Not really a rant, more of an… observation?

A friend of mine is hoping to do a plus sized cosplay panel at Anime Detour this year and I’m happy to say that she has all sorts of panelists in mind, including a male voice too. I really do think in this plus sized cosplay supportive circle we should hear more from men. I’ve said before that there’s this assumption about men being, well… pricks towards women in the geek circle, or that the ones being bashed on are always women, but that’s not the case at all. Bullying doesn’t discriminate. 

Now I’m not saying the ladies don’t need love and support, because they do, and yeah there are jack ass men (i.e.: the one who continued to comment on my article this week), but I feel like all it takes is one jerk of a guy to say something for people to assume that every single guy you come across is going to be like that. They’re going to assume that “anime/cartoon characters are supposed to be skinny and beautiful,” or whatever the quote is that that guy said on my article I don’t even remember anymore. They’ll assume that all a man cares about with cosplay is if he can fantasize about the girl and that’s it. There’s no way he likes the cosplay because he likes the detail and construction and he likes the character, nope, he just wants to think about that girl in his bed. All because of that one random guy who makes a dumb ass comment. 

And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but I’m guilty of this assumption, too! The first time I wore Tiana the first person who gave me a compliment was a guy and I thought, “… o.k. what parallel universe is this I’m not Catwoman I’m a Disney princess…” but honestly, I actually do have a lot of male fans! And I am deeply sorry, gentlemen, for the assumptions I made in the beginning. I’ve gotten much better about it, though :)

But I think we also assume that men don’t have issues with their body. We assume that a man can just walk around, being as plus sized as he wants, and he gets no crap for it. But that’s not true at all. There are men who are just as uncertain about this as we are, who won’t cosplay even if they want to, or they assume that they need to cosplay “the fat guy” because that’s their body type. There are men who get intimidated when they see that hard bodied shirtless Goku cosplayer and think, “Well nevermind I shouldn’t do it at all.” They see some guy pull off the skintight Venom cosplay and shake their heads because they don’t look like that, so they shouldn’t even attempt it. 

So all and all, I hope this panel comes to life for Anime Detour, and I think hearing a variety of voices would be great :) If it does become a thing I’ll post about it ^^