Blank - Big Big Love, Revised: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size

The information contained in this book is based on the experience and research of the author. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other health care provider. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should be done under the direction of a health care professional. The publisher and author are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of any of the suggestions or procedures discussed in this book.

Text copyright 2000, 2011 by Hanne Blank
Illustrations copyright 2011 by Elizabeth Tamny

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Celestial Arts, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Celestial Arts and the Celestial Arts colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

A previous edition of this work was published in the United States by Greenery Press, Gardena, California, in 2000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blank, Hanne.
Big big love : a sex and relationship guide for people of size (and those who love them) / by Hanne Blank. Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A comprehensive and practical guide on the how-tos and why-tos of love, romance, and great big sexuality for everyoneregardless of gender or orientationfrom the chubby to the supersized Provided by publisher.
1. Sex. 2. Sex instruction. 3. Sexual health. I. Title.
HQ21.B64 2011
813.54dc22

2011009409

eISBN: 978-1-58761-371-5

v3.1

In memoriam
Heather Reva Lucian
MacAllister
19682007

Fat-bottomed girls,
you make the rockin
world go round
QUEEN

Big Big Love had its beginnings in a zine I did with my friend, illustrator Liz Tamny, in the 1990s. Back in the days when this thing called desktop publishing was new and shiny, Zaftig! was an attempt to produce a publication focused on fat sexuality that I myself actually wanted to read. I had seen the sketchy, low-budget porn mags produced for straight guys who liked fat chicks. But they were, in a word, depressing. I didnt want pictures of fat women in bad makeup, poor lighting, and cheap, unpretty lingerie. I wanted images and words about people being sexual on their own terms, hot and complicated, not merely offering themselves up, with a whiff of hope-against-hope, to maybe just this once be the object of someones desire.

What I wanted was something that reflected my life and my friends lives. It struck me as a problem that, despite the immense quantities of porn out there in the world, there was really nowhere to encounter the desires and the sexual experiences of fat people themselves, male and female, straight and queer, different skin colors and backgrounds, kinky and vanilla, able-bodied and notthe whole funky mixed bag of fat humanity. Based on the idea that nobody should be deprived of their own image, Zaftig! tried to provide some of those images, reflecting some of the many bodies and sexualities that never seemed to make it into the frames and pages of mainstream sexual materials.

Zaftig! didnt last long, even with Lizs valiant work in the design department. I was in grad school at the time and producing zines is time consuming. It did, though, ultimately lead to my teaching some classes on sex and sexuality for fat folks at places like Bostons feminist sex toy store Grand Opening!, and that in turn led to my being asked to write the first version of Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them for Greenery Press. I had never written a book before and had never really given it any thought. Still, I believe, as the British composer Arnold Bax once said in Farewell, My Youth, you should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing, so I said Id do it. I wrote the original Big Big Love in a wild flurry, and in February 2000, it was published.

Having Big Big Love out in the world was a fascinating and weird experience. It certainly wasnt anything Id ever expected Id be doing with myself professionallyIm trained as a classical musician and as a historian. It was, however, a great learning experience and, for the most part, a lot of fun. I did a bunch of readings and workshops and met hundreds of fantastic, sexy, funny, smart people of all sizes and shapes. I gave a lot of interviews, including to interviewers who were, let us say, not always able to bring themselves to think kindly on the idea of this particular book. I spoke at some conferences, I lectured on some campuses, and I answered a metric ton of email from readers, much of which floored me with its candidness. If I had ever doubted that there was a need for fat people to have their own images reflected back to them in media that celebrated them as vital and vibrant and valid sexual beings, those emails made it crystal clear. Even now I still get reader mail from people who are just encountering the 2000 edition of Big Big Love. In 2001, I edited an anthology of fat-related erotica, a companion volume to Big Big Love if you will, named after my dearly departed zine. Zaftig: Well Rounded Erotica was published by Cleis Press.

By and by, I moved on to other projects, and eventually the original version of Big Big Love went out of print. By that time it was becoming outdated, and, although I certainly had mixed feelings about it no longer being available, I figured it was probably for the best. Then in 2010, Ten Speed Press approached me about doing a new Big Big Love, the book you are now holding in your hands.

Although the new Big Big Love resembles the original in some ways, and some of the section titles have stayed the same, the content is all fresh and newly written from the ground up. Only the positive attitude, and the general feeling that fat people are sexy people with no need whatsoever to apologize for their bodies, have been recycled. Additionally, thanks to the fantastic people at Ten Speed Press and our delicious, fat-positive, sexy-minded artists, photographer Molly Bennett and illustrator Elizabeth Tamny, this edition has artwork, something the original Big Big Love was unable to accommodate.

In putting together this new, updated, and hopefully even more useful Big Big Love, I was supported by many, many people in many wonderful ways. My gratitude, then, goes to Sheila Addison, Austin J. Austin, S. Bear Bergman, Will Byam, Leigh Ann Craig, Debbie Notkin, Jenny Erhardt, Anne Gwin, Zak Hubbard, Laura Waters Jackson, Substantia Jones, Kathleen Kennedy, Lesley Kinzel, Marissa Lingen, Keridwen Luis, Deb Malkin, Jude McLaughlin, Lisa Nichols, Golda Poretsky, Moira Russell, Sandy Ryan, Jeannette Smyth, Ned Sonntag, Mary Sykes, Elizabeth Tamny, Cheryl Wade, j wallace, Rhetta Wiley, Liza Wirtz, and Yohannon, along with numerous others. Thanks are also due to interns Kelly Morris and Arianna Iliff, Lisa Westmoreland and Julie Bennett at Ten Speed Press, and the unimprovable Christopher Schelling. To them, and to the Weinberg YMCA on 33rd Street here in Baltimore, Maryland, I owe a great deal of what passes for my sanity. Finally, my profound gratitude goes to Malcolm Gin, my partner of the past fifteen years. Thank you for being my love, my friend, and my favorite coconspirator ever. I really am the luckiest girl in the world.