A little over two years ago, “World’s Fattest Man” Manuel Uribe married his fiance Claudia Solis to the clucking dismay of fat haters everywhere. How could she be sexually attracted to someone so fat? How do they even have sex? When the answer to the latter question came in, you could almost see the horrified faces: His friends constructed a “sex ramp” that enabled him to consummate his marriage. The idea of fat people having sex has long been a source of asshole-ish commentary and thinly veiled (if you’re lucky) disgust. And yet, we fat people keep going on and getting it on.

The case of Manuel Uribe shines a light directly on society’s discomfort with the existence of fat people who continue to live their lives fully despite the oppression they feel, and who, despite society’s vigorous objections, continue to engage in activites that bring sexual pleasure. Infamously, last October Marie Claire printed a blog post on their website by Maura Kelly that essentially said “ew, gross” to the sight of two fat people kissing. Clothes on, nothing past first base. So apparently, we’re supposed to “get a room” even to just make out (what’s incredibly silly is that on the show Ms. Kelly was referring to, Mike and Molly, they were kissing inside their own house), because it’s just too much for thin people to look at without being disgusted. To quote Ms. Kelly, who is addressing a question posed to her:

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine [sic] addict slumping in a chair.

This gets into judgments of health status, which if you followed my last column here (or pretty much any fat acceptance blog), you know is just a red herring to distract from underlying fatphobia. People love to “health troll” fat people under the guise of concern, as Ms. Kelly does in her article. Notice she tacks on the end of that quote a qualifier that she just doesn’t like to watch any kind of “unhealthy” behavior, but in the process equates being fat to being an alcoholic or a drug addict. But her main point remains: Fat people should not be sexual, at least not in front of anyone who isn’t also fat. It’s just too much for the delicate sensibilities of fat haters. I can only imagine what Ms. Kelly would have had to say about Manuel Uribe’s sex ramp.

I’d like to digress for a minute and point out the ableism inherent in ridiculing the sex ramp. Some disabled people also need to use assistive devices to be able to have sex, and if you’re making fun of someone because they’re not able to have sex the “normal” way, you’re including some disabled folk in there too.

But, back to the main point. Interestingly, some studies have shown that fat women have more sex than their smaller counterparts. So clearly, we’re not all gaining weight to armor ourselves against sexual advances/activity, as some Freudian theories would have you believe. Whether or not society views fat women as sexual beings, our pool of potential partners doesn’t seem to be drying up, despite all the “roll them in flour” type of fat sex jokes. This study seems to prove that while some people might say one thing about fat women (and fat men) being sexually desirable, they say a whole ‘nother thing when the lights are dimmed.

If the story of Manuel Uribe, Claudia Solis and of course, the sex ramp doesn’t prove that fat people, even people the size of “the world’s heaviest man,” are just as sexual as nonfat people, I don’t know what more evidence you need.