Woman Wears a Fat Suit on Tinder Dates to Expose Horrible Double Standard
This is a man's world, indeed.
Whether it's on the job, the red carpet or even a date, a woman with a curvier figure is prone to criticism, if not outrght derision. Not so necessarily for counterparts of the opposite sex, who may still get the big promotion, starring roles and the so-called "hot chick" without cast-iron pecs and six-pack abs.
In the dating world, this sexist double standard is referenced but seldom seen by those to whom it doesn't apply. Until now, that is, thanks to a recent hidden-camera social experiment. The folks at Simple Pickup, an admittedly creepy pickup-artist site, make the disparity quite clear. The experiment was gimmicky — find out what happens when a Tinder date shows up much larger in person than they appear in profile photos — but the results were pretty illuminating.
After setting the subjects up with dates, one man and one woman were put into fat suits and sent out to their dates. Guess who received the most vitriol?
The conversations between male dates and the subject "Sarah" quickly turned from curiosity to disgust.
"I really don't appreciate people lying to me," one man said as he stormed out of the restaurant. "I'm a little agitated," another spluttered. "It's very upsetting. I wasted gas and my time to come over here and I can't do this."
Two other guys quickly devised escape plans — one said he was married, and the other asked where the restroom was, only to never return. In the end, just one male date stuck around long enough to be told the whole thing was an experiment.
When replicated for the male subject, "Willie," the responses were pretty different. The female dates seemed less repulsed — at least outwardly — and engaged Willie in conversation.
They also were quicker to forgive him for what were apparently very outdated profile pictures. (Unfortunately, they also seemed to forgive his transphobic jokes, mocking women with "large hands.")
The end result? Willie got a handful of second dates, unlike Sarah, who went home without any interest from the would-be male suitors.
It's not clear what Simple Pickup thought would happen in both experiments — and in the future, the site shouldn't use fat people's images in a way that could be perceived as the butt of a joke, even if it is to prove a point.
Women everywhere are reclaiming their bodies from rigid, outdated beauty standards that shame women with curvier builds. Just this summer, dozens of women banded together for a "Fatkini" swimsuit spread online, sending the message that they can feel beautiful in the summertime without the hype about getting thinner. And in a controversial song that took female sexuality to a refreshing new level in music, Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" celebrated having a "big, fat" derierre unlike any other song playing on the radio.
Still, there's a clear lesson to be learned from Simple Pickup's small (and flawed) experiment. If you're a straight woman trying to date on the Internet, regardless of whether or not you use updated profile photos, be warned: Some men can't break away from the sorts of unrealistic body-image standards for women that have plagued Western culture for decades. It goes without saying that the thin, blond, fair-skinned trope is not the only definition of beauty in America. It's too bad so many guys still can't seem to comprehend this fact.
h/t Huffington Post
