We live in a highly sexualized culture. Sex is used to sell clothes. Sex is used to sell cologne. Sex is used to sell beer and automobiles. Our glossy magazines are filled with images of Picture Woman and Picture Man—idealized sexualized creatures who “have it all.” Did I say that Picture Woman is thin and fit? Did I say that Picture Man has a rippling torso? We are sold an image to which we aspire. That image is far thinner than the national norm. All it takes is a road trip to learn that America is overweight. Standing in line for fast food, filling up our stomachs as well as our cars at rest stations, America does not look sexy.
When we overeat, we lower our libido. We sedate our sexuality. And even if the urge to merge remains, we tell ourselves we’re too plump to be pleasing.
June got divorced at age forty-five, weighing in at about one hundred forty-five. A shy woman, she turned to food for comfort in her loneliness and quickly picked up an additional ten pounds. Although she longed for companionship, she met that longing with nightly Häagen-Dazs. “Who would want me? I’m just too fat,” she complained to her sisters, who were no thinner than she was but happily married. For ten years June subsisted on a diet of dreams and extra carbohydrates. While she longed to go to the movies with somebody, she settled for staying home with a video and a tube of cookie dough. When Frank asked her out, she was so startled she nearly declined. He persisted, and she accepted a dinner date.
“You know, I’ve wanted to get to know you for the longest time,” he said, “but I didn’t want to rush in.”
“Ten years is a respectable grieving period,” laughed June, although her ten lonely years had been no laughing matter. They enjoyed a friendly meal, and a week later, another. A month later they were still dating, and June had begun to panic about the question of bed. Frank was a charmer. He didn’t pounce, but he didn’t retreat either.
“You’re going to say yes to me sooner or later, why not sooner?” he cajoled. Against her better judgment, June said, “All right, yes.” Back in her apartment, Frank undressed her with care. “Oh,” he said, “you should really wear a little sign warning people they are in for a pleasant surprise.” If Frank thought June was too heavy, he didn’t let on. Not that night, and not any of the many nights that followed. First they were lovers, then they became engaged, then they got married. As she became happier and less lonely, June found herself able to forgo her nightly binges.
“Food was a substitute for sex for me,” June now admits. “But the substitute wasn’t nearly as good as the real thing.”
Like June, many of us carry extra weight that makes us reluctant to enter the bedroom. It is a vicious cycle: we eat because we miss sex; we miss sex because we eat.
Elaine, a well-to-do woman, hired both a cook and a trainer to get her into shape for a renewed sex life. She lived on a monastic diet. She underwent an Olympian regimen. She attracted the eye of Pavlo, a restaurateur. “Come eat at my place,” Pavlo would coax her whenever their paths crossed. Elaine felt like saying, “I can’t eat at your place, your place is too fattening! You’d never look at me twice if I made a habit of your place!” Pavlo was tenacious. Elaine was flattered and eventually accepted Pavlo’s invitations, first to dinner, and then to bed.
“He tells me he likes an older woman, a woman who’s experienced,” Elaine says. “He tells me he likes me with a little extra meat on my bones, and I must admit, he certainly does seem to like me.”
“Americans are funny!” exclaims Pavlo. “A woman is like a good steak; better if it’s not too lean.”
Not all of us meet Pavlos. More of us dream that a Pavlo might exist. If we are honest, many of us are overfed but starving—starved for sexuality, sensuality, and affection. If a shared meal is marked by conviviality, a binge is marked by loneliness.
“I am overweight and undersexed,” says Melanie. “I have been too heavy—and too lonely—for nearly a decade. I don’t like to admit it, but I have completely bought what the tabloids are selling. I am not model thin, and so I disqualify myself from any romantic encounters. When a man is interested and shows it, I think, ‘There must be some mistake!’ The actual mistake is my own fixation on being thin. I tell myself that when I can fit back into an eight, I can slip back into the bedroom. Right now I am a fourteen if I’m lucky.”
“My body feels so plump,” says Anne, “that I don’t like to touch it. I can’t imagine anyone else wanting to either. I know this is self-loathing, but I just can’t get into those magazine articles that say ‘romance yourself.’ I tell myself, if I were thin, then maybe, but I am not thin. I’m twenty pounds overweight, and when I go to bed, I feel like a sack of potatoes. I don’t think that’s sexy, do you?”
Once upon a time, and not so long ago either, Anne’s figure would have been considered ideal. A quick trip to an art museum reveals that painters such as Rubens admired a fleshy body. Flesh, however, has gone out of style. Anne is nobody’s worshipped mistress.
If American reality is overweight, the American ideal is underweight. Somewhere in between lies a healthy body image that meshes with the realities of DNA and aging.
“I thought of myself as twenty pounds overweight until I asked myself what I really found attractive. It wasn’t skinny, it wasn’t young. It was a woman ‘of a certain age’ who carried curves as well as emotional ballast. This excited me. I was ten pounds, not twenty, from my goal. Ten pounds seemed doable.”
TASK
What Is Your Actual Ideal?
Take pen in hand. Describe for yourself your actual physical ideal. Are you more rounded than rickety? Are you more sensual than skinny? Are you closer to your ideal than you had thought? If it is possible, take yourself to a large museum. People come in all shapes and sizes. Throughout the centuries, many different physiques have prevailed as icons of beauty. Allow yourself to appreciate the many different forms that have been appreciated. Are you a Rubens? A John Singer Sargent? Give yourself time to take in images of the many female forms that have inspired artists throughout the ages.
If your museum has a gift shop, buy yourself five postcards glorifying the body type that you’ve got. Postcards in hand, go to a café, buy yourself a cappuccino, and address the cards to yourself. Write brief affirmative messages about the beauty of your own form. You may wish to mail these cards to yourself with a simple note that says, “You’re closer than you think.”