What It Really Means To Pull a Pig
By: Ayomide Adebayo
Tags: Love Yourself, Fat, Valentines Day, Body Positive, Misogyny

(Photocredit: Pinterest)

Over the last week, Stephanie Yeboah (@nerdabouttown on Twitter) a plus size lifestyle and fashion blogger narrated a nightmare that happened to her. She was pigged. For those of you who don’t know,

Urban dictionary defines pulling a pig as:

‘ a ‘game’ or prank where people play and even to hook up with the least attractive person they get sometimes they even make the person fall for them and “pull them” to another state or country and leave them hanging.’

Here’s the tweet:

Stephanie’s tweet hit so close to home and brought back repressed memories, but it also made me realize that I wasn’t alone. Lots and lots of people had been pigged going by the show of support and solidarity she received as people shared their stories. Apparently, judging from the vile comments also, and not uncommon with all the times fat people talk about degradation, some said she was lying while another group said she brought it upon herself by looking the way she looks.

I also saw this tweet in the thread by Carly:

And I remembered when I began to talk about my rape and how I basically froze while it was happening and someone said Orobo like you, you no fit push am comot with your body, you com talk say you freeze. Just tell us say you like am’.

I was in my second year of uni when the Pull a pig prank was played on me. I had met this guy on Facebook and we became fast friends. Eventually, we met to have sex. I remember he tried to barrage his way into me, met with resistance, and had to stop. He asked me for 1000 naira to buy condoms and disappeared into the night.

I waited and called and called. He never came back or picked my calls. I continued to call (at least I deserved an explanation from the guy I wanted to give my virginity to and had disappeared with my 1000 naira 😂😂) until the next day when his friends picked up and began to laugh at me for being so stupid to think anybody would ever have sex with someone like me. Over that summer, about 25kg found its way into my body from comfort eating.

This is not to talk about the time I was stood up on a first date because the guy said I didn’t look my size in my pictures. I had met him through a friend who told me me how he was into plus size girls. I was initially wary. But I let my guard down and decided to meet him. After waiting for him in the sun in Beere, Ibadan for close to two hours, he eventually came and asked to take me to a restaurant. He boarded a bike and I boarded another one. That was the last I ever saw of him. In between the bus stop to the restaurant, he had disappeared and blocked me everywhere. Initially, I was scared something had happened to him on the way. It took me a while to realize I had been stood up. It’s even more ironic because it happened on a Valentine’s Day that year. Anytime I tell this story too, I always get hit with the ‘you are lying’ line. So, Because I won’t delete foolish emails and I like to pull up receipts, here’s a screenshot of him apologizing two weeks after:

I believe the definition by Urban dictionary does not cover the meaning of being pigged especially for a fat person quite properly.

To pull a pig on a fat person is to show misogyny at its very height.To pull a pig is to not mind your business and go about on people’s weight and how you are telling them for their own good. Ahmean, we look into the mirror daily.

To pull a pig is to condemn the piggee (recipient of the prank) to a lifetime of looking over their shoulders, suspiciously at other people’s intentions even when they are well meaning.

It’s to make them afraid of dating apps, of meeting people for the first time, of second guessing themselves every time they want to do something they love.

It’s to make the piggee scared of breathing in public. It’s to make them apologize for every single bad thing that happens in public transport even if it isn’t their fault.

It’s to admit as an employer that you won’t take on a fat person as an employee because you think their size would be an impediment to their job despite their brilliance (yes, this is a thing and it happened to me).

To pull a pig is to outwardly express your fear that nobody would find them attractive enough to marry or to tell them to get married on time because of their size as if they are less deserving of love.

To pull a pig is to turn a fat person into a fetish, something to be hidden and that they should feel grateful to have you or to date you on the down low because they don’t fit your public image.

To pull a pig is to expose fatphobia. What you really think when you see them pass, when you chuckle at their discomfort from the attention even when you say with your mouth that they are good just the way they are.

As if being fat divests you of all opportunity to feel, as if you should be grateful such a prank was played on you and you should take your L in peace.

And that, ladies and gentlemen is what it means to really pull a pig.

I know it’s Valentines Day on Thursday. Some idiots would still make it their life’s mission to ruin someone’s day. If you are like me, to whom Valentine’s Day is for sleeping and bingeing on movies or brings unpleasant memories in this world, whatever your story is, you are not alone. Their lack of acceptance of your reality does not make it less of what it is- your reality.

So here’s me wishing you Peace, Love and A slice of Red Velvet Cake (Please eat it). You deserve all the happiness you can get irrespective of how society views you ♥️♥️