St. Olaf College hosted a “Fat Sex Therapist” to speak on the topic of “radical fat liberation” last week which resulted in some shocking hot takes presented from the stage.
During the two-hour event, Sonalee Rashatwar, whose Instagram username is “The Fat Sex Therapist,” compared dieting to rape and health science to Nazism.
“Tonight we’re gonna start by talking about how to politicize our definition of body image,” Rashatwar began, “because oftentimes we actually get stuck thinking of it from a white supremacist lens.”
Rashatwar asserted that “fat phobic” science is “often actually eugenic science. … eugenic science is Nazi science.”
She went on to criticize “1980s Reagan-era policies” and called diets a nonconsensual assault, saying, “I truly believe that a child cannot consent to being on a diet the same way a child cannot consent to having sex.”
Furthermore, Rashatwar asserted that fitness contributed to the recent church shooting in New Zealand. “I do not think it’s surprising that the man who shot up Christchurch, New Zealand was also a fitness instructor,” Rashatwar said.
The guest lecturer spouted all sorts of nonscientific nonsense including that “we should be critical of the use of science and the production of knowledge to continue promoting this idea that certain bodies are fit, able, and desirable.”
She questioned, “Is it my fatness that causes my high blood pressure, or is it my experience of weight stigma?”
The talk was sponsored by the campus wellness center, the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, and St. Olaf’s Center for Equity and Inclusion. St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts school in Northfield, Minn., affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Alexander James is a contributor to Red Alert Politics and a freelance journalist.
