Fat Pleasure Activism: Reflecting on the Growing Popularity of Fat Pool Parties
Image Description: A still from Shrill S1E4 shows Aidy Bryant, a white, fat woman with dark hair, dancing in the center of a group of other fat people wearing a variety of swimsuits at a fat pool party. Image via Hulu.
In Season 1, Episode 4 of Shrill (Hulu 2019), the lead character, Annie, attends a fat pool party. Annie shows up wearing jeans and a button-up over her swimsuit, looking slightly uncomfortable. However, as she circulates at the party, chatting with one fat babe after another, she eventually dances then takes off her clothes and dives in.
Throughout the fat pool party scene, viewers are treated to images of fat people of various gender presentations, body shapes, and bared skin, dancing, laughing, swimming, and floating in and around the water. We’re encouraged to look directly at and relish the rolls, thick thighs, and big arms of bodies that jiggle when they dance or undulate underwater. The scene is a turning point, a revelation not only for Annie in the show, but also for many viewers who had never seen the beauty and joy of a fat community space.
Fat pool parties existed before 2019, but Shrill’s joyful representation created a huge influx of articles about both the episode and the events it is based on, inspiring even more people to host and attend fat pool and beach parties across the country. For many, the pool party in Shrill opened imaginative possibilities for what it could feel like to be a fat person in a bathing suit in public in an accepting and affirming world.
That’s how I ended up helping to organize and then attend my first fat pool party in 2020—a local fat woman posted in a Facebook group that she wanted to organize an event like the one in Shrill. There were many challenges involved, including questions of what constituted being fat and whether thin people could attend since the community pool we rented had an attendance cap. Despite those challenges (which I’ll write about further someday), the event itself was a deeply pleasurable experience and left me wanting more. I had previously organized other identity-specific spaces and those experiences collectively led me to my latest research project.
I’m a fat, Black, queer, disabled professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and for the past three years, I’ve been studying pleasure activism. Pleasure activism is a concept popularized by adrienne maree brown in Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. In the book brown positions pleasure as political because it’s heavily shaped by social and political norms, allowing some groups more access to pleasure than others. As a result, brown argues that pleasure is a measure of freedom and insists upon the importance of valuing and increasing pleasure in the lives of marginalized people.
For my research, I’m studying the creation, maintenance, and impact of pleasure spaces for multiply marginalized people. First, I interviewed the organizers of 24 pleasure spaces in the US and Canada. Next, I attended and observed events, interviewing both organizers and a selection of attendees. Lastly, I organized three pleasure space events of my own: a queer and trans people of color jewelry-making event, a disabled queer and trans boudoir photography event and—you guessed it—a fat women’s pool party.
Pleasure activism is important for fat people because our pleasure is heavily policed and shamed. Fat people are regularly harassed online and off for existing in public. We’re excluded from many pleasurable spaces structurally through environments (chairs, clothes, bathroom stalls) that are too small, and socially through anti-fat attitudes that make being in public uncomfortable, stressful, or traumatizing.
Many of us have stories of being excited about an experience like traveling, eating at a new restaurant, or attending a formal event until we see or hear someone reacting negatively to our bodies in those spaces. The buildup of these negative experiences can make us recede from the world, hiding or hating our bodies so much that we no longer know how to experience pleasure as we are, instead putting it off to an imagined future where we are somehow, magically, smaller. If, as brown argues, pleasure is a measure of freedom, then fat people are not very free at all. But at fat pool parties, we experience something different.
Image Description: A diverse group of fat women and femmes drink and chat in the pool at a fat pool party. Photo by AllGo - An App For Plus Size People via Unsplash.
When I interviewed fat women at my pool party in August 2024, many spoke about how hard it is to feel safe and comfortable in a bathing suit in public. Even if no one says anything, interviewees noted that stares, lounge chairs that were too small or flimsy, and other factors made being at the pool an unpleasant experience even if swimming itself is (or was at one point) something they enjoyed. Some teared up talking about how much they desired a space where they could feel safe and free in their bodies while in community.
For me, the community aspect is key. At fat pool parties, we become possibility models for each other, encouraging one another to be who we are, as we are, without shame. Here we can wear the tiniest bikinis or full coverage suits and still be affirmed; we can cannonball with the biggest splash before a cheering crowd; we can eat snacks without wondering who might be watching or judging. At the same time, in fat community we can also share information about which local doctors treat us humanely, which massage studios have tables that can support us, or which coffee shops have bigger chairs.
Fat pool parties and other pleasure spaces for fat people give us a glimpse into what it would be like to exist in a non-fatphobic society while also establishing community connections to begin actively building that world together. Fat pleasure spaces give us respite from harassment, shame, and harm, nourishing and sustaining us to fight for the better world we know is possible because we have been there and experienced it, if only for one event, one night. Sometimes, part of one’s journey to self-acceptance requires really seeing and experiencing that another world is possible, not just on TV, but in real life.
So if you’ve been thinking about hosting or attending a fat pool party (or beach day or spa day or any other fat-centered pleasure event), this is your sign to follow through. If you’re hosting, I recommend you start small, find friends who will help, and really pay attention to and communicate the details: Is there enough parking and fat-friendly seating? Are the toilets and changing stalls big enough? Is there a weight limit on the diving board or water slide? It doesn’t have to be perfect, but the more you can inform folks about what to expect and what barriers might exist, the better.
You’ll make mistakes and learn as you go, but you’ll also receive and spread joy in transformative ways. Not only will you nourish and grow your local community of fat babes, but you’ll also start (or further) your journey as a fat pleasure activist, one who insists that fat folks not only have a right to safety, quality healthcare, and accessible public spaces, but also to pleasure, joy, and the deep satisfaction of existing in our bodies without shame.
Author’s Note: Special thanks to Marina Hayes of Peridot Robes for her feedback on the first draft of this piece.
NAAFA Note: As Dr. Schalk points out in this piece, fat pool parties have been around for quite a while. A few examples: The first organized and advertised fat pool party that we know of was at the NAAFA Convention Memorial Days in 1978, the Making Waves Fat Swim started in Northern California in 1982, and members of the Fat Underground have discussed fat swimming meetups in the early days of their organizing. In an interview with Vulture, screenwriter and author Samantha Irby discusses the creation of the inspirational pool party scene in “Shrill.”
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