don’t hate me ’cause I’m beautiful, but DO NOT love me because I’m fat!
Posted by Roberta Lipp on June 19, 2007
I’ve been reading Shapely Prose quite a bit lately. There are not a whole lot of blogs that I read regularly, because, well, I’m not a great reader, with not a lot of patience. So there’s all these great feminist blogs and essayists and fat acceptance blogs and pagan blogs and hilarious blogs and witty observation blogs and I just don’t read a lot of them. But Kate has caught my attention (not easy to do) and I’m loving it.
Today she invited a guest blogger, Brian, a man who digs fat women, to write about the experience of being an FA (fat admirer).
I started to comment, (comments are where most of my best writing seems to happen) and I decided to bring it in here.
Brian writes:
I choose to date fat women. Not because I’m enlightened enough to “see past” their body. Not because I think everyone is beautiful. Not because I think fat women are nicer or sweeter, and certainly not “easier.” It is because I think fat women are hot.
Really!? No! way!
Wait! He goes on to say:
For most FA’s, it’s just a preference. It’s just part of what we’re looking for in a romantic relationship. There is this idea that the choices fat women have are men who date them because of their size or despite of their size. Both options would suck if you ask me.
Can you hear it? The sound of the nail being hit on the head.
I realized, reading his post, that ultimately I have never trusted it… the notion of a ‘clean’ FA… which I suppose extends to not trusting men, and not trusting society. I definitely wanted the enlightened guy who would love me despite (when I was younger and hated my fat self the most), or the ones who like all sizes (later on).
Because I have truly only believed that FAs are either fetishists or misogynists.
As I got older and the self-hatred shifted and lessened, I still rejected the FA as well as the BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) premise. I loved myself and thought I was beautiful (or, came as far with all that as I could), but it was never because I was fat. Often it was despite that I was fat, and on a good day it was inclusive of my being fat, but I was no way going to celebrate my fat as the source of my beauty.
And so even if there were men who were genuinely and sincerely attracted to fat women…why would I want a man for whom my fat, my least favorite part, was the center of their attraction?
I never got to the Who cares part of that answer. If a guy likes my breasts, do I object? If a guy prefers my dark eyes and hair to the coloring of a blond, do I mistrust? If he likes my smile or the fact that I’m short or my speaking voice or my ass, do I judge? No. I enjoy his enjoyment of me. I don’t want him looking at me wishing I were blond, and yet somehow I am comfortable with the idea that he is looking at me wishing I were thinner than with just taking his Roberta-inspired delight in and drinking it up and bathing in it. No, apparently I need to control which part of me can turn him on, so that my self-hatred can live.
I don’t have much of these conversations with lovers. I do have enough self-respect to know that indulging my bad feelings about my size is not who I want to be. I do my best to in fact, take that attraction in, and not analyze it… but if I have to analyze it, to do it on my own, in my head. I remember telling Joe, perhaps during our last weekend together, that the weight I had gained made me feel badly when we were in bed. Just so that he would know one of the places I went… you know when they look in your eyes and you know they wish they knew where you were going? And his response was just quiet and matter-of-fact (pure Joe) and just ‘well that’s not good’. But I don’t pull them into my crazy. I don’t engage in dialog about my weight that would only be designed to make me feel like a loser. I don’t want to make them any part of that, if I can avoid it.
I don’t know if I can fully accept the idea that a lover could find my fat sexy and not find it wrong. But spending this time contemplating it is certainly one more step forward.
Thanks Brian.
bubbleofhope said
I don’t know if I can fully accept the idea that a lover could find my fat sexy and not find it wrong.
you hit it on the head
you really did
Roberta Lipp said
Wow you read that blog fast!
kateharding said
I never got to the Who cares part of that answer. If a guy likes my breasts, do I object? If a guy prefers my dark eyes and hair to the coloring of a blond, do I mistrust? If he likes my smile or the fact that I’m short or my speaking voice or my ass, do I judge?
Exactly! I was thinking about that yesterday after reading BStu’s essay. I have unusually large breasts, but none of my previous boyfriends were “breast men.” They loved me for who I was, yadda, didn’t have any problem with the rack, but it was just sorta there. Now I’m with a bona fide breast man, and I’ll tell you what, it is quite affirming (not to mention amusing) to see him look at my chest and just go speechless sometimes. He’s crazy about my particular body just as much as my particular mind — and now it feels like it was such a waste of my boobs NOT to date breast men before.
I have to assume dating an FA would be the same kind of positive experience, if you could let yourself accept that yeah, he really does find this aspect of my body especially sexy. Though I totally hear you on the mistrust.
Thanks for the compliments!
Deborah Lipp said
Kate cross-posts at Shakesville, which is one of my very few must-read-daily-no-matter-how-busy-or-distracted blogs. So I read this cross-post there and commented there. And the discussion there was fascinating. Brian and the comments all included the fact that sometimes it is misogynist. I think there’s good reason to mistrust.
I don’t think Bob would describe himself as an FA, and he didn’t ogle based on size, but he was definitely a guy who dug female bodies, and there was one night that a grabbed a fistful of my belly. Just grabbed the way you do when you’re cuddling and feeling passionate. And I had a moment of Holy Shit that’s my belly! A moment of yuck. And then a moment of getting it and realizing how passionate and loving that grab was. And that moment has stayed with me.
Seymour, MSW said
I dunno… in the realm of things, there is always second-guessing, right? Can someone really love me for me?
Roberta Lipp said
Well, and the deeper discussion can become… what part of ‘me’ is me (as in, the one I want to be loved for) and which part isn’t? Is any part of me a part I don’t want to be loved for? And if so, isn’t some of that sort of my problem? And so who am I to pick and choose what I am loved for?
It’s an interesting lifelong discussion…
Lila said
We don’t label attraction to statistically abnormally thin (and in SOME cases, unhealthy) bodies as some kind of fetish. We think it’s normal. And for some men it is. It’s normal for some men to like “thin” women, others to like “normal-sized” women, others to like “fat” women. My partner finds me less attractive (NOT unattractive, but less) at the weight (‘morbidly obese’) I am now than my ‘normal’ weight (which is itself ‘overweight’ to ‘obese’). In this case, that’s ok because I’m not comfortable here either; my (lifesaving) meds made me gain a crapload of weight and it makes me feel unhealthy. How do I know it’s about instinctual health measures and not ‘o noes teh FATZ!’? We were best friends in college, so I saw (and heard about) the girls he dated before me. They ranged from the skinny side of ‘normal’ to ‘overweight. The one girl he dated who had a body type like mine naturally was ‘overweight’ (her normal size) when he dated her, andat some point afterwards, she went on a diet. I mentioned that I thought her personality had gone all Minnesota Starvation Experiment, and his response was, “Yeah, and she also used to be so much hotter [before losing the weight]. I find it extremely normal that his range of most-preferred attractiveness is pretty much based on whether his pheromone sensors detect actual health. (But he’s not goin’ anywhere.)
Roberta Lipp said
I find it extremely normal that his range of most-preferred attractiveness is pretty much based on whether his pheromone sensors detect actual health.
And comforting.
Lookfar said
I identify with all of this. It’s hard to disentangle what part of my fatness is symbolizing whatever wrongness I still feel about myself – the way a big nose, or a stutter or “bad” hair might – and what part I might legitimately feel bad about. Maybe none. I mean, I don’t like being overweight, I know it’s not great for my health, and I’d rather put great clothes on a thinner body, but if anyone has found a workable, long-term cure for it, I’d like to see. What I do see is lots of people going on diets and then gaining the weight back + 5, and I’ve done that, so I’m giving that up.
I’ve begun to work on the “acceptance” part of “fat acceptance.” I mean, I have these Buddhist leanings, and a lot of the exercise there is to accept what is. My life is good otherwise, and I’ve sometimes thought, Well bummer, I have nothing to practice acceptance on. Then I think, The Weight, and then I think, “Hey, could I have a different thing to practice acceptance on, and be thinner?”
That’s not what you’re talking about, though. Here’s what I think about that; there’s something a bit perverse and objectifying about a lot of good sex and sexual attraction. I myself have a special fondness for funny-looking men. What’s it about? Oh, I could go into that, but hey, if I’m attracted, that’s a pleasure. We all have these semi-kinks, or else only Brad Pitt lookalikes would get any action. You are totally right that, if a man treats you with respect and love, it doesn’t matter whence springs the attraction. If he doesn’t, can him.
Renée said
Very interesting, relevant, and articulate entry.
CheshireKate said
yes this! although I am married to a man who for years (okay not the most articulate guy) seemed to not mind my size and he had always dated women on the larger end of the spectrum I felt like I was the largest and well yadda yadad not worthy, yadda yadda, stays out of guilt (we have a kid) yadda yadda. UNTIL a couple weeks ago we were in proximity while he was wearing only undies and I passed by him and brushed my largest asset (yes pun intended I am pear shaped) and well let us just say that I became suddenly aware of the fact that there was a definite physical attraction component. Can I just say that wow after being together for 13 years before that revalation what was old is new again I have proof that he like my mind and my laugh etc but to know that after 13 years I can cause an intense physical reaction…wow just wow.
Roberta Lipp said
Well CK that just rocks.
eggplantinspace said
As a fat guy, I love big women.
I was with a skinny woman once and felt like I was going to break her. The “normal” women I have dated have in my opinion been less attractive, had less compassion and understanding, and are less feisty and quirky. They have been, as a rule, more self-centred, and unattractively expectant.
All my enduring relationships, including the girl I am marrying later this year are with fat women. And I love it. I feel more socially secure, I feel more attached and empathetic. I feel more in-tune with them. When my fiance looks at my last roast potato jealously, I don’t feel like a monster for having so many in the first place. It’s not about food though, but it is in part, empathy. There’s an unwritten blog here about the many excuses I use for my weight, but my girl has been there herself and knows them instinctively.
Also, in terms of sex, there is something very sexy about seeing my girl squeeze into a pair of jeans or filling out a top. Something very sexy about feeling more than you can grab. And there is something extremely sexy about seeing the impact you make with each sexual manoeuvre.
I don’t know what she sees in me, but in the end I’m not sure I should really care. I’m just happy she wants me and she loves me. Maybe it’s easier to disregard pier pressure or public opinion if you’re a man. If it is, then that’s a shame.
ellabay said
I have never really known any other woman (personally at least) who openly understood these feelings about FAs and the sexual objectification of fat. Thinner women are more sexualized because they don’t feel like the thing found “sexy” about them by most of their pursuers is wrong/ugly/dreadful/indecent/embarrassing, etc. I really appreciated your thought process on this, and I definitely identify that there are guys out there who are misogynist a-holes. Much love.