The Fatslayer Chronicles

I love it when I get the chance to eavesdrop on a good juicy conversation, and the one I overheard today was one of the best I’ve heard in a long while.

I was at a mountain bike meeting, and two drop-dead-gorgeous teenage cycling groupies were talking about blow jobs whilst they waited for their boyfriends to cross the finish line in their 4 hour race.

It started with Girl #1 saying that she was pissed off with her boyfriend (‘Jase’) because he’d been avoiding sex for the past fortnight because he was in training for the race, but that he still wanted her to give him head every night.

Girl #2 pulled a face. “You didn’t do it did you?” she asked. “I mean, like, what was in it for you? What a cheek! You shoulda told him no way.”

Girl #1 shrugged. “I did it every, like, fourth or fifth time he asked me, but I made sure he knew I was doing him a favour,” she said. “But he knew I wasn’t enjoying it, and I didn’t swallow…”

Girl #2 pulled another disgusted face. “Eww, gross. Only fat girls swallow. Plus there’s, like, a zillion calories in it or something – there’s no way I’d break my diet just to keep some horny guy happy…”

They wandered away then, and I was left wondering whether girl #2's assertion that only fat girls swallow had any basis in fact – I mean, did they do a survey in Cosmo or something? Did they poll a 1000 women and find out that only those with a BMI greater than 35 gulp it down? How do these rumours start to circulate?

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Related (a little bit) to the above, I was thinking about yesterday’s post, and I’ve decided that I was being a tad hypocritical.

When ‘Donna’ started crowing about how her best mate’s husband is constantly chatting her up, and how it’s only a matter of time before they end up in bed together, I was pretty appalled and disapproving.

Then (after I’d written yesterday’s ungenerous post) I started to think a bit more about how desperate for love and attention I’d been (not just as a teenager, but well into my twenties), and the less-than-elevated moral path that my massive insecurity could have set me walking down if I’d been a little less lucky.

There’s no denying I was hellishly insecure. All my friends were losing their cherry in their mid teens, and at sixteen I’d never even been kissed by a boy, let alone asked out on a date. My mom had been telling me since I was 8 years old that I was ugly, that I’d be left on the shelf, that no man would ever want to go out with someone so ugly and fat, that men would think I was a lesbian (duh?!) and wouldn’t touch me with a  10 foot pole.

I guess I believed her.

By the time of my 18th birthday I was getting desperate. I felt like everyone in the whole world was getting laid apart from me, and I’m pretty sure (looking back) that if ANY guy had shown me the slightest bit of attention I’d have been up for anything that he’d have asked of me.

Where was my self-esteem? Where were my principles and morals? Where was my pride?

I guess I didn't have any at that stage of my life.

It's sad to realise this, but with hindsight I think the urge to feel attractive would have overridden every higher moral value. Feeling accepted and wanted was a stronger impetus at that time than loyalty, self-esteem, pride, decency and fairness rolled together.

Certainly if a guy had asked me to swallow, I’d have been there with my mouth open so fast that my damn jaw would probably have been dislocated. It wouldn’t have mattered whether he loved me, or respected me, or was otherwise spoken for, or was too old, or too ugly, or too married, or too mean and nasty…the fact that he wanted to have some form of sex with me would have been all that mattered.

Jeeze, how sad! And how dangerous, too! What if I’d come across a perverted uncle or lecherous teacher or some other hideous bottom-feeder? Who the hell knows what would have happened?!

Luckily (I know this now – it didn’t seem so lucky to me at the time!), my mother’s prophesy of a dearth of male attention (yep, even from perverted lechers) held true for another few months, by which time fate was ready to deal me a better hand. More by luck than judgment I met and fell in love with a sensitive, kind, decent, unattached man – and so my introduction to the world of relationships and sex and male/female friendship was a lot less traumatic and cringe-inducing than it could otherwise have been.

So I guess I’d better stop being bitchy about Donna, because as the good book says, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!

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I guess the above ramblings are my way of saying that there’s probably some truth in the assertion that fat girls (read, girls with low self-esteem) probably do a lot of things that their prettier sisters wouldn’t do. Not because of an innate lack of morals or values, but because they learn early that beggars can’t be choosers, and that they can’t afford to rock the boat with guys if they’re ever to keep one.

How fucking sad is that?

With hindsight I should have had more self-esteem – shame on me! So what if that made me the world’s oldest virgin – what the hell’s wrong with that? Settling for second best or compromising your integrity is a far worse fate than being a virgin! But I guess it’s easy to see that when you’re 40 – it’s realising it when you’re 16 that’s the difficult bit!