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What do you think of the term "short king" as a term that's supposed to champion body positivity for men? (lemm.ee)

submitted 6 months ago by BmeBenji@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Body positivity is such a strange concept to me. There's efforts to reclaim words while simultaneously calling them bad if used as an insult. Ideally, people wouldn't be offended by someone describing their body with common descriptors, but socially there is so much value attributed to certain body types that it's almost impossible to avoid having an emotional response of some kind to various descriptors.

For example, It's not bad to be fat, but calling someone "fat" is almost universally considered a bad thing. The same definitely seems to go for the idea of being "short."

I'm asking this question because I can't put my finger on why but something seems to be different about the use of the term "short" from the use of the term "fat." I think that part of it is how, to me at least, the term "fat" is so generic and hard to nail down to a discrete definition, implying that the word really doesn't have a clear connection to reality. On the other hand, height is a single-dimensional number. You either are above a certain threshold, or you aren't.

I recently learned that May 6th to May 10th is "short king week" because it's 5'6" to 5'10" which then prompted me to search for the origins of "short king" and apparently the person most-credited with popularizing the term is Jaboukie Young-White who claims the term was meant to include all men under 6 feet tall. The average adult male height is 5'9" leaving men considered roughly average to be called "short" which is still considered an insult by many.

I dunno. As a term that was intended to champion body positivity compared with how the term is actually used, what do you think of "short king?"

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works -2 points 6 months ago

First off… “chicks”?

In my part of the world it's simply the distaff counterpart of "dudes."

No-one wants to be around a misery like you.

Works for me. You think Ted Bundy bought his cabin from someone, or did he just...go way the fuck out in the woods and just built something? I'm not sure the tenses in that last sentence entirely matched but I can't think of how to better phrase it.

So you’re still saying that there’s no difference in physical attractiveness between Brad Pitt and say… you? ;P

I don't know, back in college I was usually compared more often to Orlando Bloom, but that's probably because Brad Pitt was already obsolete as a sex symbol by then.