Is love meant for B I G ( f a t ) w o m e n ? Or just s e x?
*Disclaimer: This is the first time I will be frank about SEX on here…but not right away…I kinda ease into it. (winks) It was a frigging thrill to write about it, who knew? I don’t get into particulars…but I DO talk about it…so…I guess this is basically a warning to NOT read this to your kid and also to alert you that, yes, I have the sex. (shrugs) ALSO, if THEY are going to try to take away a woman’s right to choose? I am gonna talk about SEX.
Let’s start at the very beginning, before we go THERE, with just a short history of me and the word fat.
I hate the word FAT.
End of history lesson.
I HAAAAAAAATE the word FAT.
That VERY collection of words were the FIRST FIVE words I wrote to begin a story that bore the same title, in a cabaret I created for young people that was about body positivity, anxiety, and loving yourself exactly the way you are.
AND as a grown ass woman, standing onstage performing this cabaret for the youngs, in FRONT of ACTUAL youngs, knowing the part of the show was coming, the part where I would say those words, “ I HATE THE WORD FAT”, made my stomach turn…at the age of 49…and it was a show ABOUT acceptance.
JESUS FREAKIN’ WEPT.
After almost 50 years (at the time I performed this show) of wrestling with that word, it STILL made me feel not right in my skin.
But now, after writing about weight, shape, size, inclusion and representation so much that it makes me exhausted (I’m sure it makes some other people exhausted too, but fuck it till it’s not an issue anymore I WILL write about it), it shockingly seems that I’m almost acclimatized to the word due to repeated exposure.
ALMOST.
My spirit has eased up on the word, it does not hit me straight in the gut when I hear it like it did my WHOLE life…which makes me feel, well, I don’t totally know how it makes me feel…but I DO know that I’m NOT as upset about it as I would have been five years ago…and I’m not sure if that’s a win, a loss…or maybe it just is.
I ALSO know it’s not who I am.
I’m not a fat person.
BUT SOME might label and see me that way, and I think honouring that weird, annoying and ironically minimizing fact might make writing this AND maybe reading all these collected thoughts easier.
Yes, at the risk of boring you all with the pronouncement, I’m considered a fat person.
AND I know this because in the past, throughout my long journey in this precious body, a body that I’ve quite frankly put through hell, when I’ve become a certain weight people stop saying the word FAT around me…and THIS is how I know I’ve gained an amount of weight that makes me other in the eyes of…others.
Yes.
Read that again.
When people decide that I might be offended by the word, they stop saying it when I’m around…but continue to say it when they think I’m not.
Huh.
And I know I’m not the only one to experience this phenomenon OR realize it, and quietly keep it inside.
The day I clocked that people said or didn’t say the word fat around me depending on my size, the day that sinking discovery wrapped itself up in a messy, fleshy bow inside my brain was the day my REAL journey through the dark, challenging, and odd implications of the word FAT kicked into high gear.
And you know what?
If I weren’t a writer, an actor, as well as someone who admittedly and gratefully is ALWAYS searching for answers, I could probably HAPPILY walk purposefully through the rest of my life and never address my body at all to anyone other than me.
There are many humans out there who don’t.
What a fucking joy that would be, right?
A fucking unadulterated joy.
Then there are the seemingly unflappable militant warriors who are doing the righteous work of rounding every corner of the vicious and stinking internet, pointing out injustices based on body shape or size, fighting the MULTITUDES of assholes who feel like they can comment on ANYONE’S body other than their own, fighting the people who hold onto the use of the word FAT to describe UNDESIRABLES like it’s their god given right and addressing the fact that it STILL seems that joking about a person’s size has not yet been cancelled.
HOW THE HIGH HOLY FUCK HAS IT NOT BEEN CANCELLED!?!?
But as we both know (you and me, reader), I’m not totally militant but I do talk and write about big bodies a lot…and I do this because dealing with weight, self worth, and how it’s affected my general work, my life, my fitness, clothing myself, auditioning, working onstage, working in TV, relationships, friendships, self confidence, and now in this weird ass dating world I’ve found myself in, has been a BIG (all puns intended) part of work the I’ve been doing on myself for the last many years. It’s woven into almost every part of my continued healing (from whatever part of my life I’m confronting) and growing.
I believe that talking about it, writing about it, yelling about it, and being frustrated as fuck about it might lead to a world where someone’s size does not indicate the content of their character, the level of their fitness, their willingness to seize the fucking day, the amount of fried chicken they eat or that anything I just mentioned IS ANYONE ELSES FUCKING BUSINESS.
AGAIN, I’m considered a fat person…and I’m going to tell you the truth, THAT fact has really fucked me up when it comes to thinking about the prospect of meeting someone and/or falling in love while shelled in a big body.
There. I said it. And no one died.
So, we move on.
In PREPARATION for writing this, I read through a BUNCH of other articles on the subject, to take the temperature on how far we’ve come in terms of body acceptance and/or body neutrality…and love and the big girl.
Well, you guys, not very fucking far, it turns out.
While I read the multitudes of meditations on fat women in regard to love/lust/desire, I:
A: Had to lie down a number of times
B: Almost threw up twice
C: Once ran a fever so hot I had to put an ice pack on my head and, see A
D: Generally, ended up fairly furious at the entire gross, patriarchal world in general.
D: Brewed up a bone deep compulsion in my gut to drive to the hills somewhere to write romance novels for big girls (featuring words like heaving and throbbing) OR write novels where there is an island where amazon big women live and love and learn to kick ass, kinda like Wonder Woman’s island but with WIFI, Netflix and ALL ROUND big women who are joyously overflow their fighting bikinis…yes, I wanted to write about these never come back.
Honestly, I think I would be good at that.
THIS is just the beginning of what I saw when I googled my title for this piece…THIS is what came up…
Barf worthy, right?
Anyhow, the reason I’m sitting in my condo on this not winter but not spring day in March, on my blue leather couch, with my rescue dog sleeping against my leg in silent somnambulist support, finally taking a crack at writing about love and fat women is because I have a dirty secret.
I’ve spent the last year and a half really and finally taking care of and nurturing all the parts of me that I’ve been neglecting my entire life (I’m grateful as fuck to be able to do this) and while a great deal of the work has been JUST for me and future me…a very small slice of this care that I have pretended was not a fact…fuck…was that I wanted to widen my dating pool.
I know.
It’s disgusting, right?
I hate admitting it BUT I hate even worse that it’s true…which is why I decided to talk about it because I’m pretty damn fucking sure I’m not the only one…and I want to STOP this line of thinking.
If I see one more bio that says that someone is looking for fit, athletic, thin, or (insert word that IMPLIES thin here) I will expire a little.
And yes, I know people are welcome and entitled to their preferences and that’s fine really and it’s good to know up front what people are looking for…BUT imagine if you will being a big human, scrolling through the doomsday machine that is the dating app… because it seems to be the only way to meet people who can help you carry your kayak, share gas money to drive to hike somewhere…and past all the jokes about why anyone is on a dating app…to have someone to tell your stories to…who you also get to kiss…and listen to their stories right back…and maybe mess around a bit with
…what was I saying…oh yah!…imagine scrolling through the faces of person after person and seeing the CODE for NOT HERE FOR FAT CHICKS expressed in almost every bio.
For true real.
Even for a gal like me, who is 78% of the way to totally loving her form, it can take the wind out of your sails.
SIDEBAR:
HERE I feel the need to say…
I LOVE MY LIFE.
LIKE, A LOT.
Actually, I’m the happiest, the most creative, the most peaceful I’ve ever been.
I am VERY fulfilled.
AND I’m in the best shape of my life, which is always saying something for a big girl.
But, it would be nice to have a someone I really dig in my life, too.
Not ALL the time, calm down.
But some of it.
TWO THINGS ARE TRUE AT ONCE, right?
END OF SIDEBAR.
For my entire life, I’ve survived inside of this body.
I’ve pushed and pulled it.
I hated it hard.
I’ve tortured it.
I denied it.
I’ve lived some of my years as a floating head totally ignoring it.
Like back when I was over 100 pounds lighter than I am now, when my own mother didn’t recognize me after I lost way too much weight and was manic about keeping it off, I obsessed on it… asking my friend Cara over and over again if I looked “normal”.
I’ve been so unkind to my shell, that NOW I thank it from the bottom of my heart everyday for continuing on with me…carrying me, healing over and over again, helping me express myself, for breathing, for beating, for moving, for protecting…all the while I was keenly judgemental of it, my body went on functioning…thank fuck…thank you, body.
But life is truly short…and it will not continue to chug on forever, right?
So, the time is right to 100% (yes, I’m a virgo who loves percentages) accept it, but…and here is the thing that keeps hitching inside me…if I accept it, will others?
If I nurture it, feed it, stretch it, clothe it in cloth that fits the curves, exercise it, peacock it on occasion…will other people who aren’t fetishists see it as beautiful as I do…as I will.
The Fetishists.
What does one say about fetishists?
AND is that the same as someone who loves a woman with a juicy ass?
You know what, I’m not totally sure.
But would we call men who ONLY date small women….which is a large group of men, let’s be honest… “fetishists”?
Maybe…maybe.
AND AND, I’m going to be totally honest here, in the last four years, I’ve slept with at least two men who I’ve come to believe were showing up in my life, for my body.
(!)
(!!)
Ha.
HHHHahahahaha.
OH MY GOD!!!
I wrote that and read it back, and closed my computer and just fucking laughed…because isn’t that the TOTAL plight of women on both ends of the ACTUAL SCALE.
THEY WANT US ALL FOR OUR BODIES. OH. MY. GOD.
LIGHTBULB MOMENT, PEOPLE.
Okay, grab onto your hats, humans…
For two years, on my month long winter visits to the southern part of the United States, I spent some time (on and off) with a man who just worshiped my body.
At the time I was just looking for A BODY to be with.
THAT was my speed…and I honour it.
To be fair, HE was a man of sports and fairly extreme fitness, which I also love…I love ALL bodies…so, I worshiped HIS…it WAS truly something to behold.
Truly.
One afternoon after we spent some time together, (yes, the afternoon) I got up the gumption to ask him if the majority of his interest in me was just all about my body.
He tilted his head and said…
He: Well, in the beginning it was a lot about your body and your face and your eyes and your laugh…and then, I got to know you, and this body is attached to you…and I like you a lot…and now, your body is just a fringe benefit. Why does no one even blink when billions of men only want to have sex with small women? What if your body type is what moves me?
I literally was struck silent.
I had no idea WHAT to say.
If I was a smaller woman and a man said that to me, after I asked the same question…what would the response or YOUR reaction to that response be.
BLOOP.
Why should love of my form be different for me or other, because I’m big?
When I saw him the during the second year I went down to the south for a month, when we came together for the first time in a year, he and I were fairly thrilled to see each other.
He poured over my body like it was a work of art…running his hands over my new tattoo with reverence…asking me all about it.
Being with him was a physically religious experience, no joke, an experience that, after he left or I left, further moved me to think about MORE…and whatever MORE might mean.
Almost every time we parted, a little bell (one that unbelievably hadn’t already been rung) went off inside me…inside my healing and growing spirit.
Do I want more? Don’t I? What is more? What does it look like in my life? I love my life…do I want to add another person’s choices, opinions and decisions to it?
Neither my Southern dude or I were under any allusions that we were meant to be any more than what we were at that time, but being with him, just newly divorced and in my 50’s, I was gloriously reminded that I could have smashing sex…and it lead me to realization that I maybe, just maybe might want the whole package.
I want it all.
I want ALL the feelings AND ALL the feeling.
Oh my lord, I WANT IT ALLLLLLLLLLL.
AND THAT is when I started to really wrestle with the idea that maybe ONLY good sex was meant for me…for me in a big body…maybe love was not meant for me in a big body.
IS LOVE MEANT FOR BIG (FAT) WOMEN?
Would I just have to settle for the good sex?
I mean, fuck that question, right? Why is it one or the other?
“Is love meant for big (fat) women” was a daily fucking mind struggle that I had before I got married…had a number of times during…and then now, here it is again at the grand age of 53…I mean, FUCK THAT QUESTION AND WRINKLE, right?
I work diligently on rewiring my mind towards being in the moment and not living out of the old, stupid programs that have existed inside me since the first time I turned on my TV and saw Marsha Brady, Charlie’s Angels, and Chrissie Snow and thought, well, I am FOR SURE not that, so where do I fit and who do I get to love?
But still, here I am, inside the joyous peak of my life, in my creative flow, finding myself subconsciously thinking that it will be easier to find dates when I’m thinner…and I fucking hate that.
I HATE THAT.
With all I am, do I have to be skinny to find love?
Do big women have to lower their expectations of a partner because they ARE BIG?
Do I need to take care of my form for ANYONE other than me?
No.
The answer is no.
BUT, there is no doubt that it’s harder.
It just is.
And NOT just in the finding of a partner BUT, most importantly, in the building and reminding of self worth as you scroll through picture after bio after picture after bio…and delete the account for a while.
I don’t know if I will fall in love…no one does…but I DO that know that I won’t settle.
And I know I’m worth it…I am WORTHY of smooching, poetic, messy, gorgeous love.
And yes, Dorothy, I always was…at every stinking size.
Is love meant for EVERYONE?
Yes. Yes, it is. I believe that to my gut.
I just have to constantly remind the little fat girl inside me that she is worth it, too…no matter what size I happen to be….and also remind her she’s just HER…that she’s not just BIG…AND definitely not fat.
We hate that word.
The journey continues.
Started March 15th – Ended May 6th, 2022 – S.M.
Toronto, ON.
As always, thank you for following along! I’ve mentioned a few times that the people who subscribe to my site and this blog get the notifications that I’ve written something a couple of days before I promo it…and during those few days, I edit it. So, if you subscribe, you will probably see the things that I realize I should take out…hahahaha!! Fill in the little box below, and join in the fun!!
If a man falls in love with my mind first and he is truly a romantic at heart, then I don’t care if he weighs three hundred pounds, it will be exactly what my heart wanted. True intimacy at its best. Sex is just the icing on the cake that makes two become one in the physical intimacy. Sex appeal, man appeal is a state of mind. One must know the type of mate that is good for them in the long haul before seeking a suitable candidate. There are plenty of big women on the Ontario Photographers & Models Network of Ontario. (twenty-four thousand members) and critique on body shape is foreign and zero tolerance. Respect. Yes. On the other hand, if a man bullies me for no good reason, he has it coming to him. I will call him things bad and deserving. Words to have power but we decide our attitude toward them.
As a man who has always, for whatever reason, been attracted to “larger” people, much like myself, and subconsciously unhappy with my body shape, but also happy in it, if that makes sense, this is a fascinating subject, and I haven’t got a clue what to think, especially as I am not a woman, but I hope my wife realises I love her, and for more than her body!