How Not to Make Love to a Fat Girl

January 13, 2015 / Yesika Salgado

People — and in this context, women — are more than just their body parts: their fat, their bellies, their thighs, their skin.

When you’re attracted to a fat person (or any one who has a marginalized body or identity), and they invite you to share sexual intimacy with them, don’t objectify or fetishize them. As this poet says, “Make love to the whole of them.”

If you’re intimidated by the stigma, or unsure of yourself, be vulnerable and open-hearted and ask questions. Ask your partner what they desire and don’t desire. Allow them to teach you how they want to be treated.

Learn their boundaries and get consent. Not only is consent required, but it allows for the sort of physical and emotional safety necessary for intimate connection to truly be fulfilling for all parties involved.

“Trust me, you’ll get luckier this way.”

With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism

Click for the Transcript

YESIKA SALGADO: When we’re sitting on your bed, our bodies are hungry, tongues, and heavy breathing.

When I’ve given up my clothes to your teeth, your hands, the floor — baby, please do not rub my belly. It’s weird and totally not sexy.

Immediately, immediately, I’ll think of Buddha or Winnie the Pooh, and no woman wants to think of either one right before having sex.

Now, I know I come with a lot of extra around my abdomen and you probably want to show me how you appreciate the whole of me, but that can be done in any other way. Hell, be creative.

Consider it a challenge.

Teach me something new. But whatever you do, don’t sit there and rub my gut like a genie lamp for fifteen minutes.

Sex with someone new is awkward for everyone. Sex with someone new when things about your body often frighten you is nerve-wracking.

Turning yourself over to another person is one of the greatest acts of surrender I’ve yet to know, but boys make it difficult to be a fat girl graceful in her own body. Often taking my size as an invitation to be ridiculous.

Dismantling my large inter-body parts whenever questioned what it is that they like about me, as if it were too much to ask to find the whole of me desirable.

Or if all else fails, they think the answer “Big girls are my thing” is supposed to make me want to jump out of my panties.

Then there are those that think that this body can function like that of their smaller lovers and think I’m being modest when I say no to ridiculous suggestions, like having sex in the driver seat of a two-door sports car. It is fucking physically impossible and says nothing about my self esteem.

Now, I know everyone comes with their own hangups.

I imagine a balding man does not like it when their lover slowly traces an index finger over their thinning hair line or someone with extra toe probably avoids any people with foot fetishes.

I am larger than most women, and sometimes I care about this more than who I am sleeping with does. I worry about being attractive enough to last further than when my lover exists me.

In the past, I have apologized for my size with silence, but you, darling, you’ve met me in a new age.

The best sex I ever had was with a man who touched and kissed all of the skin as if we were both discovering it for the first time.

This is my new standard — and I invite you to make it yours, too — so that when you make love to the whole of me, my belly will feel included, without you turning me into a Buddha statue.

Trust me, you’ll get luckier this way.

To learn more about this topic, check out the following:

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Yesika Salgado is a poet by day, astronaut by night, Salvadorian Fly/Fat/Brown Girl all the time. You can follow her on Twitter at @YesikaStarr. Video courtesy of Button Poetry. For more amazing spoken word performances, check them out on YouTube and Facebook.