I Rant

Rant 5: Summer Clothes for All.

So it's been a minute since I wrote a rant, but then if you are binging these you wouldn't have noticed. Anyways I am all fired up and ready to talk about an issue that is close to my heart, or rather more aptly, my ass. That's right this rant is about things that cover my ass (as well as the rest of me), mainly shorts and other summer clothes. 

To start this off I will fully admit that I am not a small person, and as someone who was born with a cis female body that means I have some thicc thighs, large ass, tits, and well I am just large. I am also super dense, but that's because of muscle. So in essence I am a thicc slightly muscular girl with broad shoulders and a smallish waist. Oh I am also oddly proportioned, (think "tall hobbit") which means that my legs are a whopping 2 feet while my torso and head make up the rest of my 5'3 height. If you got 3'3 for my torso then you would be correct, which places me in a bit of a mutant category. Especially since my arms are also very short. So now that we have established that I am a short, thicc, mutant I believe that we can continue on with this rant. 

Usually my clothing size is a varied array of different letters and numbers. For shirts and dresses I can take anywhere from a L to a 2X, and I even have one XS sweater that I wear and love, how that fits I have no idea. I have a size difference of five, (L, XL, 0X, 1X, 2X) that stretches from standard sizes to plus sizes, for shirts alone. This coupled with my giant torso makes finding shirts very difficult, not to mention that it needs to have the right amount of what I have christened "boob room". With a 38D bra size I end up narrowing down my clothing search to shirts that have no buttons, ruffles, deep v's, or small straps. 
On to my bottom half! For pants my size gets even more confusing since pants sizes themselves are in no way standard store to store (or even in some stores). The pants I am wearing right now are a few inches too big and they are a size 12, my overalls that I normally live in are XL, my sleep shorts are L, my work jeans are a 31 but I have a pair of pants from the same store and they are a 33, what gives? From what I have been able to tell in my decade of being a thicc chick, is that there are four different standard sizing systems and none of them make sense. There's the letter system that we are all familiar with, then the even number system, the odd number system, and finally the inch system (that only does waist). Trust, when I took my boyfriend shopping for the first time he started cursing about how the sizes are so stupid, and he honestly thought that mens's and women's clothing had similar systems. These systems make is so hard for people who are larger to find clothes (as well as smaller people I guess, never had that experience) since not every number means the same thing. 
I might wear a size 12 jean in even sizing, but a 13 in odd will be too small, and it's hit or miss with the letter sizes. I have pants that I should have grabbed a medium instead of a large! 

So clothing sizes are wack? What's new? Well that's just the thing, nothing is. I have never owned a pair of summer shorts that I picked up from a store, never. When I was younger I struggled a lot with my body image (mostly because my mother struggled with her's and she didn't want me to have the same problems as me, her intention back fired and made me hate myself) so I didn't want to wear shorts in front of people, then as I grew older I hated that it was all low-rise short shorts for sale (they will never look good on my body type and that is okay!) so I never bought any. All the shorts that I have worn over the years have been denim cutoffs. When the "chub rub" would kill another pair of my jeans I would just trim them so that they were shorts and I would wear those. Some were pretty decent, other's were not (there is a story about how my mutant body ratio saved me from a dress code on a 38 Celsius day). I have always lived in shorts that I had cut myself, except for this year. During a bad, abusive,  relationship that I was in I ended up throwing away any clothing that showed too much of my skin or drew attention to my body. My ex wasn't a fan of the weight I had gained over the course of our relationship (I might go into more detail about that whole shitshow later on if you want) and was abusive about it so I just stopped showing skin because I wasn't the "right size" to be doing that.  So now that I am free of all that bullshit and with an amazing and wonderful human I decided that I wanted to buy my own shorts. Now since the last time I had worn shorts a lot had changed. For one I had changed, and after a few depressive episodes, taking depo provera (birth control shot that made me gain weight), and living a very sedentary lifestyle I was larger than I had been in the past, not by much but my thighs have grown. I set out on my journey for shorts back in May 2019, it is now nearly the end of July and I have not been able to find a pair of shorts that meet all my requirements. My needs are not even that special. I set out to find a pair of shorts that were: high waisted, covered more than just my ass, stylish, comfy, and cost effective. Those are all things that can normally be expected from a piece of clothing, I however found out that it was nearly impossible to find what I was looking for. I started off with the stores closest to me, Wal-Mart, Giant Tiger, Ardenes, Mark's Work World, and a few local boutiques. Surprise surprise, nothing even remotely hit all the boxes I wanted. Either they were flat out too small (even after sizing up), too big, too long, mom-wear, had way too much extra fabric in the crotch (seriously I could have hid a 7inch packer in them and no one would have noticed), or were just plain ugly. So next I moved on to stores an hour away in the two cities that bookend my town. I visited; Forever21 , Winners, H&M, Claires,  L'Aubainerie, as well as some other stores that I have since forgotten. The out of town stores that I visited were spread out over a few different complexes as well as cities, and I visited multiple of each store (looking for the larger sizes that might be lurking around). I have even crossed provincial boarders looking for shorts that fit me and will not break my bank. I have yet to try plus size stores such as Pennington's and Addition Elle because of the hefty price tag attached to them. I have however looked at their inventory online and guess what? They are literally the same store just with different names and branding. Oh and there shorts? They have about 26 options from sizes 12-32 (but Addition Elle only has sizes 12-26 and Pennington's serves sizes 14-32) and all of them are serving me mom/older businesswoman vibes. I am 22, I would love to have a pair of cute summer shorts that don't have the words "hip slimming" or "secrete slimming pocket" plastered all over them. I just wants shorts that will go over my thighs and ass, sit at my waist and look cute. Some brands claim that they cater to larger sizes but when I went to look at the L and XL options online (after having no luck in stores) I would always find the button greyed out and an "out of stock" notice at the bottom. 
This is what makes me mad, cause I don't think that they ever actually had the larger sizes in stock, or if they did they ordered so few that they sold out right away. 


I just want summer clothes that don't say negative things about my body on the tags, that actually fit like they say they are, are age-appropriate, and look good. If there are so many options for people sized XS-L then why aren't there any options for those sized L-2X? Do we not need clothes? Do we not need to be cool and cute in the summer? Do we not deserve more than the pitiful collection of fugly shorts that are offered at every location? Do we really need to be drawn in with phrases like "Tummy flattening" "bust minimizing" " waist flattering" and other bullshit that does nothing except let us know that our bodies are wrong and need to be flattened, minimized, slimmed, sculpted, and otherwise forced to look a certain way. 
Large does not mean unhealthy, seriously I know you are rolling your eyes but it is true. I am relatively healthy and the health issues I do have are not connected to my weight (I asked my doctor). So just what gives? 

Let me know if you or anyone you know has some hookups for some cute thicc girl shorts, cause I am seriously about to call it quits and just deal with living in jeans, overalls, or dresses this summer. 

Peace, M.Alice