by Cary Tennis
(12/12/07)

Read Susannah Indigo's review of Cary Tennis' new book, Since You Asked.

Help! I'm falling for a fat man!
    I like this guy a lot, but the poundage is a turnoff.

Currently I'm dating a man who just won't leave my consciousness, not for a moment. I think of him all the time. He's pretty special.

My problem is this: This wonderful man with whom I've shared some amazing moments and do share a phenomenal connection...he's overweight. He's not merely out of shape or a hike and a swim away from fit, he's fat.

I've made a conscious effort to look past it ("it" being my own stupid, shallow, superficial, counterproductive reaction to the weight), but there it is, all of the time. In bed, he's attentive, very strong, wonderful -- we enjoy genuine chemistry -- but even when the lights are out I find it difficult to navigate his flesh. I'm a smallish person stature-wise; it's difficult for me to wind around a man with what little leg I've been given, never mind a man the size of one and a half men.

Worse yet is I fear being a selfish lover, because I don't fantasize pleasing him the way I would ordinarily with a slimmer man. I'm intimidated, daunted and generally unprepared for certain activities.

I don't know what to do. It's a turnoff. And worst of all, part of the reason it's a turnoff is that I see myself with a head-turner when the lights are on. I've always been with striking men -- not pretty boys, but men who had that quality; after all, it's that quality which turns my head in the first place. And this man just doesn't light my fire in that way. I'm attracted to nearly everything about him but his size. So he doesn't light my fire, and doesn't feed my ego in the company of strangers. I hate myself even for admitting it; it's just so superficial.

Am I trying to convince myself that we have a future together? Is there any way I can get past my bias and enjoy this person for who he is in total?

Weighing in, in Washington

Dear Weighing in,

You haven't gotten this far by pretending. You've gotten this far by being straightforward and honest, and I suggest you continue being straightforward and honest.

This is harder, of course, because we are freaked out about fat. It is one of our crazy things. It goes deep. It has its paradoxes and corollaries as well -- we are freaked out about skinny, and we are freaked out about food, and the planet, and the body and money and exercise and power. We are a freaked-out culture. We are all freaked out.

The fat man knows this.

If you are a fat man in America you cannot help noticing that people are freaked out about fat. People will suggest exercise bikes. They will feed you lean portions. They will say to each other, "It's his fault, and it's disgusting; he must have no willpower; he must eat the wrong things; he must be repressing something; he must not respect himself." And what does he say? He says, Yes, thank you for that astute observation, I have indeed noticed that I am fat.

So I suggest what you do is go in your backyard and sit quietly and meditate on the fact that you are not turned on by this fat man. Meditate on the fact that you like him very much but he doesn't turn you on. Wait for something to come to you. Accept the answer that comes. If you come to the feeling that you have to end it, then end it. If you come to the feeling that you want to stay with him for a while more, then stay with him for a while more. If you come to both, then put each on an apothecary's scale, weigh them and choose the one that weighs a little more.

Don't try to reason it out and don't guilt-trip yourself. We don't know why we are the way we are. It's not our job to know. Just meditate on it and wait for an answer.

Maybe you meditate on it and the answer that comes is that it's just not right for you. OK. Make a tearful goodbye. Or maybe you meditate on it and it continues to intrigue you and so you stay with him for a while. What's the harm in that? Maybe you learn something new. Maybe you have sex and it turns out to be good. Maybe it's just some learning you have to do -- maybe you are not used to having sex in ways that are not automatic; maybe there would be some learning at first and then it would be automatic, just as it always was. What can it hurt to find out?

And by the way, why are you in such a hurry lately? Two or three dates is not all that much time. Human emotion goes slowly. Insight is a complex computation; it can take days on our little computers.

Besides, consider: The sex is great in the beginning lots of times. This you no doubt know. It doesn't always stay great. It might dwindle down. It might be great at first with some guy you don't like that much otherwise. It might dwindle down and then what have you got? A guy you don't like all that much anyway whom you don't like to fuck much either anymore.

Some things are painful and sad and wrong but nonetheless true.

We are the way we are for reasons unknown to us. You needn't feel guilty if it isn't working out. Quiet your mind and wait for the answer to come to you.

On gender identity, sexuality, and weddings, weddings, weddings:
   As my friends and I go through our 20s, will we all abandon our queer
     ramparts and begin having babies?

I'm in my early 20s, as are most of my friends, and I can hear wedding bells off in the distance for my friends in opposite-sex relationships.

A number of them are now engaged, and a few others are living with partners. Someone who was a close friend of mine in high school, a sharply intelligent woman who has been in a number of relationships that would be classified as unconventional due to the sexuality, gender identity, openness, or number of partners, is now engaged to her straight boyfriend and says that she just wants to be a good wife and mother. Other friends of mine who used to flirt with the boundaries of gender and sexuality are also settling down.

I know in my heart and my head that this will intensify. In a few years, there will be a rash of weddings. Babies will start being born. Most of us will have jobs that require the regular wearing of specifically gender-appropriate clothing.

I'm bisexual and I haven't been in a monogamous relationship, or dated a capital-M male, in years. I was a tomboy and I still sometimes feel that I'm dressing in drag when I put on earrings and a skirt. I'm also into kink. I didn't decide to be any of these non-mainstream things, but now they're part of my identity, both personally and politically. And they've contributed to really interesting and wonderful experiences and relationships over the last few years. It's been scary sometimes, too, and as I've presented in a number of ways to different groups, I think I've learned some things about privilege that as a middle-class white person I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

However, the costs of not presenting as mainstream are going to increase, and I don't know how to work this out. If I wind up with a long-term female partner, I'll have to come out to my relatives. Having more than one long-term partner is even more difficult. I feel no need to "come out" about my involvement with leather/kink/B&D/S&M to anyone beyond close friends, potential partners and other kinky people, but if I wind up being involved with the leather community, there will always be the chance that I'll get outed to employers or relatives. (And finding kinky partners within the leather community is a whole lot less dangerous than looking for them in any other place outside one's circle of friends.)

I'm still in college for a bit longer, so it isn't too late for me to cry "It was all just a phase!" about nearly all of these identities. And academically and career-wise, I'd probably be fine. I'm majoring in something practical that I love, and my grades have been good, so I can pass in that regard. But if I do this, I'll be giving up a lot of who I am, socially and politically, and who I've been for years. And the privileges that go along with being perceived as straight and monogamous and non-poor and basically vanilla aren't fair privileges, anyway. And trying to balance the two -- to have a whole identity that your family and your employer can't know anything about -- is not a good long-term strategy.

I don't want to be angry at my friends for taking on a whole wad of straight married privilege, but I am. And I'm scared that I'm going to do it, too, eventually (it would be legally impossible with my current relationship status). What do I do before the weddings start coming, and with this whole bigger issue of identification, and how do I not resent my friends for going mainstream, deal with the loneliness of not, or the loss that I'll experience if (when?) I do?

Lost/Delirious

Dear Lost,

Society is a gun. Don't point it at yourself. Society is a disease. Wash your hands frequently.

How to live in society without being killed by it? I do not know. It takes a little more out of you every day. It seduces you out of your seductiveness. It coats you with white flour. It makes your voice sound strange. It puts you in a uniform. It wears you down.

You could live in an apartment full of drag queens and record-store clerks for the rest of your life. There are such apartments to be had, though the rents have gone up.

You could tell your parents all about yourself or you could let them guess. Either way, you will not be understood.

Life is not something you can ace like a test. It's messy, glorious and strange, filled with blowhards like me who say things like "Life is messy, glorious and strange" and "society is a gun" like some 1950s beatnik. (I would march with the beatniks if I could.)

Become friends with queer people in their 60s. Talk to them. Talk to veterans of Stonewall and be prepared for a world as empty of theory as a brick wall. No matter what you say to it, you cannot persuade it.

Rejoice in your singularity. Get used to being alone. Accept that society is out to crush you -- but not because it is malevolent! Is the common cold malevolent? That's its nature: to make you sneeze.

Your job is simple, really. It needn't be complicated by tortuous contemplation about what you reveal and what you hide. Neither hide nor reveal. Just be. It's not your job to figure it out. It's the job of society, that ravenous beast of sameness, that gravel-crushing machine.

And one day, like me, assuming you survive, you will say to people in their 20s: You know what's really terrifying -- more terrifying than the deadening effect of society? It's that, bit by bit, completely of your own accord, you eventually become so boring that you want to stomp yourself in the face with a boot.

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