From a Fat Woman To All Her Lovers [CW body shame/fat hatred/sexual content]
I took the very first picture
At 34 some sort of critical mass
Of people who wanted to fuck me
And genuinely desired to be
Enveloped by voluptuous thighs
Hit the force of five years of Feminism
And desperate attempts to shrug off hatred
Wrung out online through others’
One last honest compliment
Impinged on three decades of culture
And finally found purchase
Enough to let me take pictures
Of my chubby fucking thighs and feel like
Maybe, just maybe, they were
I have to thank that last would-be
Lover for that straw that broke
The bubble that surrounds myself.
That keeps self-love at bay and means
Acceptance is for every other fat person
But a warning to all my lovers,
Past and present: I will never escape
The internalised damage of a million words spilled out,
From the personal to the impersonal
From text to image to speech to artform
In every hidden and unhidden correspondence.
I grew up saturated in fat-hatred
Who’d never even kissed someone
Who didn’t know really if they were straight
Who’d not even begun to menstruate
Desperately tried to figure out
The best angle to fuck men from
That would hide their belly rolls and bum.
Twelve year olds told each other,
Whispered words from women’s magazines
“Never go on top he’ll see’
‘Also avoid doggy-style unless
You can really hold your breath’
‘Also avoid sex when you have
ie. anytime you appear to be
To all my lovers - do you get it now?
That that, against every time you've’ve lovingly
Licked my arse and buried yourself between my thighs,
Is a roaring noise in my ears?
That there, in the back of my mind
Some part of me flinches every time
Your fingers brush my belly
That I’ve been taught, exhorted,
No hundreds of acts of attraction
No thousands of compliments
Can out-perform what I’ve taken
Into my flesh - it’s flowed through my eyes and ears
In music, in movies, in bedtime stories
In my mother’s desperate dieting
In every act of advertising
The world has told me that I’m hated
And I still hear it - that all I must be
Who’ll know better than to
Because 10′s don’t date… you know
That every time you slide a hand between my thighs
I freeze in panic that there’s no gap
That I have to move my legs apart
And then cringe inside that my labia
Might not be perfect, myself too unmannerly
Even though I know it’s bullshit
Bullshit, and you all want me
Just as I am. You all have.
But still I wait for your lips
As you finally pull away.
Echoing changerooms at High School
Still play a discord in my head
“Look at the size of her undies
Who does she thinks want to see?
That disgusting thing she drags around
It looks like cottage cheese”
And I was 14 - and other girls were
The enemy who tore at me.
So everytime a lover touches
Lower than my waist a barrage
Hits me from every approach
“But, but, *cringe and withdraw* -
I have pimples on my thighs and
Imperfections in my skin, I bite my nails.
I pick at my skin obsessively
You'll see scars and stretchmarks and
I want to apologise for expecting you
Thank you, every one - of every gender -
For your patience and your kindness,
Your utterly strange attraction to me.
I could never understand - I can barely understand.
Given time, I may not have to feel grateful
Given time, perhaps I can enjoy lovemaking
Without fear and self loathing.
With all of you, I make no promises
But you give me everything I need.
[do not reblog any of this content without attribution]
