Weinstein Rebecca Jane - Fat sex: the naked truth

FAT SEX

The Naked Truth

REBECCA JANE WEINSTEIN

Copyright 2012 by Rebecca Jane Weinstein

SECOND EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover photograph Club Allegro Fortissimo, Paris 1989, by William Klein, with permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weinstein, Rebecca Jane, 1967
Fat sex : the naked truth / Rebecca Jane Weinstein. -Second edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8253-0775-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Overweight persons--Sexual behavior. 2. Sex. I. Title.
RC628.W425 2015
616.8526--dc23
2014035810

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Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Jamie Kerry of Belle toile Studios
Cover design by Becky Stockbridge of ibecCreative

FAT SEX

This book is dedicated to my parents.
You know who you are.

BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

The F-Word

BY MARGARET CHO

Its the insult of the statement, not the word fat, but its hard for me to hear and to use that word without all of the baggage associated with it, because it is a word that has been deliberately used to hurt me.

Its like a knife. Is it going to cut you or is it going to butter you up? The first thousand times it cuts you, and so youre going to be wary of it buttering you up, because its gonna feel like a cut and you are going to bleed no matter what. Its an involuntary emotional reaction that I cant control. I want to control it. Help me get it under control.

I have bad history with it. I got called fat when I was doing All American Girl and I didnt eat after that and wound up in the hospital, my kidney failing at 24 years old. I also developed a heart murmur and still have bad shit my body wont forget from that time. The incident easily cut at least a decade off my life. I was perfectly healthy before. Now, I have to be a lot more careful.

I remember the phone call vividly. The producer was my good friend. She was rad, a fun gal. She came to my trailer in secret and we smoked cigarettes where her kids wouldnt see or smell it. I really loved herI trusted her. I needed someone like her then. You need your women around you to keep you safe. I was young and scared and I just wanted a job for fucks sake. I was only trying to work.

She called huffing and puffing and saying that your body was just toooo your face . The fat youre too fat. You are just so fat we cant do this. You are too fat and we have to do something you have to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. ANYTHING.

I felt like I was going to die and I nearly did. It was beyond my control, and almost 20 years later I am still utterly destroyed by any negative assessment of my, or any womans, body. Its not just me I bleed for when I am cut by this word, its everyone. I feel for all the world like I am feeling for all the world.

I give other people too much power because I cant look the other way or shrug it off or ignore it or consider the source. I overreact because that is my nature, but at least its fairly poetic. Whats awesome is I can actually laugh about it. I really do.

Fuck people who try to insult women by calling them fat. Fuck them all. Hahahahahaha.

I am actively trying to reclaim the word fat. I am actively trying to get better. But I do have a disease that is deadly as cancer or AIDS. Anorexia kills. Bulimia kills. I am still sick. I am in remission I guess, but the virus lives in me. Dormant for now. But its there.

I want to educate people about my disease. Its caused by ignorance and casual cruelty. I want to stop the spread of my disease.

People thinking they can say whatever they want about womens bodies and thinking they will not be held accountable? No, I am not having it. I wanna be like Fatgirl!! You could shine a big stretch mark in the sky and I will come whizzing through the night on my motorcycle to kick some douchebags ass!

If you think you can dismiss our beauty and belittle us you should just know, say what you will, but I am going to make you eat your words. Fatgirl is coming for you. Na na na na na na na na FATGIRL!!!!!

HAHAHA.

Thank you to the following individuals who, without their contributions and support, this book would not have been written: Joyce Ellen Weinstein and Mark Weinstein, who supported me in more ways than one and were considerate enough to give me their DNA; all the brave people who contributed their stories, I couldnt have done it without you; Winifred Golden of the Castiglia Literary Agency, my agent and cheerleader; Buffy Morrissette, my good friend, surrogate sister, and tireless editor; Elizabeth Janovsky and Patricia Washburn, also my friends and editors; Becky McKinnell of iBecCreative.com who contributed the fantastic cover design; Robert Chiozzi, my business partner who picked up the slack when I was otherwise occupied; Margaret Cho, who certainly speaks for herself, and Sarah Martin, who did me a serious solid; all of the people on PeopleOfSize.com and the Size Acceptance boards who were so enthusiastic and gave me more than one pep talk; my high school, college, and current life friends on the Interweb who offered feedback and didnt judge me; and finally Ella, who cant read because she is a dog, but gave me the unconditional love I needed to get this done.

Thank you also to the supporters of this book: Dixie Rich, Bobbie-Jo Elwood, Curtis Forsythe, Durette Hauser, Mark Weinstein, Eleanor Chung-Wernow, Homalyn Dakers, Becky McKinnell, Jodie Morrissette, Shawna Hamic, Heather Boyle Nymeyer, Garland Arnaud, Vanessa Madrazo, Wm. Christman, Debora Meltz, Ragen Chastain, Sue Carter (on behalf of SSBBW Magazine), Victoria Leigh Reuveni, Sarah Brodwall, Barbara Shapiro, Alice Fu, Giorgio Piccoli, Reenie Stelzer Rousseau, Peggy Elam, Celine McGuire, Jayne Williams, Cyd Highfield, Carol Squires, Christopher Martin, Douglas Goldstein, Pauline Jakobsberf, Caitlin Holland, Malnpudl, Aine Pearson, Cindy Baker, Carla A. Pfeffer, Tiffany Ross, Madeline Z.

These are the true stories of people who were brave and generous enough to tell them. They are stories of individual life experiences and are, therefore, subjective. They dont represent everyone and dont try to. What they aim to do is offer some perspective on life and love as a person of size, a large person, an overweight or obese person, ormore to the pointa fat person. Many people, fat and thin and in-between, will relate to these experiences, which help to demonstrate that fat people, while stigmatized for being fat, are much like everyone else in many, or most, ways.

Throughout the book, you will find information, research, and anecdotes. They relate to the stories and are not a complete compilation of all of the issues relevant to fat and living as a fat person. They are also not intended to be an academic dissertation. They are interesting tidbits, and it is my hope that they may lead you to want to learn more. They, too, are subjective, at least in the manner in which they were selected and how they add to the narrative.