Humpday: Body Shaming In The Bedroom

A bedroom is someone's personal space, an almost-window to their soul, an interpretation of them. If you're invited into a person's room, you're being welcomed to share their sanctuary. And if you're being invited to share their bed for some boom-time (even as a one-night stand), you're experiencing a glimpse into their life. This of course works twofold - if you're going to someone else's room, you're entering their's.

The bedroom is not an environment where you want - or expect - to be body shamed. It should be a pleasurable experience, enjoying each other's company and each other's bodies. So what happens when someone comes into your personal space, trying to have a pleasant sexual experience, and suddenly starts attaching your appearance? If it were me, I would not only be hurt mentally and emotionally, but it would feel like a violation of my personal space. And after that, everywhere I'd look in my room, the ghost of that attack would haunt me. Then suddenly, my sanctuary is a room full of mental mirrors.

Unfortunately this has been a regular occurrence with many women of all shapes, sizes and colours. Sexual partners have taken the consent to sex as consent to also judge our bodies. They think that it's okay to have sex, and then serve back-handed compliments about how we're pretty for a big girl, or make comments like, I once made out with a fat girl in a club, like all us fat girls are the same.

An ex once called me a fat cow after I answered his question about how much I weighed. After having sex. (That was six years and four stone ago.) He had never once criticised my body or how I looked - or complained about the sex - but suddenly because I had a numerical value attached to my body, it didn't match his idea of my beauty, so he felt it fun to compare me to a farm animal. What made it worse was he actually giggled when he said it, like the comment was a punchline to a massive joke that he'd been telling himself. Perhaps I was the joke, and his laugh was at his disbelief that he found me, a fat girl, sexually attractive.

Luckily we split up, and I have never had an experience like that since. However, I'm not naive to the fact that, despite the leaps and bounds that the body positive movement has made with developing one's self-esteem and body confidence, this is still happening. It sickens me to think that a person could think it's okay to torment someone with hateful comments, let alone to do it with someone who you've got a sexual relationship with, someone you see naked (whether it be once or regularly).

I'd hope that many have had the same courage that I had an burned that bridge quickly, throwing any shame or vulnerability you felt into that fire. And I hope that if anyone were to encounter this in the future, that you get dressed and walk away as quickly as possibly (or show them the door), and do not look back. That person neither deserves your time nor your body.

Your stories - the good, the bad, the ugly, and the awkward - have continued to make our day, so as promised we'll share some more: