Big Babes Deserve Great Sex Too: Sex Positivity’s Place in the Body Positivity Movement

By Carla Field

Whether you’ve been with your sexual partner for years or it’s your first time together, as a plus-size woman you'll probably have some sort of anxiety around sex. Personally, I have been with my partner for over eight years; we have a great and active sex life, but a part of me still gets anxious every time we slip between the sheets. 

I’m sure that there are many women out there who can relate to keeping their tops on, keeping the lights off, and to praying that your knees can take the pressure of being on top.  There are so many other fears that come with intimacy and being plus-size – too many to even get into. But I think most of us big babes know what I’m talking about. 

It’s often hard to express these feelings to others, particularly if you’re the only ‘fat friend’ in your friendship group. The worry that no one can relate to our struggles can hold us back from speaking up when the chat turns towards sex and relationships. More than likely, we become self-deprecating and pull ourselves down. It’s often hard not to – I find I can sometimes see the disgust on my friends’ faces when I openly talk about sex seriously. They don’t want to picture me as a sexual being.  

For far too long, plus-size women have been left out of the conversation when it comes to sex. We have all these fears and doubts about ourselves and our ability to be sexy, and I believe this is down to us not having any real representation in popular culture. In recent years (very recent years, might I add), there has been more plus-size lingerie on sale and a few books and TV shows about pleasurable plus-size sex. While this is a step in the right direction, I think it's fair to say that it's still not enough. 

Often, the women we see modelling plus-size lingerie are not plus-size at all. Instead, the set will carry to a size XXL, but the women modelling will be curvy with hourglass figures. It's so rare to find a plus-size lingerie range being modelled by real women. By real, I mean women with a belly, cellulite, and stretch marks, unedited. Bodies come in all manner of shapes and sizes, but we don’t see enough of that when it comes to sexy clothing or lingerie. It’s no wonder that many of us have self-image issues. How are we meant to feel sexy and confident when our body types aren’t even considered good enough to sell lingerie to women who look like us? I hope that the more sex and body positivity become mainstream and the more women talk about being sexual beings and putting themselves out there, the more representation we’ll see for women of bigger sizes. 

Making body positivity and sex positivity mainstream, regardless of size, is not going to be an easy road. When we use our platforms to talk openly about loving ourselves and feeling attractive, encouraging other women to do the same, we are met with trolls and unwanted opinions from people concerned for our health; people convinced that we’re promoting obesity. 

We are also fetishised by strange men. Fat fetish personally doesn’t make me feel good; I think it's just another way to objectify women of a certain size. In the past, I have doubted my relationships and sexual encounters because I was never confident enough in myself, but also because I worried that I was being fetishised. I still get similar worries now – not that my partner is fetishising me. But I worry about what people see when they look at us, seeing him much smaller than me and making assumptions about the nature of our relationship. Is he a feeder? Does she ‘squash’ him? All that ridiculous stuff crosses my mind. I know I shouldn’t care, but I do.  

I’m currently working on not caring about other people’s opinions of me and my relationship, but I am new to the body positivity movement, and it is taking a little time to love myself.  Being so new and finding all these truly inspiring, amazing women who are unashamedly themselves has definitely helped me when it came to writing this. I would have never spoken so openly about my sex life or experiences as a plus-size woman through fear of judgement, but this a subject that I am passionate about. I’ve been sex positive for many years. The next step for me is that sex and body positivity become one and the same. I want bigger women to not be ashamed about talking openly about sex. I want bigger women to be the amazing, gorgeous goddesses they are without fear of being fetishised or disregarded. 

Sexual positivity is for everyone, no matter what size. Bigger women have the right to feel attractive and to engage in the conversation about sex. We should try letting go of our ‘fat fear’ in the bedroom. Our sexual partners are there because they want to be; they’re going to enjoy themselves, and we should make sure that we do too. It’s more than likely that your partner even has some body insecurities of their own. Who doesn’t? Don’t feel pressured to perform like a porn star or to wear uncomfortable lingerie just because it's flattering; wear what makes you feel sexy and confident. Set boundaries, try different positions to find what's comfortable. We should embrace the fact that we’re plus-size and sexual beings. Big babes deserve great sex too.