Body positivity is such a strange concept to me. There’s efforts to reclaim words while simultaneously calling them bad if used as an insult. Ideally, people wouldn’t be offended by someone describing their body with common descriptors, but socially there is so much value attributed to certain body types that it’s almost impossible to avoid having an emotional response of some kind to various descriptors.

For example, It’s not bad to be fat, but calling someone “fat” is almost universally considered a bad thing. The same definitely seems to go for the idea of being “short.”

I’m asking this question because I can’t put my finger on why but something seems to be different about the use of the term “short” from the use of the term “fat.” I think that part of it is how, to me at least, the term “fat” is so generic and hard to nail down to a discrete definition, implying that the word really doesn’t have a clear connection to reality. On the other hand, height is a single-dimensional number. You either are above a certain threshold, or you aren’t.

I recently learned that May 6th to May 10th is “short king week” because it’s 5’6" to 5’10" which then prompted me to search for the origins of “short king” and apparently the person most-credited with popularizing the term is Jaboukie Young-White who claims the term was meant to include all men under 6 feet tall. The average adult male height is 5’9" leaving men considered roughly average to be called “short” which is still considered an insult by many.

I dunno. As a term that was intended to champion body positivity compared with how the term is actually used, what do you think of “short king?”

  • Captain Aggravated
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    -21 month ago

    Would you ever write “penile stiffness” when talking about getting hard?

    I probably would, yeah. That sounds like how I talk, though on reflection I’d probably use the word “hardness.”

    What exactly is the woman getting out the guy she’s fucking in secret?

    So I’m the misogynist while you’re over here like “Have you considered that women are shallow cheating sluts?” And why is said cheating slut still involved with her “less-than-attractive” husband? Yeah, she sounds like a great person who I should…put a lot of work into myself to be worthy to be around. Sign me right the fuck up.

    even people like you can improve

    I’m not the problem here. I live in a world where most employers would pay you in company scrip rather than USD if, nay, when they’re allowed to get away with it again. I live in a world where 100% of the phone calls I get are scams or reminders of doctor’s appointments. I live in a world where packages of food labeled 12 ounces have 9 ounces of food in them. Everyone is out to scam you. EVERYONE. What method they choose to use is at least partially a factor of who they are to you. Are they an employer, a retailer, a banker, a young blonde? NONE of them care about your well being. None of them will call you an ambulance unless it would reflect badly on them not to.

    Repeat after me: No, they don’t love you. They don’t like you for who you are as a person. You did not win the Spanish lottery. Your car does not have an extended warranty. We are not like a family here.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 month ago

      I probably would, yeah.

      You might, if the context really called for it. Like when talking about the difference between morning wood and actual arousal. You know the difference right? But you don’t have enough empathy to understand women also get aroused, and it’s not just about “vaginal wetness”. Which is why describing a man getting horny as “getting penile stiffness”.

      But you’re having trouble being honest, so that’s just another example of it. More with yourself than with me.

      So I’m the misogynist while you’re over here like “Have you considered that women are shallow cheating sluts?”

      I’m not the one slut-shaming someone. It’s none of your business who someone has sex with, and the fact that you instantly go to “slut” instead of say, abusive, uncaring husband whom the woman is no longer in love with, says a lot, doesn’t it?

      The first comment of yours I replied to had “ugly chicks” in it. First off… “chicks”? Second, saying things like that is exactly why women perceive you as incredibly unattractive. Because unlike for you, women aren’t interested just in physical attractiveness. It is one of many factors that come into play as to whether a person is attractive or not. A woman might say they’d have sex with a person based on their physical attractiveness, but if they had to do it based on talking to someone for a minutes, being a shallow misogynistic dick would override even the best looks. Because despite your delusions, women do actually have thoughts and feelings.

      I’m not the problem here. I live in a world where most employers would pay you in company scrip rather than USD if, nay, when they’re allowed to get away with it again. I live in a world where 100% of the phone calls I get are scams or reminders of doctor’s appointments. I live in a world where packages of food labeled 12 ounces have 9 ounces of food in them. Everyone is out to scam you. EVERYONE.

      “I”, “I”, “I”, “me”, “me”, “me”, “me”. “I have no friends, I don’t get anything but scam calls, people don’t like me, everyone is out to scam me” … “I’m not the problem”.

      No, you’re not the problem. You have a problem. You’re depressed. Get help for it.

      Yes, problems exist. Yes, shitty people exist. But “only the Sith deal in absolutes” and so-on. You definitely need therapy.

      Do you know what also exist? Difference in physical attractiveness between men. For instance, you seem completely incapable of making women or anyone like you for that matter. I’ve never had a problem with it. Actually, I’ve had a problem making friends too easily, and women fawning over me too much. Even to the point I’ve realised I could actually abuse them, just like all the good looking assholes in the movies. The problem is, that’s the sort of assholery I’m really not into. So I don’t.

      People might not really love you, but how deeply fucked up do you have to be to think that your situation is extrapolated to every single other person?

      So I guess you may have just never really even experienced love. And that’s why I honestly suggest you look into psychedelic-assisted therapy. Jokes aside, it fucking works. No-one wants to be around a misery like you, but don’t think that means that no-one wants to be around anyone, that friends don’t care for each other, that you can’t love someone or have meaningful relationships. It’s weird how you keep pretending women are some sort of parasites, but yet you never address the implication that it works both ways, which means you think men “actually” love women, but that women just don’t have the ability.

      Which is loud as fuck for “I had a bad relationship and never had the coping tools to get over it so now I’m nearing 40 and I’m alone, sad and scared, so I lash out and pretend caring isn’t real like some sort of teenage incel”

      So you’re still saying that there’s no difference in physical attractiveness between Brad Pitt and say… you? ;P

      • Captain Aggravated
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        -21 month ago

        First off… “chicks”?

        In my part of the world it’s simply the distaff counterpart of “dudes.”

        No-one wants to be around a misery like you.

        Works for me. You think Ted Bundy bought his cabin from someone, or did he just…go way the fuck out in the woods and just built something? I’m not sure the tenses in that last sentence entirely matched but I can’t think of how to better phrase it.

        So you’re still saying that there’s no difference in physical attractiveness between Brad Pitt and say… you? ;P

        I don’t know, back in college I was usually compared more often to Orlando Bloom, but that’s probably because Brad Pitt was already obsolete as a sex symbol by then.