Being A BBW, Feeling A BBW...
...What's the Difference?


Evolution of self perception. To me, that's the difference. "BBW" is merely a euphemism for 'fat.' I think it was a very useful term when first coined, and still does make things easier when writing and such, but is tired today from overuse. Of course, not all big women are beautiful simply because of their size. I think that it is one thing to call oneself a BBW because it's the common term, and another thing to use it due to the fact that the person is ashamed to just use the word 'Fat'-- because they are ashamed to be fat.



It is something entirely different to feel, inside and out, like a big, beautiful woman. Like a gorgeous fat woman. I don't know that I'm gorgeous, but I used that term in a personal ad once, just simply because I love the way it sounds and because most people aren't used to thinking in those terms, since to the rest of society 'fat' and 'gorgeous' seem to be mutually exclusive terms.



Like so many other fat people, I had a childhood full of teasing, disapproval, and diets -- which I won't go into today. Such messages when growing up only serve to undermine whatever tenuous confidence an adolescent might have. And sometimes prevents the person, even as an adult, from ever seeing what is truly right before them in the mirror.



Some days I just feel big; other days I feel beautiful, too. Once one gets past a negative, warped self-perception, so much of it is about attitude and effort. When I have put on my favorite outfit (a Chinese Red dress from Morocco), and my hair is beautiful and shiny; my make-up is done (but not over-done), I feel like a hot babe.



Years ago, no matter how dressed to the nines I was I almost never felt like a hot babe. I've always been and artist, but even as a portrait artist, it never would have occurred to me to draw a fat woman. Now, I've drawn several (including some nudes of myself -- THAT'S progress, believe me). Times change, and so can we.



We will feel about ourselves what we let ourselves feel. For better or for worse. What are we receptive to? The negative messages we have come to depend on for so long that we expect them and are surprised when they don't come? Or new messages, the ones we program for ourselves as we take responsibility for our own self-perception? Letting ourselves feel worthy of compliments, positive attention, and sexy smiles directed our way by meeting the person's eyes and saying, "Thank you," or smiling back. How about smiling at ourselves in the mirror because DAMN, that woman in the mirror looks hot! Yes, she's fat -- very fat, even. And she has cellulite and stretch marks (all of these things, to some, are beauty marks), and even may be sagging here and there. Such is life. But flip a little switch in the brain and look through new eyes. The roundness of her hips, like a ripe pear, is beautiful. Her stomach, large and perhaps pendulous looks like it's just begging to best! roked and rubbed. How comfortable it would be to lay a head upon such a pillow. Her legs have shapely curves everywhere.



What are you comparing yourself to? Venus of Willendorf, the original symbol of all that women were hoped to be, sexually and fertility-wise? Or a Photoshop-enhanced, siliconed woman who can't even live up to her own image in a magazine, and probably gives bruises to her lover from all the bones jutting out at him? We are starting to see larger images in some magazines. Images that look more like us. Of course, some say we as women are still being objectified in these magazines. That is for another day. What I am talking about today is how we define our own physical beauty.



This evolution of thought is the difference between being a BBW, and feeling like one.

One, perhaps, is one. The other knows it, down to the tips of her chubby little toes.






SoshBfly@aol.com