Category: Adipose

Size & Sexuality

On December 24, 2008

In Adipose, Sex Blogging, Size & Sexuality Survey

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):

Publishing
Can I publish your answers on my blog?
If so, can I use your name or would you prefer to be anonymous?

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

Side View Exposition (HNT)

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On November 20, 2008

In Adipose, Introspection

Click for the larger version.

Since I figured you’ve all seen enough of my face lately…

Seriously, though, the reason why I posted this is because I hate my arms. I showed a flash of tit so that there would be something else to look at too, but the main focus is my upper arm and thigh.

I remember the moment I started hating my arms, I don’t remember exactly how old I was only that I was in high school. I was talking with my dad about buying clothes or something about clothes and he told me that he wouldn’t buy me any tank-tops because I shouldn’t show my arms off because they were fat. My dad said that, he whose body type I emulate and who is heavier than me. I just about died.

I still hear his tone when he said that to me, so nonchalant. I’m sure he didn’t mean to cause harm by it specifically, it was just something he felt the need to inform me of, as if I wasn’t already painfully aware of my fat body. He wasn’t trying to be mean, but he did make me overly self-conscious about my fat upper arms.

The more I think about my dad and all the things he’s said to me over the years in passing, all the little remarks, insisting I should sit in the front when five people are in the car because I’m the largest, little things that I’m sure he doesn’t mean to be hurtful but that are. The more I think about his attitude towards size in general I realize that he’s extremely fatphobic, and a lot of fat people are.

I guess it makes sense, and I shouldn’t be surprised by that realization, but I was the first time I had it. Pretty much everyone has some fatphobia in them, I know I still do, although I actively work against it. So here I am working against my fat arm phobia, by letting you all see it in all it’s large glory.

I blame/thank Bevin for helping me with the courage to post this, though it’s still taken me all day to actually do it. Back on my HNT two weeks ago I mentioned “I have a thing about showing my arms, especially my upper arms, I blame my dad for that, so I had to cover them up with something.” She responded to the post that “unearth[ing] your upper arms” is “crucial to fat activism” and I’ve been thinking a lot about that in the last two weeks, especially with my posting of The Adipositivity Project and looking at all the bold beautiful big sexy women who are uncovered there.

I’m still not where I want to be health-wise, and I still have that inner voice telling me to keep myself covered, but I need to get to a better emotional place before I have the motivation to do all that I want to, and this is a step toward that, so enjoy.

The Adipositivity Project

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On November 12, 2008

In Adipose

I only discovered The Adipositivity Project yesterday via Feministing, and I have been looking through the images ever since. They are absolutely gorgeous photographs of real women who are fat and proclaiming it proudly. Women who are sexy AND fat and who are trying to show that is not an oxymoron, even though society at large thinks it is. We sexy fat women know that we can be sexy, though sometimes it can be hard to know that, and sometimes we forget that, but through asserting ourselves as sexy beings we may be able to make others realize it as well. Size positivity is all about recognizing that fat people are people too, we are sexy and gorgeous and fat.

From the Adipositivity Project website:

Adipose: Of or relating to fat.

Positivity: Characterized by or displaying acceptance or affirmation.

MISSION:

The Adipositivity Project aims to promote size acceptance, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather, through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that’s normally unseen.

The hope is to widen definitions of physical beauty. Literally.

The photographs here are close details of the fat female form, without the inclusion of faces. One reason for this is to coax observers into imagining they’re looking at the fat women in their own lives, ideally then accepting them as having aesthetic appeal which, for better or worse, often translates into more complete forms of acceptance.

The women you see in these images are educators, executives, mothers, musicians, professionals, performers, artists, activists, clerks, and writers. They are perhaps even the women you’ve clucked at on the subway, rolled your eyes at in the market, or joked about with your friends.

This is what they look like with their clothes off.

Some are showing you their bodies proudly. Others timidly. And some quite reluctantly. But they all share a determination in altering commonly accepted notions of a narrow and specific beauty ideal.

Identity Musings – Part 3

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 16, 2008

In Adipose, Gender Galaxy

A follow-up post to Identity Musings – Part 1 and – Part 2, I highly recommend you reading those two first.

For a long time I wondered if I was just trying to make up an identity that isn’t necessary. If I was so transphilic maybe I was just making up an identity so that I wouldn’t be cisgendered. Is that the case? I still wonder that, but reading through Pomosexuals has helped me realize that I’m not the only female-assigned person to have this conflict inside of me, I’m not even the only female-assigned bi-/pan-sexual/queer person to love queer men and women and to have a boi personae as well as a femme personae, as also evidenced by The Leather Daddy and the Femme.

Still, that nagging fear that I’m just trying to not be cisgendered (not that there’s anything wrong with being cisgendered, but as I mentioned, I’m rather transphilic so it’s not as much a conscious desire not to be cisgendered, but one I wonder if I have internalized), that I’m trying to make more of something that’s inside of me and not exactly being true to it, that fear makes me doubt and question, and I hate it. I’m not sure how to prove to myself that this is the case, except to examine it, embrace it, and see how it feels.

I’ve said for years that my embraced drag queen identity was not just about all gender being drag, but also because I identify with a type of femininity that can not exactly be expressed by female-assigned people. It’s a queer over-the-top femininity that I love and identify with, it’s similar to femme but it’s not quite the same. Part of that identification, I think, is being “larger than life” or, larger than society tells women we are allowed to be. My fatness allows me to inhabit a space that non-fat women can’t (pun intended).

In addition to just being fat I’m also tall, about 5’10”, and have always been tall. I was 5’8″ by 7th grade, I’ve worn size 11 shoes also since 7th grade. I remember being proud of that, proud to wear my freak label, proud to be taller than most of the boys in my class, proud to be large and queer and strange and a freak. It was difficult at times, but I embraced and owned my queerness from an early age, because I knew that there wasn’t another way for me to be.

I identify with drag queens, but I also identify with femmes. It’s two different yet similar kinds of fem(me)ininity, and I try to inhabit them both at different times, perhaps that’s another personae I need to adopt a name for, to adequately seperate the differences so that I can analyze them easier, so that I can understand her better.

The truth is I have multiple personas within me, each with hir own voice, each needing recognition, and so I’m trying to recognize all of them, but it’s a long and dubious process. I’m not sure I’ll ever know all of them fully, but I have to try, otherwise I will be out of touch with myself. Each personae has different desires, and I fully intend to figure them all out.

The first step to analyzation is to recognize that which you are analyzing, right? Otherwise you aren’t able to analyze something you don’t know about. These “Identity Musings” posts have been about just that, going back to track the expansion and development of these identities in a new way, so that I am able to recognize these different aspects of myself and therefore come to a greater understanding of them. I have a more specifically queer related one on the way (since these have dealt mostly with gender).

Project LifeSize

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On September 13, 2008

In Adipose

Found here via Feministing. Above is the casting call (which ended at the end of July) and currently Project LifeSize has 13 videos (not counting the casting call), all of which I have watched. It is a wonderful display of real women sharing about their lives and experiences, and those of you who enjoy people or getting to know others online (which, I would assume, would be most of you) then I think you will enjoy it.

It has great potential, and is only in the second week of video productions, so you don’t have too many videos to catch up on. Here is a little info right from their YouTube channel page

…What is the point of Project Lifesize?…
When I was younger I didn’t have anyone in my corner telling me that I was beautiful, regardless of what the media or my peers told me. I wanted to create a dialogue about not just weight acceptance, but acceptance in general.

..Why aren’t there guys?…
Well, there were quite a few submissions to the casting call. If I could have had everyone on the channel I would have. We are open to brother or sister channels to join us.

……Why did you put out a call for only “beautiful and sexy” girls?…
I didn’t mean to infer that I was looking for only the “pretty” girls. I think that beautiful and sexy can be applied to all women and I don’t find physical beauty a necessity to meet those requirements. The girls on the channel were not chosen because they met a certain ideal of beauty. Their inner beauty jumped off the screen.
We can’t speak for everyone who has felt overlooked or unworthy of love and respect.
We can only hope you are moved enough to use your own voice.

So, go check out Project LifeSize! (P.S. I totally have a crush on one of the girls… not telling which. Can you guess?)

Size vs. Health

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 20, 2008

In Adipose, Introspection

I came to a realization over this past weekend, in fact I came to many realizations, but this is the one I’m going to share with you today. I don’t usually talk about personal things that don’t relate directly to some aspect of my identity. Although this does relate to my fat identity, but in a different way than I would normally post about it (not sure if that makes sense). Basically, this is the kind of post I would usually reserve for LiveJournal and not for this blog, but it is something that I need to talk about, and something that I feel I should share on here.

I haven’t been taking care of my body well enough. I’m so focused on sex and sexuality but I have been ignoring the physical, which seems contradictory but somehow it still happened. I have been trying to live as a disembodied mind, seperate from my body while at the same time sexual and loving it… it hasn’t been working so well.

I’ve been signed up with a personal trainer since January and I’ve been going (though not going to the gym as often as I feel I should) but I haven’t lost that much weight or changed my body that much. I have been eating better (though not all that much better) and I haven’t been losing weight, and it’s time for me to change that. I have known this for a while, but there’s a difference between knowing something and realizing something.

This brings me to an interesting struggle. I love being fat, I love being a bbw, but I am currently unhealthy and that is a problem. There is a difference between being fat and being healthy, and I’m way past healthy. Four years ago I went from a size 24 to a size 14. I doubt I will ever be smaller than a size 14, and I’m more than okay with that. My body type doesn’t lend itself to being smaller, and a 14/16 is (I think) the most attractive and ideal body image for me. Currently I am back up to a size 26.

I am heavier than I have ever been in my life before this, I am uncomfortable and I teeter between being unhappy with my weight and being depressed. The strange thing is that while I can get depressed with being unhealthy I still love myself and my body, just not where it is right now. It seems like a paradox, and it kind of is, but it somehow works.

The main reason I am talking about this is because my health is something I’m dedicated to change, but I’m also talking about this because there is this crazy paradox within society. The emphasis should be on health rather than size, but it’s hard to seperate one from the other. Most people equate them when, in reality, they can be worlds apart. Skinny people can have just as many or more health issues than large people, but we don’t always think of that. However, in my current state I am unhealthy, and I realize this.

Dominus and I have talked about both of our health issues. Basically he is in the same situation as I am. If we could be disembodied consciousness’ (which could still have sex) we would, but then we’d also miss out on all the fun things that bodies can do. We have decided to start a new routine which includes not only bodily health but also spiritual health, something we have been putting off since we lost our temple. We are going to create a new temple for us to work within as well as incorporate yoga (vinyasa, pranayama, and kundalini), the five Tibetan rites, and Tai Chi into our normal routines. I am also thinking of taking up bellydancing again.

This will also change our sleeping and eating patterns (for the better, I’m hoping) and switch our usual meal-a-day together from dinner to breakfast, which I’m a big fan of. It is rather ambitious, but it’s necessary. I’ll sneak little updates into my posts.

Fabulous Fat FemmeCast

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On July 11, 2008

In Adipose, Gender Galaxy

Another wonderful femme resource found via Sinclair Sexsmith.

The FemmeCast is amazing, I’m listening to the third cast right now about fat femme self esteem. I absolutely love it. They just finished a segment about the Femme Conference which I still desperately want to go to! I wish I had money. Alas. If anyone out there needs a roommate I may be able to make it happen… I doubt it, though. Anyway, back to the cast info.

FemmeCast: The Queer Fat Femme Podcast Guide to Life is an audio newsmagazine for Queer Fat Femmes, Fatshionistas of all sexualities and Queers of all genders. Hosted by Bevin Branlandingham with a cadre of regular contributors, we’re discussing dating, fat fashion, social justice, friendships, sex, gender, tranny talk, culture, travel, community and feature new music by Queer artists. A whimsical This American Life meets a radical queer how-to novel with MTV generation timing, FemmeCast will keep listeners laughing, connected and inspired.

There is a lot of amazing information within this cast, and I can’t wait to listen to the other episodes. It has made me laugh and made me feel better about myself to hear all of these wonderful fat femmes and fat femme lovers talk about how awesome and fabulous it is to be/love a fat femme. I mean, how awesome is that? What would you rather listen to than something which will make you feel better about yourself?

BBW Shibari by Hikari Kesho

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On June 23, 2008

In Adipose, Power Play

Found via the BBW Submission group on FetLife. Not only is the lighting gorgeous, it’s lovely to see some bondage done with big fat beautiful women as the subjects.

View the gallery!

Spilling Over: A Fat, Queer Anthology

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On June 1, 2008

In Adipose, Sexuality

Something I’m thinking about writing a piece for, I’ll have to come up with a suitable idea first, but it would be something I could do. I don’t talk a lot about size issues in this blog, though I have been thinking about them more and more lately, and reading more fat/size-oriented blogs like Femme FATale (among others). The call for submissions was found on her blog:

Call for Submissions

Working Title: Spilling Over: A Fat, Queer Anthology
Contact: spillingover@gmail.com
Submission Deadline: December 1, 2008

Despite the attention given by queer studies to the materiality of bodies and the cultural and social inscriptions that designate them, still a dearth of both scholarship and literature exists around intersections of gender, sexuality, and fatness. As fat studies begins to emerge as a viable academic location of inquiry, questions surface as to how fat bodies, deemed “excessive” in their trespasses of size and space, create even more complex subject positions when compounded by queer desires. This proposed anthology seeks contributions addressing junctions of “fat” and “queer” in pieces that consider the representations and resistances of non-normative corporeality and also writings considering the theoretical conceptions of these intricate subjectivities. Spilling Over will reflect the notions of excess, boundaries, and containment implied by the labels “fat” and “queer” both singularly and collectively. In the form of scholarly writing and creative non-fiction pieces, essay submissions might consider (but are not limited to):

* theorizing the concept of “excess” as it pertains to fatness and queerness
* fat and queer identities; personal narratives; reclaiming “fat” and “queer”
* notions of (in)visibility, hypervisibility, and passing and/or privilege
* intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, (dis)ability, age, and religion
* the economics of the obesity “epidemic” and the diet industry
* fat, queer art and performance; performativity
* pleasure, sex-positivity, eroticizing non-normative bodies
* acceptance movements, political activism, resistance
* the engagement of feminism with fatness
* global, transnational, transcultural constructions of fat, queer bodies and lives
* critical reflections of fatness and queerness in media, literature, film, music, and visual arts
* the rhetoric of fat oppression, fatphobia, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, responding to and/or addressing hate speech

By December 1, 2008, please send your 2,000 – 6,000 word submission, along with your complete contact information and a 50-100 word biography, to spillingover@gmail.com with the subject line of “Spilling Over – Submission.” Submissions must be received in 12 point Times New Roman font and sent in via Word documents (PDFs will not be accepted). Pieces will be reviewed and decisions made by April 2009. Please note that accepted submissions will be approved on a tentative basis, pending editorial board approval once the anthology has secured a publisher.

Questions can be directed to me at spillingover@gmail.com or visit the MySpace page at www.myspace.com/spillingoveranthology

I heart Leonard Nemoy

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On February 15, 2008

In Adipose

Leonard Nemoy on The Colbert Report talking about his book of nude bbw photography and making wonderful statements about our negative standards of beauty and female body image issues. Not really new information, but having it said on tv by Leonard Nemoy is pretty rad.