Long before we have to make any decisions about who’s getting on top, there are lots of other sex and relationship issues that have to be negotiated so we can work toward creating the love and sex lives we desire. This section deals with important issues around the intersection of the body and the self. Here you will learn about what you can and should expect from relationships, what good sex and relationships can and can’t do for you, how to negotiate a variety of social issues that come up around sex and relationships when you have a bigger body, and the relationships between clothing and hygiene and your sexual self-esteem. Last but certainly not least, there are some thoughts on how sex and relationships can be affected by body changes, physical self-care, and movement, and why going on a diet might also mean that you lose out in your sex life.
It can be hard out there for a fatty. Fat people get crapped on, metaphorically speaking, a thousand times a day. Ads tell us that our bodies are icky and ugly. The shelves in the supermarket try to sell us foul diet food full of dubious chemicals. Our families and friends may nag us—or worse—about our weight, about our size, about our appearance. Doctors lecture us about how we’re going to die of The Fat, and they attribute our every sniffle to the fact that we’re not svelte. There is always the fear that people will dump us, refuse to date us, humiliate us, or set us up for public mockery because of our size. We’re punch lines and, sometimes, punching bags. It’s really, tragically, horribly easy to internalize it all, to assume that fat is really as bad as everyone seems to be saying and that we deserve all the fat-hating crap that lands on our heads.
This is bullshit. It’s all bullshit. But it is especially bullshit to think that you somehow deserve the mistreatment—or an unsatisfying or nonexistent love and sex life—because you’re fat.
You are here. You are human. Because you are here and you are human, you have a right to dignity and decency no matter what you look like, no matter what you weigh, no matter who you are. You may or may not like being fat. You may or may not agree with mainstream views about fatness. I don’t know and I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter. You are still here, you are still human, and you still have a right to be treated with a certain baseline of respect. That’s why they call it human decency.
Unfortunately, not everyone will show you the dignity and decency you, like everyone else, deserve. As fabulous and giving and kind and loving and wonderful as human beings can be, we can also be selfish, nasty, brutal pack animals whose more civilized impulses get overridden by an ancient, survival-oriented propensity for power games. These power games, unfortunately and unkindly, mean that many people feel that gunning for fat people is a safe bet. More unfortunately, they are often correct.
Protecting yourself, by which I mean creating and enforcing boundaries that protect your mental, emotional, physical, and sexual safety, is your responsibility. This is especially important when it comes to intimate relationships, because where we are intimate, we are vulnerable. It would be your responsibility if you were thin. It is even more your responsibility if you are fat. And yes, alas, intersections of fatness and other minority statuses will mean that, if you are both fat and a member of another minority, you may have to be even more demanding, and work even harder, to get the dignity you deserve.
Neither I nor anyone else can decide where your own personal boundaries should be or how much protection you need to provide for yourself. Only you know what levels of risk are acceptable to you, how bad of a possible burn you are able to tolerate. Your tolerance of risk can and probably will change as other circumstances in your life change. You will have to periodically revisit your boundaries and make adjustments. So I cannot tell you what your boundaries should be, but here are some general guidelines specifically in relation to love and sex that can help you decide where your personal boundaries with regard to relationships and sexuality might most usefully lie.
This is especially important to remember in regard to things that may not seem so serious at the time, like unprotected sex. Unwanted pregnancies can happen whether you are fat or thin. The HIV virus does not care what you weigh and neither do the microorganisms that cause syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, or genital warts/HPV. Anyone who refuses to be responsible in regard to these issues is not only putting themselves at risk but also putting you at risk, and chances are good that if they’re putting themselves at risk with you, they’ve been doing the same with other people, and that’s not a good thing.
Love or sex that comes with unwanted and unacceptable risks is not better than not getting love or sex at all. It’s really not worth it. There is plenty of good love and positive sex out there to be had. It’s worth seeking out. And it’s worth not settling for less.
More often than not, our gut is smart and if we pay attention to it, it will save us a lot of trouble. Better safe than sorry. And if you end up feeling like a doofus because you were more cautious than you needed to be, consider that you now have more data that will help you make a better judgment call next time.
I like to think of standards as being like the signs at amusement parks that say “You must be at least this tall to ride this ride.” It’s always okay to be taller. You are under no obligation to be a one-size-fits-all sort of person, especially when it comes to relationships. Just as with clothes, a good fit makes all the difference.
If there’s one thing people are good at, it’s limiting themselves for no good reason. We all do it, and we all know other people who do it: the friend who complains of overwork but refuses to consider a vacation, the friend who wants to learn to scuba dive but has dismissed it as being unaffordable without even looking into how much it would cost. But self-limitation doesn’t even have to involve concrete things like a vacation or scuba diving. We do it to ourselves just as much when we indulge in thinking thoughts like “If only I were a size smaller, I’d get hit on at parties” or “If I had a lover, then I’d be able to feel more confident about my sexiness” or a million other similar things.
Fat people are particularly prone to this because of the myth we get sold daily in this culture, that fat people can’t do this, they shouldn’t do that, and they won’t be able to do the other thing until they lose weight. We’re all deeply and continually exposed to the message that life will be better, and that people will approve of our existence, when our bodies are thinner. As a result, we often don’t let ourselves do things we want to do—wear a sleeveless top, travel, ask someone out on a date, and so on. We’re afraid of what might happen, and we’ve become convinced that if we do these things as fat people, it can’t possibly end well. We let the lives we want be contingent on something else. There’s always something we have to achieve before we can have what we want. In this way we put what we really desire on hold.
There’s just one problem with putting your life on hold: it means you’re putting your life on hold. Sure, as the legendary (and often fat) comedienne Anna Russell used to sing, “Things would be so different if they were not as they are.” But the truth of the matter is that at any given moment all you actually have to work with is things as they are. The only starting place you have is where you are right now.
If you’re reading this book, chances are good that you are looking for some advice that will help you have a better life. Specifically, you’re looking for some advice on your sex life, and your love life, and you’re hoping that this book will provide encouragement and insight in those arenas. As the author, I sincerely hope I am able to provide this to you. But the single biggest thing you can do for the quality of your life, and for your happiness in every aspect of your life—including your love life and your sex life—is something only you can do, and you have to do it for yourself.
Here it is: stop putting your life on hold.
This is the central message of size acceptance philosophy and the central message of this book. Accepting that you’re fat doesn’t mean giving up or giving in; it just means accepting that this is the body you’ve got. You’re fat, and that’s not the end of the world. Life goes on. As you may have already noticed, it’s not as if your life has actually stopped happening just because you’re fat. So you might as well live it the way you want to. Wear that sexy outfit. Try that enticing sex toy. Ask that hot person out on a date. Try getting on top. Go out with your friends to that dance club. Tell your partner about your fantasy. Put up that online personal ad. Whatever it is that you’ve been wanting to do, give it a whirl. Why wait?
Sure, it may not be a perfect experience. Life’s like that. You may end up disappointed or hurt. Those are the breaks sometimes. But not risking failure means you aren’t risking success. Not taking any risks feels safe, yes, but that’s only because you know exactly what the outcome will be: nothing.
I know it’s terrifically easy, and terrifically tempting, to think about taking a risk and end up just taking a nap. I know it’s scary to take risks, and believe me when I say that I totally know about the nightmarish jungle of what-ifs that spring up the instant you even think about doing something that’s risky and frightening. But the truth is that the odds of your life magically turning into an all-singing, all-dancing road show of exactly what you want, forever and ever amen, without your having to do anything at all, are pretty damn nonexistent. On the other hand, if you do make some changes, take some risks, and see what happens, you’ve opened the door to possibility.
This brings me to the other huge thing that will make your love and sex life immeasurably better and will do wonders for your life in general. Again, it’s something that only you can do: don’t expect love and sex to heal your entire life.
Love is a many-splendored thing. Sex has the potential to be a lifelong source of joy and amazement and insight and goodness. I’d be the last person to say otherwise. There are a thousand excellent reasons to devote some time and energy to improving your love life and your sex life. But neither love nor sex is a magic pill that instantly erases every source of trouble, stress, and frustration. Love and sex certainly don’t erase the various problems that go along with being fat. You can be madly in love with the perfect person and still have a hard time finding clothes that fit. You can have deliriously fantastic sex seven nights a week with a variety of delicious and charming individuals and still have random assholes shout fatphobic nastiness at you on the street. Having lots of lovely orgasms, unfortunately, cannot keep your doctor from nagging you about your weight, even if they can help you cope with how stressful it is to be nagged. Neither love nor sex will give you a reprieve from the rest of life. It only feels like it ought to, in that first heady flush of hormones and limerence. But it doesn’t—not for you, not for anyone, no matter how thin or fat. Good love and sexual relationships can help you deal with the stresses of life, but they can’t simply erase them.
It’s easy to think that everything would be different if only you had a lover or better sex or more orgasms or someone who brought you breakfast in bed every morning. But once more we are back in the land of Things Would Be So Different If They Were Not as They Are. If you had a lover, you would have a lover. And that might very well be really wonderful. But it would not change the fact that your boss is incompetent or your sister-in-law is a high-maintenance drama queen.
If you take nothing else away from this book, take these two things: don’t put your life on hold and don’t expect love and sex to heal your life. Giving your fears a little less time in the driver’s seat makes you more open to the possibility of good things happening in your life. Letting your experiences out of the confining cage of unrealistic expectations means you are open to lovely surprises. Not undermining the goodness of the good things in your life by trying to force them to be something they can’t be means you are more likely to appreciate them for what they are. It’s a good recipe for a good life. Everyone, no matter who they are or what they weigh, deserves more of that.
Fat people weigh more and take up more space than thin people. This isn’t something to be ashamed of, and it isn’t necessarily anything to gloat about either; it’s just the way it is. It does, however, mean that when we fat folks are moving around in a world where most physical objects are designed for thinner bodies, we have to strategize about the physical aspects of where we want to go and what we want to do. This comes up not just in everyday routine but also in our love and sex lives.
Space is one concern. Chairs with arms, narrow restaurant booths, and movie theater seats seemingly designed for malnourished twelve-year-olds are common problems that might come up in the context of a date or an evening out—but so might being stuck in a car that you don’t fit into comfortably or whose seat belts aren’t sufficient to protect a bigger person. Although people are remarkably ingenious about making the best of the space available to them, being cramped and confined is unpleasant at best and can be embarrassing, humiliating, and physically painful at worst. I always figure that if I’m going to have bruises on my hips, I want the process of getting them to be enjoyable, not an experience I remember with grinding resentment.
Thinking ahead about what physical accommodations you might need, and asking the questions that need to be asked to make sure you’ll have enough space for comfort, is important. This may seem embarrassing at first, particularly with regard to public spaces or other people’s houses, though most people find it is less so over time. It might help to remember that retail and service/hospitality businesses get many special requests in the course of the average day, and yours is nowhere near the oddest one they will have gotten. In many cases, you can email instead, if you prefer, which may lessen any embarrassment you might feel. Or perhaps a date or partner can ask on your behalf, a gracious and caring gesture.
Structural stability in furnishings and the like is another concern, and one that’s harder to address. Not all fat people are built the same, and therefore not every fat person will have the same worries or the same reasons to worry. It’s not always possible to tell whether a fat person is big or heavy enough, or shaped in ways that might cause problems with furnishings, just by looking at them. This includes being able to tell this about yourself: our image of our own bodies is often not 100 percent accurate. (I continually think my butt is bigger than it is and am consistently surprised when a chair or turnstile or what-have-you is actually no problem at all.)
Unfortunately, not all furniture or other structures are built the same either. You may call ahead to find out whether a restaurant has armless chairs, and they may say yes, but they don’t necessarily have sturdy armless chairs. You just can’t know whether a chair or other piece of furniture will wobble, bend, or break. Folding chairs, although armless, can be treacherously flimsy, and injection-molded plastic chairs of the type so often put out at sidewalk cafes are infamously even worse. It’s not funny or fun to have a chair break under you (and, yes, the plastic ones can break—there is a somewhat infamous moment in an episode of the TV program Bizarre Foods in which the only slightly rotund host, Andrew Zimmern, has one go to pieces beneath him on camera). Besides, it’s dangerous.
Sometimes the only thing you can do is to gingerly take a test sit and see if it feels stable enough, and, if not, see what can be done to find an alternative. The same is true of things like bed frames. These are even harder to guess about, although as a general rule, the lighter the components, the more likely it is to be flimsy. I am far from the only person I know who has managed to break slats in cheap futon frames during sex. (I once managed to break one while masturbating, and it wasn’t even my bed. True story. I think that there should be a merit badge for that.) It’s a little surprising and a little embarrassing, yes, but not the end of the world.
If you are fat or you have sex with people who are, it is not a bad idea to take some special care to make sure that anyplace you are likely to engage in sex is both large enough and sturdy enough to handle what you’re dishing out. Beds should be on sturdy frames or simply on the floor. Chairs and benches should be well built and regularly checked to make sure their joints are all solid and nothing is wiggling or wobbling. More exotic equipment, like slings and bondage furniture, should be sturdily built with attachment points that can handle considerably more stress than you think might ever be put on them. (This is actually a good idea no matter what the size of the people you play with: torque can be a harsh mistress.) This is easy to do, but it does require attention to details like sturdy grommets, materials of appropriate tensile strength (rope, fabric), and adequate structural strength in mounting surfaces, beams, walls, and so on.
If you choose to use household furnishings for sex play—bending someone over the arm of the couch, for instance—make sure that the arm of the couch is up to the task, and bear in mind that with all that weight there will not only be downward force but also a great deal of force being applied sideways, diagonally, and in other directions. Check joints and joins in furniture frames, if possible. At the very least, give things a good shove and see if there is any play in the frame. If there is, a frame may need to be tightened, reglued, or reinforced with mending plates (ask at your hardware store) before it will be genuinely safe to have sex on top of it. Some people also have good luck using rope to lash and reinforce furniture framing. If something goes to pieces after all that, you can definitely chalk it up to just being so wild and uninhibited that even the furniture couldn’t handle you!
There are some fat admirers who eroticize people getting stuck in chairs or tight spaces and others who fetishize people breaking furniture because of their weight or size. “Stuck” and breakage fetishes and fantasies are not unheard of among people who like thinner bodies, either. As with most fetish interests, there are ways to play with the problems of size, fit, and sturdiness for erotic pleasure without putting anyone in any real danger of humiliation or injury. As a gift for a friend-with-benefits, a friend once had photos taken of her substantial, skimpily dressed self pressed up against the glass of an old-fashioned phone booth, as if she were trapped inside and couldn’t get out. She could get out just fine, of course, but the illusion of stuckness was enthusiastically received. Such things are not, however, something that should be done without full informed consent. It is of course impolite and awkward if one person dwells fetishistically on embarrassing or unhappy experiences that another has experienced. Discretion, tact, and careful, good-humored communication are, as is the case with so much else in life, key to a pleasant experience.
There are other size and fit issues that affect sex lives. Fatter folks also have to go out of their way to find sexual accessories that are accommodating: dildo harnesses, particularly, can be tricky to find in larger sizes, but certainly not impossible (see Resource Guide for recommendations). Size, fit, and reach issues may also affect sexual positions and sex toy use. These are all discussed in their subject-specific sections.
Bodies don’t just come in big or small, fat or skinny; they come in a variety of different shapes. There are people with wide shoulders and stooped shoulders, big hands and dainty ones, narrow feet and feet that are practically square, like Fred Flintstone’s. Mostly, it’s a matter of genetics. You can stand up as straight as a palace guard and still have sloping shoulders, and you can shove your big ol’ gunboats into shoes two sizes too small and, at the end of the day, all you’ll have to show for it is blisters. Some things about your body you just can’t do much about. The way people’s bodies carry fat is definitely one of those things.
There seems to be some myth, lurking in the backs of many people’s minds that when people get fat, it sort of settles on their bodies evenly, all over, like a soft, sifted blanket of snow. In reality, bodies don’t accumulate fat evenly all over like that. They accumulate fat in particular places, and as with foot size and shoulder curve and so on, how fat accumulates on any given body seems to be mostly a matter of genetics. The degree to which we are likely to notice someone’s fat-distribution patterns often depends on how much fat there is. The fatter the body, the more exaggerated and obvious the fat patterns can become.
How much fat gets deposited where is not something that people can control. You can do all the sit-ups in the world, and if you are genetically predisposed to carry weight in your midsection, then that’s exactly where you’re going to carry it if you’ve got any to carry. It does not matter how strong or toned the underlying layer of muscles might be. A woman who normally carries her weight in her hips and thighs is not going to wake up one morning to discover that she has suddenly become a woman who carries most of her weight in her belly. You might be able to fight City Hall, but you can’t fight your genes.
The places that we carry our fat, how the fat shapes itself, and how much fat accumulates in different places on the body are not things over which we have much control. This makes it all the more curious, and not a little bit problematic, that we tend to read so much into different body shapes. Some body shapes, and some patterns of fat distribution, are considered more attractive than others. They tend to be interpreted as suggesting particular things about gender and even about sexual orientation. Fairly or unfairly, reasonably or unreasonably, a lot can ride on what is nothing more than a combination of fat plus genetics.
Fat bodies are often described as existing in three basic versions. These three basic body shapes are considered by many to represent a fairly stringent hierarchy of attractiveness and gender.
Hourglass: This exaggerated version of the classic female silhouette is big in the bust, smaller in the waist, and big again in the hips and/or butt. Hourglass-shaped women are often seen as being more feminine or more womanly than women with non-hourglass shapes. Sometimes hourglass-shaped women are presumed to be heterosexual even when they aren’t, because of the exaggerated femininity of their figures.
Because it is a version of the “ideal” feminine figure, the hourglass shape can bring a certain amount of privilege along with it. Hourglass-shaped women may find that their body shape allows them to be socially accepted more easily than fat women with bodies of other shapes, even if they are of similar actual weights. Our culture highly values big breasts and curvy hips in women.
“I have a pronounced hourglass shape and I sometimes wish I didn’t. I get attention I don’t want and I have a hard time knowing what to do with it. It still doesn’t really make sense to me that this happens, as I am quite fat. I suppose fat in the “right” places makes all the difference.”
Having an hourglass shape is great if you’re inclined toward the kind of feminine gender presentation that our culture associates with Coke-bottle curves. It can be miserable, however, if you are not. Some women find their hourglass shapes to be nothing but trouble, because of the ways that onlookers make assumptions about their gender, their preferences, and their attitudes on the basis of the shape of their bodies. Butch women and transmasculine people with biologically female bodies can have particular problems coping with an hourglass shape.
Pear: The bottom-heavy silhouette, in which most of a person’s fat is carried in the hips, butt, thighs, and lower abdomen, is known as the “pear shape.” It can be seen as feminine, although not as feminine as the hourglass. Men who are pear shaped often find that the “hippy” qualities of this body shape mean that they are perceived as not fully masculine, as they suggest a feminine broadness in the hips. Sometimes observers may—correctly or incorrectly—assume that a man who is pear shaped is gay, because he has a “feminine” body shape. A pear shape can be an asset to transfeminine people, since it enhances the ability to suggest feminine curves. Sexually speaking, the pear shape is sometimes fetishized, just like the hourglass can be. People who are particularly fond of big butts and heavy thighs can be intensely attracted to pear-shaped bodies.
“Being a bottom heavy man sucks! It’s like the anti-chick magnet. I had one woman tell me she figured I was gay because I had hips. I thought ‘Of course I have hips, doesn’t everybody?’ ”
In some cases, the pear shape can be a sign of a medical problem. Lipedema is a medical condition in which fat deposits in a distinctive pattern, from waist to ankles, in the lower half of the body, and creates major problems for lymphatic drainage, leading to pain and vastly increased potential for infections and other issues. It is found almost exclusively in women and is often misdiagnosed. Lipedema is covered in more detail in chapter 5, To Your Health!, on this page.
Apple: The apple body shape is one where most fat is carried in the torso, and particularly in the belly. It is the classic male pattern for fat deposition, although a fair proportion of women are also apple shaped. Because it is associated with male body shapes, it is masculinizing. We give the apple-shaped male belly all kinds of masculine nicknames—“beer belly,” “biker belly,” “Buddha belly”—and often talk about it with a certain bravado as a symbol of the good life. There are, for instance, a number of delis across the United States called “The Big Belly Deli.” For those attracted to fat men, the belly is often a visually enticing source of erotic pleasure.
Apple-shaped women have a more difficult time. Because the apple shape is interpreted as masculine, apple-shaped women may feel as if they are less feminine, or other people may treat them as if they are. Apple-shaped women have sometimes been assumed to be lesbians, even if they aren’t, because their bodies seem masculine. In general, there are fewer people who value apple-shaped women sexually than there are people who value apple-shaped men. Apple-shaped women may feel like they are sexually invisible because of this. On the other hand, an apple shape can be an asset to butch women and transmasculine people.
As with the pear shape, there are cases in which the apple shape is a sign of an underlying medical issue. In women, being apple shaped can be part of an endocrine and metabolic condition called polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). PCOS is covered in more detail in chapter 5, To Your Health!, on this page. The apple shape has been statistically correlated with a higher degree of cardiovascular problems; however, it is not entirely clear what the nature of that relationship is or what that might mean for health care.
“I sort of feel that as a black woman it’s more ‘okay’ to have an hourglass-shaped body as opposed to a stick thin body. But the idea that it’s ‘okay’ for black women to have apple-shaped bodies is not true.”
Except for the fact that you usually take them off somewhere along the way, it might seem like clothes don’t have a lot to do with sex. But clothes have enormous impact on how we feel about ourselves and what kinds of impressions we make on people as we move through the world. We use them to attract, to distract, and definitely to advertise. Clothes are part of how we attract attention and part of how we keep it, part of how we tell the world what kind of person we are and what kind of person we’re likely to be interested in. We use them to show off and seduce as well as to fool the eye and conceal. When you feel like you’re not well dressed, you’re likely to be less confident and might even feel embarrassed to be seen in public. When you’re wearing something that makes you feel pulled together and sexy, on the other hand, you feel good and it shows.
This isn’t always easy to do, though. Plus-size fashion has come a long way from the polyester double-knit ghettoes of yesteryear but, even now, the options available—particularly for those at the higher end of the weight spectrum—can leave quite a bit to be desired. Even assuming you’ve found clothes that have all the right stuff, it can be scary to wear things that call attention to yourself and to the way you look. Blogger and author Lesley Kinzel is a dedicated clotheshorse. She would love to see more fat people taking fashion and using it more powerfully, but she notes that it’s not necessarily simple: “Willfully drawing attention to yourself with risky choices can be so terrifying, especially if you’ve spent much of your life invested in the idea that your body should be invisible, hidden, a source of shame. But taking risks is the only way we can learn anything new about ourselves—in this case, how we can handle putting our bodies out there in a flagrant violation of cultural expectations.” She recommends taking it slowly, trying small changes, and building your comfort level one individual challenge at a time.
A great exercise that uses clothes to help you get more comfortable with and in your body is Kinzel’s “white tank top” exercise. It consists of putting on a white tank top and wearing it for ten minutes every day in front of a full-length mirror. “Take in your shape, your arms, legs, face. Look for the things you like, and learn to like the things you don’t, until you learn to see your own beauty first, before you see any so-called imperfections.” It is, as Kinzel reminds us, our “imperfections” that make us interesting—and beautiful. “If you can feel sexy in a white tank top,” she adds, “then you can feel sexy in anything.”
One of the biggest problems we fat folks have with sexy clothes isn’t what to wear, but where to get it. You can be sexy and pulled together and look fantastic in almost anything, but finding specifically sexy clothes, lingerie, and the like can be very difficult indeed, particularly if you wear larger than a 3X. The Resource Guide has some suggestions for vendors that sell sexy clothing and have come recommended by survey and by word of mouth. Online clearinghouses like Etsy.com and eBay.com are also good resources where truly unusual items sometimes pop up. Another possibility is to have things custom made. This need not be prohibitively expensive; Etsy.com is a great place to hunt for a craftsperson who will happily work with you to create exactly what you want to wear at prices that may be less than you imagined.
Lesley Kinzel was one of the fat founding mothers behind the community and blog Fatshionista. She analyzes popular culture, writes things (her book on fat issues is due out from the Feminist Press at CUNY in 2012), wears dresses, and blogs about social justice and fattery at TwoWholeCakes.com.
Q: If you had to distill your philosophy of “fatshion” down to just a sentence or two, what would it be?
A: Fatshion for me is about refusing to be invisible. I dress expressly to draw attention, thereby to make a statement that I am not to be ignored or dismissed. Sometimes, in a more aggressive vein: that I am fully capable of fucking you up, that my purpose is to fuck you up, even just mentally, by crashing through your expectation of how a fat person is supposed to present hirself* to the world.
Q: What advice would you give to a fat person who was trying to dress to impress someone romantically/sexually?
A: You will, invariably, look hottest in whatever you FEEL hottest in. If garter belts and cutout bras don’t do it for you, it’s going to show. And who the hell wrote the law that said only those items are sexy? If you feel most sexified in a white a-shirt and boxers, or in an oversize T-shirt, or in nothing at all, then your confidence and—probably more importantly—your comfort in your body will shine through. Few things make a person more attractive than being able to witness their comfort in their own skin.
Q: What are some clothes strategies for the apple-shaped girl? It seems like all the sexy and trendy stuff is cut for bodies that are not apple shaped.
A: Indeed. Actually I’d take that a step further and say our very concepts of “sexy” and “trendy” are in opposition to the apple shaped. When in recent memory has a prominent belly been in vogue? Have we ever elevated a feminine beauty standard that didn’t include a distinct waist? My advice for apples is to fuck the system and wear what you like. I am partial to dresses with voluminous skirts, but there are some fatshionista bloggers out there who are traditional apples and who also work out the sheath dresses and pencil skirts like nobody’s business. Clothing should showcase your body and your style—if you feel good in it, then wear it. Never be afraid to try something on, and never assume a particular style cannot work for you.
Q: How much do you think people really notice clothes and fashion choices? Does it genuinely make a difference to your romantic/sexual prospects?
A: My partner says today that part of why he first noticed me was because of my style—I was a fat girl wearing low-cut tops, miniskirts, and Dr. Martens boots as a daily uniform at the time. I think fashion can be a means of drawing initial attention for some people, but ultimately attraction happens on a deeper level. Our style, how we present ourselves to the world, does say something about us, and certainly that can draw folks who like what they see. But you don’t have to wear “sexy” clothing to look like someone worth talking to: I was hit on far more often while wearing totally nonsexy T-shirts for obscure bands than when I was all fishnetted and bustier-ed up for the club.
Whatever you feel sexiest in will, without question, be the sexiest thing you can wear. It really doesn’t matter what it is. If you feel sexiest in the nude, then by all means show off that birthday suit (as long as it won’t get you arrested)! If what makes you feel like a million bucks is a pristine white T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and a freshly shined pair of boots, then your body language and pleasure in your own looks will convey that to the people who see you. Sleek black tights and an acid-green minidress? A glitzy Western suit worthy of the Country Music Awards? Head-to-toe black leather? A lightly starched dress shirt, really good cuff links, and a Harris tweed jacket? Whatever makes you feel like an unstoppable sex machine is fair game for “sexy clothes,” because what you feel, you will reflect.
We’ve all heard the old wives’ tale that fat people are dirty, that we smell, that our various folds and crevices are rank and dank and unkempt and nasty. Some people even seem to think—although it makes no sense at all—that it is in fact physically impossible for fat people to be properly clean. The implication, of course, is that sex with fat people is disgusting because fat people are smelly and dirty.
Well, the truth of the matter is that from time to time, all of us are smelly and dirty. Personal cleanliness is, even for the skinniest and most scrupulous, an ongoing matter requiring regular maintenance. There are times when, no matter how lithe one is, one is bound to become sweaty and smelly and generally unappetizing. I have been with more than one thin person whose crotches were, shall we say, more fragrant than one might ideally prefer. Getting dirty and smelly is a human thing, not a fat thing.
The solution, fortunately, is simple. Wash! Wash early, wash often. If sexy naked times are on the immediate horizon, wash with a friend! Plain, mild soap and water will take care of most typical body odors, sweat, and general everyday ookiness. Dry well with a clean towel afterward, and off you go!
Although you should feel free to douse yourself in deodorants and antiperspirants and powder and lotion and perfume and aftershave if that’s what you like when you’re heading out or going to work or whatever, you’ll want to avoid these if you are washing in order to be clean for sex. These cosmetics often taste foul, and most are not actually recommended for ingestion anyhow. Going to nibble someone’s neck and getting a mouthful of Chanel No. 5, as I discovered in a most inconvenient way, is not a pleasant surprise. It may smell great, but it tastes awful. Don’t be worried about smelling like your own sweet self. Bodies are not supposed to be completely tasteless and odorless. We are human beings, and our bodies are supposed to smell and taste like clean, healthy, happy bodies. This is normal and okay and, indeed, sexy: scientists have shown that people’s sexual responses are affected strongly by the smells of their partners’ bodies.
Some people may have trouble reaching all the parts of their bodies. Sometimes this is due to fatness, but (and I speak from personal experience), having a bad case of tennis elbow can make a proper scrub down difficult too. Arthritis, joint problems, shoulder surgery, and other ailments can also make it really difficult to reach everything you want to reach. Whatever the reason, there are work-arounds that can make bath time easier and better.
First and foremost is the handheld shower. There are versions that can be connected permanently to typical wall shower fixtures, as well as versions that attach to bath taps on a temporary basis. It’s convenient to be able to direct the water exactly where you want it, and especially nice to make sure you can thoroughly rinse all the nooks and crannies of the bigger body. Back brushes allow for a long, leisurely reach for scrubbing whatever parts of you might enjoy a nice brisk washing, and they help to exfoliate as well, as do the 3-foot-long Salux washcloths from Japan that are available at many Asian grocery stores. On a similar but gentler theme, you can find back-brush-type tools that have sponge pads instead of bristles and even ones with lotion applicators. (See Resource Guide for some places to find these.)
The genitals and anus, of course, are particularly relevant to sex. They can also be particularly tricky to keep clean if you have reach issues. Just like there are back brushes and long-handled sponges, there are also specially made long-handled tools to help you wipe after using the toilet. These can be used with toilet paper, or with pre-moistened wipes intended for toilet use.
Bidets, although uncommon in North America, are everyday fixtures in much of the rest of the world, and they are brilliant for the quick and easy cleaning of the whole genital-anal area. Bidets are normally used in addition to wiping with toilet paper, not as a substitute, but for people whose reach problems prevent them from wiping with toilet paper, a bidet can, if used diligently, get the job done. If adding a separate bidet to your bathroom is not in the cards, you might consider an attachment that turns your existing toilet into a toilet-bidet. There are companies making automated bidet attachments for standard toilets, and there are even low-tech portable hand-pump versions available. Of course, bidets are superb for post-sex washing-up as well, not just the pre-game. People of all sizes, all around the world, use bidets happily every single day.
Dealing with skin folds and creases is a special cleanliness concern that thin people just don’t have to worry about as much. Because skin folds, deep navels, and deep creases in areas like the groin trap sweat and sloughed-off skin cells, and because the air circulation is limited or nonexistent, they can get particularly smelly and unpleasant in warm weather or after exercise. These moist, warm zones are ideal breeding grounds for skin infections, especially fungal ones. Such infections are not, of course, limited to fat people, as the sheer number of athlete’s foot and jock itch products on the market ought to tell you. Still, the folds and creases of a fatter body do create a built-in risk for these infections, and monitoring them for signs of unwelcome life on a routine basis is a very good idea.
The skin inside skin folds and creases is soft and delicate. It is more prone to irritation than tougher skin on other parts of your body, like your hands or arms. Because the skin is so tender, it can be easy for infections to take hold, and also for scratching, rubbing, or overly vigorous scrubbing to create abrasions and scrapes that can, in turn, get infected also.
When you are washing, you should take the time to wash every inch of yourself, including the insides of skin folds and creases. It’s good to keep tabs with your hands on what’s going on with your entire body, including the bits you might not actually be able to see very well, so that you notice when something suspicious shows up, like a lump, bump, or sore that might need medical attention. (Pro tip: The shower is also a fantastic place for a breast self-exam or a testicle self-exam, since wet, slippery skin makes it easier and more comfortable.)
You’ll want to dry off just as thoroughly when you’re done. A hairdryer with a “no heat” setting is a fabulous way to thoroughly dry skin folds and creases, but don’t give in to temptation and jack up the heat on the theory that it’ll get you drier faster. It will, but it’s also drying and potentially damaging to the already delicate skin inside those creases, and it is possible to burn yourself, as I know from particularly ouchy experience.
If you notice a persistent smell coming from any particular bit of your skin, whether a fold, crease, or otherwise, it may indicate a skin infection. Sometimes they itch, sometimes they don’t; sometimes there is discharge, sometimes there isn’t. There are different kinds of microorganisms that can cause skin infections, but fungal infections are most common. Mild fungal infections can often be treated at home by carefully washing and drying the affected skin, and doing your best to keep it dry, since without moisture, the fungi can’t grow. Cornstarch or baby powder helps absorb moisture. Some people also have good luck with herbal remedies featuring plants known for their antifungal or antimicrobial effects. Tea tree oil is especially popular but should be diluted with some other neutral oil (almond or jojoba), because it can be harsh. Goldenseal and Oregon Grape root are other good, highly effective, antimicrobial agents with which I and others have had great success for topical use. Do make a point to talk to a trained herbalist about these options if you can, since herbs are chemical agents too, and some can be irritating or dangerous if not used properly. You can also try over-the-counter remedies for jock itch, which usually contain a low concentration of antimicrobial drugs, sufficient to get rid of low-grade infections of certain (mostly fungal) types.
If these solutions don’t work, or if you just don’t want to mess around with them, go to your health care provider, who can more accurately identify the infection and give you prescription drugs that can knock out the infection. Keeping things clean and dry will help discourage a repeat infection as well as keeping you sweet smelling and sweet tasting for any paramours who might happen by.
You don’t have to change your body to have fantastic, mind-blowing sex. You don’t have to change your body to find love. You certainly don’t have to change your body to have a vibrant and happy sensual and emotional existence. Being confident and happy in your own skin is possible, and wonderful, no matter what size you are.
But—and this can be a pretty significant but—bodies change whether we want them to or not. Weight can go up and down for many reasons, including sickness, depression, metabolic malfunction, and eating disorders, not just from dieting or exercising. Likewise, muscle can be gained or lost for many reasons. The size of individual body areas may shift around somewhat from time to time even if there’s no change in weight. Illness, injury, surgery, medications, pregnancy and childbirth, accidents, and aging are among the many things that can cause noticeable body change.
You can be comfortable in your body at any point, in any configuration, at any size. And you can feel sexual and vital and delicious and delightful at any size or shape or ability (or disability) level, too. But feeling good and sexy about yourself at one bodily status doesn’t mean you’re going to be instantly comfortable if that changes.
When your body gets bigger or smaller or just changes shape, it can take your self-image and your emotional sense of self a while to catch up. Losing that sense of the familiar, and feeling like you can’t depend on your body to stay the same, can be confusing and alienating. Complicated emotional reactions are common: you might feel pleased at becoming more muscular, for instance, and at the same time feel weirdly conspicuous or worry about what other people think of the change. Even changes that you look forward to or maybe even work toward intentionally—maybe you’ve been wanting bigger biceps for years and have been working out to get them—can feel weird sometimes.
“I’m dealing with a weird thing wherein because I was a dancer, and lithe and flexible (about 50–70 pounds ago), I sometimes think I cannot possibly still be attractive to people who knew me then. The reality is that two of my current partners have known me for twenty-five years or so, desired me then, and still actively desire me; I’ve had feedback from other past lovers and friends that I am as desirable, if not more so (I have larger breasts, and a more rounded ass) than I was. The inside of my head doesn’t always match the external evidence.”
Having complicated feelings about your body and its changes, in turn, can engender complicated feelings about sex. It can be hard, when you’re not feeling entirely at home in your body, to feel sexy. If you’re not comfortable with a change that has happened with your body, it can be awkward or even painful to have another person praise it or take pleasure from it. It may feel strange or unpleasant to be touched when you don’t feel comfortable with a physical change that has taken place. Or you may be okay with being touched but find it difficult or impossible to have an orgasm because part of you is still a bit fixated on whatever’s going on with your body change. Sex can tap into some really deep emotions—sometimes things you weren’t even aware were going on can come to the surface when sex enters the picture.
“I lost weight through the depression and anxiety diet after the death of my father. After I had lost 25 pounds, I realized whoa—that is a lot of weight. Maybe I should keep doing this. Part of the problem for me was I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing that was right/correct/good to cause this response in my body. It made me feel different and strange. Yet it also made me feel good. The irony was, of course, I was basically breaking down emotionally, spiritually and as a result I broke down physically as well.”
Being patient with yourself while you adjust to body change can be hard. It’s easy to feel like you should just get over these things or to think that body changes are just physical and therefore superficial. There’s nothing superficial about having your body change: your body is you! We all know how stressful it can be to go through changes like switching jobs, moving, planning a wedding, or buying a big-ticket item like a house or a car. Changes to your body aren’t any different. If anything, they’re even closer to the core of who you are. Don’t panic. Give things some time to settle down. And remember: your size and your shape do not define you; they’re only a part of the package. You are strong and flexible enough to ride this wave. I promise.
At one point or another, for one reason or another, many of us have tried some weight-loss diet or another. Some of us have since given up weight-loss dieting, while others still do it, whether occasionally or frequently.
It’s not my aim here to tell anyone what to do or not do as far as their eating habits are concerned. Everyone deserves to eat tasty, nutritious food that they enjoy, as far as I’m concerned, and beyond that it’s up to the individual. It is my aim to be honest about how weight-loss dieting specifically may affect your sex life, because you can’t make good choices about food or about sex if you don’t have good information.
Different people have different experiences with dieting. Some people are able to tolerate it better than others; some find that it doesn’t affect their sex drives or experiences one way or another. This varies from person to person, and probably from dietary regime to dietary regime as well, since not all reducing diets are equal in terms of nutrition. That being said, in general, for a large number of people, dieting is likely to be bad for your sex life.
Dieting is stressful. Few people feel sexier or more inclined toward love and sex when they’re stressed out. Stressful situations also cause the body’s levels of cortisol, a hormone that helps the body cope with stress in the short term, to go up. When stress becomes chronic or ongoing, however, cortisol can contribute to problems that may include elevated blood pressure and blood sugar levels, a weakened immune response, and even damage to the hippocampus region of the brain—not very sexy and more than a little worrisome. Chronic stress can also contribute to anxiety, depression, mood swings, insomnia, and other such unsexy and unhelpful conditions.
“My libido goes way down. I become obsessed with the scale and if I have gained or even stayed the same weight, I get depressed. I start to hate my body because I have a ‘goal’ to be lighter and I stop being happy just as I am. This spills over into sexuality as well.”
Dieting can cause physical symptoms that make people less likely to be interested in sex. Hunger pangs trump desire and so do headaches, constipation, dizziness, irritability, gastrointestinal discomfort, and the like. If you don’t feel good, you probably won’t feel very sexy or attractive either.
Dieting lowers libido. Loss of libido is a well-documented symptom of starvation. Diets make people lose weight because they are, in effect, a form of controlled semi-starvation where the body is not being given as much fuel as it needs to function, necessitating the use of fat reserves to make up the difference. When your body is experiencing this kind of resource crisis, it tends to reserve its energies for the important task of keeping you alive. Sex is just not as important as survival. Your body doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, that you are the one limiting its resources and that the limitation is artificial. It will respond as if there is a genuine lack of available nourishment, because, from its perspective, there is.
“This is in the past, but I felt better about myself if I was hungry. I know that’s nuts, but it’s the truth. I felt I was earning my right to be a sexual being by being hungry. Oh boy. I did not know I felt that until I just wrote it here.”
Dieting tends to make one hypercritical of weight, size, and appearance. When you spend a lot of time thinking about what’s “wrong” with your body and about your attempt to “fix” it, it’s very hard to accept your body as it is, or to accept that someone else might be interested in it. Being able to think only about your physical shortcomings isn’t just unsexy for you; it’s also unsexy for your partner, who may find your hyperfocus on your body’s shortcomings a real buzz kill.
Dieting can be profoundly distracting. Many people who are dieting find that food, eating, weight, weighing, and their diet “progress” occupies a lot of their awareness. No right-thinking individuals want to find themselves wondering whether they can get away with maybe having just the tiniest sliver of a brownie later on, when they’re in the middle of kissing someone right now. It’s also kind of rude: would you want the person you were making love with to be thinking about how many calories were in that martini he drank at dinner? Or would you prefer him to be thinking about you, and that thing you just did with your tongue?
“I slowly and carefully lost 70 pounds over about a year’s time. I felt lighter and stronger, and felt positive about my accomplishment. My overall happiness led to a better quality sex life. I don’t believe the body change made much difference, though.”
Dieters can become obsessive, tedious, and boring. We’ve all had the experience of being around a person who cannot shut up, not even for a second, about a diet. We’d all like to think that this would never be us. But studies have shown that people whose eating is substantially restricted can’t necessarily help acting this way: a preoccupation with food is a well-established psychological symptom of starvation. It may not be intentional, but it’s still a turnoff.
There are a lot of totally defensible reasons not to like exercise and to not want to do it. It can be hard to tolerate feeling like the embodiment of every sweaty, puffing, fat-person-exercising cliché, among other things. But there is one really excellent reason to strongly consider kicking all that baggage to the curb and moving your body anyway: regular physical movement will, in the vast majority of cases, improve your sex life.
“When I attempt to lose weight, my self-esteem and sex drive nosedive. Once I realized that exercise is awesome even if it doesn’t make you lose weight, being more in tune with my body had a positive impact on my sex life.”
The reasons for this are mostly simple ones. The body tends to perform best when it gets regular exercise. It evolved to move around a lot, and moving around a lot tends to help keep it functioning right. Joints are stronger and less likely to be injured if the muscles and ligaments that support them are strong and supple. Stamina increases as you build up your physical tolerance for movement. Muscles get stronger when you work them. The heart and lungs get toned and their capacity increases. Your circulation improves, which is really important for sex, since things like erections and orgasms have a lot to do with blood flow and healthy circulation. Improved flexibility will boost your game whether you’re at the gym or getting on top. And don’t forget that sexual activity is exercise too, and increasing exercise capacity doesn’t stop when you cross the bedroom threshold. Increasing your capacity for one kind of exercise will increase your capacity for all the others, including the naked fun kind.
“When I exercise I have more energy for sex, feel more confident in my body, and have more stamina. Sometimes, the positive benefit on my sex life is the major motivator to get me to actually exercise. My wife finds this adorable.”
There are other, less physiological reasons that increasing the amount of movement you get can help your sex life. Exercise tends to increase energy levels, something that almost everyone can use. It improves mood as well, with studies showing that it can be as effective as antidepressant drugs in alleviating and preventing depression. Since depression tends to squash the sex drive, this is great news, and even better news considering that lots of antidepressant drugs are also libido flatteners.
“When I started doing Olympic-style weightlifting three years ago (which I LOVE and am still doing) my libido skyrocketed. I have never been this sexually turned on ever.”
The more you move around, the better you get to know your body and the more comfortable you start to feel in your own skin. The more experience you have moving your body around, the more you get to know what it can do, and how far you can trust it. Sure, you may have a tricky knee or a funky elbow (or if you’re like me, both), but you get to know them better and at the same time they get stronger, and before too long, you know exactly and intuitively just how much you can do with them without courting injury, either in the gym or in bed. Just between you, me, and the wall, getting regular exercise can make all the difference when it comes to being comfortable getting on top, which is almost enough reason to do it right there. Exercise also helps prevent injuries, whether during sex or just walking down the street, because your body is stronger and your reflexes are faster.
“I think exercise can make you more aware of your body and its strength, which is always a positive experience. Like ‘Hey—my body can do that! It’s pretty cool!’ Yoga is great for making you aware of your body, but belly dancing was by far the most positive fat-related exercise I ever did. We worship the belly, the hips, the curves. It makes you feel sooo sexy.”
Exercise isn’t just about what you can do physically, though; it’s also about spending time genuinely inhabiting your body and feeling connected to it. The more comfortable you get with your body, the easier it is to stay integrated with it, rather than dissociating from it—that “brain in a jar” feeling, where it seems like you are just your consciousness, and your body is a separate thing that isn’t really you. Exercising helps you live in your whole body, and be aware of your whole self, which gives you a lot more, literally and figuratively, to bring to sexual experiences. Even if you don’t tend to dissociate and have no trouble being present and engaged in your body during sex, the feelings of physical ease and competence that come along with regular movement can add a lot of pleasure and virtuosity to your sexual experience.
None of this means you have to turn into a gym rat, or that it’s all for nothing unless you are exercising for hours every day or become a marathon runner. That’s our deeply fascist, totally unrealistic, highly competitive all-or-nothing cult of “the perfect body” talking, not reality, and you should ignore it with extreme prejudice.
“Being active reminds me that I inhabit this body, and that it is mine—not the other way around. I choose how to use it or not use it, and I can ‘fill it out’ more as I love it more. I love to dance and to move, and when I am reminded of this by doing it, I feel more sensual.”
What it does mean is that more and more regular movement in your life is good for you and for your sex life. It doesn’t really matter what form the movement takes. It could be walking, chair dancing, yoga, cleaning your house, walking your dog, gardening, or anything at all that feels good—or at least neutral—that gets you moving around a bit. In many cases, there are kinds of movement that you can do with pleasure even if you have limitations on your mobility. Even a small amount of regular movement can mean a big improvement in your ability to be happier and more confident in your body, and more energetic, enthusiastic, and physically engaged in your sex life. Move it: it makes a difference.
* “Hir, “ “sie,” and “hirself” are gender-neutral pronouns that are becoming increasingly popular. “Hir” replaces “him or her,” “sie” replaces “he or she,” and “hirself” replaces “him- or herself.”