I’ve always been an extremely thin girl. Genetics gave me a tall frame and a metabolism that worked faster than one of Santa’s elves on crack. Most girls would have killed to have a heroin-chic body like mine, but in high school, I hated it. I felt lanky and uncoordinated. I would have given anything to look like the other girls my age; the girls who filled out their jeans with hips & juicy bottoms and gave everyone a taste of their cleavage in their low-cut Henley tops. I hated my boyish figure and knew that as long as I lacked curvaceous features, I would never feel sexy.

I stayed thin and underweight through college, despite my horrendous diet. It wasn’t until this past summer that my body started to change. After eight weeks of spending most of my time driving, studying, and living on a diet that mainly consisted of Chicken McNuggets and Iced Mochas, my weight shot up to 132 pounds. As odd as this may sound, I was excited to finally see that number on the scale go so high. I was finally at a healthy weight for my height. And even better than having a healthy weight? I had curves. My breasts had grown to nearly a B-cup and my thighs created a magnificently sexy arc down my leg. I felt unbelievably sexy and couldn’t wait to show off these sexy new features to my partner, J.

When the time came to get dressed and walk out into the world with a new, sexually charged confidence, I encountered an unexpected difficulty. My go-to jeans, the ones that always did my booty major favors, didn’t fit. I found myself shimmying and hopping around my bedroom, eventually resorting to the cliché of lying down on the bed to button my jeans. This was a brand new experience for me. In all my fantasies of having a fleshier body, I had never considered the possibility that some extra tummy flesh could prevent me from fitting into my jeans.

I tried to brush it off. This weight gain was a good thing. Unfortunately, after a few days, I stopped focusing on the new parts of my body that I loved and focused on the one thing that was bugging me: the tummy flab. It was always taunting me, billowing over the top of my skinny jeans, creating tangible folds when I relaxed my posture. I finally lost my cool when twice in one weekend I found myself unable to zip up dresses that had fit me perfectly 2-6 months prior. A rational person would have attributed this to the fact that since my entire body had more flesh and curves, I had gone up a dress size. But not me. My sexiness was suddenly taken from me and I blamed the Tummy Monster.
So I did what most women do when they want to improve their bodies: I started to exercise. I had never been a fan of physical fitness, but I was willing to do crunches to get rid of that tummy. It all seemed like a good idea. I mean, aside from sculpting muscles, this exercise would release endorphins, making me sexy and happy and PEPPY!
But peppy I was not. I hated doing those crunches every day. They took time out of my day and I never really felt closer to my goal of feeling sexy again. When I was hit with a serious autumn cold, my abdominal workout was knocked off my agenda to make room for taking hits of Zicam and napping with a box of Kleenex. After I recovered, I never got back to my exercise and I started to mentally beat myself up for that. I was doing so well and my exercise routine made me a normal, healthy adult…right?

A moment of clarity came to me one night with J. In a state of mild undress, I stood up and he said, “STOP. Stay right there.” He rushed over to me. “Something about the way you are right now is incredibly sexy.” He ran his hand up my thigh, over my left buttock…and then settled on my stomach. “This. This right here is so sexy.” I was stunned. I had spent so much time feeling unsexy because of my stomach (despite the sexy features that I loved) and my partner singled my stomach out as his favorite part of my body. I felt a bit silly. I had spent so much time worrying about not being sexy, assuming that the flat stomachs featured in the pages of magazines were the epitome of sexy. It hadn’t occurred to me that biology and evolution would cause my partner to crave my supple, round, fertile curves. It also seemed to escape my mind that my partner would love my body because I was willing to share it with him, regardless of how its appearance.

I look at my body differently now. I’ve stopped comparing my body to others’ because no one else will have ever my body. My body is unique, special, and continues to be beautiful no matter how it changes. I may have some physically attractive qualities, but it’s my confidence, acceptance, and deep love for my body that make me a sex goddess.