I recently had a conversation with a friend about my complete and utter disdain for my naked body. Especially if it’s getting naked in front of someone else. Especially if that person has never seen me naked before.

I’m a big girl. I have been all my life. Rubenesque. Voluptuous. Curvy. Fat. I’ve heard and said them all.

I’m pretty, though. I recognize that. Most of the time. I have great breasts and better hair. But I have big thighs and a bigger ass. There are a lifetime of reasons why I turned out this way, which ultimately don’t really change much about who I am. The proof is in the pudgy.

I’ve never had a hard time getting a guy to sleep with me. I had multiple lovers before I married my husband, who absolutely loves me the way I am. He’s seen me at all sizes of big, from a little chunky to ginormously pregnant.

And I’m great in bed. I’m adventurous and generous and curious. I like to come and make my partner come.

So why can’t I see the positivity in that?

Because I’m blinded by the reflection of my huge, white ass. It follows me wherever I go, literally and figuratively. It taunts me, and makes me feel less than I am sometimes, and that can be problematic when it’s time to get naked. Even though I know I’m in a safe, loving environment, I can hear the nagging whispers from inside my own head, telling me that I’m too disgusting to deserve the intimacy and the sexual adoration.

There’s a lengthy history of childhood sexual abuse, a rape in my teens, and a physically and emotionally abusive relationship, prior to my husband. For years I flaunted my sexuality in rebellion of what had been done to me. I would fuck before I could be fucked. If I could control the situation, establish it, and demonstrate it on my own terms, I was less likely to be hurt again. And it turned out that sexcapades in the back seats of cars, and in the dark corners of parks, didn’t demand my nakedness. I could stay mostly dressed and still get laid.

But there was a terrible emotional distance that happened in those affairs, both with my partners, and with myself. I was craving positive reinforcement, and I got it in the form of an orgasm. That was good, but there was no intimacy, no love of any kind in those couplings. Yippee. I could compartmentalize those rendezvous and put them away when they were over.

Then there was my husband. We’d known each other a very long time prior to becoming lovers.
The first time we slept together, I swore I would never fall in love with him, that it was only sexual fling that would be over very soon. I spent that first weekend together working as hard to hide my naked body from his spying eyes as I did to get him off.

Something remarkable happened, though. He made love to me. In new and uncompromising ways, this man touched every curve of my body, all the bumps and lumps and scars, and he celebrated them. He loved them. And me.

What I found was that it made me a better lover. I was able to absorb that positivity, let it pass through me, and back out to him. All those flaws I saw and felt every day just didn’t matter to him, so I could choose to disregard them completely. I was able, and willing, to be more open than ever before.

I still can’t look at my naked body and be happy. I’m not unreasonable about it, just pragmatic. But what I can do is choose to ignore the flaws, to draw on his love for me and my imperfections, and let it bolster my abilities as a lover. When I hear those nagging whispers of body-conscious self-loathing, I try my best drown them out with cries of ecstasy.