affront. For example, I doubt the girls in that car would have catcalled a woman their mother’s age. Given that ultimately, catcalling is always a commentary on a person’s attractiveness, either positive or negative, it tends to take place within a certain set of parameters. Though I was hardly thinking this deeply at the time, my reaction to the catcalling teenagers may have inadvertently addressed both their assumptions of my apparent sexual unattractiveness (vis-à-vis my fatness) AND of my perceived straightness, by my instant response in the affirmative to a sexual advance made by a female, in spite of that advance’s obvious insincerity.

There are so many people – people my size and far smaller – who wouldn’t even consider going to the beach, or wearing a swimsuit in public, for this very reason – the fear that someone will look, someone will say something, that someone will make them an example, that they will be humiliated, that they will be made to feel like they’ve got no right to leave the house wearing anything less than a tent, looking the way they look. And that makes me angry, that we can let people dictate to us what we can do, and where we can go, out of fear of instant humiliation that could come at any time, humiliation that the perpetrator will likely forget within the hour, but which the embarrassed person may carry with her for days, or for months, or for the rest of her life.

Given the choice between restricting my movements and being assured of never being catcalled again, versus going out shamelessly and risking (or demanding!) attention – I will gladly take the latter. I like being visible. Even when I become a bull’s-eye upon which the insecurities and savagery of others are exorcised. Even when I lose time processing and remembering the emotional risks I take just by being myself, time I would have otherwise spent relaxing in the sunshine. When I first began my self-acceptance process, I decided first off that I never wanted to feel afraid of what those people – those who would mercilessly catcall me from a moving car, for example – might think or say about my body again. I never wanted to avoid life out of fear. And I’m still there, still fighting to be fearless.

So I say fuck those people. I’ll be on that beach tomorrow, and this weekend, and for months to come, and if they don’t like it, good, I’m glad to displease them.

They cannot stop me.

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