On occasion, I watch porn. Okay, there I said it. It's not something that I'm particularly ashamed of, but it's also not something I'd ever intentionally advertise. However, a few days ago, I was watching a random, fairly generic porn video, and it got me thinking about weight, sex appeal, insecurity, confidence, and general stereotypes regarding beauty...and the thoughts/musings keep popping in my head, so I thought I'd lay some of them out here -
I am in no way an expert with regards to porn...I couldn't name specific actors, directors or production companies... but in general, unless you are watching more fetish based stuff, chubby girls rarely seem to show up (unless they're there as a random side character). I've never found anything particularly odd about that...it simply fed into my general belief that most men find thin, big-breasted women to have the greatest sex appeal. However, the video I was watching had a girl who had a fair bit of chub. I'd guess she was about a size 16 or a bit larger, with some stretch marks and cellulite if you looked closely (and with the closeups, how can you avoid it, really ). What threw me, was that she was confident, gorgeous, and sexy as ****. There was nothing different about her role in the video due to her weight, no fetish angle, no comments about her weight, etc. She just did her thing, and the video moved on.
Honestly, what throws me for a loop is the fact that this throws me for a loop. The fact that I'm still thinking about a porn video days after watching it is definitely unusual. Until I saw this girl in a porn video, I believed that I found women of all shapes and sizes beautiful, however, I guess I didn't believe that many people found them sexy. It never really occurred to me that beautiful and sexy were apparently very different concepts in my brain, and while I knew there were people who found larger women beautiful, I never really believed that they found them sexy. I've spent all of my adult life never considering myself sexy, never considering that men might be interested in me based on appearance. Based on what I've seen on these boards, it seems a somewhat common insecurity for heavier women - although I've also seen plenty of larger women posting on these boards that are incredibly confident of their sex appeal with men.
It makes me wonder, why is there such a difference? I had no problem seeing the heavier girl in the porn video as a sex object, but I have such a hard time seeing myself that way. My past relationships (of which there have been few), have typically been from friendships that developed into something more. I think this fed my belief that men didn't find me particularly sexy, but they could be attracted to my personality.
For those of you who do feel sexy at any weight, is there anything in particular that helped you develop that confidence, or did it just feel like something you were born with? As I go through my weight loss journey, I'm trying to be kinder to myself, to look at myself in a more positive light, and hopefully, to ultimately boost my level of confidence - particularly with regards to men. The fact that I was so shocked by a plus-sized character in a porn video only brings into sharp focus how much I have bought into stereotypes about sexiness.
Okay, so that was a really long post for me - way longer than intended...I can't believe a porn video made me think that much