My husband is a good looking man. He's likely seen as more attractive than I am. I know that because when people see photos of us together they say things like "ooh, *you* did well" with a slight look of surprise. It's unintentionally mildly insulting, but I find it funny.
I'm a perfectly okay-looking person who has been fat and is now mid-size with all the extra skin to show for it (I was a size 22 when I was 16, and a 16 when I met him and have bounced around 12-18 my adult life, mainly based on how my thyroid is doing at the time). He dated both bigger and smaller women before me. He has always, unequivocally and enthusiastically loved my body ("when you're bigger, your curves fill out more, which is great; when you're smaller your hips flare out more from your waist which is also great"). But he's also almost weirdly obsessed with my brain and how I think. And - and here is where your piece sang to me - he is undoubtedly one of the most truly decent and kind people I know, and will not be swayed from or embarrassed by what he likes.
At 16, fat and smart and weird, I would never have believed I had any romantic or sexual value at all. It took a sizeable chunk of our 20 years together so far to convince my teenage self how very wrong she was. I've spent a long time telling her I might be an acquired taste, but the kind of people who acquire it really, *really* enjoy it - out loud and with an outlook on life that can't be beaten.
Ahhhh I love this. And yes - fundamental decency, an interest in what people are saying and thinking rather than being very babyish about them having to look one specific way, openness, an enjoyment of difference, a stubborn refusal to pretend you don't like things if you do... all of these are exactly the qualities we're looking for. They are really good qualities.
This reminds me also! I feel it's quite important to say: fat girls bang. There are fat ladies all over the world right now going to bed with someone nice and having a bloody good time.
I think when I was young I thought I would have to be a *very good sweet person* to 'make up for' my body. And it turns out that I can be very acerbic (at times) and darkly funny and a bit superior and I still get to have sex. Because the critical thing about that is that you don't have to 'earn' sex by being nice, but instead: people who like to bang want to find other people who like to bang.
I don't understand how I spent so long thinking that you had to earn sex by being some like specially nice person who cooks well or something?!
And then 'the apps' arrived and it became incredibly obvious very quickly that any woman who lives in a city and wants to - at any stage in life! - can be having at least OK sex with a total stranger within at most a couple of hours. How did they manage to convince us that this was something you had to do cooking/wear high heels/lose weight/put on makeup to get, when *loads of other people, I mean really LOTS of men really want to have sex too*??
I absolutely love everything about this piece. It also reminds me of when I was struggling to conceive and the fertility doctor told me to lose weight. I said yes all well and good, but I do come from generations of fat women all of whom, by definition, had babies, so surely the fatness is not the problem here. (And actually when I did conceive in the end, I was at my fattest, because turns out a doctor telling you to go away and lose weight doesn’t help. Also no doctor ever answered my questions of whether the impact of any weight loss would be more or less than the extra age I would be time after taking time to lose it). I think lots of people including those in the medical world think fat people don’t deserve to be happy or be loved or have nice things or have babies.
Yes, sadly I think that that 5 to 10% figure is much higher amongst doctors. I would say my experience is that it must be about 50% of people working in medicine just really don’t like fat people. Not “are concerned about our health”, just don’t like us. My evidence is: all of the masses of doctors who have told me to lose weight to e.g. treat my tonsillitis, and none of them mentioned at any point that I should make sure to always get my flu jab because a high BMI makes you more clinically vulnerable to flu. If they actually cared about my health, they would have given me advice for the body I’m in.
Thank you, Naomi, I wish I had heard this at 16, at 21, at 28, at 34. Then I did meet someone who appreciated me at whatever size I was, size 14 to a size 22 and back again. And he's considered a good looking guy and now he's a silver fox.
My husband is a good looking man. He's likely seen as more attractive than I am. I know that because when people see photos of us together they say things like "ooh, *you* did well" with a slight look of surprise. It's unintentionally mildly insulting, but I find it funny.
I'm a perfectly okay-looking person who has been fat and is now mid-size with all the extra skin to show for it (I was a size 22 when I was 16, and a 16 when I met him and have bounced around 12-18 my adult life, mainly based on how my thyroid is doing at the time). He dated both bigger and smaller women before me. He has always, unequivocally and enthusiastically loved my body ("when you're bigger, your curves fill out more, which is great; when you're smaller your hips flare out more from your waist which is also great"). But he's also almost weirdly obsessed with my brain and how I think. And - and here is where your piece sang to me - he is undoubtedly one of the most truly decent and kind people I know, and will not be swayed from or embarrassed by what he likes.
At 16, fat and smart and weird, I would never have believed I had any romantic or sexual value at all. It took a sizeable chunk of our 20 years together so far to convince my teenage self how very wrong she was. I've spent a long time telling her I might be an acquired taste, but the kind of people who acquire it really, *really* enjoy it - out loud and with an outlook on life that can't be beaten.
Ahhhh I love this. And yes - fundamental decency, an interest in what people are saying and thinking rather than being very babyish about them having to look one specific way, openness, an enjoyment of difference, a stubborn refusal to pretend you don't like things if you do... all of these are exactly the qualities we're looking for. They are really good qualities.
This reminds me also! I feel it's quite important to say: fat girls bang. There are fat ladies all over the world right now going to bed with someone nice and having a bloody good time.
I think when I was young I thought I would have to be a *very good sweet person* to 'make up for' my body. And it turns out that I can be very acerbic (at times) and darkly funny and a bit superior and I still get to have sex. Because the critical thing about that is that you don't have to 'earn' sex by being nice, but instead: people who like to bang want to find other people who like to bang.
People who like to bang want to find other people who like to bang! It's so simple but takes so long to accept!
I don't understand how I spent so long thinking that you had to earn sex by being some like specially nice person who cooks well or something?!
And then 'the apps' arrived and it became incredibly obvious very quickly that any woman who lives in a city and wants to - at any stage in life! - can be having at least OK sex with a total stranger within at most a couple of hours. How did they manage to convince us that this was something you had to do cooking/wear high heels/lose weight/put on makeup to get, when *loads of other people, I mean really LOTS of men really want to have sex too*??
🤯 might have been invented for this...
I absolutely love everything about this piece. It also reminds me of when I was struggling to conceive and the fertility doctor told me to lose weight. I said yes all well and good, but I do come from generations of fat women all of whom, by definition, had babies, so surely the fatness is not the problem here. (And actually when I did conceive in the end, I was at my fattest, because turns out a doctor telling you to go away and lose weight doesn’t help. Also no doctor ever answered my questions of whether the impact of any weight loss would be more or less than the extra age I would be time after taking time to lose it). I think lots of people including those in the medical world think fat people don’t deserve to be happy or be loved or have nice things or have babies.
Yes, sadly I think that that 5 to 10% figure is much higher amongst doctors. I would say my experience is that it must be about 50% of people working in medicine just really don’t like fat people. Not “are concerned about our health”, just don’t like us. My evidence is: all of the masses of doctors who have told me to lose weight to e.g. treat my tonsillitis, and none of them mentioned at any point that I should make sure to always get my flu jab because a high BMI makes you more clinically vulnerable to flu. If they actually cared about my health, they would have given me advice for the body I’m in.
Thank you, Naomi, I wish I had heard this at 16, at 21, at 28, at 34. Then I did meet someone who appreciated me at whatever size I was, size 14 to a size 22 and back again. And he's considered a good looking guy and now he's a silver fox.
I am DELIGHTED to hear this. I wish I'd known it earlier but I'm very glad I found it out and know it now.
I don't understand the repeating print thing at all. What am I missing?
I think it's that if you keep on making sure that the patterns overlap and join up in all directions then you can have something that repeats forever?