Fat Girls Do it Better

I have a subscription to French Ella, which is a bit silly. I tend to get very excited Sunday night, thinking about it waiting for me on the Welcome mat first thing Monday morning. Then when I stumble to the door (checking no neighbors are lingering in front of the elevator to see me in my robe and glasses), I snatch it up and rip off the plastic, only to be horribly disgusted to find ANOTHER cover story about Monico Belluci and the difficulties of being a mother and an international sex symbol. Of course, every other Monday, the story is about Isabella Adjani and her Strength. Gripping stuff.

So I am always, every Monday, surprised at how disappointed I am with the mag. With a bit of luck, there is a good restaurant suggestion, maybe an interesting travel page, but generally its just really blah. Not smart enough to force my way through in the hopes of improving my mind, not trashy and mindless enough to be escape reading. So I was more than surprised at how much I like one of the articles in this last weeks issue.

The article was called "Les Rondes Font Mieux l'Amour", or "Fat Girls Make Love Better"- a title guaranteed to catch your eye, but actually, there was something behind the catchy title. The idea that the article was putting out there was that a fat girl is less narcisstic than a skinny girl and so is free to enjoy herself and focus on the other's pleasure and her own.

On the other hand, a woman who is prepared to starve herself to achieve "the perfect body" looses herself and becomes the object of her own desire. It becomes impossible to loose control in any way- physical, sexual, emotional- and she then cuts herself off from the ability to have an orgasm. Once caught up in this endless quest for physical perfection, its hard to deal with the carnal side of sex- its sweaty and wet and messy and smelly. And while attaining physical perfection is a sort of attempt at seduction, its a seduction which is detached from the act, a demonstration, and one becomes so obsessed by the idea of how one appears during sex that there is no real participation.

I've had really funny relationship with my body since I was pregnant. I know that most people feel like it is an experience that puts them at ease with their body but for me it was the opposite. I felt like I lost so much control that I have been desperate ever since then to manage my body. Its even more bizarre because having spent years doing gymnastics and dance, you would think that I had worked through all these control issues. I used to be really at ease with my body and definitely, when sex was involved, never gave it a second thought what I looked like. I felt really comfortable in my skin. But now, I have all these issues. And I know that I am the same weight as before, the same size as before, but it all feels different and I am not as comfortable with being naked. It's to the point where I think it is affecting my sex life and thats why I am so glad that I read this article. It puts things in the right perspective. There is still a chasm between being intellectually aware and emotionally in synch with the idea but its a start.