Fat Essay

When I was a teen in high school I never imagined I'd end up having sex, and I never thought that anyone would be interested in me in a sexual way. I was the fat girl, so even though by the time I was 15 I'd become pretty popular and had a decent number of friends, there was a lot of harassment that went hand in hand with being fat and intelligent.

Like everyone else I knew, I craved having a boyfriend or girlfriend. I think that what I wanted more than anything was to be desired and accepted more than I wanted to be involved in a sexual relationship. I never mustered up enough will power to diet for more than a few days...but for those few days each month I would go on unsafe crash diets in the hopes that I could attract a lover.

My feelings and thoughts on sex were inextricably connected with my thoughts about my weight/size, so it makes it almost impossible to talk about one without the other. I sincerely didn't see how I could ever be attractive to anyone (particularly not to the type of man I wanted) without being thin. I often longed for crazy things, like that I'd have anorexia just for a month or two so that I could magically shrink down to a "pretty" size. A couple of times I actually tried to cultivate bulimia in myself, but fortunately I never managed to actually throw up...though I spent many miserable hours dry heaving over a toilet bowl.

I think the hardest part about being a fat kid and teen was that I was honestly convinced that everyone else, except for the geeky kids (most of which were my friends!) were having more sexual encounters and romantic relationships that I was. My logic in this was: they are not fat like me, so therefore they are more attractive, and obviously that meant that they were getting all that romantic attention that I craved. I felt that I'd been inflicted with a great injustice, that if I could only lose X number of pounds that someone would love me too. This was particularly crushing when one of my good friends would start dating a guy or girl that I had an enormous crush on. In this situation, I immediately assumed that the only reason my friend had been chosen instead of me was because I was fat.

In high school, I had lots of male friends, and (looking back I now realize) there was always some undercurrent of sexual tension between us. My friend relationships with boys and girls were always very physical in the sense that we hugged a lot, and kissed each other's cheeks, held hands and whatnot. It was not uncommon for my "true love of the month" to be a very close friend...I rarely had crushes on cute strangers. I would tell myself over and over, "So-and-so hugs me and holds my hand all the time...surely he must like me." I was, ALWAYS, wrong.

My one high school boyfriend (and I use the term boyfriend in the loosest sense) was basically gay. I was sure that I absolutely loved him, and that we were destined to be together for all eternity...blah blah blah. The truth of it was, he was a good friend of mine that saw my feelings for him as an opportunity to hide his questionable sexuality. The whole time we were together (a whopping 72 days) he'd been writing love poetry to my male drama teacher, and putting the moves on some of my openly gay friends. It was really a waste of time and I suffered a huge bought of depression over a boy that never so much as kissed me. Sheesh! That relationship really crippled me for a long time. I expected that a relationship I felt so passionately about should last for a long time, when in truth, it was over in the blink of an eye. What hurt the most was that my dear friend had decided that he could use me for his purposes...he could have a fling with me because I was so trusting and vulnerable. He really had no intent of pursuing an ongoing relationship with me...he was perfectly prepared to dump me once his need for me was through. I also thought that if I'd been thinner or most conventionally beautiful, he wouldn't have "turned gay" and that he would have really fallen in love with me instead of just using me for a quick fling. I was even more damaged than before. Now I was not only the fat girl, but now I was the fag-hag, the girl with the gay touch. That "gay touch" bull shit followed me straight though my first year of college.

The turning point for me in my sexuality was leaving high school when I was 17 and going to college. For the first time I began to have frank AND serious conversations about sexuality with experienced people. I befriended some spunky, open minded kids that were not afraid of their bodies in the way that I was. I got more involved with the gay community on campus (I'm still struggling with my sexuality, but college sure has helped), and most importantly I became deeply engrossed in the internet. There I discovered many people were willing to be affectionate and sexual with me, basically within moments of our first encounter with each other. I began having lots of cyber sex, and I posted several personal adds. That whole process eventually burned me though...I became too involved with a married man, I had a very creepy internet stalker for a while, and one person I'd grown very close to over the internet (and phone) was killed. Once again, I became emotionally crippled.

Yet my few college friends supported me, encouraged me, and some of the girls were good enough to kiss me! And eventually, with my passion for the internet, I encountered a kindred spirit. He and I became fast friends, bonding over our shortcomings and our darkest sexual secrets. He decided to take time off from his respective college and (my college town being his home town) he came to visit me one dark and snowy night. Shortly thereafter I had my first real, serious, passionate love affair, which included sex. It was totally out of the entire high school context...leaving my school and my home 150 miles away had changed my mind-set a great deal. He was really attracted to me physically, which was a first, and a real eye opener for a fat girl! He was a very caring lover who always kept my pleasure in mind. In fact, for the first 2 months or so, he was perfectly happy to pleasure me without any reciprocation on my part. I now realize that was very selfish of me, so I'm not longer as angry as I once was when I recall how he soon began to pressure me to "go all the way." In retrospect I probably lost my virginity before I was ready, but as time passed I felt much better about my decision. I am still deeply involved in that relationship; we are living together and he has asked me to marry him.
I now realize that my being thinner, or fatter for that matter, probably wouldn't have changed a damn thing. I've watched fat people have amazing relationships, while thin people are cheated on and beaten by their lovers -- and vise verse.

What I realize now, and this may be the most important realization, in that everyone else really wasn't having more sex and love than me...My lack of sexual experience in high school really wasn't about my weight. Many of my skinny and beautiful friends now have far LESS sexual activity in their lives than I do, while I have a very satisfying romantic life. Truth be told, my attitude had, and I suppose still has, a lot more to do with the quality and frequency of my romantic and sex life than anything else does. I'm fat, sure, but I think I'm pretty damned cute and lovable and desirable and sexy....there seem to actually be people that agree! My fiancé tells me as much every day.
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Edit: 2002 - My fiancé and I are no longer together, but there is a new love in my life, and I'm happier than ever. No matter what, I will never be able to thank my ex enough for starting me down the road to self acceptance.