Size & Sexuality

From The Full Body Project by Leonard Nimoy

I’ve been thinking a lot about size in general, both big and small and everywhere in between. Chicory (who I met face-to-face yesterday and is fantastic!) and I have been conversing about it, via email, comments, and in our meeting yesterday, and inspired by Thursday’s Child’s Sex and Intimacy Project I want to pose some questions to all of you.

Size acceptance is coming to be an issue I am passionate about. I’ve forever had the same hangups as, well, just about everyone in this culture. The same negative feelings towards my size. Though it’s important to distinguish between health and size, even though our society does not really view it that way. We are told that thin equals healthy and fat equals unhealthy, though I know plenty of thin people who eat much much worse than I do, and yet. But I digress.

The questions I want to pose have to do with the intersection of size and sexuality in your life. They may have no intersection at all, or you may have never thought of the intersection, but either way I want to hear about it. This may seem obvious, but the most interesting aspect, I believe, will be to see how everyone differs and what similarities there are, as well as being able to get a glimpse of the person within their answers.

Weight and size are touchy subjects in our culture, as is sexuality. Both have to do with the body and have moral judgments thrust upon them. Both are aspects of the self that are extremely personal and also that have strong cultural expectations and meanings. Both affect the way we present ourselves and think about ourselves.

The Size & Sexuality Study is a series of interviews highlighting real people’s answers to the questionnaire below. At the end of the posting of interviews (end date not known) I will post my own reactions to the study as well as my own answers, and how reading the feelings and thoughts of all these interesting and informative people has affected me over the space of the study.

Want to answer the questions? Fill out the questions below and send them to me: scarletsexgeek AT gmail DOT com

In order for these interviews to be what I would consider successful I need you to be completely honest. This is about real people talking honestly about their bodies and their sexuality, recognizing what society tells us about our bodies and recognizing how that affects our own ideas about how we should or should not act. If you wish you thought one way but really think another I want to hear that, not just what you wish you thought.

The focus of these questions are not just on large/fat/plus-sized women, I’m interested in answers from everyone of all sizes, all genders, all sexes, and so on. If you want to answer them, please do!

Feel free to skip any of the general info questions you are not comfortable answering, but please do answer all of the others. The more in-depth the answers the better, but in-depth and lengthy are not always the same thing (though they can be).

General Info
Name (what you’d like to be called):
Age:
Gender identity and presentation:
Sexual identity:
Relationship status:
Blog/Website (if you have one):

Size & Sexuality
What size is your body (you can use dress/pant sizes, a general description, anything you’re comfortable with, though remember that not all terms mean the same thing to the same people.)?
How comfortable are you with your body both in general and your body size specifically?
How has your relation with and attitude toward your body and the size of your body changed over time?
How important is sexuality to your life?
How has your relation with and attitude toward your sexuality changed over time?
How comfortable are you with expressing yourself and your body sexually?
How comfortable is society with the idea of viewing your body as sexual?
Through answering these questions and/or thinking about your relation to your body and your sexuality, have you noticed any links or similarities between the two? If so, what?
Anything else you would like to add?

Feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments or via email, but please don’t answer the questionnaire in the comments. sizeandsexuality AT gmail DOT com