What I’ve Learned About Size And Body Image By Dating A Fat Man

"Why is it that society seems to have the need to dictate how we should look, the size we should be, etc etc. All this seems to do, is give people low self worth, surely as long as people are healthy and happy isn't it better to let them live with out any attached stigmas".                          - Susan

What I’ve Learned About Size And Body

Image By Dating A Fat Man

I thought I’d dealt with most of my body image issues before I started dating my current boyfriend. But during the three years we’ve been together, he’s taught me a lot about size, fatness and self-care. 

How? By being fat and unapologetic.

My boyfriend weighs over 300 pounds, and one of the things I appreciated right away is that he didn’t hesitate to call himself “fat.” Why would he? For him it’s a description, not an epithet. That alone was startling to me, having dated my share of men and women who were far from accepting of their bodies.

I’d like to say I’ve always shared this level of both candor and comfort with my curves, but that’s not true. I can get so hung up on a clothing size that I’ll buy a less flattering but lower number to make myself feel better. I’ve even shied away from attending events when I felt I was simply “too fat” to fit into any of my clothes.

But once we started dating, the kind of fat talk I’d regularly engaged in about myself, usually silently, wouldn’t cut it. Knowing that he’s dealt with actual discrimination because of his size has forced me to ask myself tough questions when I do worry about my weight: namely, what am I really worried about? Is it really about my weight, or about my worth? It’s almost always the latter. When I feel like a failure about my body, that extends into other arenas, making me less enthusiastic about my writing, sure that, somehow, other people are making those same judgments. It’s a vicious cycle, so living with someone who simply doesn’t let himself care about what other people think is a constant revelation.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am vain; when I can’t fit into a beloved outfit I was planning to wear because of my weight, I get upset. Dating my boyfriend hasn’t magically made me okay with my weight’s fluctuations, but what his presence has done it make me feel beautiful in his eyes no matter what, and look at why I might be gaining weight. In his case, I believe it’s genetic; he’s been heavy since a very young age, and didn’t slim down even when playing football twice a day. That’s the way his body is meant to be.

If I felt like he didn’t care about his health, that would be a red flag. But he does; he just isn’t trying to alter his body to meet society’s standards.

I’m an emotional eater. When I get bad news, I want to soothe myself with salt. That’s something you can’t hide when you live with someone, nor would I want to. The fact that he knows I have trigger foods, like potato chips, means he won’t leave them in the house, but also that when I do have a binge eating episode, he is kind about it. Rather than berating me, he lets me talk it out and devise ways to not go down that path next time. Contrary to what you might expect, he doesn’t reward himself or commiserate with food, and doesn’t want me to either. He’s helped me nip my wallowing in the bud, offering positive suggestions like walking, yoga, and meditation.

My boyfriend doesn’t “care” about my weight in the sense of wanting me to be a certain size, but he does want me to be healthy. If I suddenly gained 20 pounds in a month for no apparent reason, he would ask me about it, but not in a menacing, shaming way. I didn’t know it was possible to differentiate those two, since I’d always experienced comments about any weight gain as a negative. We live in such a looks-focused world that those became intertwined in my head, and that’s a dangerous outlook because it leads to me wanting to stay in bed all day when I feel “ugly” or “heavy.”

He’s able to navigate that fine line of helping without butting in because he knows my body issues are more complicated than his.When you date a fat person, their size quickly becomes an “issue” for other people in your life. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked if he’s “working” on his weight. The answer is no. He’s working on living his life and doing so in as healthy a manner as possible, one that works for him. Being bombarded with this type of faux-concern has given me empathy for what he and other fat people go through umpteen times a day, and just how unhelpful it is. To these people, being fat can’t coexist with being healthy, and if you truly want to “work on” the problem it can only mean dropping pounds, rather than rationally assessing how you move and eat.

I learned in the first months of our relationship that size and nutrition aren’t necessarily correlated, even though our culture wants us to think that if you eat “healthy” you will magically transform into our thin ideal. We don’t eat an organic, vegan, totally clean diet, but, contrary to the stereotypes about fat people, he isn’t gorging himself on junk food 24/7. In fact, he’s the one who looks at labels more closely than I do. We do buy organic meat, and have each cut back on foods we found we simply couldn’t resist (his was ice cream, mine was cheese).

We each try to eat a balanced diet and to steer our joint meals on an overall healthy path.Just as he doesn’t get on my case when I stray from my overall healthy eating, I don’t try to tell him what to put in his mouth. I do, however, try to get him to expand his meat and potatoes palate, and because he loves to cook, he’s open to it. Whereas I can’t get enough of leafy green vegetables, he’s much more picky. So we experiment; I’ll bring him recipes, he’ll cook them and be open to tasting them, giving me his honest opinion. (Most recently, this was a yes on falafel loaf, a no on garlicky bok choy.)

If I felt like he didn’t care about his health, that would be a red flag. But he does; he just isn’t trying to alter his body to meet society’s standards. If I could wave a magic wand and make him drop 100 pounds, I would, not because I want him to conform to those standards, but because I think it would make basic bodily functions like walking easier on him. But since the only magic wand I have at my disposal is my vibrator, all I can do is appreciate him for who he is, inside and out, and try to do the same for myself.

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'How Do I Have An Orgasm During Intercourse?' And Nine Other Common Questions About Sex Answered

'How Do I Have An Orgasm During Intercourse?' And Nine Other Common Questions About Sex Answered

by Rachel Moss

Even if you've got an amazing sex life, you're probably interested to know what everyone else is up to in the bedroom and how you can make your own experience even better.

Despite this, most of us can be a little coy when discussing sex with other people.

That's where sex educators like Emily Nagoski come in.

In her new book Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, Nagoski says most questions she receives around sex stem from three main concerns: Am I normal, am I okay, and will I be okay?

Thankfully the resounding answer she gives to all three is YES.

Of course, she says, people hardly ever just ask these questions outright.

Here, Nagoski tells HuffPost UK Lifestyle the answers to the 10 most common questions people ask about sex:

The Questions About Sexual Response:

1. How do I have an orgasm during intercourse? 

Less than a third of women are reliably orgasming from penetration alone. The remaining 70% are sometimes, rarely, or never orgasmic from intercourse alone.

The reason for this is pretty simple: intercourse is not an effective way to stimulate the clitoris, and clitoral stimulation is the most common way that women orgasm.

That means the simplest way to orgasm during intercourse is to add clitoral stimulation.

Your hand, your partner’s hand, a vibrator, rubbing your pubic bones together, whatever.

2. How often am I supposed to want sex? 

As often as the context of your life supports – so your desire will change as your context changes.

And that’s a good thing. Think how inconvenient that would be, if you wanted to same amount of sex when you’re single as when you’re partnered, when you’re staying with your maiden aunt as when you’re cozily at home?

Desire is – and needs to be – dependent on context. It’s not always convenient, showing up at times that you don’t want it, and it’s not always obedient, failing to show up at times you do want it.

But a great place to start is to take an inventory of which contexts create desire in you and which squelch it. It will naturally fluctuate over the course of your day, your week, your life.

There is no “supposed” to, there just… is what it is.

3. Is my penis doing it right? Subquestions: does size matter? (Nah.) Why can’t I get an erection and/or how do I delay ejaculation? 

The sexual response mechanism in the brain consists of two parts: the Sexual Excitation System (SES), which responds to sexual stimuli and sends the “turn on” signal, and the Sexual Inhibition System (SIS), which responds to potential threats and sends the “turn off” signal – you can think of them as the sexual accelerator and the sexual brakes.

This means that the process of becoming aroused is both the process of turning on the ons and the process of turning off the offs.

Erection and ejaculation difficulties are caused by an imbalance of these two processes.

Erection difficulties are about too much brake, usually, so figure out what’s hitting the brake (it’s often performance anxiety – ironically the more you want and try to have an erection, the less likely it is).

Premature ejaculation is effectively treated by the stop-start method – get aroused, back off, get aroused, back off, over and over, to get to know the landscape of your arousal, so that you can recognise when you’re close to orgasm and take pressure off the accelerator and/or tap the brakes, to stop from going past the “point of no return.”

4. I liked it when my partner touched me a certain way yesterday, but I didn’t like it today. What the hell?

Pleasure, like desire, depends on context.

Like tickling - if you’re feeling flirty and sexy and your partner tickles you, that would, at least in theory, feel fun and sexy.

But if you’re feeling annoyed and pissy with your partner and they try to tickle you, how does that feel? 

Stabby, right? Like you want to punch them in the face.

Pleasure depends at least as much on the context in which you receive a sensation, as it does on the nature of the sensation itself. So if something felt good (or not) yesterday, that doesn’t mean it will feel good (or not) today. That’s normal.

The Questions About Sexual Interests:

5. Why does pain sometimes feel sexy and good?

See question 4.

6. Why did 50 Shades of Grey sell so well? 

Because of the arbitrariness of market dynamics and its ability to deliver the most basic fantasy anyone has: feeling wanted and cared for.I mean, who wouldn’t want an attractive billionaire to sweep them off their feet, buy them cool stuff, protect them from danger, and want them so much they can’t think straight?

All the other stuff was just window dressing for feeling wanted and cared for.Some people liked that window dressing, others did not. People vary. 

But we all like to feel wanted and cared for.

7. Why do I fantasise about things I don’t want to do in real life?

 Because the context of fantasising about something – lying safety in your bed, alone, with the door closed and your hand down your pants as you imagine being cornered, held down, and licked by five unknown but beautiful men, say – is an entirely different context from being actually cornered, held down, and licked by five unknown men, no matter how beautiful they may be.

And The Questions That Science Can Never Fully Answer..

.8. Why does the world insist that my body has to a particular size or shape before I’m allowed to experience sexual pleasure, before I’m allowed to be loved, before I’m allowed to be included fully as part of the human race?

9. Why did my family turn away from me, why do strangers shame me and beat me, just because I fall in love with a different kind of person than they expected me to love?

10. Why did my partner use sex against me as a weapon?

Why didn’t he stop when I said no? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

There’s science about these questions, theories, evidence… but in my heart, I don’t know why we, as a species, are so quick to shame and humiliate and hate others because of their bodies and what they do with them.

I don't know why we are still using sex as a weapon against each other or why we do not reach first for compassion when we encounter differences.But, under even these impossible-to-answer questions lies the same deeper questions as all the others:

Am I normal? Am I okay? Will I be okay?

And the answer is: 

Yes.You are normal - it’s normal to struggle when you’ve been confronted by shame, rejection, and violence.

You are okay - if you’re well enough to ask the question, you’re well enough to listen for the quiet voice inside you that’s telling you that the core of you is intact, whole, and healthy.

You will be okay - every day I meet people who are healing, who have healed, from the kind of violence, shame, and trauma that the world inflicts on us.

Every day I am inspired by the resilience, the strength, the raw capacity for survivorship that lives in human bodies, side by side with our capacity for love, for pleasure, for joy, and side by side with our capacity to judge and humiliate.

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Is Your Orgasm MIA?

Is your orgasm MIA? It happens to everyone: Despite your best efforts, you just... can’t... get there. Find out what’s holding you back, plus tips to get you going again... 

Up to 80% of women don’t climax through intercourse alone, but most of us find a way – with a helping hand – to cross the finish line. Maybe not every time, but more often than not. But some don’t – ever. 

The official medical term for a permanently missing orgasm is “anorgasmia.” And although firm numbers are tough to come by – because women don’t like to admit the problem or talk to their doctors about it – sex experts guess that about 10% of women do the deed without fireworks.

That doesn’t mean sex isn’t enjoyable, but it’s like getting sidelined at a theme park while your pal rides roller coasters. After a while, you get tired of watching him scream with excitement. 

So what’s up down there? 

Sometimes it’s a medical problem. Diseases like diabetes and multiple sclerosis, which deaden nerve endings, and depression, which deflates desire, can derail orgasm. Other culprits are drugs, like birth control pills, blood pressure drugs and antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). You’ll need a doctor’s help to diagnose the problem and figure out the right remedies. 

But for many women, the inability to orgasm is all in their heads, says psychiatrist Gail Saltz, M.D., author of The Ripple Effect: How Better Sex Makes for a Better Life (Rodale Books).

How does your brain get in the way? Read on to learn the obstacles and discover surefire strategies to reach the Big O. 

Sex Obstacle #1: You think you’re not built right.Many women believe that they can’t have an orgasm because their genitals are “broken or damaged,” Saltz says. Of course, faulty wiring may have nothing to do it. 

“Some women may just need more stimulation,” she says.

Sex Rx: If your partner gives out before you can get off, try a vibrator. 

“It doesn’t get tired and it can move a lot faster and more consistently than any finger or tongue,” says licensed sex educator/counselor Ellen Barnard, co-owner of the erotic boutique A Woman’s Touch in Madison, Wisc.

Sometimes a little turbo power is all it takes to prove you can orgasm, which makes it easier to climax again the next time – even without a vibrator. 

For a lot of women, once they use the vibrator to learn what feels good, they can usually figure out how to make it happen without it. 

Vibrators can help you practice having orgasms, so you’ll know what they feel like and what it takes to get there, Barnard explains. “And they’re helpful for women who have difficulty with orgasms because of medications or physical issues or because they just need very intense and prolonged stimulation.”

Getting a toy helped one 25-year-old who participates in discussions on Leftos.com, a new online community for candid relationship discussions. 

“Once I figured things out for myself, I found it easier to orgasm during sex,” she says. “Now I can direct my guy on what will help lead me there. Though, it’s still easier to climax with my toy.”

Sex Obstacle #2: You don’t know the territory down under.

Women who have trouble reaching orgasm just may not know their own terrain. 

If you don’t know your body well and your partner doesn’t either, it’s hard to figure out how to have orgasms, says Barnard. 

Plus, you may have a mental block against masturbation. Maybe you’re shy about exploring your body or you were discouraged from letting your fingers roam as a kid. 

“There’s a lot of guilt and shame about that part of our bodies,” says Hilda Hutcherson, M.D., clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University and author of Pleasure: A Woman’s Guide to Getting The Sex You Want, Need and Deserve (Perigee Trade). “It’s difficult to get that garbage out of our brains when we want to have a pleasurable sexual experience.” 

Sex Rx: Spend quality Time doing a hands-on tutorial of your whole body, figuring out where and how you like to be touched. - 

“For some women, stimulating the clitoris feels good.” Hutcherson explains. “For others, it’s the labia, around the cervix or G-spot. Or maybe it’s your nipples or behind your ear.” 

Explore by yourself at first, because it’ll take time to figure it out. Besides, you don’t want to worry that you’re taking too long or that your partner is impatient for his own orgasm. 

Self-stimulation was just the ticket for Heather, 22, of Ottawa, Canada. She says she regularly faked orgasms with her boyfriend until she heard an educational radio show about sex and followed its advice. 

With a week or two, she says, “I became an expert on my own body and learned what I needed to think in my head, how to move my hips and what to ask my partner to do to get me off.” 

Sex Obstacle #3: You’re focused on intercourse.Intercourse isn’t the only road to climax. In fact, only about 20% of women routinely reach orgasm that way, most sexperts say. 

Those who do are using positions that stimulate the clitoris as well, Barnard says. “Anatomically, there’s not enough consistent, intense clitoral stimulation to lead to orgasm.” 

Sex Rx: Ask your guy for a pre-game sensual massage to increase your arousal and nudge you closer to orgasm. Then experiment with positions that let him rub against your clitoris with every thrust, like missionary or legs-together style. 

You can also try positions that allow you to give yourself a hand, like woman-on-top, rear-entry or reverse-straddle. Erection rings equipped with tiny vibrators designed to hit the clitoris during intercourse help too, says Barnard. 

Remember figuring out what you liked and where? Now clue your partner in with show and tell. 

“The way we masturbate and have orgasms [solo] is what we want to incorporate into partner sex,” says sex expert Betty Dodson, Ph.D., author of Orgasms for Two (Harmony).

That’s what worked for Cecille, 50, of Seattle. She had given up on being able to orgasm with anyone else, though she could occasionally get there on her own. 

“When I met my husband, he said ‘Show me what you do.’ He watched and then the next time he did those things, I was like, ‘Oooh, that works,’ and we moved on from there.” 

Sex Obstacle #4: Distractions derail the mood.The brain is our main sexual organ. Our thoughts can enhance sexual pleasure or shut it down.

“It’s fabulous at turning off the things that make sex work for us,” says Barnard – especially if we’re fixated on how we look, whether we taste OK down there or other unsexy thoughts like tomorrow’s dinner menu, errands to run or that the baby’s crying. 

If you’re too busy, stressed or distracted, your brain says forget about it.

“There’s a funny balance between the relaxation part of our brain and the arousal/stimulation portion that allows us to have orgasms,” Barnard says.

Sex Rx: Just like you get ready for work, you need to prep for sex. 

If you have children, ask your husband to handle bedtime duties, so you can take 30 minutes alone to shift from mom mode to vivacious vixen. With less on your mind, you may be more likely to relax and go with the flow. 

Orgasm is “like a watched pot,”Barnard says. “If you feel ‘I gotta, gotta, gotta have an orgasm,’ you won’t.” 

The best move for women? Surrender and give up on the goal, she says. 

“Then they come back and say, ‘It worked!’” she says. 

Another way to raise your orgasm odds: Start the party solo. Take a scented bath, light candles, have a glass of wine, read erotica or put on something that makes you feel sexy and confident. Even do some “self-massage,” so your motor’s already running before your mate joins in. 

Sex Obstacle #5: You think nice girls don’t. If you grew up in a buttoned-up family with sexual taboos – and negative messages about sex before marriage in particular – it’s a challenge to shake them, even with a gold band on your left hand. 

“The message is that there’s something wrong with women who express their sexuality,” says sex therapist Gina Ogden, Ph.D., author of Women Who Love Sex (Trumpeter).

Sex Rx: You may need an outside authority, such as a church-based sexuality seminar retreat, to say that sex is OK – that nice girls can and do. 

Cecille of Seattle felt stymied sexually until she attended Christian women’s retreats and heard more a more positive view of sex. 

“One leader said, ‘Masturbation is God’s gift to the single person,’” she recalls. “Another said ‘How are you going to teach a man if you don’t know what to do?’ It was like a light bulb went off.” 

“Often women just need permission – from Mom, the church, from somebody,” Barnard says. “If they get that or give it to themselves, most women can redefine that [negative] message.” 

If you still have trouble short-circuiting the only-bad-girls-do-it thinking, consider working with a sex therapist. You can find someone in your area through the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT). 

Sex Obstacle #6: Your fantasies freak you out. Fantasies can give sex that extra sizzle. But if yours are far from what you’d do in real life – making love to another woman, joining a threesome, having sex in public, being forced – they can also be scary. 

For example, "for many women, the fantasy – not the reality – of rape is exciting,” Saltz explains. “Yet if they have any thoughts in that direction, they think ‘That’s horrible, I’m disgusting.’”

So they turn off any sexual thoughts because they might lead to the “shocking” fantasy. 

“Instead, they think about making dinner or getting the dry cleaning,” she says.

The same kind of shut-down can happen if there has been a real sexual trauma in your past, such as sexual abuse, child molestation, assault, or rape. 

Sex Rx: Fantasies are just made-up stuff in your head. They don’t mean you want to have that happen in real life, says Saltz.

With a sexual trauma, you may need professional help – a psychologist, psychiatrist or sex therapist – to uncover and work through your blocks. 

“Some people have serious issues that they need to delve into,” says Michele Sugg, an AASECT-certified sex therapist in Branford, Conn. “They really do need to plumb the depths and look intensively at what’s going on in their lives.”

Sex Obstacle #7: You don’t recognize an orgasm when you have one. Seems impossible, right? But if your reference point is the movies – think actress Meg Ryan’s classic imitation from "When Harry Met Sally" – you might miss an orgasm if it doesn’t match your imagination.

One reason your orgasms might not rock: Your pubococcygeus (PC) muscles, which hold up your vagina, uterus, bladder, urethra and anus, are weak. 

“Orgasms are the spasming of your pelvic floor muscles,” Barnard says. “If they aren’t very strong, you’re not going to feel much.” 

Sex Rx: Strength-training exercises will build them up. Start with Kegel exercises, squeezing and releasing the muscles you use to prevent urine leakage when you sneeze or cough. 

You’re doing them right if the area between your vagina and rectum pulls in as you squeeze, says Lauri Romanzi, M.D., a uro-gynecologist at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical College.

Plus, pump up your Kegel workout with vagina weights – basically cone-shaped “dumbbells” in a slender plastic holder inserted into the vagina and held there as you squeeze – or pelvic floor exercisers, which work the muscles using resistance instead of weight. 

Regular core-focused workouts, such as yoga or Pilates, can also help strengthen the area. 

“The more control you have of those muscles and the stronger they are, the easier the arousal process and orgasm,” says sex expert Laura Berman, Ph.D., author of The Book of Love (DK Adults).

How’s Your Sex Life?

For some of us, regular sex is as necessary as breathing; others don't mind an occasional dry spell. Where you fall on the nookie spectrum has a lot to do with just how passionate you are about making whoopee. Find out how much you really want it with this libido quiz.

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