Size Matters: Performing (Il)Logical Male Bodies onFatClub.com

Situated against a pervasive and normative logic suggesting that bodies, and especially thin-and-fit bodies, matter most and ought to be attained, FatClub.com provokes a counterintuitive cultural scene. This virtual ethnography examines how members of the site jointly constitute community through an elaborate system of linguistic and embodied proweight cultural performances. In turn, these performances ecstatically cite, disidentify, and play with normative (gay male) health and beauty ideals. Moreover, they provide an exquisite instantiation of how culture and community are constraining, situated, and relative phenomena.