By AliceSin Aerie
People who are experts in what has been dubbed “Fat Sex” want fat people to be treated with kindness and respect for their body in regards to sex. I think that is commendable. I also think it is myopic.
I am a great many things. In the list of titles and attributes which I assign myself and may be readily observed by others is the fact that I am fat. It’s not a word I use to judge, punish or shame myself. Nor do I allow others to negatively impact me in their use of it. It’s their opinion of who I am, or at least part of it, I am sure I can be assigned other words and labels with a little more imagination.
One thing I am not is a person with a poor self image or poor self esteem. I am not a person whose body image is based on the size of my body. Do I think myself perfect, no. Do I think myself better than other people, no. Do I think myself just as worthy of love, respect, caring and self expression as other people, YES, yes I do!
It’s a huge cultural taboo to be fat, I own that. I am fat, I am other. I refuse to be less than any other in my own estimation of myself. I refuse to allow people to make me feel that I am less worthy of any goal I wish to attain through my own efforts. I do not feel I am less worthy of love or sex because I do not fit the current ideal of attractiveness in our culture. I refuse to apologize for my feelings and my opinion that I am as worthy of every other person of being treated the way I want to be treated.
I don’t make special rules excusing myself or other fat people in being accountable for actions and behaviors. I don’t have the point of view that fat people should be idealized or exalted. I don’t deny anyone their right to change their physical appearance to match who they feel they are meant to be or how they feel they are meant to look. I would wish that people would want to be healthy regardless of their physical attributes, but it’s not my place to enforce good health on others either. I can only encourage those I care for who have personal goals for themselves to attain them.
We all craft our own lens through which we view ourselves and others. We create parameters for what we expect from ourselves and what we expect from others. We need structure to base this view upon & it is our nature is to fixate upon differences. We often compare ourselves to others through our lens. Our personal lens is a summation of our experiences and how we have been impacted by others.
For many individuals part of being who they are is having a negative feeling about themselves or an aspect of themselves. Self image is not only based on body size. In fact, it’s not based on one’s body at all but their own view of that body. A person may have a body part or image in their head of how their body looks that doesn’t have anything to do with what other people see. It has to do with how they feel. They are entitled to their feelings and opinions about themselves. They are even entitled to their feelings and opinions about others. They may feel they have the ability to overcome their self image or they may not.
People should be treated with deference to their individuality and unique needs if they want to be. They are equally entitled to be reviled if they so chose or whatever they deem acceptable.
Everyone is responsible for conveying their needs to their sex partners. Everyone is responsible for respecting the needs expressed by their sex partners. If you are finding that you cannot communicate your needs to your partner and/or that they are not respecting or meeting your needs it is your choice to continue or discontinue any sexual encounter or relationship.
I don’t need you to like me for me to like myself. I don’t need you to write a manual on my behalf of how to turn me on because I am fat. The same way I wouldn’t want you to include me with all women or all Dommes. I don’t want to be included in your absolutes on what it is to have a fat body. I don’t want people to don kid gloves in their treatment of me because I am somehow dubbed fragile for being other.
In my experience, if you speak for yourself people who agree or feel the same will be glad you did. Conversely if you attempt to speak for others in absolute terms you will endlessly trip over exceptions to your point of view. By all means, I support those who wish to have “Fat Sex.” I hope it’s fabulous. I don’t want to have “Fat Sex.” I want to have my own “Super-Hot-Dirty-Possibly-Sadomasochistic-Potentially-Involving-Rope Sex.”
Please don’t speak for me. In return I encourage and support you in speaking out for yourself. I also encourage and support you to be more inclusive of individuals with body image issues who may or may not be fat but share your point of view.