(April Flores photographed by Nick Holmes)
Elle Chase is a certified sex educator, speaker, body acceptance + pleasure activist and now the author of Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body Positive Sex Positions To Empower Your Sex Life! When I was asked for a blurb to promote Curvy Girl Sex it came easily: "This book is fucking fantastic and will likely lead to fantastic fucking!"
The publishing company kindly thanked me... and then requested something without the F word (sigh) so I sent over a second version: "Curvy Girl Sex is something I wish we all had years ago, but I'm still beyond ecstatic to have and utilize it now! THANK YOU ELLE!" I stand by both.
In related news, I just read a great interview that Bevin Branlandingham of Queer Fat Femme did about Fat Sex Week XXL where the Huffington Post interviewer asked "What is the biggest misconception about fat sex?" to which Bevin succinctly said-
That fat people are not fuckable. I think that fat people are wildly fuckable.
Amen and hallelujah.
You can read a beginning excerpt from the book below and you can also find a few sex positions from the book (purposefully linked at the bottom so that those not expecting images of bangin' out won't be caught off guard;)) that show multiple different positions that take into consideration all of those things that we come across while having sex in larger bodies.
Just remember that the amount of (or investment in) sex you have in your life is not indicative of your worth. Elle is just here to share that our options are often greater than we've been told.
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I became a sex educator and body acceptance advocate by accident. Fresh out of a seven-year marriage where there was barely any sex, I craved passion—which I saw on TV and movies, but never experienced in my own life. Never feeling desirable, sexy, or worthy of sexual pleasure, I had always felt neuter, unconnected to my body and convinced that sex and the joys that came with a good sex life were for other people, not me.
So after I left my husband, I found myself at a crossroads. I was desperate for passion, single, overweight, and completely unequipped with the tools to date successfully or to have passionate, confident sex without caring about how fat I was. I longed to feel someone crave me. But who could feel passion for a fat chick, with cellulite, scars, florescent-white skin, and crooked teeth? People like me didn’t experience high-adrenaline, fervent, ardent love affairs. I had to be realistic, and I had to accept that I was never going to be the object of the desire and salacious abandon that I craved. I had to settle for what I could find and somehow make it work.
But I was wrong. Oh boy, was I wrong.
I had nothing to lose, so I started dating online. Sure, I got rejected just like everyone does, but what I found was that all types of men were interested in me. Some of them had a penchant for my body type, some men didn’t care about body type, and some men found the whole package attractive. This was a revolutionary concept to me. I didn’t expect to sleep with or date such a variety of fascinating, smart, and passionate men—of all shapes and sizes. [..] My belief that I was inherently undesirable quickly evaporated.
I realized that not only was I attracted to all types of men—tall, short, fat, skinny, long-haired, bald, scarred, smooth, muscled, soft—but that all these men were attracted to me. If this was true in my life, I couldn’t be the only one. This realization gave me the germ of self-confidence that I needed to further explore and experience the sexual passion I so desired and, in a short time, got. I realized that my judgment that I was unattractive and undesirable wasn’t based in reality. It was a verdict I came to subconsciously over a lifetime of feedback and opinions gathered from mean girls at school, the media, and some really poor choices in men. The truth was I was sexy as hell as long as I didn’t pay attention to my old misconceptions and instead focused on enjoying myself, which included discovering what (and who) made me feel sensual and sexy, how to identify it in my body, the ways I feel chemistry with someone, and how to recognize when they were feeling it, too.
During this time, I recognized that the negative feelings I had toward my body and my sexual desirability was a social construct thrust upon me—one that I unwittingly and subconsciously took part in. I finally understand that this construct—that fat women aren’t sexy, or a woman must wear heels and flirty dresses, she must bat her eyes and let her date determine her dateability—was a lie. I was free. I wanted all women to know this fact. I wanted all women to know and feel confident that we are all sexy, and it has nothing to do with flat abs or lustrous hair, but everything to do with how sexy we feel and how connected we are to our sexuality.
This truth was the impetus for this book. You can’t enjoy sex if you’re constantly worrying about whether you’re sexy enough for your partner. You can’t enjoy sex when you are thinking about how to do it while looking elegant or hiding your rolls. You can’t enjoy sex if your mind is wandering and you’re not concentrating on your partner’s pleasure and your own. This is more than a book of sex positions. I hope that this book will show you how to own and accept your body the way it is right now . . . and then move on and have a fulfilling sex life.
I hope that in some way this book will empower you to not let anything get in the way of improving your sex life. Whether you learn a new position or two, come away with a better understanding of your pleasure or anatomy, or go out and buy your first sex toy, I’ll call that a success. Know that you deserve pleasure and it’s never too late to find it.
Click here for five different sex positions
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Thanks Elle for sharing with us! You can find her book (and more sneak peeks) here.
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