|
|
|
This is Zoe (one of my readers) in her stunning corset by Xcentricities
Corsets
http://www.corset.net/
A Plethora of Big Beautiful Babes;
Answering the question of why are there so many fat women in the
BDSM scene?
By Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com
www.sensuoussadie.com
I'm a big beautiful woman, a fat girl, whatever you want to call me. And
as many of you know, I'm also a size acceptance activist. So let's just
get that out there up front so we can establish my credibility. I don't
mind being called fat because that's what I am; it's just a word after
all. It also turns out that thanks to working out I'm also healthy,
flexible, and have really great legs. Just don't call me late to dinner.
I have a number of male friends in the scene who have an interestingly
wide variety of takes on us plus-sized babes. There's my former partner
Griffin who used to say "I love round women" and boy did I love him in
return for that! It gave me license to be as sexually wild as I wanted
to be and I bet he had one hell of a time in bed with me. On the other
end of the spectrum is my buddy Jon who won't date anyone who isn't thin
and he doesn't make any bones about it. And you know what? That doesn't
bother me so much either, because we all have a right to our limits and
he's up front and honest about his. After all, I have some limits too
although they aren't about physical differences. Griffin and Jon
represent the extremes of course and as things go, most people fit
somewhere in the middle of the bell curve.
On the negative end of the curve is Sir Craig who told me that "big
girls rock" when he was first with me, but later told me that he didn't
like my body after all. This was so humiliating that I would never
submit to him again. I couldn't get it out of my head that I had made
love to someone who had looked at my body with distaste instead of joy;
to have given my body to a Dominant and have them reject that gift is
almost unbearably painful. And finally, on the quirky positive end of
the spectrum is my good friend and partner Master Xavier who does indeed
love me and my body just as I am, but has also admitted that he has a
little fetish for petite women. Does this stop him from grooving on me
too? It sure does not, nor has he allowed his appreciation of all things
small to limit his appreciation of all things big and squeezable as they
arrive through me. Master Xavier has got this one right, because we all
have our little fantasies I'd like to be in bed with Richard Gere too
but I understand that that's not likely to happen so instead of
waiting to be with the one I love (Richard) I love the one I'm with
(Xavier).
Of all these people, only Griffin would be in hog heaven (so to speak)
in today's BDSM community because there's an interesting thing going on
there. At BDSM gatherings of all sorts (munches, events, play parties),
I have observed that there is a predominance of plus-sized women; in
fact they far outnumber the slender women. Oh I know, we're not supposed
to talk about those kinds of things openly. Well to heck with that! If I
can talk about myself being fat, then I can look around me and say I see
lots of fat women around me too; because open dialogue is always a good
thing. Now when I look at other communities like the people at my work,
I see that the percentage of women, say over size 16, is far smaller,
maybe five to ten percent, but that may not be a typical group. I have
also read that some sixty percent of American women are size fourteen
and over although I don't have a reference for that data. My question
then would be why! I haven't observed any patterns like this for men,
although my friend Stacey disagrees with this, saying, "In my
experience, there are as many larger men at least as Dominants as
there are larger women," although she does add that, "It's been my
experience that male subs are far more body conscious and fit...probably
because there are 27 male subs for every Dominant." I've had some
discussions about this with Master Xavier as well as other friends, both
thin and fat, and we've come up with some ideas as follows.
We Pride Ourselves on Diversity
We celebrate and are particularly interested in people who do not
fit the norm, because at a fundamental level the norm represents
traditional vanilla relationships thus not only are plus sized women
more welcome, but so are transgendered and other people that aren't
appreciated in the broader culture. Because we are in essence a fringe
community, we are more tolerant toward variation in people within our
own community. My friend Stacey puts it this way: "People within the
bdsm community have accepted a part of themselves that isn't correct as
defined by the mainstream culture (although, bdsm appears to be
the kink du jour, what with all the new movie trailers and plethora of
references throughout the media). Once you've said 'the hell with what
society thinks,' well, it's not a big leap to say the same thing about
size." While certainly there can be found plenty of criticism of each
other's kinks as well, overall we are more likely to accept each other's
differences than any outsider is likely to.
Hedging your Bets
In the general vanilla world I get a certain number of men
interested in me, but not an overwhelming amount. In the BDSM community
however, because I am female and heterosexual, I have my choice of many
Dominants to choose from. I suspect that it's a similar situation for
many other plus-sized gals. In other words, the ratio of men to women
makes the BDSM community a far better bet in general for finding a mate.
Darwin's Natural Selection Selects Padding and Pain Tolerance
Women with padding are better able to take pain, and are more
comfortable in many BDSM type situations simply because they do have
more padding around their bones, tendons, and other sensitive parts. In
the long run this acts as a kind of "natural selection," weeding out the
slim ones who are less likely to enjoy pain oriented play in particular.
I would also argue that spanking a bouncing and jiggling bottom is a lot
more fun than a skinny flat ass (same with the rest of the body).
Master Xavier also tells me that in his personal experience slim women
have a lower pain threshold than plus sized women. I don't know if this
can be verified in any practical way, but if it is true it could account
for some of the difference in numbers. The reason is this: Most people
start their BDSM explorations with a little spanking or nipple tweaking
in relatively vanilla situations. If they hate it as a pain-sensitive
person might, then they will probably over time not gravitate
toward BDSM as lifestyle. However, if they like it, chances are that
over time they may move toward BDSM. If you're looking at a
community that is mostly made up of people 35 to 50 years old, then
these are people that have for the most part already matured in
their sexuality and so would explain part of the predominance of larger
women. Not to mention that as a whole, the population's waistline does
tend to expend for both men and women as we age. We might well see a
major difference if we visited one of the BDSM groups made up of 18 to
30 year olds.
It's Not the Size of the Prize but the Motion of the Ocean
Our BDSM community values people more for what they bring to the
table (pun intended) than what their physical body is. So if you can
whip the hell out of people or your service skills are exemplary, it
matters little if you are stunningly beautiful, a size 4, or 18 years
old; all attributes that are particularly valued in our culture. This
information is often included in BDSM 101 articles for novices so it may
bring in proportionally more novices who are plus-sized and feeling shy.
What about the Body Image Factor?
I know Im stepping into delicate territory here, but I'd venture to
say that self esteem and body image may be a factor. My sense is that
while almost all women seem to have a low self esteem about their
bodies, large women in general often outright hate their bodies. I
wonder if the overall lower self esteem of fat women, particularly
submissive fat women draws them to the scene because their negative self
worth falsely leads them to believe that they will still be wanted as
Submissives out of some twisted idea about submission being equal to
doormat. For what it's worth, I would argue that Submissives of this
sort will not be very popular because in my opinion, a Submissive
with low self-esteem is a pain-in-the-ass Submissive.
Fat Girls Gone Wild Finally!
On the flip side of the self esteem issue is the that the open
sexual atmosphere of the BDSM community provides a venue to express
ourselves physically and sexually that large women never really had
before. Thin women have always been able to dress sexily and scantily on
any public beach and receive lots of positive strokes, but these
activities are ones that plus-sized women for the most part have
been left out of. Not only do most fat women avoid the beach, but we
would laughed off the beach if we paraded around like we do at a BDSM
event. In addition, I have heard about some research that states that
plus-sized women have a higher sex-drive due to hormonal differences.
This could cause women who are more sexually active broadly speaking
to become more active in a public BDSM community such as play parties.
So the news about the BDSM scene and us beautiful big babes is great for
Griffin and not so good for Jon. What is Jon to do? Well, I do observe
him dating a lot more younger women (who are also slim) so that may be
one response. I think that at some point I will address whether we can
change our ingrained attitudes about our attraction to different body
types, but this is obviously not the
venue to
do that. What is important here is
to allow this topic to be recognized and discussed openly. Dialogue is
always a good thing because it opens up lines of conversation and
communication. So if you want to talk to me about size issues just ask
the question and I'll see about answering. And if you've never been with
a plus-sized gal, well I guess if you're over 30, this might be the time
to start broadening your horizons. After all
Big Girls ROCK!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sensuous Sadie is the author of It's Not About the Whip: Love, Sex,
and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene. Read an excerpt at
http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html. She is the founder and
leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn, Vermont's first BDSM group.
Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting
can be addressed to her at
SensuousSadie@aol.com or visit her website at
www.sensuoussadie.com. Sadie
believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information freely
is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing in most
venues.
Copyright 2006 Sadie Sez Publications
|
|
|
