The first time I had sex, I covered my tummy. No one had ever seen me fully naked before. You would think that with all of the softcore sex scenes from coming-of-age romances, where the girl gets shy about her sexy bits being exposed for the first time, that I would try to conceal my boobs and lady parts, but no. I wrapped my arms around my belly because I didn’t want the guy I had chosen to make my sexual debut with to see that I was fat. Spoiler alert: he already knew that I was.
I think about that moment a lot and analyse the reasons I’d reacted that way. This is not to imply that I should have been ashamed of my lady parts instead, but growing up, the narrative surrounding being plus sized was so much more negative than it is now. As a result, I internalised more shame around my soft bits than the body parts that it was ‘normal’ to be shy about. In my head, I was thinking, “Ahh, he can see my stretch marks and my jiggly bits, and now his boner will go away because this part of me is an erection killer.” But realistically, he had a naked girl in his bed who was willing to let him into her body. He didn’t care about my damn stretch marks! I’ve been varying degrees of fat my whole life, and it took me a hot minute to get to a place where I felt comfortable enough in my body to embrace and celebrate it and myself.
When it comes to dating, being plus sized can feel like a desirability handicap. Think about it; we watch and read countless romances that depict smaller-framed women being the love interest who gets the guy of their dreams, whilst the fat girl is reduced to being the emotional support friend or the comic relief. If, by chance, she is confident, then more often than not, her confidence is presented as some form of delusion. That, or she’s positioned as the homegirl who’s cool, but who you’d never actually date because she was fat. This type of character is usually desexualised and seen as the bubbly, homely, nurturing type who only lands the hot guy by a stroke of luck, or if he really gets to know her personality and is willing to overlook her fatness.
The fat girl was never a threat to her female peers, and if by chance she was, it was the most audacious thing – because how could anyone choose fatness over thinness? I had an experience like this last year when a famous NFL player saw a photo of me online with two smaller-framed women and asked Twitter to track me down so he could ask me out. (Sidenote: I’m in a relationship, so it never went anywhere). By the time I logged onto the app, my mentions were flooded with men who were perplexed someone would take any interest in me, because I was fat and there were smaller women in the photo that they deemed better options. It got so overwhelming that I had to get him to delete his tweets just so they would leave me alone.
In recent years, there have been slight improvements made in the depiction of the fat love interest. We see her more now, but even if she is desirable, her weight is almost always a point of focus. She doesn’t ever just get to be an attractive woman. When discussions around fat desirability do happen, they’re often riddled with people who treat fat as a fetish. As we see frequently in the body positivity movement, these conversations are also centred on the idealised version of fat; a relatively flat stomach, thick hips, ass for days and a tiny waist. To not fit into these socially acceptable moulds and not see women who look like you being openly desired (because that’s another possible downside in the dating realm – when men who like bigger girls outside of fetishising them only like them behind closed doors) can make you feel undeserving of going after the kind of people you are actually attracted to. It can leave you feeling like you should take what you’re given and be happy that anyone is giving you the time of day.
This was a narrative that I made it my business to push back against. When it comes to sexual and body confidence, I harp on to my audience about the power of self-love A LOT. Not the airy-fairy wishy-washy one, but the one that requires consistent work. Hard work. The kind of hard work that requires you to really confront yourself and those around you. The kind that forces you to uproot the tendrils of self-hate so deeply attached to your psyche that it can get uncomfortable and stressful, because it forces you to not only hold those around you accountable for how you perceive yourself but also you yourself.
Dating as a plus size woman can make dating that much more difficult because it can create this sort of anxiety where you feel like your body will ruin your chances of finding someone. Take the world of online dating or social media for instance; you post photos of yourself, perhaps they’re only of your face as you’re not body confident, and someone takes an interest. You start talking and they say they’d like to see a full-body photo or meet you in person. Now you’re nervous because you haven’t disclosed that you are fat, and you feel like you should warn them because you worry that they’ll be disappointed.
We’ve all heard plus size dating horror stories that leave some women gun shy when it comes to putting themselves out there. They leave them settling for way less than they deserve just to say that they have someone who at least wants to bed them. This is why it’s so important that you work on filling yourself up with the love that may not have always been afforded to you.
When it comes to dating, screw all of that ‘I hope they like me even though I’m fat’ crap. It’s debilitating and you are freely giving up your power when you do not have to. Instead, be powerful and consider your opinion. Do you even like them? Do they make you feel good? What expectations do they have to meet for you to entertain them? What are your non-negotiables? Outside of them, what kind of person do you want to be? How do you want the world to perceive you and how can you do this in the most authentic way?
The biggest turning point in my dating life came when I decided that I was a hot gyal – and I carried myself that way. I stood taller, I unapologetically took up space, and I bought clothes that I liked rather than what I was told I should be wearing. I paid attention to how they looked on my body and how I felt when I was in them. I applied self-care and beauty rituals that amplified those positive feelings for me. In addition to that, I followed people on social media who looked like me and carried themselves as the best versions of themselves at whatever size they were. I hung out with people who celebrated me, as opposed to those who (intentionally or not) brought me down. I got comfortable with complimenting myself and when I received compliments, instead of awkwardly brushing it off, I learned to say thank you. The culmination of these small acts transformed my dating experiences. By holding myself in a higher regard and projecting that to the world, the world began to respond to me differently and the calibre of people I attracted matched my energy. This in turn made dating easier. The energy went from, “You’re pretty for a big girl,” to, “You’re pretty”, period.
I won’t pretend that things are always daisies and sunshine just because my mindset and how I present myself changed, because you can’t control how the whole world reacts to you. But you can control how you react to their reactions. Realise that you don’t have to take on the issues that people have with your body, because it’s none of their business. More often than not, people are projecting their issues onto you, trying to build themselves up by using the hurt they cause you as a stepping stone. Their opinions are not your problem unless you make it so.
Understand that no matter how much weight you lose or gain, how much money you make, how smart, accomplished, kind, funny or conventionally attractive you are, there will always be somebody out there that will take issue with you. Why waste your time trying to live up to standards that will never be good enough for people who are hell bent on not liking you? Like yourself. Go after the kind of partners/relationships/dating experiences you want and know that these things are as attainable to you as they are to anyone else. Know that you are not lucky to get them when you do, you got them because you deserve them as much as anyone else.