I keep encountering new, snarky names for women’s unruly body parts. The latest? Bingo wings.
Urban Dictionary: Bingo wingsThe hanging fat that swings from an obese woman’s upper arms when they are raised and shaken while shouting “Bingo!” during a tournament.
I heard it in conversation, in England, of course. And replied with my own, “Oh, you mean ‘dinner plate arms.'” Urban dictionary tells us that means, “Arms that have saggy flabby bits near the armpit, that droop when the arms are raised and bulge out when the arms are by one’s sides.”
As with “camel toe” and “muffin top,” I have a radical suggestion. Can we put our collective wit to work elsewhere? I’m pretty sure the source of these names is women’s own shame and self-deprecation. To be honest, I don’t think straight men are much given to witty arm-shaming. So let’s stop with the jokes about women’s bodies.
Oh, and that doesn’t mean we get to start joking about men’s bodies either. I have two sons and I’m not keen to see them share, any more than they already do, in the culture of naming and shaming body bits.
Maybe we could take our sharp tongues and aim our wit and our shame to the doorsteps of politicians. Just a thought.
Exactly. All these names for parts of our bodies are designed to make us feel bad about things we have – muffin top, bingo wings – or things we don’t have – such as thigh gaps – as they’re unnatural for most of us. If we didn’t spend so much time and energy hating our bodies and trying to make them fit some kind of ideal, just imagine what we could all achieve.
On the other hand, I choose to believe that the lift generated by my bingo wings could one day enable me to fly 😉