fn1 You probably already know that there are more than just two genders. There are people who are transgender (when they were born, based on their genitals, people assumed they were the wrong gender), agender (people who do not identify with any gender), bigender (people who identify with two genders, interchangeably) and we have people who are non-binary or genderqueer (people who are ‘something other than man/woman’. Often, but not always, non-binary people will prefer the pronouns they/them instead of he/him or she/her). Cis means that your actual gender fits with your ‘assumed gender’ – the gender you were assigned at birth. Gender is a construct and it all exists on a spectrum and gender can easily mean a different thing to different people. But regardless of which gender you subscribe to – if any at all – fatness is, in the eyes of society, not allowed.
fn2 I’m really getting into these introduction. Isn’t this exciting? It feels less formal. Like we are at a house party and I drag you into the bathroom to have a chat about that person I fancy. Which could be a person of any (or no) gender, by the way, because I am pansexual. It’s pretty much the same as bisexual. But some people still think that bisexuality reinforces the gender binary (the idea that there are only two genders: man and woman) because it’s an old-fashioned word. So I prefer pansexual, just to make it absolutely clear that I can be sexually attracted to ab-so-lute-ly ev-er-y-on-e.
fn3 Fat activists are people trying actively to change the world, in order to make it less fatphobic. More about this a bit later on.
fn4 ME! AN AUTHOR! I mean, you’re currently reading this book, so maybe it is not the most reassuring thing to read. Like if you overheard your doctor say ‘Oh my god, can you believe they let me do this surgery?’ or even worse, if you heard your hairdresser say, ‘Oooh, they let me hold the scissors!’
fn5 Neuroatypical is a broad umbrella term for people whose neurology doesn’t fit with what most people deem ‘normal’. So, anyone with a mental or behavioural disorder, depression, ADHD, anxiety, eating disorders, bipolar disorders and so on.
fn6 If four hundred and ninety-nine fat people would like to join me, I’ll be doing this every Sunday in my nearest park from now on.
fn8 Womanism is sort of like feminism but with a focus on black women’s experience. It was coined by Alice Walker (author of The Color Purple). It has been described as ‘black feminism’.
fn1 If you really want to get the gist on Skamby, just look up what the words ‘skam’ and ‘by’ mean in Danish. Okay, I’ll do it for you. ‘Skam’ means ‘shame’. ‘By’ is ‘town’. Shametown. I grew up in Shametown. That’s just what I wanted to tell you. Carry on reading now.
fn2 Fun Denmark fact: ‘Tandsmør’ is a Danish word which directly translated means ‘tooth-butter’ – it’s when you put so much butter on bread that it leaves teeth marks when you take a bite. Hold on, I just have to go kiss my passport.
fn3 I fought against having to do PE till I left the educational system at nineteen. I won several battles against several PE teachers and various principals. I told them that if they truly believed that their need for me to attend PE was because they wanted me to exercise and not because they had some fascist desire to control children, then they should let me do the kind of exercise that I wanted to do. I won and I was allowed to either go for a walk or rehearse a dance routine alone in an unused classroom. When I got older, once I had a therapist’s note saying that I was mentally unable to do PE, they let me take an arts and crafts class with younger students instead. Sofie v. PE: 3–0.
fn4 Or start doing comedy?
fn5 Hi kids, MSN Messenger was a chat programme, sort of like Facebook Messenger but without the entire social platform. You got to choose your own screen name, so you could be called something like °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø westℓife ro¢ks°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø. It was pretty awesome.
fn6 Two. That is technically QUITE a few.
fn7 Note to self: consider renaming book The Models I Have Rejected.
fn8 Queer means ‘strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint’. It was used as a degrading insult about members of the LGBTQIA+ community in the beginning of the twentieth century. It is why the term might feel a bit wrong, if this is one of the first times you have heard it used outside of a 1950s movie. The community I feel like I am a part of believes that people with fat bodies are queer, as we do not fit in with the conventions. We are also seen as ‘other’. Conventions are all about ‘should’. We should be thin, we should be straight, we should have some kids, women should have long hair, men should be tall. The sitcom dream come true. To me, queerness is about realising that you are free (emotionally) from all of the internal expectations and demands. You can be whoever you want to be. Obviously, it comes with a fair amount of hassle from the outside world; loss of privileges, risk of discrimination and exclusion, abuse and so on. But internally, there are no ‘shoulds’.
fn9 Beauty being subjective is only one side of the coin. What I mean is: You can teach yourself, through exposure, to perceive something as beautiful. What I think is beautiful is different to what you think is beautiful. On the other hand, beauty is also a structural hierarchy within society that allows discrimination to happen. So even though beauty is, in theory, subjective and personal, it is also a way to control people. But, for each of us, when it comes to trying to relearn how we experience fatness, beauty can become whatever we want it to be.
fn10 Straight-sized stores are basically just stores. Stores not for fat people. If you are straight-sized, you are not plus-sized. The tendency has been to call it normal-sized, but we can see how that’s super not okay – we don’t want to indicate that it’s somehow freakishly weird to be fat. So instead we go with: straight-sized.
fn1 Excuse me, but if you have duct tape on your mouth, can’t you just spit and drool a lot, until it falls off? It always feels like a #majorplothole. I know that it might ruin the momentum to see Bruce Willis spit and drool down himself, but maybe he’d kill more bad guys if he wasn’t so vain.
fn2 I prefer fatter Chris Pratt, when he was in Parks and Recreation. Not muscly Jurassic Park Chris Pratt. Wait, why is he only in things with parks in them? Can someone answer me, please?
fn3 The Fatpocalypse has been coined by my fatlicious friend Cat Pausé as a cooler and more fun name for The Obesity Epidemic – which she describes as the word that they use on the news for the notion that we are all becoming fat(ter) and it’s going to kill us all. Cat Pausé is a Fat Studies researcher and scholar. She is academic as fuck. She has a PhD and has won awards. But when I asked her how she wanted me to introduce her in this book, she asked me to just call her ‘fatlicious’. And that is essentially all you need to know about Cat Pausé.
fn4 I miss the time I really liked Ricky Gervais, you know, before I learned about his general personality.
fn5 ‘Lesbians always ask me on dates’ is a thing I’m trying to make a stereotype. Help me with that, will you? Thank you.
fn6 Debatable.
fn7 I don’t listen to jazz but I assume this is what it sounds like.
fn8 I have been advised by my lawyers to make it very clear that all of this is NOT a serious statement. I am merely having a silly daydream like the one where I’m a contestant on Great British Bake Off and Paul Hollywood is very disappointed in me and needs to see me in private with a spatula.
fn9 There exist approximately seven people who can attest to this not being true and they all owe me some shampoo.
fn10 Look, of course we don’t need princesses in general. And the idea that little girls want to become princesses while little boys want to become soldiers is inherently toxic. When I say we need a fat Disney princess, what I’m saying is: as long as we have Disney princesses, make some of them fat. It is two different discussions: portrayals (how we write women) and representation (who we cast or draw to play those women).
fn11 Mmm, the male gaze is such a great feminist phrase. Coined by film critic Laura Mulvey in 1975 to describe the way visual arts and literature depicts the world through a male point of view, making women the sexual objects. It’s how a movie written by a woman and featuring women is called a ‘chick-flick’ and how a movie written by a man featuring a man is called a ‘movie’.
fn12 Men on Buses is a scarier film than Snakes on a Plane.
fn13 If you want to feel sick to your stomach, go read about some of the other twisted things Yiannopoulos has engaged in online.
fn14 Doxxing is this fun little thing where trolls figure out where you and your family live, what your phone numbers are, and where you hang out, and then they publish it to the internet and encourage people to go find you. How fun.
fn15 That is, if you look away from the later allegations that came out against Aziz, which a quick Google search will update you on.
fn16 This is going to be so much fun in the audiobook. You eye-readers, you’ll have to just imagine this bit.
fn17 FUN FACT: The description for a thin character is just ‘character’.
fn18 This is a perfect example of a very funny joke.
fn19 I absolutely did not win. The writers of the show immediately got back to me, trying to defend themselves by saying, ‘We needed a character who could not find a boyfriend, so she could not be thin. If she was thin, people would think that she could easily find someone who would want her’, and after a very long, furious email back to them (after which they offered me work writing for the show – I declined), we stopped speaking. As far as I know, the sketch was never filmed or broadcast, but I also never watched the show. I just thought ‘And I won’ was a cool way to end an anecdote.
fn1 Misogynoir is misogyny directed towards black women.
fn2 Fatshion is fat fashion. Great, isn’t it?
fn1 Shout out to Queen Margrethe the Second, of Denmark.
fn2 The first time I said goodbye to a very famous Danish comedian, he opened his arms and I just embraced his body. I then realised that he had just reached out for the door-handle. I think about that every time I feel confident, as if my body has an automatic ‘let’s not get too happy’ function that sets in every time there is a danger of me actually becoming an adult person.
fn3 TIP: You can buy your own extension belt online. This is potentially life-changing advice, if you feel uncomfortable asking for one on the plane. I once asked for one twice and she never gave it to me, so, feeling stubborn and annoyed, I just never wore a seatbelt. I have to tell you: I have never felt more alive.
fn4 I am talking about the lack of WiFi, am I right, Millennials? Huh? What if someone tweets something while I am in the sky? FOMO much?
fn5 Just kidding, I’m totally the atheist Bang Lord you expect me to be. I have been beating that puss and riding the purple stick since I was legal, if you know what I mean. (I’m sorry.)
fn6 Let’s have ‘Fellow Fatty’ T-shirts and badges made. Seriously, guys. Let’s do it.
fn7 I practise speeches a lot. In mirrors, in the shower, on the bus. Oscar thank-you speeches, wedding speeches, you-never-should-have-left-me-you-piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend speeches, but my favourite speeches are the shouting-at-white-men-in-suits speeches. They all end with GOODBYE, SIR, by the way. That’ll teach them.
fn8 Not the worst destiny in the world, but I’m sure most people would appreciate a heads up.
fn1 I have not actually counted but this seems like a fair shot.
fn2 FatSwap is an amazing event that takes place all over the UK (and I know that other cities all over Europe and probably USA are starting to do it as well) where fat people bring all the clothes they no longer want or need and put them on long tables, in their size group and then you are just free to grab whatever you want. You donate a bit to the cause at the entrance, but other than that it is free for all. It is glorious and wonderful and fat people are supporting each other and complimenting each other right, left and centre. Go to a FatSwap or set up one in your local area. It is the best.
fn3 When someone is desexualised, their sexual appeal is removed from them. A desexual person is not considered sexy. Whereas an asexual person is just a person with a lack of sexual feelings. Basically, desexual is how the world views you or how the world makes you appear, and asexual is how a person feels on the inside.
fn4 I once told my friend that I considered going make-up free and she said, ‘I know how to do that. You just have to use a lot of foundation to make it look like you’re not wearing make-up,’ and that turns out to be the trick. What a world.
fn5 All right, so this is a tricky one. The saying goes, ‘There is no ethical consumption under capitalism,’ and I am someone who has not just flirted with the communist ideology, I have full-on snogged it behind a skip at a private party and later texted to it, ‘U up?’ So I feel weird saying something as capitalist as, ‘Yeah, spend your money on stuff you don’t essentially need.’ But we do live under capitalism and we are all consumers. So if you can, try to be aware of where the stuff you buy comes from.
fn6 Never point at kids as you are shouting inside a cab, it sends a wrong signal. It could look like you are shouting, ‘Let me out and let me get those little fuckers!’ and no one wants that.
fn7 Note to self: Figure out how to patent ‘So what?’ as an expression.
fn8 Remember when it was the bleaching of assholes? People would bleach. their. assholes. so. that. they. were. pink. instead. of. brown. BLEACH. THEIR. ASSHOLES. This might even still be a thing. I just did a quick google and it turns out the official word for it is ‘anal bleaching’ and I stumbled upon an article called ‘How to Bleach Your Anus’ and also an article called ‘What You Need to Know Before You Whiten your Butthole’. When I tried to find out why this is a thing, an article suggested that it is a ‘safe and effective way to increase your confidence’, which is bullshit shat from a bleached asshole. Another article suggested that this started happening because people started bleaching their genitals and at this point, I just shut down the entire computer, burned it, burned the world to the ground and now, we are all dead because we do not deserve to live in this world anymore. I mean, you do you, but also, stop bleaching your genitals. If anything, having a white asshole only makes the stains more visible? Same reason I never wear white. Kind regards, Sofie, thirty years old, asshole unbleached.
fn9 unbleached.
fn10 unbleached or bleached.
fn11 Maybe some people do this and I am not one to judge. I am very sex-positive. If you get off on shoving gallons of sand into your asshole, then I respect you for it. Godspeed.
fn12 Hehe. (I have been asked by my editor to clarify why this is funny. It’s because ‘vitamin D’ also means ‘dick’. Vitamin Dick. But in this particular instance, I did mean the actual vitamin. But then it reminded me of the dick. Hehe. Dick.)
fn1 What you do is, you just hit on the Big Fat Friend because then the Hot Friend will think you are a great guy who does not care about looks but she will also feel jealousy for the first time in her life and want to convince you to sleep with her instead. If you do not know that a whole world of pick-up artists exist, then I am very sorry to be the one to break this to you.
fn2 You know, how being straight is considered ‘the norm’. Straight is the closet we are all born into and, if you are not straight, you have to jump out of it. Heteronormative is that idea. That I start talking about dating and, without mentioning it, I refer exclusively to the way straights date. Despite being pansexual I have lived way more and longer as straight, so this is the world I have greater knowledge of. I do not wish to assume how it works outside of this world, although I acknowledge that some of the same issues might be just as relevant.
fn3 Although, big shout-out to all my asexuals. When discussing sexuality, it’s important to just point out that asexual people exist and they are valid. Asexual people are often overlooked, especially when discussing sex. So here’s a little footnote to remind you of the existence of asexual people.
fn4 We couldn’t go to my place because I had left an open can of tuna on the radiator. No one believes this and I am okay with that.
fn5 I don’t want to talk about it.
fn6 Same bush, different guys.
fn7 When you are reading this, assume the number has at least doubled – after this book comes out, I assume I will be inundated with sexy offers and I’ll be knee-deep in lovemaking.
fn8 And possibly due to the way I refer to myself as the Bang Lord in my book.
fn1 Certain disability-justice-activism groups advocate for using ‘fatmisia’ (which essentially means fat-hatred) instead of ‘fatphobia’. These groups consider the word ‘phobia’ to be ableist since it is not a mental condition such as agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) or acrophobia (fear of heights). Yet, other groups of disability activists point out that fat-hatred does have basis in fear, essentially.
fn2 I could have edited out Kivan saying that my wording was clever, but I didn’t. It’s in here. You’re reading it.
fn3 If you are reading this sentence, I probably won a discussion with my editor about getting to keep this in. It’s my book, I’m keeping the compliments.
fn4 Chubby Chasers: People who are into fat people, in this instance, gay men who are into fat gay men.
fn5 Fat, gay man.
fn6 A ‘bear’ is a hairy, fat, gay man.
fn7 A subculture based on positive attitudes towards larger bodies and fat fetishism.
fn1 I mean, even though you’re fat, there will still be sunshine, but rollercoasters are out of the picture for many of us.
fn2 It was quite fantastic seeing this article going viral, seeing as Michael Hobbes is a thin man – quite the opposite of the fat women who made the same points in the 1960s. It seems to take a thin man for anyone to pay attention.
fn3 Sing along, kids: THE DIET INDUSTRY IS WHO.
fn4 It is very similar to what a lot of people are doing with the Scandinavian term ‘hygge’. A word that just means ‘to chill out’. ‘To relax’. ‘To hang’. Something that is so fundamentally free. Yet suddenly there are £25 books about ‘How to Hygge’ and £35 scented candles called ‘hygge’ and wool ‘hygge’ blankets for £85. As a Dane, I think this is an outrage. You are already hygging whenever you are just having a nice time. That is hygge. Don’t give them your money.
fn5 I mean, possibly be more aware than a two-year-old. In that, you should probably stick to eating food instead of rocks you find on the beach. Don’t put anything with small parts in your mouth. And don’t poo in your mother’s mouth, if you can help it.
fn1 These long sentences are really good to memorise and then later, you can say them at a party and sound really smart. Please read my next book How to Sound Like You Went to Cambridge When, Actually, You Dropped Out of Uni Because You Liked Sleeping More than Studying.
fn2 BMI is the simple calculation of your ‘body mass index’. Your BMI is your weight in kilograms divided by your height in metres squared. I am surprised that people still use BMI seeing as it really should not be used in any medical sense. It is a 200-year-old mathematical formula which is ultimately flawed. It was created by a mathematician. And it makes no sense – it does not, at all, touch upon waist size, which has quite a bit to do with your level of fatness. Moreover, it ignores the fact that bone density differs from person to person – and that muscles can add to your weight too. So incredibly fit people and athletes can be classified as ‘morbidly obese’.
fn3 The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System is a system of health-related telephone surveys that collect state data about US residents regarding their health-related risk behaviours, chronic health conditions, and use of preventive services.
fn1 The social model of disability says that disability is caused by the way society is organised, rather than by a person’s impairment or difference. It looks at ways of removing barriers that restrict life choices for disabled people.
fn2 I had to look up what Matilda meant by Afrofuturism and I found this description by Jamie Broadnax in an article from February 2018 in the Huffington Post, ‘Afrofuturism is the reimagining of a future filled with arts, science and technology seen through a black lens. [ … ] What makes Afrofuturism significantly different from standard science fiction is that it’s steeped in ancient African traditions and black identity. A narrative that simply features a black character in a futuristic world is not enough. To be Afrofuturism, it must be rooted in and unapologetically celebrate the uniqueness and innovation of black culture.’
fn1 Reddit is a forum on the internet. It has some truly hell-holeish sub-groups – it is the best place for trolls to blossom and share hateful memes and discuss how to attempt to break down women online. Fun times.
fn2 My new word for ‘people who are less fat than me’.
fn3 I had one leg all the way in and half an arm and then I got stuck. That is when my mother leaned in and put money in it and the loudest music you have ever heard blasted through the speakers and the whole mall became intensely aware of this fat ten-year-old stuck in a mechanical car for toddlers, being shaken back and forward to the rhythm of a kids’ song. Just in case you ever wondered why I became a comedian.
fn4 I am in no way asking for a spare seat next to me for other people’s comfort. It’s one hundred per cent for my own. It’s a sentence I use to create as much empathy for my situation as possible, so the odds are in my favour.
fn5 #NotAllFatPeople – some fat people are also capable of running up stairs with no issues whatsoever. I am #NotOneOfThoseFatPeople.
fn6 I am primarily unable to walk up loads of stairs because I am in ‘bad shape’ or whatever you call it when you don’t do all the exercise. The fact that I am fat does make this aforementioned exercise a bit harder, as I am carrying more weight, but I don’t want you to assume that being fat equals an incapability of walking up stairs. By the way, there is nothing wrong with being unable to walk up stairs. Get your morality out of my stair-climbing, please.
fn7 No, it is not relevant that he is a musician, but why sleep with a musician if you are not going to mention it in your book?
fn8 ‘They SOLD Westlife pyjamas?!’ you may think. And no. No, they did not. I had them especially made. Shut up.
fn9 Gaslighting is when a person questions another person’s reality in order to have more power over them. In Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gaslight, a man is quite obviously cheating on his wife and she knows this, but to get away with it he tries to make her think she is insane. The husband starts to make the gas light dimmer, and his wife points it out, but he pretends that it’s not dimming. In relationships, you will often see a woman calmly pointing out that her partner is acting weird (because they are acting weird) and he will then raise his voice and call her paranoid and crazy.
fn10 I know that it has been debunked that the T-Rex could only sense movement, but I am specifically talking about the fictitious Jurassic Park T-Rex. Not the weird one that had feathers and was a vegetarian. I’m talking the original OG T-Rex, the Hollywood star.
fn11 Just try and imagine a fat T-Rex. Do it. Imagine it right now. Isn’t it cute?
fn12 As I am writing this, he is very much still the president, but I am writing this book in the hopes of a better future. Also, my editor wouldn’t let me write ‘now deceased’.
fn13 An actual thing I heard someone say.
fn14 Listen, I know all of this sounds like I’m being really angry and harsh. And if you are a thin person reading this, you might want to put your hand on my shoulder and say, ‘Look, I would never do any of these horrible things,’ and yes, I know. The anger stems from the fact that so. many. people. do. these. things. I am not talking from the point of view of someone who is scared of this happening, I talk from the point of view of someone who has seen this sort of stuff happen over and over again. Also, now your hand is already on my shoulder, would you give me a backrub? I’ve been dealing with a lot of fatphobes today and could use some relaxing.
fn1 I refuse to use the word journey anymore, so I have found a thesaurus and looked up synonyms for ‘journey’.
fn2 Diet books and ‘lifestyle change’ books. Fun fact: lifestyle change is just another word for dieting. People often think they are being super clever when they exclaim, ‘Actually, you are right, dieting DOES NOT work, what you need to do is actually to make a LIFESTYLE CHANGE.’ Just shut up, Sebastian.
fn3 Another fun fact: You don’t have to live up to society’s or really anyone’s idea of attractive. You can be ugly. You’re allowed to not care. One of the main problems with the term ‘body positivity’ is that the word ‘positive’ is in there. You can also just be ‘body neutral’. Where looks and appearance simply don’t matter.
fn4 I am not sure what the hottest piece of an ass is. Is it the bumhole? I have a mole on my bum – allegedly – maybe that is the hottest piece of my ass.
fn5 This might sound like an exaggeration but no, this is actually quite common advice. It even happened in a popular Sex and the City scene. Isn’t diet culture fun?
fn6 Steve being a very common name in ancient times.
fn7 I don’t mean that ‘we loved to sit around being homo- and transphobic while cheating on only the best guy ever, Aidan’. I mean, we were four ladies in a cafe and is there any better example of that than to reference a nineties hit show? I think not.
fn8 It started fading because during one brunch, I laughed loudly and one of my friends told me that I laughed weird. After that, I stopped laughing with sound for a whole year. When I realised what she had made me feel – shame over laughing – I started to end it with the whole group. It felt toxic. Who shames someone for laughing?
fn9 I still refuse to use the word ‘journey’.
fn10 The school system is flawed in so many ways. Institutions that have to constantly battle financial cuts will often not have the resources to attend to the special needs of one specific child – or one specific group of children. It often ends up being thirty highly individual kids in one classroom all expected to learn the same material in the same way. Me suggesting that you, the reader, singlehandedly attempt to change the way your children are being taught is, if anything, quite optimistic. I realise this.
fn11 Yeah, huge caveat right here: there are a lot of systems in place that are directly going to try and stop you from achieving your dream. If your dream is to play opposite Chris Pratt as the female lead in a Hollywood film, I’m pretty sure they would not allow that (I’ve asked). But if your dream is not dependent on other people’s permission or commission – if all you’ve ever wanted was to take up dancing or sew your own clothes or write a book (hello) – don’t wait till you’re thin. Do it now. I once found a diary I wrote when I was sixteen where I had written down, ‘Things I Will Do When I’m Thin’. One of them was: ‘kiss a lesbian’. Now I know that you can do that while fat. Thank God.
fn12 The word ‘why?’ is so important when you are starting to face people with a newfound positive attitude towards fatness. ‘Why are you asking me that? Why are you assuming? Why are you reacting like that?’ – it is equally powerful to use against yourself as well. ‘Why does this photo showing my chins make me sad? Am I currently believing that I should be ashamed of my chins? Why am I reacting like this?’
fn13 Also, every once in a while, so that I can live out that fantasy where I met Fat Chris Pratt at a house party, and he is now obsessed with me, which means that I one day on a busy street in London shouted into a phone, ‘We can have this conversation again once you finish shooting that dinosaur movie, Pratt,’ because I call him Pratt – it’s like, our thing, you know?
fn14 I need you to listen very carefully: You do not have any flaws. You do not. There is no such thing. You are perfect. I do not care how large your nose is or how much cellulite you have, you are perfect. When I say ‘flaws’, I mean it in the way that magazines mean it – and when they say ‘flaws’, they mean ‘things we can pretend to fix if you give us your money’. Don’t listen to them.
fn15 Adverts directed at men seem to be telling men to use a body-wash-shampoo-conditioner-toothpaste-shaving-foam-all-in-one because EXPLOSIONS AND WAR.
fn16 #SaggyBoobsMatter is a hashtag coined by the Slumflower, Chidera Eggerue. She is a kick-ass powerhouse of a woman fighting the fight for no-bra-saggy-boobs to be free, free from judgement.
fn17 A fatty, not a parent.
fn18 I keep reading this as ‘bad boy’ and I love the idea of calling my body a ‘bad boy’. I think it might be a bad boy.
fn19 Or go to shoogmcdaniel.com
fn20 Please imagine me nodding approvingly. Maybe I do a thumbs up. A sexy wink. Yes, a sexy wink. They exist and I know how to do one. I am doing one right now because it is hard to write about sexy winks without attempting to do one. If you are on public transportation as you are reading this, watch out, because you are probably attempting to do a sexy wink and you are attracting hordes of people who now want to be your sex-partner. Quick! Make a disapproving face to make them go away. Good. Well done. Now, back to the book.
fn21 Feminists. Feminists support sex workers. Because we, of course, don’t think it’s right to tell women (in particular) what to do with their bodies and their lives. And criminalisation of sex work has proven to be very dangerous to the sex workers. The International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW.org) can give you more facts and tell you how to help.
fn22 It was also a body-fuck because, well, porn.
fn23 Well. They were reacting very well.
fn24 However, you can go back a few pages and start over and actually do it and then you can read this page again without feeling guilty. #lifehack
fn25 Although, touch yourself in a sexy way if you want to. It’s a good way to release stress, to get in touch with your body and to recall any time in Great British Bake Off where Paul Hollywood is very, very disappointed in someone’s cake. Mmm. Hey! We are sex positive. We don’t judge each other’s fantasies here.
fn26 When I googled ‘animal that hides its head in the sand’ in order to find out how to spell ‘ostrich’, I learned that, actually, ostriches do not actually do that. According to San Diego Zoo – http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/ostrich – when ostriches are threatened, they attack with a kick powerful enough to kill a lion. One animal that does hide when it feels threatened is a turtle. It simply pretends it is a rock. I can relate to that.
fn27 Hoofstand?
fn28 It is not important where it was – it looked like any other hotel room. It is merely important to mention because I remember it vividly (and it sounds cool, let’s be honest).
fn29 You know, from whenever Instagram and selfie-cameras came to the world.
fn30 Not in a playful and curious way, more in a ‘I am about to rip your motherfucking throat out if you as much as crop this photo, because I am perfect in every single way and if you even consider removing even a single one of the hairs on my legs, I will maul you’ kind of way.
fn1 I’m looking at you, huge corporations.