She didn’t give me an answer, at least not verbally. She got up from the chair she was sitting in and stood, quite close, in front of me. Her delicious and curvy rear-end was practically in my face. She put her hands on her hips and said—
“Grab me. Grab my hips and ass.”
“Whaaa----?” I stuttered.
“You want me to do what?”
“Grab a handful of my ass,” Pamela answered, firmly and matter-of-factly, in response to my question about how to stop hating my fat body.
I nervously stood and grabbed a large handful of Pamela’s ass, then another.
“How does it feel?” Pamela asked.
"Soft and juicy and luscious! I don't want to stop touching you!" I laughed.
“Have you ever imagined how you feel to a lover?" Pamela asked.
"To your children?”
I’d never imagined myself from the eyes and the hands of a beloved. And I had to admit that Pamela did feel tender and full and delicious in my hands. I could feel my arousal rising from the excited embarrassment of grabbing another woman’s ass, but it wasn’t just that. It was the unabashed invitation of Pamela’s body and the pleasure it brings her that was so intoxicating.
On the third day of my first Back to the Body Retreat (see earlier post, "My Sacred No"), I came up against a wall of my self-hatred and body shame, hard. I know I struggle to love my body. I want this to change—but how? I have struggled with this for so long, with fleeting success. I watched my mother wrestle with self-hatred and eating disorders, and so many others I love also struggle. Is there a way out of this endless cycle of suffering, not being good enough, not being beautiful or loveable enough? How do we love ourselves when we are fat or sick or ugly or aging or hurt or when we fuck up and hurt others and make mistakes and are, well, utterly human?
The somatic sex education session I had the previous day was blissful. I had received an erotic massage with hot oil, and then my somatic sex educator, Ondra, decorated my body with flowers and fed me strawberries. I was proud of the courage it took for me take off my robe and allow myself to be seen. It took immense vulnerability for me to get on the table and allow myself to receive tenderness and attention. At the end of the session, as I was laying there on the table, in orgasmic bliss with flowers on my vagina and strawberries on my nipples, Ondra asked if I wanted him to take a picture. I hesitated—I hate having my picture taken unless I am clothed and in full makeup—
But I said yes. This was a moment I never wanted to forget, and this trip was all about taking risks and trying new things. But when I got back to my room and looked at the picture on my cell phone, I was horrified and crestfallen. I couldn’t see past my round, stretch-marked belly. I couldn’t see past my breasts falling under my chin and spilling off the sides of my chest. In the picture, my smile was so big it almost left my face and my eyes were squinting in happiness. I glistened from head to toe with pleasure and coconut oil. Why was my fat what stuck with me instead of my joy?
For one, I am a woman, and as women we learn from an early age that our bodies and our physical beauty are important to our survival in this world. Pretty women get better jobs, better partners, and receive more respect. Daily we are sold lies that tell us that we need to be thinner, whiter, younger, and richer—and all this can be achieved with the purchase of a product! I am also a fat woman. Call me curvy, full-figured, fat, or whatever you like, it is a simple fact that I am voluptuous and several handfuls in more ways than one.
I’ve always been extremely curvy, regardless of my weight and dress size, with wide hips and an abundant bosom. In 5th grade, before I even really understand anything about sexuality, I had hips and breasts for days. I remember walking across the school campus one day in my uniform and noticing someone's father staring at me, running his eyes up and down my body and looking hungry. I didn’t know what it meant, but it made my stomach flip and I knew something significant had changed in how I moved through the world and I knew it was related to sex and my body.
When I got my first bleed at age eleven, I was proud to be the second girl in the grade to have her period. I felt it was a badge of honor, of womanhood. I somehow knew, even though no one had told me, that being a beautiful, sexual woman was to wield a considerable power. I was also proud to bleed before my twin sister. I wanted to be better than her by being more beautiful, womanlier, and more sexual. I see now how twisted this is to base my value so firmly in whether the shape of my body pleases others, and to feel that for me to be sexual and powerful, I must be in competition and be better than other women. And so began my lifelong struggle with my body image, food, and sexuality.
One of my greatest blocks to experiencing pleasure has been my low self-esteem and body image, and I know I’m not alone in this. I’ve spent years either trying to become thinner and more beautiful or deciding I don’t give a fuck and eating unhealthily. I’ve found that either extreme stems from the belief that my primary worth is in being physically beautiful to please others.
Several years ago, I lost over eighty pounds in a year and developed an eating disorder in the process. In the end, I discovered that other people desiring my body didn’t make me happy. Being thin didn’t solve my problems. I was just thin and insecure instead of fat and insecure. You can’t hate yourself into health. So here I am, at my heaviest weight, in a body with dimples and several rows of love handles and stretch marks and various other imperfections, and I am still faced with this challenge of learning to love myself. There are so many aspects of my body I feel self-conscious about, yet they are a part of me and they deserve to be seen and loved, not hidden and shamed.
And so we return to the question, “How do we love and accept our bodies as they are—fat, thin, well, sick, able, differently-abled, scarred, stretch marked, in pain, in pleasure, growing, aging?”
It comes back to Pamela’s ass, or mine, or yours for that matter. We need to feel our bodies and inhabit them, rather than objectifying them. When we judge our bodies, we are leaving them. We are drawing conclusions and making value judgments rather than being in our bodies. It’s not always easy or possible to be in our bodies. Dissociation is our body’s brilliant way of protecting us when we are in unbearable pain. But there are moments where we can drop into our breath and feel what it is to be alive and in a body.
There are infinite avenues to pleasure: in a sip of coffee, the sun on our face, the feel of our skin against freshly washed sheets. And by practicing feeling pleasure in these moments, we begin to feel goodness in our bodies and these little trickles of joy can lead to rivulets and streams of pleasure bursting through our soma (body).
Movement, if we are able, is also another way to access being in our bodies. Slow yoga postures like dancing lion, cat/cow, and child’s pose are lovely and gentle ways to drop into breath and movement and release body judgements. Floating in water is great low impact way to be in a body. Laying on the earth beneath a lovely tree or a cloud-adorned sky is both profound and grounding.
This is not an easy road. But it is one that leads to aliveness and to pleasure, rather than suffering and self-loathing. I am walking it with you, and we will never be perfect. Let’s be human together.
I love you, and I'm working on loving me.
E.A.