According to BBW actress Kirstie Alley in a 2005 interview, she once believed that she was too fat to be having sex. At one point Alley confessed she weighed as much as 220 pounds (And was accused by tabloids of being closer to 300).
"I always thought I was too fat to have sex," she says cheerily. "I'm not kidding. I've probably had four days in my entire life when I looked at myself and thought, 'You are so ready to have sex!' And alcohol probably played some part in how good I thought I was."
Wow! I don't know whether to laugh or shake my head in disbelief when I hear stories like this. As a grown adult male with a history of getting it on with 200+ pound girlfriends and wives - and thoroughly enjoying it, I might add - I find it difficult to grapple with the reality that our culture wants to make heavier women (and men) feel ashamed of fulfilling their sexual needs. Talk about mind games!
And, of course, it IS a mind game. The games begin at an early age before we even notice. It's all about propaganda and manipulation.
Newscast directors at our local TV stations make sure that BBWs are almost never hired as TV anchors; Hollywood directors and producers have long done the same thing with their movies; they effectively blacklist "Plus Size" actresses to ensure that superstars like Brad Pitt will never be seen on the big screen, giving a deep French kiss to a zaftig leading lady the size of, say, Camryn Manheim.
The cruel message is unstated but seems to be very effective: Fat people are unsexy. They can never be attractive enough to read the 11 o'clock news to us. Even when they are highly successful billionaires (like Oprah), they still should feel inadequate. They also do not engage in romance the way "normal" people do. Fat people just shouldn't be having sex - it's not right.
Of course, nobody is serious enough to try and pass actual laws against sexual intercourse by fat people... but the reality of that disapproving social stigma remains in place. And as long as the stigma is there, the mind games can work. And they can even work on overweight people who are smart, capable and already have a mate.
Wendy Shanker, author and fat-acceptance activist, had this memory of her sex life as an overweight college student: "I'd live in fear that the guy lurking down below would suddenly lift his head and scream, 'Ewww! You're fat and disgusting! What the hell did I just touch? Is that even a body part that other people have?'"
In my opinion, this culture of ours that tries to convince BBWs that they aren't entitled to have a secure, fulfilling sexual relationship, is a complete inversion of everything our ancestors thought about womens' image and appearance. Here is Reubens' 17th century painting of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty (also called Venus):
Heh! Look at the hips and upper arms on that woman! Recall that this is the Goddess of Love!
Now, almost 400 year later, compare that to the look that Hollywood celebrity-socialite Nicole Richie was sporting last year:
Yikes!!
Just ignore the haters, my BBW friends. Ignore the delicate, stick-thin Nicole Richies of our society and stick with Aphrodite's classic example. Big people can have a great sex life along with the men and women who love them.
