fat ass, trick, thunder thighs, whore: insults of the female persuasion

Last night, I had the misfortune of having someone I was once very close to insult me by saying I had a "fat ass" (I don't believe in putting people on blast via the interwebs, so even though this individual in question has a pseudonym here on FF, I'll do my best to maintain their anonymity, despite their ludicrously immature language and behavior as of late). Obviously, given the fact that I have a deep and painful history with eating disorders and hating my body, this person knew this was a particularly potent insult for me.

And while it had (what I'm sure was) its desired effect of making me cry for a few minutes, it struck me strongly that people who are actually happy with themselves don't make such low blows, no matter how tempting. It reminded me instantly of this fable.
A Rabbi and his disciple were walking in the street. A man drove by in a carriage which abruptly pushed the Rabbi out of his way so that the Rabbi landed in a ditch filled with muddy water.
The Rabbi yelled after the man in the carriage, "May you have everything you want!"
The disciple was surprised by the rabbi's response.
“Rabbi, why did you say that to a man with such horrible behavior?” asked the disciple.
The Rabbi replied, “Because a happy man wouldn’t throw a Rabbi into a ditch.”

But personal lessons about maturity and anger aside, it made me reflect on how the perceived best way to insult a woman is to attack either her looks (fat ass, thunder thighs, etc) or her sexual history (dyke, slut, trick, whore, etc). We've been conditioned to put those aspects of ourselves first and foremost, and when someone takes a strike at those, it tends to hurt the most. If this individual in question had simply called me a bitch, or a cunt, or maybe even a liar, I wouldn't have shed a single tear; I'd have laughed and shrugged it off and probably made a crack back at their awful hair or faux-intellectualism. But being called fat or a whore inspires not only shame and hurt but also the desire to prove that person wrong: I initially wanted to fight back, explaining my tiny pants size and other statistics that somehow would quantify that I am not indeed a fat ass. If they'd implied I was promiscuous, I would've done the same thing, breaking down my average number of partners per year of my sexually active life to yield a low overall annual average like a credit card company instead of just owning the number and telling them to fuck off.

So why are these two kinds of insults so effective and so well-perpetuated? To me, the thing they both have in common is a desire to control women. Whether it's the size of our thighs or our sexual expression, both are ways of encouraging women to stay within the box of socially acceptable behavior through pressure to keep our bodies controlled. And that's just stupid. Even if you are the owner of a gut or a high number of sexual partners, those aren't negative traits, nor are they the sole ones defining who you are.

Oh, and for the record: I love my fat ass, so piss off.

Much love,
The Sheriff