I’ve always felt so big and obtrusive – so fleshy and farfetched – even after I’d purged the weight from my body at sixteen, at twenty-two I feel it still clings to me. I’d never liked my reflection - that almost translucent purpling skin, those spilling hips. I still feel like my body has too much substance. I’m still getting over the fact that I couldn’t disappear completely just by skipping meals and running on the spot in my kitchen when no-one was looking, dropping four dress sizes in half a year. A big portion of my life I’ve felt too ugly to connect with people. I avert eyes, I talk of novels, I compromise and don’t notice when I’m liked.
So, there was something about the taut, lean substance of his body on top of mine that made me feel small and fragile for the first time. I realised that I craved fragility, something I’d sanctified as the epitome of femininity. To feel small was to feel whole. I wanted to snap easily. I’m 5’6’’ with big hips and small, boyish breasts that hurt to touch. I am not ugly but learning that beauty is an affectation, a tone of voice, a way of being. I dress myself carefully. Sex made me feel free. When I’d felt so unattractive to others for so long, knowing that someone else can take pleasure in your body is so shocking, so liberating. When I first had sex, I didn’t feel like a woman, I felt like I was shrinking.
I remember the first time someone lay their hands over my breasts and called them beautiful, the first time someone kissed me and told me I tasted good, the first time I felt actively desired, touched, stroked, slapped. It has always been thrilling to me. For the first time I felt worthy, I wanted to be objectified, stripped of dignity, on my knees. I loved the men that gave that to me. I thought this blatant, bodily fascination would make me feel feminine, like the woman I was supposed to be. I thought some ‘powerful’ masculinity could knock pleasure into me and I’d come up gasping. Like a man could make me realise that I could be enough, without thinking.
I discovered softer charms, slow touch, gentleness. I wanted to feel loved. I lived between men and one night stands for as long as it took to make me feel dirty, like I couldn’t wash their scent from my skin. I’d look in the mirror so I could try to picture how I looked to them. Labia visible from my knickers, red eyes, an old grey t-shirt. I felt uncomfortable if they spoke. I was still figuring out what it was that I desired. I kissed girls in club toilets and felt concussed. But it was men I wanted – long, slender bodies, length-less limbs, eyes like toothpicks.
For a long time, I’ve been hungry. I’m still learning how to eat without feeling guilty. How to swallow without spitting.
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