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This Float Celebrated Gay Pride By Reminding Everyone They’re Fat

Gay males make up a whopping (not whoppering) 42 percent of all men suffering from eating disorders. That’s saying something when it’s estimated that gays are only 5 percent of the total male population.

So understandably, companies that specialize in augmenting body parts and vacuuming fat are wise to reach out to the gay community.

Crass? A little. Good business? Definitely.

That was the mindset of Chicago Liposuction when they payed money to have a float in the recent Chicago Pride Parade.

Except there are many crying foul over the way the nippers and tuckers chose to get out their message.

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The classic “sign on a stick” usually reserved for words of love or protest instead read “We will suck your fat.”

And on the side of the float were banners saying things like “Don’t love your love handles?” and “Say NO to man boobs! We can get rid of them!”

It’s safe to say the float was insensitive — hard to argue that. But Chicago Pride has never censored a float, and if they did, what would that mean to an event that’s all about celebrating freedom?

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From Chicago Liposuction’s side, it’s one thing to market the name of your business to the community, but you’d have to be blind not to see how preying on body image disorders at an event meant to unify and empower is tactless to say the least.

Or so you’d think.

Clinic operating director Jeanne Shocky told HuffPost:

The signs were not meant to be hurtful in any shape of form. They were meant to be fun. When you do something like this, you want to be seen and want people to read it. So maybe it was a little cheesy, but we really wanted people to see it.

What we like to do is help people love themselves and help them look how they would like to look. That’s really what we’re all about.

Self love doesn’t come from a slimmer waistline or a stapled stomach. Let’s not get that twisted.

I suppose when your entire work life revolves around sucking cellulose out of paying participants, you might become desensitized to how debilitating and even fatal eating disorders can be, especially in the gay community.

Chicago Liposuction is trying to make a buck, and that’s fine, but if they’re at next year’s parade I hope a group of body loving babes of all shapes and sizes walk next to them with signs like “Big is beautiful” and “I love my body and so can you.”

h/t: HuffPost

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