Friday, December 28, 2012

Dressed Like A Slut

I came across this passage in Emily Maguire's Your Skirt's Too Short:


I really love the part that reads, "Amongst the women I know there is absolutely no way you could guess who has slept with the most men simply by looking." 

When I was a teenager, I was very judgmental about how other girls dressed. Looking back, I realise that I was judgmental because the girls I judged to be "sluts" had something I didn't - a thin body (which they were allowed to flaunt), male attention and confidence. I don't know if it's a part of growing up and learning, but I'm happy to say that I'm not that girl anymore - the one who grew up so sheltered and scared of the world that the only way I could make sense of it all was by being critical of others and holding onto my own self-righteousness.

In this chapter of the book, Maguire examines the meaning of the word "slut" and comes to the conclusion that it means "to have more sexual partners than the user of the term finds acceptable". According to that standard, I know plenty of people that would believe more than one sexual partner is not acceptable! It still totally amazes me that double standards exist where men and women are concerned; that a promiscuous woman is called a slut and a promiscuous male is just "going through that stage" or "sewing his wild oats before he has to settle down". 

I was listening in on a conversation between two women a while ago. One was telling the other about her one-night-stands. The response to this was, "You're just being used." The promiscuous one, slightly perplexed, replied, "But I'm using them just as much as they're using me!" And she makes a good point! The implication is that women are the passive ones, not really enjoying the sex, but doing it out of "low self-esteem". The promiscuous woman went on to explain that she wasn't hooking up with "predators" - they were young adults who were always respectful, lovely, funny and great fun to be around. Her point was - she had the discretion to choose who she wanted, and her instincts hadn't let her down thus far. What a way to look at it!

Maguire argues that to go with the belief that sex should be used by women to "bait men into a relationship" and that women need to make men "work for sex" and use sex to get love, then you must also believe that men are "emotionless and valueless and will say and do anything for a root, and that women's only 'power' lies in controlling access to our vaginas. It also ignores the fact that, sometimes, what 'we women' want men to 'give' us is a bout of hot mutually-satisfying, manipulation-free sex."

I just love Maguire's book because she's really challenged my thinking about this stuff.

I'm not going to use the word "slut" anymore to describe how someone chooses to dress or how many sexual partners they've had. Judgmental Sophie needs to sit down.



Thursday, December 27, 2012

Fattily Ever After



"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." 
- Nature Boy

In Hot & Heavy; Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love & Fashion, Lexi Biermann writes, "For me, self-love as a big woman is knowing, wholeheartedly, that you deserve the world, even if the world disagrees with you. Ladies, confidence is the sexiest thing of all no matter what numbers appear on the tag in your pants." For a while now, I've wanted to write a post about what it's like to be a fat girl looking for love/relationship/sex. Let me begin by telling you that up until I was 25, I wholeheartedly believed that I would never find love until I lost weight. My parents didn't help me in that ideology -  "You know Sophie, if you want a boyfriend you're going to have to lose weight" which, by the way, always made me feel quietly resentful toward my future "fat-phobic" partner. I don't blame my parents for saying this (they're just products of a fat shaming culture which tells us there is a wrong way to have a body), but I wanted to write a joyous post about how UNTRUE it is that only thin people find love. All the husbands, partners, boyfriends and girlfriends of fat women are testament to the kind of love all bigger ladies deserve. And I'm NOT only talking about thin women that were thin when they got married and then put on weight. I'm talking about all the fat women that find love, as they are. And there's HEAPS of us!

The night it all changed for me, I was in a indie/alternative club in town. At the time, I stood at a sturdy size 24. I was tipsy and having a marvelous time dancing. My sister left me on the dance floor to use the bathroom and a boy started dancing with me. I got the shock of my life when he planted one on me! I was a never-been-kissed, aged 25 fat girl, getting snogged by a pleasant looking, normal kind of guy on the dance floor. The kiss was terrible, and my sister dragged me out of the club to catch a taxi only moments later, but something clicked over in my mind at the moment his lips landed on mine. I felt ALIVE. 

The following Saturday night, I went out again. My purpose? To get kissed again. I wanted confirmation that I was kissable.

Three boys snogged me that night. 

The only difference in me (aside from some black Sambucca) was CONFIDENCE. I felt damn sexy and it showed on my face, in my dancing, and in my smile. I honestly felt like a magnet, and nothing surprised me more, or had felt more liberating. 

Needless to say, in the following months I became a snogging addict! In those months I learned to love and enjoy my body. I learned that men were attracted to confidence and loved my cheekiness and sense of fun. On the dance floor, I discovered myself. I met some fantastic men that totally challenged my outlook on what it means to be feminine and acceptable and desirable as a woman.

(Side note: I realise that it's not ideal for women to learn to accept their bodies and improve their self-esteem through flings and relationships, but for me it had to happen that way. Unfortunately, for a lot of fat girls, it has to happen that way. Seeing other people love your body is very powerful, especially for plus size girls who are brought up to believe that their body is "wrong". So even though I wish I'd grown up in a nurturing and body positive environment, I got there in the end. No regrets.)

I also realised that it would be a huge mistake to lose weight for love. I imagined my wedding contract to be more of a lifestyle contract I'd be signing that guaranteed against weight gain, and I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to keep up with it; that I'd put on weight and my future husband would be justified in divorcing me. I also struggled against a church culture where people married young (usually to talented, thin, Brooke Fraser types), and started having children two years later. I wasn't sure I wanted that happily-ever-after Christian fairy tale for myself, but I felt like a failure for not achieving that.

Linda Bacon, the spokeswoman for the Health At Every Size movement, wrote, "Because of thin privilege, I had a larger dating pool, which made it easier for me to find the incredibly wonderful and supportive partner that I have." While there is a lot of truth to that statement, I'd also like to point out that just because some people have more choices, it doesn't mean they have more good choices. I have plenty of thin friends that have dated guys that have ended up being, well, douches. Anyway, the moral of the story is that I learned not to limit the dating pool. Which is perhaps why I ended up with someone who I once believed was the last kind of man who would date a tall, curvy, white girl: a lean Asian man!

Virgie Tovar wrote, "When I was a self-loathing girl, I attracted all kinds of people who made me feel like I wasn't worthy: boyfriends who gave me back-handed compliments and 'friends' who put me down. When I became a fierce fat girl, I attracted all kinds of people who made me feel like I was amazing: my fiance who never tires of reminding me I'm the most beautiful woman in the world and friends who support me in my ambitions." I have found this to be totally true in my own life! I didn't attract anyone when I didn't feel worthy to even look a boy in the eye. 

Becoming body confident takes education, time and reflection. Getting a good lingering snog was just the beginning - I followed that up with READING (plus size blogs, feminist books, literature about body confidence) and expressing myself through fashion. I stopped reading Cosmo. Virgie Tovar wrote, "I used to love reading big glossy fashion magazines. I didn't think anything of it, but once I began to really check in with myself, I realised that the magazines always triggered negative thoughts about my body and my life. So, I decided I wasn't going to buy them anymore." Amen to that. A big part of building body confidence is exposing yourself to different body types. Join the HonourMyCurves movement on Instagram. Follow plus size bloggers on Instagram (e.g. Tess Munster). Only have clothes in your wardrobe that fit you. Small choices that make a big difference.

Let me pull you aside in this little corner of the internet and whisper this secret to you: "You deserve the world."

I want to wrap up my post by quoting some performance poetry by Doc Luben. It's full of swearing and vivid language about curvy bodies, but there's something thrilling about that kind of passionate language. I cringe through it, I laugh through it, I balk at it. But there are lines that just make my heart sing!

"I've been camped out since I was fourteen years old in the Disney Princess harem of my fantasies, and it's just getting old...the conversation about who is pretty and who isn't has been going on everyday nonstop for three thousand years and it's FUCKING BORING! It was boring by the time Shakespeare got to it!" - Doc Luben


And if you're still in doubt, check out this amazing article.

Drunk kisses :D He loves me.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

A Very Hell Bunny Christmas

Firstly, I would like to wish my readers a VERY happy Christmas! I've loved being a part of the online fatshion community and knowing that people pop in once in a while to read my posts definitely puts a spring in my step. 

About a week before Christmas, I got a painful sunburn on my shoulders and down the front of my legs. Silly me - it seems to happen once at the beginning of every summer just to remind me how much my skin DOESN'T tan and to always slip, slop, slap. It happened when I sat outside to read for half an hour (yep, that's all the time it took). The reason I'm writing about the sunburn is because I had no idea what I was going to wear right up to this morning. I didn't know how my burn was going to look. Would I need to cover any tan lines or peeling? As it happened, fast forward one week later and a spray tan, and it looked okay. 

I bought this Hell Bunny dress months ago, second hand on a plus size Facebook buy and sell page. However, I never wore it because it was so short. But I found a petticoat at a vintage stand that added just the right amount of length to make it modest enough for family Christmas! So on Christmas morning I woke up, looked through my clothes and saw the red and greens in the fabric of this dress and thought, "Yes! It's perfect!" 

I took a few shots at home first.






 A red hat got added to the outfit after I'd opened some pressies! 




Dress: Hell Bunny Gypsy Lola Dress
Petticoat: thrifted
Cardigan: Valley Girl
Cherry Necklace: Ebay
Shoes: ASOS
Hat: Dangerfield

Anyway, I'm off to my next location, which has a pool...swimsuit pictures in upcoming posts! Merry Christmas lovelies! xx

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Make Peace With Your Body This Christmas



My Christmas wish is that women all over the world could look in the mirror and feel 100% happy with their bodies.

I've never met a woman who felt that way. Even close friends and family who to my eye, have beautiful bodies; bodies that are our culture's very definition of beauty, want to change something: bigger boobs, thinner thighs, less visible veins, fewer pimples, longer hair. 

This Christmas, let's remember Naomi Wolf's words: "A woman wins who calls herself beautiful and challenges the world to truly see her." 

Instead of complaining that your thighs "jiggle", honour them for carrying you for your entire life. Instead of wishing for your visible veins to disappear, honour them for carrying blood to your heart! Don't stress about your cellulite; it is a perfectly natural (and genetic) thing for 80-90% of women to have and is, in fact, your body's response to your female hormones (that's right - the same hormones that give you breasts, also give you cellulite). So why don't we see it with the same adoring eye that we look upon our breasts with? It is a female marker, after all! Just a thought.

I have to face the truth that I will NEVER have the body of Keira Knightly (even if I was to lose weight and have surgery).

And that's okay!

One of the best Christmas gifts you can give yourself is to look in the mirror and be okay with what you see.

Friday, December 7, 2012

The Perfect Summer Dress

I bought this dress secondhand about a year ago. The label says "Pinup Couture" and it's a 2X. I paired it with a belt (thrifted) and wore my ASOS shoes with it. 

I just LOVE this dress. It's comfortable and cool to wear, and the colour is so vibrant and fun. It's the perfect summer dress!










I turned 28 this week, so I'm officially in my late twenties! It's strange to think I'll be 30 in a few years. I'm trying to embrace the idea of aging, rather than being scared of it. After all, we're all in the same boat. I'm noticing little differences in my body here and there - saggier eyelids which make liquid eyeliner more challenging. More visible veins...but I've sorted out my thought process on that one - they DO carry blood to my heart, after all! It's all a matter of perspective. Here's a photo of me as a bebeh. Looks like I've always had a double chin! Ha!


Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Cherry Red

Shortly after City Chic released their first skater dresses, Best And Less released some of their own for only $30. Now, I'm not going to claim that these dresses are just as good, because the fabric and cut weren't quite as wonderful as the City Chic versions, but they were just as flattering and more modest around the neckline, making them perfect for work. I bought one in black and one in red. 

Today I wore the red one to work. I went for a 50s pin-up look, pairing it with a City Chic cardigan and belt, Etsy headscarf, cherry necklace and converse chucks.








After work I had to run an errand, so I stripped off the accessories and added my favourite flanny shirt from Big W for a more casual look.



Sometimes department stores have some good finds for really reasonable prices; it's just a matter of checking in now and again and being a little creative.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

A Dress From Sportsgirl

I've always loved Sportsgirl for the accessories, but last year I found a size 16 dress that has served me well, so I thought I'd write a little blog about it. It's a beige colour with black polka dots.




Dress: Sportsgirl
Shoes: Whitner
Feather Headband: Myer
Cardigan: thrifted


I think part of the reason this dress was so significant for me was that it was shorter than I'd usually wear, and TRANSPARENT from the waist up. As a plus size girl, it was a fashion risk for me, and I always felt a little nervous wearing it.

This is me at Parklife, wearing a feather headband with it. 

I always find Festivals a bit scary in regards to putting together an outfit and feeling confident. I know that I'm going to be surrounded by girls in short denim shorts and cute little tops. But you know what? Plus size girls can look just as good, if not better! I got so many compliments on my headband from random strangers, and I felt comfortable, cool and confident.