"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.
