Marie Claire and @MauraKellyBlog Reaction, And A New Resolution

Tomorrow, I'll be reposting Lady Isis's wonderful blog entry "To Losers," with her permission. Today, however, before I could get that post up something happened. It's something that made me reverse a decision I made. Gentle Reader, today I Saw Red, and I'm going to do something about it.

In the past, I've told people I'm a BBW. Most people know this going in when they first meet me. The ones who care rapidly fall away. The ones who don't get to know me better... some very, very well. But when I made the decision to go pro Domme, I was worried that my looks would get in the way of my career. After all, the stereotype is of the slender, tall, on-high-heels Dominatrix built up in the media. I kept telling myself it was a career decision. After all, it's the romance of the thing, right? Surely that's what matters? And I was experiencing a lot of anxiety on that level with the Sex Robot video. I worried about that negatively impacting sales, instead of positively impacting them.

In retrospect, that's when things really started to go downhill with my health, and I think I know why. You see, I am a hypnotist, and what I tell my unconscious mind, it starts to live.

For years, I had been deeply in love with my body. It does such amazing things. Still, like many fat women in this society, I'd internalized the shame that comes along with it. As long as I was active, moving, happy, dancing, having great - no, fantastic - sex, doing yoga, my body loved me back. Knee injuries hampered some things, but overall everything was wonderful. Great cholesterol, blood pressure my skinny sisters would kill for, healthy skin and hair... I had it all. Until I told it that it wasn't good enough for my job.

Suddenly, things started to happen. My blood pressure went up by ten points. My desire for healthy foods tanked. My knees hurt more. You see, when I told my body "people won't like you," it listened. I was telling myself that the shame I'd fought against for years was valid.

I was starting to come to this conclusion already, over the time I'd spent away from home the last month. I think I looked fantastic in the Sex Robot video. I find fat chicks attractive, myself, and one of my first reactions was "Damn, I would totally fuck me!"

Then, today, came the final epiphany. Marie Claire Magazine posted a blog entry from someone talking about "Mike and Molly," the sitcom with two fat characters in love. To be honest, I'd never watched the show. I'm not much for sitcoms... give me Discovery Channel any day... so my reaction was fair-to-negative. "Oh, yay, more making fun of fat people. Just what I need in my life, fat jokes. I'll pass."


But oh, this review was nasty. Warning: fat-phobic trigger language in there, read at your own risk.

Even that half-assed apology doesn't cut it. You see, no one, but no one, gets to tell me that I don't deserve to have so much as physical affection because of a hundred pounds of adipose tissue. No one who finds it "aesthetically displeasing" to watch a fat person *cross the room* gets to tell me that I should exercise more. And yes, I think she is acting like an insensitive jerk.

I have a lot of compassion for the writer's eating disorder history. When I was a teenager, I roomed with a girl with anorexia. She was 5'6" and weighed sixty-five pounds when they finally got her into treatment. I saw the agony my roommate experienced. Given that, I can't and won't say or imply that this writer is a bad person. But I also refuse to give her the power to tell me how my body should look.

And the fact is that I am a fucking Goddess. In the old-school fashion, those ancient Venuses and Maltese temple deities. I love the way my hips sway when they walk. I love my curves and my skin and my hair. I love my sensuality, the way my hair tickles the small of my back, the way carpet feels under my bare feet. I love the soft flowing dresses I wear in Dommespace and the way they puddle to the floor at my ankles as I shed them. I love the way finger and toenail polish flashes as I move.



I love my ass. (Jukebox loves to go up the stairs behind me, especially when I'm naked.) I love Public Displays of Affection, everything from holding hands to deepkisses to stolen gropes. I love my tattoos.



I have not been single since I was seventeen. I have not had fewer than two romantic partners since 1993, except for a brief span in 2003-2004, and even then I had other sexual partners. Fuck yes, I'm sexy. Fuck yes, this fat body can do amazing things!

I love my body's power. I love the focus and care I have for my trance partners, and how deep they go as I ensnare their minds. Make no mistake: I am a hypnoDomme, and I love to wield that mystique and that power and that sexuality. I love making my partners change, gasp, moan, come so hard they can't even speak for an hour. I love gently and thoroughly brainwashing people. I love my voice. I love running my hands over my partners' bodies and feeling them shudder with heat. I love the way my huge, non-perky breasts ache and my thighs get slick when I'm hypnotically Dominating someone.



And, oh yeah, I'm fat. And I'm sexual. And I'm sexy as hell. And I love being both. And from now on, there will be pictures on my site... because I love my body, and it's not getting shortchanged any more.
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(And, oh yeah, that blood pressure? Back down to 110/70, thank yew very much. And the veggies at dinner tasted delicious.)

Same-Sex Marriage and the Poly Slippery Slope

I'm going to stray a bit here and talk about politics. I don't do it often; I don't like to talk about politics much in my day-to-day life and some of my beloved Chosen have very different ideas than I do about the subject. Also, given the international audience I have here, focusing on USian stuff feels kinda like talking from privilege. I am keenly aware there are many places in the world where doing what I do would be a sentence for stoning.

Nevertheless, there's more than one ache in my heart when I watch the agonizingly slow progress of same-sex marriage coming into its due across the US.

I absolutely believe that same-sex couples are entitled to every right and responsibility that marriage entails. At its core, marriage is a contract between individuals. It has always been that; in times past it might have been between a man and his intended's father, but it has always been a contract. The rights and responsibilities have also varied through time. In the current setup in the US leaves no good reason why same-sex couples should be excluded. The judge spoke wisely and truly when the court held that:

"moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a women is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, ... is not a proper basis on which to legislate."

I can't applaud those word strongly enough. My heart aches for those who are waiting to legalize relationships which have lasted, in some cases, for decades.

Yet, at the same time, I am saddened by the same-sex marriage activist community in some very personal ways. You see, one of the grounds often used to attack same-sex marriage is the slippery slope argument that it would, in turn, lead to such perversions of marriage as... gasp... multiple-partner relationships! And the inevitable, invariable response to this charge is a resounding "No! That will never happen! That would be icky!"

And all I can do is sigh.

There are reasonable, laudable objections to multi-partner legal marriage, but all of them could be worked through with thought and planning. Chief among these are the abuses of women by some polygynous religions, of course, but people ignore something in this: these women will be abused anyway, no matter what the legal status of the marriage is, because the people committing these abuses are scofflaws to begin with. It doesn't negate the idea of contracts between multiple individuals for such things as childcare, insurance, visitation rights... in short, all of the things that those in hetero marriages now take for granted and same-sex couples are fighting to be able to enjoy.

But Jukebox or Copper being able to make medical decisions for me absent my input? Easily leave me property, or the other way around? Maybe even make immigration easier?

It won't happen in my lifetime, I am sad to say. Whereas same-sex marriage is almost on the verge of possibility in the US within a decade, I know I'm going to have to do more legal wrangling than anyone should have to in order to make sure everything works for me and my loves to do what we need to be able to do to care for one another, as committed partners should.

So, my beautiful same-sex-coupled friends, I am excited and hopeful for you. Almost nothing would make me happier than to be able to dance at your weddings.

Almost. I'd really like to be able to dance at my own, too - with both of my husbands.

WinterRose is right!

So, yeah. I live in a fun state. A state where people feel free to rally and say stupid things.

David Gibbs III, a lawyer who in 2005 fought to keep brain-damaged Terri Schiavo on life support, told rally participants gay marriage would "open the door to unusual marriage in North Carolina.

"Why not polygamy, or three or four spouses?" Gibbs asked. "Maybe people will want to marry their pets or robots."

Now... I don't talk about politics often, nor should anyone expect me to. So I'm not really going to touch the irony of a guy who didn't respect a man's right to make medical decisions for his long-gone wife talking about the sanctity of marriage, except to mention it at all.

I'll simply note that the Alt-sex-fetish-robots people are probably saying "Well, OK!" and the polyfolk like me are saying "Now that you mention it..." But look out, because Gibbs Esquire is coming down a mighty slippery slope there. Can we just get gay marriage OK'd, or civil unions for all and marriage decided in various religious organizations first? Thanks!

(And while I love my Roombas, I don't love them That Way.)