Big Beautiful Woman
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"Big Beautiful Woman" (commonly abbreviated as BBW) is a neologism most frequently used in the context of affirmation of or sexual attraction to women who are overweight or obese, whose bodies have more adipose tissue.
Meaning
The term BBW does not have an explicit lower or upper weight limitation. It is a visually-determined concept that can include women who are barely overweight (sometimes referred to as Plumpers) to those who are morbidly obese. The terms "Big Beautiful Women" and "BBW" were coined by Carole Shaw in 1979, when she launched BBW Magazine, a fashion and lifestyle magazine for plus-size women.
BBW has many near-synonyms with varying shades of meaning. Rubenesque is a close synonym; the term refers to the art of Peter Paul Rubens, best known for portraying full-bodied women. Full-figured refers to women with a generally plump body shape, whereas voluptuous and zaftig usually connote ripeness, sensuality, and a body shape involving large breasts and wide hips.
Usage
Although the term BBW was first used and copyrighted in the context of BBW Magazine, over the years plus-size women (even those who had never heard of the magazine) began to refer to themselves as "BBWs." Today, BBW is often found in personal ads denoting an identification with (or preference for) women with more body fat. In this regard, men who prefer BBWs as romantic or sex partners are sometimes referred to as fat admirers (abbreviated to FAs). The term chubby chaser is sometimes used, as is "plump-humper", but is usually specific to chubby culture among gay men.
BBW is commonly used as a positive euphemism by people involved with the fat acceptance movement, who often reject the descriptor "obese".
Once a common identifier for adult-oriented fetish sites, the term BBW as entered in a search engine has now been adopted by numerous specialty online dating sites thus promoting the idea of these women as a socially acceptable preference.
Some women adopt the term BBW as a personal preference over the term Rubenesque or full-figured, because such women may not necessarily have large breasts or hips. Such terms, and others such as "queen-sized", "plus-sized", or "fat" may lead to feelings of marginalization or non-inclusion for some women, although in the latter case, many women in the fat acceptance movement strongly prefer the term fat to other words which they consider unnecessary euphemisms.
The term BBW is also used to denote events specifically targeted to such women, and persons interested in them, such as specific gathering nights in dance clubs, restaurants, fashion stores and shows, etc so that an environment of acceptance is achieved by having like-minded or like-bodied persons in attendance.
Variants
The acronym BBBW refers to Big Beautiful Black Woman. Another variant is SSBBW; Super-Size Big Beautiful Woman, which refers to women who are above a US dress size 26.
Subculture
BBWs are the focus of a subculture, some areas of which are sexually fetishistic in nature, including fat fetishism and feederism. A large number of BBW websites are pornographic but others only celebrate the act of gaining [1]. Men who are attracted to BBWs are occasionally referred to as "chubby chasers", although this term originated in the gay community. Others call themselves "fat admirers".[citation needed] Some men are especially fascinated or aroused by certain body parts or areas of BBWs' bodies.