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Illustration of three Black women sitting together on a couch at night with their arms folded, watching a television that casts a cold blue glow across an otherwise warm lamplit living room. None of them looks convinced.

Why I Hate the Body Positivity Community

A manifesto on race, culture, standards, and the strange decision to reinvent something Black women had already built.

Christopher Deva Huff · 31 min read

Comics Got the Fat Superhero Right in 2016. Hollywood Still Hasn't Made Her Movie.

Juniper Vale · 5 min read

A wide view of the Malibu Canyon area of the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu, California — dry, chaparral-covered hillsides under an open sky.

Mitrice Richardson Was Released Alone at 12:28 A.M. — What Los Angeles County's Own Record Admits

Marisol Crane · 5 min read

A painterly editorial illustration of a plus-size Black fashion model with deep dark brown skin and voluminous natural curls, walking a runway toward the viewer in a tailored gold jumpsuit under warm gold and red stage light; a discarded, spray-paint-stained black garbage bag sits off to one side of the runway in cold teal tones, with a blurred seated audience in the background. The figure is a generic, invented illustration, not a depiction of Liris Crosse or any other real named individual.

Liris Crosse Was Taped Into a Garbage Bag on Project Runway. She Just Walked for Christian Siriano at NYFW.

Margaux Sinclair · 5 min read

Kenny Guiy of Nissan of Boerne in front of a Nissan Rogue with an explosion behind him. 322 Nissans in Boerne, Texas. 2026 Rogue SV from $361 a month. Text Kenny at 832-524-7770. Offers end September 30.

Survival of the Thickest Ended After Three Seasons — and Michelle Buteau Never Let Mavis Shrink to Fit.

Vivienne Hart · 4 min read

Vintage shirts hanging in rows on a clothing rack at an outdoor market stall. No people are visible in the frame.

Vintage Never Came in Her Size. Plus-Size Shoppers Are Building Their Own Markets for It.

Dulce Ferrer · 3 min read

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More From Culture

Official EPA head-and-shoulders portrait of Lisa P. Jackson, smiling in a dark blazer and beaded necklace in front of an American flag and the EPA seal.

Photo by Eric Vance, EPA photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lisa P. Jackson Ran the EPA. Then She Ran Apple's Climate Strategy.

From Pontchartrain Park to a chemical engineering degree to the Cabinet to Cupertino — the record behind one of the country's most consequential careers.

Chistel Savanna · 4 min read

An open notebook filled with abstract scribbled handwriting marks dissolves into rising golden soundwaves that form a glowing microphone, set against a skyline transitioning from a warm red-and-gold mountain silhouette on the left to a teal neon city skyline on the right.

Jai Jemini Turned a Journal Entry Into "BLESSINGS," Her Million-Stream Single

North Carolina rapper Jai Jemini wrote "BLESSINGS" as a private affirmation after moving to Miami — MadameNoire reports it passed a million streams.

Talia Brennan · 2 min read

A cel-shaded anime-style illustration of a plus-size Black woman performer in a glittering silver gown, singing into a vintage microphone on a small stage, with a stylized gold-and-red uptown Manhattan skyline glowing behind her at dusk.

Plumpiana Built House of Plumpiana One Independent Single at a Time

The Harlem-based rapper releases through her own House of Plumpiana brand — no label, no manager — with a 2026 project, PLUMPILICIOUS, out now on Apple Music.

Talia Brennan · 3 min read

A three-quarter view of the full-length granite statue 'Confident' on its pedestal in Stryi Park, Lviv: a nude, full-figured woman standing with one hand on her hip, her carved hair falling past her shoulders and dusted with snow, bare winter trees and a curved row of snow-covered park benches behind her.

Photo by Ірина Бучнєва, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Granite Woman Lviv Tried to Burn

Vasyl Korchovy carved her 3 meters tall in 2021 and called her Confident. Two years later, in Lviv, someone tried to set her on fire.

Pria Wilde · 4 min read

Illustrated editorial artwork of a glowing golden crown resting atop a stack of vinyl records and cassette tapes, with a handheld microphone leaning against the stack, set against a generic city skyline silhouette at dusk, in bold gouache poster style with black, white, gold, red and teal tones. No people are depicted.

Big E The Biggest's 'Queen E, Vol. 1' Highlight Checks Out as a Real 2026 Album

Spotify and Apple Music independently confirm the Instagram highlight is a real 2026 album — following 2025's Big On Big in an actual, growing catalog.

Talia Brennan · 7 min read

Illustrated editorial artwork of a smartphone glowing mid-recording on a tripod against a New Orleans French Quarter wrought-iron balcony silhouette, with red-and-gold festival bunting and Mardi Gras-style beads, in bold gouache poster style with black, white, gold, red and teal tones. No people or faces are depicted.

India White Crowns Herself New Orleans's 'MVP of BBWs' — and Backs It With a Mixtape

Instagram's @therealpuertorican.doll leads with an Afro Latina identity, a 504 zip code, and — it turns out — an actual 2025 mixtape under the same name.

Vivienne Hart · 6 min read

Illustrated editorial artwork of a glowing laptop screen styled like a vintage mixtape cassette label, beside a retro boombox, set against a Houston skyline silhouette at dusk with a stylized snowflake motif, in bold gouache poster style with black, white, gold, red and teal tones.

Toni Snow's MacKstress Era Continues With 'Won Queen,' Out Now

The independent Houston rapper follows her album THE MACKBOOK with a new single, out now after its September 4 release.

Talia Brennan · 3 min read

Photo by Lennon Photography, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Lizzo's Legal Year: The Weight-Loss Statement, the Dismissal, and What's Still in Court

A federal judge closed one lawsuit against her touring company this week. Her own essay explains the weight loss. A separate case is still in court.

Vivienne Hart · 4 min read

Yvonne taking a mirror selfie in an olive-green off-shoulder jumpsuit in her bedroom.

Photo courtesy of Yvonne

Before Forty, Yvonne Wanted Her Health in Order — Confidence Came With It

She changed her relationship with food, started therapy, and found a confidence she calls 'through the roof.'

Chistel Savanna · 2 min read

A black-and-white 1973 photograph of the Johnson Publishing Company headquarters, a modern multi-story office building with company signage, on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Historical image — Photo by John H. White, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Jet's Beauty of the Week: Naming an Ordinary Black Woman Beautiful for 60 Years

From 1952 to 2014, Jet's Beauty of the Week spent six decades insisting an ordinary Black woman, exactly as she looked, was beautiful.

Pria Wilde · 4 min read

Photo by Michael Burrows on Pexels

Vogue Business Put New York Fashion Week's Plus-Size Number at 0.9 Percent. The Named Exceptions Stop at an 18, a 12, or a Custom Order.

Vogue Business counted 0.9 percent plus-size runway looks this season. Refinery29 named ten designers doing better — their own size charts tell a fuller story.

Margaux Sinclair · 5 min read

A signed divorce document and a plain gold wedding ring lying together on a wooden desk, photographed close-up.

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels

"Ozempic Divorce" Is a Real Phrase. The Divorce Data Behind It Isn't About Ozempic.

Two peer-reviewed cohorts show bariatric-surgery patients divorce and pair up more than average. No peer-reviewed study has measured GLP-1 drugs the same way.

Talia Brennan · 5 min read

An illustrated plus-size woman in a gold-and-red gown, wearing a crown and a plain sash, standing under a spotlight on a pageant stage with an audience visible in silhouette.

What It Actually Costs to Compete for National Miss Curvy

National Miss Curvy's entry fee, deposit, ad minimum, and photo package add up to $1,450 — the real cost of a pageant circuit this magazine has never covered.

Dulce Ferrer · 5 min read

A drawn illustration of a plus-size woman sitting cross-legged on the floor in a gold and red jumpsuit, rendered warmly with an expressive face, looking up at ten flat teal phone screens floating in a grid around her. Every screen is blank.

Chrissy Metz and Rebel Wilson's GLP-1 Partnerships Were Disclosed by Ro and Noom Themselves

Ro's page prints "Chrissy Metz is a paid partner." Noom's release names Rebel Wilson its Chief Wellness Ambassador. The celebrity roundups ran them too.

Vivienne Hart · 7 min read

Titian's Venus and the Lute Player: a full-figured Venus reclines nude on a draped bed with a small winged cupid at her shoulder, while a lute player seated at the left turns to look back at her, an open landscape behind them.

Artwork — Venus and the Lute Player, Titian — The Metropolitan Museum of Art (public domain)

Why "Body Positivity" Was Always the Wrong Word

It frames admiration as an act of charity. The historical record says the opposite: this was never a favor, it was the standard.

Pria Wilde · 4 min read

A large glass-roofed exhibition hall seen from a balcony, filled with rows of white modular trade-show booths and small groups of visitors moving between them.

Photo by Tahir Xəlfəquliyev on Pexels

The Fall Plus-Size Event Calendar, and What You Can Actually Confirm Before You Pay

Two of the season's bigger events are selling tickets right now. Between them, their own pages omit a date, a venue, and every price.

Dulce Ferrer · 3 min read

A pattern-drafting sheet covered in overlaid red, blue, green and black grading lines, with a graded measuring scale down the middle and a wooden artist mannequin hand resting on top.

Photo by Mariia Stepanova on Pexels

Why a Size 22 Cut From a Size 8 Pattern Never Quite Fits

The shoulder is too wide, the armhole gapes, the bust pulls. That isn't the factory or the fabric. It's a decision made at the pattern stage.

Margaux Sinclair · 3 min read

A couple sitting close together on a bench on a string-lit terrace at dusk, laughing - a plus-size woman in black leaning back against a slimmer man in a dark suit, his arm around her.

Photo by Juan Vargas on Pexels

The Research on Mixed-Weight Couples Is Mostly About Everybody Else

Asked to advise a couple where one partner is larger, people recommended less public dates, less physical affection, and delaying introductions to family.

Talia Brennan · 3 min read

A circa 1630-1635 oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens showing three nude women with soft, rounded stomachs, hips, and thighs standing in a circle with their arms around each other's shoulders in a sunlit wooded landscape, feet caught mid-step as if dancing. Now in Madrid's Museo del Prado.

Artwork — Photo by Peter Paul Rubens, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Peter Paul Rubens Made Fullness the Beauty Standard of Baroque Europe

In the 1630s, the era's most celebrated Flemish painter filled his canvases with full-figured women — and left behind a word for it: Rubenesque.

Pria Wilde · 4 min read

A portrait of Sharon D Clarke smiling to camera, her locs pulled back, wearing drop earrings and a bright pink patterned top against a pale background.

Photo by Philip Romano, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sharon D Clarke Was Nominated for a BAFTA and an Olivier in the Same Award Season

As Carmel in Mr. Loverman and Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, she was nominated twice in 2025 — once for TV, once for the stage.

Vivienne Hart · 2 min read

A long rail of clothing on wooden hangers — neutral trousers, patterned shirts, denim and knitwear packed tightly together — running the width of the frame in a store.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels

Universal Standard Doubled Down on Size Inclusivity. Loft Quietly Walked Away From It.

One brand expanded into 20 Nordstrom stores in 2025 on a size-00-to-40 range; another discontinued its plus line three years after launching it.

Chistel Savanna · 5 min read

An anime-style illustration of a full-figured young Efik woman seated on a low carved bed in a lamp-lit room of her family compound during the nkuho seclusion. Her hair is dressed in the tall, sculptural Etenge style pinned with brass combs, and she wears strands of coral-red beads at her throat, stacked brass bangles and anklets, and a patterned indigo-and-ochre wrapper, with fine dark patterning painted along her arms and legs. An older woman in a bright headwrap kneels beside her offering a covered bowl, against woven raffia wall panels and a carved shutter.

The West African Kingdom Where Brides Were Fed Like Royalty

In the Kingdom of Calabar, elite families fed and secluded their daughters for months before marriage — a fuller body wasn't an accident. It was the point.

Pria Wilde · 8 min read

Ancient Egypt's Beauty Standard Looked Like Us

Late in Amenhotep III's reign, Egyptian art finally let its king and queen look like real, mature, fuller-bodied people instead of eternal, airbrushed youth.

Pria Wilde · 3 min read

Danielle Brooks photographed against a Sundance Film Festival step-and-repeat in January 2026, in a strapless black leather gown with a sweetheart neckline and long black leather opera gloves, her hair in a side-swept wave.

Photo by LaShawnda Jones, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Danielle Brooks and Queen Latifah Showed Up to the 2026 Awards Season — Here's What They Actually Wore

From the 98th Oscars to the 2026 Tonys, Danielle Brooks and Queen Latifah kept showing up on the carpet — here's exactly what they wore, and who made it.

Vivienne Hart · 2 min read

A plus-size woman standing against a plain pale backdrop in a white T-shirt tucked into light blue jeans with a black belt, one hand in her pocket, the waistband sitting flat against her body.

Photo by Darina Belonogova on Pexels

How Plus-Size Denim Finally Got the Fit Right

No built-in waist gap by default. Four denim makers spent a decade rebuilding the pattern block around real hips — and real gaps remain.

Chistel Savanna · 4 min read

A Tang dynasty handscroll on silk showing five full-figured court ladies in sheer, trailing red and cream silk robes, each wearing an elaborate flowered headdress over a high black chignon. They stand widely spaced against a plain ground with a crane, a small dog and butterflies among them.

Historical image — Photo by Zhou Fang, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Most Beautiful Woman in Chinese History Was Plus Size

Yang Guifei's fullness wasn't in spite of the Tang dynasty standard — it was the standard. One of history's great love stories, reconsidered.

Pria Wilde · 4 min read

The Venus of Willendorf photographed in its museum case on a mirrored plinth: a small limestone figure roughly 11 centimetres tall, with heavy breasts, a rounded belly and broad hips, her head covered in carved concentric rings and no face carved at all.

Historical image — Photo by MatthiasKabel, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

The First Woman Ever Carved Wasn't Thin

Forty thousand years before "body positivity," Ice Age carvers rendered the female body full and soft. Nobody agrees why — but nobody flattened her.

Pria Wilde · 4 min read

A hiker with a backpack walking down a grassy ridge into a broad glacial valley between scree-covered mountains.

Photo by Maël Balland on Pexels

Room on the Trail: How the Outdoors Finally Made Space for Every Body

From plus-size hiking packs to tour operators built around comfort, the outdoor world is finally sizing up. Here's the proof, from the trail to the dive boat.

Chistel Savanna · 3 min read

Close-up of a woman's hands smoothing cream along her inner thigh while sitting on a bed — the everyday body-care moment thigh products exist for.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels

No Salary, No Shame: How Katie Sturino Built Megababe Into a Body-Care Empire

In 2017, she built an anti-chafing stick with her sister and best friend in a garage. Megababe now sits on Target and Walmart shelves — founder still unpaid.

Chistel Savanna · 3 min read

A packed runway show at night, spotlights sweeping over the crowd on both sides of a long catwalk.

Photo by Thể Phạm on Pexels

The Room TheCurvyCon Built

In 2015, two bloggers turned a shared frustration with plus-size retail into a fashion-week fixture — and the case they made to the industry still holds.

Chistel Savanna · 2 min read

A glowing golden Broadway theater marquee arch studded with warm bulb lights, red velvet stage curtains swept open, and a single golden spotlight beam falling onto an empty wooden stage.

Chrissy Metz Finally Gets Her Broadway Bow, and She's Not Holding Back

Six seasons of making America cry as Kate Pearson didn't come with a marquee. "& Juliet" just gave her one — and Chrissy Metz is loving every minute of it.

Vivienne Hart · 2 min read

The colossal limestone statue of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye seated side by side in a museum hall, photographed from below. Both sit upright with hands on their knees, the king in a striped nemes headdress and the queen in a heavy tripartite wig, carved at the same monumental scale.

Historical image — Photo by Prof. Mortel, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Courts That Crowned Her

From the Nile to the Yangtze to the courts of West Africa, six empires didn't just accept a fuller figure — they built their idea of royalty around it. We restore the original narrative.

Pria Wilde · 2 min read

Kenny Guiy of Nissan of Boerne in front of a Nissan Rogue with an explosion behind him. 322 Nissans in Boerne, Texas. 2026 Rogue SV from $361 a month. Text Kenny at 832-524-7770. Offers end September 30.