This op-ed was submitted from a member of our enthusiastic community of readers. If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.

Earlier this week, blogs and media outlets went crazy over a picture that surfaced of Nicole Murphy kissing film director Antoine Fuqua. So what's the problem? He's married to actress Lela Rochon.

While younger generations may not know Rochon as a household name in modern culture, Rochon was in a handful of classic Black films that have helped shape the way we view and shoot contemporary Black films and other media. Rochon is best known for her roles in Waiting to Exhale, Boomerang, Why Do Fools Fall in Love and Harlem Nights.

If you are unaware of these films, you should know two things:

1. They are Black classics.

2. She was amongst the league of actresses like Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Angela Bassett during that time period.

While the cheating scandal is an issue in itself, there is another significant issue that we must examine: weight. Weight has been the leading conversation surrounding this scandal. Mass amounts of men on Twitter have defended Fuqua cheating with faulty views around weight maintenance while married. A lot of them share the position that because she obtained a certain degree of wealth, she should be able to maintain her weight through surgeries and dieting. A lot of the criticisms have been very harsh and overall unwarranted. And while there was a mass amount of people who have chimed in to defend Rochon, some of their opinions have also been as harmful to the conversation as the intended energy men have spewed.

A lot of people who defend Rochon have used old photos of her to defend her beauty. Those old photos are photos of her at a smaller size when she was most active in the late '80s and '90s. These posts inadvertently help to continue to shame Rochon and other bigger women who gain weight throughout their lifetime. These are not recent photos. These are not photos of Rochon post-two kids and an autoimmune disease.

What are these photos and posts doing? They are reinforcing unattainable standards that you should remain the size of a teenager after you have bared children. They are reinforcing a culture where women hate themselves because of natural bodily processes. They are reinforcing a culture where women view their skin and stretch marks as a symbol of flaw, rather than a symbol of life, strength and resilience. They are reinforcing that women should live their lives to appease the minds of men. None of this is appropriate.

While I understand the efforts that people are trying to make by defending Rochon, it is not right to do it in this manner. She is human. As a 55-year-old woman who has given birth to two children, she has changed, and that is for the better. And let's be honest, women her age are more likely to look like Rochon than they are Murphy.

If I haven't made it clear enough yet, understand that Rochon still looks good. My advice is that if you cannot appreciate Rochon in her entirety, in both past and present, you cannot appreciate her at all. Anything less is misogynistic and anti-fat.

Antoine-FuquaLela-RochonNicole-Murphy