Sexual Advertising
Jun. 26th, 2010 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wigglewhizI spent all of my childhood, most of my teens and most of my twenties overweight to varying degrees. I lost about half of my excess weight through diet in the year when I was 25/26, and when I was 27 I split with my (very) long-term partner and lost the other half of the excess weight very quickly.
Losing the weight was something of a revelation. When you're overweight by a reasonable margin (without being extremely overweight where you unfortunately become MORE visible to a seriously assholey section of society), you become strangely invisible. You are not a sexual being, so no-one of the opposite gender notices you.
Now I assume that for people who are NOT overweight and never have been, they're familiar with being "visible", and have coping strategies for dealing with attention of both positive and negative kinds. When you have never been on the sexual radar, though - it's a horrifying and vulnerable position to be in to suddenly be viewed with hungry eyes. You have a kind of naivete that makes you incredibly gullible. Oh, look, this person wants to help you with your bags - WHOAH, WHOAH, who the hell said you could step inside my front door?! Oh, how nice, you have a couple new friends (guys), but why is that girl giving you the evil eye? And ohhhh, all of a sudden my male friend thinks he can make a move on me, this is totally horrible and awkward and what the hell and I supposed to do now? People who would never have glanced at you twice talk to you now. You don't have a "filter" for their bullshit yet. It's a learning experience, and one which can be quite painful - particularly, I have to say, when you find yourself suddenly single and seem to be emitting some kind of "SINGLE CHICK! OMFG!" pheromone that seems to make every douchebag within a twenty mile radius think you're interested in his nonsense. <sigh>
I've since gained the weight back again - almost all of it - and am invisible again. It's comfortable, in a way - but depressing. I'm embarking on the journey to get it back off, but it presents me with a strange conundrum. Sexual advertising - that is, the suggestion that what you wear/how you move/how you present yourself in general is a form of advertising your availability and attractiveness to the opposite sex. It may not be your intention, but it's how you may be interpreted.
As a fat girl, I don't need to worry about that right now. I don't wear anything that could be misinterpreted. I wear jeans. All. The. Time. Bootcut, of course, to balance out the booty (boy, do I have booty - when I'm slim and when I'm heavy, I am blessed with the bubble-butt). I wear a fleece almost like a uniform at the moment. I don't always wear baggy shirts, but the clothes I wear are generally dark-coloured, not terribly imaginative or decorative, in a word - functional. I do wear high heels every day, because some things you just don't let go.
I have a passion for trumpet skirts. The kind that hug the booty, and kick flare a little away from it. I love some sexy retro styles that emphasise shapely curves. I love accessories and eyeliner and all of the frivolity that you can indulge in when you're a chick. I *adore* high heels and feel that absolutely every woman (without exception!) should own a pair of red shoes. I have long, dark hair - which is currently tied back 90% of the time, because when you'r fat and invisible, why make the effort, right?
So underneath, I'm the same person as I always was. I'm just currently going incognito as a fat chick who doesn't make too much effort. When I lose the weight and go back to being a 10/12 (UK, so that's 6/8 US), I *will* be able to wear the type of clothes tat I find attractive - pencil skirts, fitted suits, silk blouses, booty skirts and jeans galore. And every conceivable sexy pair of shoes I can lay my grubby little hands on. And I find myself worrying about sexual advertising again - I might be abke to wear these things, but what will it mean for the way I find myself treated? In my mind, I've always been the same person. I'll be the same person when I'm standing in front of you wearing a form-fitting retro 50's red skirt, high heels and white silk blouse as I was when I was hiding behind my desk in black trousers and black shirt. But I'll suddenly be a dark-haired, red-high-heel wearing vixen instead of just me.
Reasonable? Unreasonable? I don't know. It's peculiar to think about it now, as it's something I never thought of when I intially started losing weight. I just looked forward to wearing whatever I wanted to, to shopping with abandon, to all of those gorgeous things that had been denied me for so many years. I didn't know what I was getting myself in for then, perhaps - and now I'm more aware of the fact that you attract attention in a way you never experienced before when you're no longer camouflaged by being considered undesirable.
I'm very happily spoken for, by a lovely man who has no jealousy issues. I'm taken very seriously at work where I am frighteningly good at what I do. How will these things change or be tested when I look completely different?
Losing the weight was something of a revelation. When you're overweight by a reasonable margin (without being extremely overweight where you unfortunately become MORE visible to a seriously assholey section of society), you become strangely invisible. You are not a sexual being, so no-one of the opposite gender notices you.
Now I assume that for people who are NOT overweight and never have been, they're familiar with being "visible", and have coping strategies for dealing with attention of both positive and negative kinds. When you have never been on the sexual radar, though - it's a horrifying and vulnerable position to be in to suddenly be viewed with hungry eyes. You have a kind of naivete that makes you incredibly gullible. Oh, look, this person wants to help you with your bags - WHOAH, WHOAH, who the hell said you could step inside my front door?! Oh, how nice, you have a couple new friends (guys), but why is that girl giving you the evil eye? And ohhhh, all of a sudden my male friend thinks he can make a move on me, this is totally horrible and awkward and what the hell and I supposed to do now? People who would never have glanced at you twice talk to you now. You don't have a "filter" for their bullshit yet. It's a learning experience, and one which can be quite painful - particularly, I have to say, when you find yourself suddenly single and seem to be emitting some kind of "SINGLE CHICK! OMFG!" pheromone that seems to make every douchebag within a twenty mile radius think you're interested in his nonsense. <sigh>
I've since gained the weight back again - almost all of it - and am invisible again. It's comfortable, in a way - but depressing. I'm embarking on the journey to get it back off, but it presents me with a strange conundrum. Sexual advertising - that is, the suggestion that what you wear/how you move/how you present yourself in general is a form of advertising your availability and attractiveness to the opposite sex. It may not be your intention, but it's how you may be interpreted.
As a fat girl, I don't need to worry about that right now. I don't wear anything that could be misinterpreted. I wear jeans. All. The. Time. Bootcut, of course, to balance out the booty (boy, do I have booty - when I'm slim and when I'm heavy, I am blessed with the bubble-butt). I wear a fleece almost like a uniform at the moment. I don't always wear baggy shirts, but the clothes I wear are generally dark-coloured, not terribly imaginative or decorative, in a word - functional. I do wear high heels every day, because some things you just don't let go.
I have a passion for trumpet skirts. The kind that hug the booty, and kick flare a little away from it. I love some sexy retro styles that emphasise shapely curves. I love accessories and eyeliner and all of the frivolity that you can indulge in when you're a chick. I *adore* high heels and feel that absolutely every woman (without exception!) should own a pair of red shoes. I have long, dark hair - which is currently tied back 90% of the time, because when you'r fat and invisible, why make the effort, right?
So underneath, I'm the same person as I always was. I'm just currently going incognito as a fat chick who doesn't make too much effort. When I lose the weight and go back to being a 10/12 (UK, so that's 6/8 US), I *will* be able to wear the type of clothes tat I find attractive - pencil skirts, fitted suits, silk blouses, booty skirts and jeans galore. And every conceivable sexy pair of shoes I can lay my grubby little hands on. And I find myself worrying about sexual advertising again - I might be abke to wear these things, but what will it mean for the way I find myself treated? In my mind, I've always been the same person. I'll be the same person when I'm standing in front of you wearing a form-fitting retro 50's red skirt, high heels and white silk blouse as I was when I was hiding behind my desk in black trousers and black shirt. But I'll suddenly be a dark-haired, red-high-heel wearing vixen instead of just me.
Reasonable? Unreasonable? I don't know. It's peculiar to think about it now, as it's something I never thought of when I intially started losing weight. I just looked forward to wearing whatever I wanted to, to shopping with abandon, to all of those gorgeous things that had been denied me for so many years. I didn't know what I was getting myself in for then, perhaps - and now I'm more aware of the fact that you attract attention in a way you never experienced before when you're no longer camouflaged by being considered undesirable.
I'm very happily spoken for, by a lovely man who has no jealousy issues. I'm taken very seriously at work where I am frighteningly good at what I do. How will these things change or be tested when I look completely different?
