Belly Sex 2: Fat Sexuality For Adults – Part A
Summary: This article is an introduction to the topic of, particularly, feminine weight/size issues in relation to Christian faith. We want to emphasise Christian “fat acceptance”in particular. We find no grounds to believe that a Christian woman’s size or weight has any influence whatsoever on her spiritual growth or character, her ability to participate in a leadership role in a church; or in fact any aspect at all of Christian faith. Therefore, we determine that Christian women who have size/weight issues, or Christian plus sized women, have no grounds to let their physical challenges become spiritual ones. Whilst any Christian woman who has such issues is free to choose to address them in any way they feel appropriate or constructive to their personal wife, Christian women do not need to make these issues more important than their faith itself, nor do they need to consider them a detraction from their ability to minister or bear faithful witness to Christianity as a whole.
In the course of developing this ministry we are aware there are two key areas of basic bodily function that cause embarrassment and shame for Christians that are encompassed by the scope of the ministry. The first one of these is sex drive, which is often challenging, especially for Christian women who are expected traditionally to tone down their sex drives and desires, yet in a ministry context many of those who are in significant church leadership roles find that their sexual and spiritual passion are closely linked. The second issue is the whole area of weight gain and eating, particularly with outcomes of that which can result in weight gain, particularly for women. The physiology in particular of the female body is much different from that of a male, starting from the fact that women throughout life have a higher percentage of their body weight composed of fat, and that even for slim adults, except for aspiring ironwomen, this extra fat composition is manifested in extra softness in many areas of their bodies, compared with males who are naturally more muscular. This includes that extra fat reserves shape many of the sexually desirable characteristics of adult female bodies, such as breasts and bums. Larger breasts are those that have more fat stored in them, likewise bums, and in both cases these characteristics can encompass normal proportions in those areas, that is, the proportions which are characteristic with those of women of a smaller size, in other words for a woman who just has a broad chest or hips but is not actually clinically overweight.
The science of how our metabolisms work and how weight gain occurs on our bodies (male and female) has spawned a whole industry aimed at helping people achieve their desired physical size, shape and weight, starting with various types of diets that can supposedly achieve particular outcomes and progressing through to the different types of exercise programmes that people can undertake in order to supposedly change the shape of different areas of the body. Whilst physical fitness is a desirable quality for everyone, for various health reasons, achieving it can be very difficult in practice and take many years of hard work and effort. For women in particular, highly sexualised societies, as most worldwide are post-sexual-revolution, impose additional pressures upon them to achieve a desirable body shape, and this can come as much from other women as from men, probably because many women are very insecure about the challenges of keeping their own body in a desirable shape and therefore are inclined to lash out at other women who suggest this is too hard to achieve and should be a lesser priority. One of the particular challenges the Church of Jesus Christ worldwide faces is getting the right balance between toning down the sexualisation of women in society, teaching that women of all sizes and shapes are acceptable to God, and finding a balance with the fat acceptance movement which has started to acquire context to church circles. There should certainly be agreement with the FA movement in emphasising that the godliness of individual women is not compromised in any way by their body shape in that seeing weight gain as evidence of sin or ungodly behaviour, whilst strictly correct, should not be elevated to a higher level of importance than the many other challenges that Christians favour in their day to day lives. Christians aren’t wholly redeemed people from the moment that they fully commit their lives to Jesus Christ; it can take many years of prayer and healing in various circumstances for them to get to a place of achieving desirable outcomes in a lot of aspects of everyday life including physical size, shape and weight given that food can become an emotional addiction for a lot of people. We need to teach a Christian version of “fat acceptance” that accepts that every women in the world is accepted no matter what her size, shape or weight, but as with any secular movement, minimise any issues which deny core Biblical or theological beliefs of churches, particularly in the area of personal growth and redemption.
Another issue that we need to address in this series is that pregnancy can change a woman’s body shape permanently. It is accepted medical fact that pregnancy will cause a woman’s rib cage and hips to expand to accommodate a growing uterus and also prepare for the physical vaginal delivery process. For some women, their ribs and hips may return to their pre-pregnancy proportions whilst for others this may not occur in practice, resulting in increased physical dimensions and greater weight post-partum. It is also likely that the increased flow of hormones during pregnancy could influence overall weight distribution on a women’s body especially in relation to the normal weight gain that occurs during term. Some women may also experience specific or non-specific medical circumstances that change their body’s metabolism, making it harder to lose weight than before they had their first pregnancy, and for women who were already overweight before pregnancy, they may gain more weight during the pregnancy and fail to reduce any of this gain post-partum. The journey for every individual women following a pregnancy in being able to contemplate returning to their pre-pregnancy physical proportions is thus highly variable and there are no set or guaranteed outcomes that all women can aspire to as a matter of course. Thus, for a woman who has gone through a pregnancy and ended up with a different size, shape or weight longer term after the pregnancy, the same issues need to be considered in a Christian sexuality context as for women who are overweight regardless of their state of parturition. Another aspect of feminity that is relevant to this consideration is the impact that reaching a post-menopausal state can create, as there is medical evidence that hormonal changes alter the weight distribution on female bodies from a more peripheral to a more central focus; in other words, women may see a change from the pear shape to the apple shape. And all people, both men and women, have the same problem in life that a decrease in metabolistic rate as they get older will tend to produce weight increase unless they adjust their food intake and exercise regime to suit. It can certainly be a lot harder for Christian men or women to lose weight in their older years and this reinforces the need for discipline to be established and practiced in younger years to avoid a medically forced situation developing in later years in relation to some type of health condition that requires a healthier lifestyle.
So having addressed those core issues we want to get to the most important principles that we feel should be outlined in this article which is how much relevance a woman’s size, shape or weight has in relation to her sexuality, especially in a Christian context. Society applies these many pressures on women to achieve desirable proportions largely because of a high degree of sexualisation applying to women, whilst in the Church the pressures come mainly from theologians and church leaders applying stringent and conservative views about sexuality and sin. It is not our intention here to deny that sin is a factor in lifestyles that lead to excessive weight gain, but that the extent to which it seems to dominate in some churches is leading to quite a marked imbalance in the membership, where the proportion of members who are overweight is far less than the proportions in society as a whole. In short, a lot of churches do not appear to be overly welcoming to overweight people to join, and that is partly because of some of the attitudes to female sexuality out there and partly because in some conservative evangelical churches in particular, the leadership appears to focus on evidence of personal success and so marginalise people who are struggling in their lives, an approach that is regrettably typical of the conservative political mindset in everyday secular communities that has made it into larger churches, particularly those focused on megachurch culture. What is really important for this blog is to emphasise for overweight women or women who struggle to maintain healthy lifestyles including in the area of weight, that sexuality is not determined by your physical size, shape or weight. Sure, it is the case that in marriage in particular, some aspects of sexual things like lovemaking with your husband can be more difficult if you are overweight, but at the end of the day you still have the same type of genitals as women of normal weight and they still function just the same. Of course a big problem for overweight wives is letting husbands cuddle the parts of their bodies that are particularly encumbered with excessive amounts of weight. Well the fact is, women’s bodies are designed to be cuddly. They are soft all over the place. And just because a body part is more cuddly because a woman is overweight, again does not change the fundamentals of her sexuality. She needs to learn to let her husband cuddle that part of her because that is a fundamental aspect of her womanhood. The main issue here is that we get too much caught up in the negativity associated with weight gain, particularly in the area of classifying it as sin. The Church has really let itself become too influenced by attitudes in highly sexualised societies and resulting pressures that women are put under. In our ministry we have observed many, many instances where unresolved emotional issues for single women who marry result in weight gain in pregnancy. This also affects men but to a much smaller degree. These issues are not as a result of personal sin and failings but often as an outcome of sin committed against that person by others in their childhood which they have not yet been able to resolve. People do not get to solve all their problems in life instantly upon making a commitment of faith in Jesus Christ, even those who are brought up in churches; it can take years and the timing is totally under God’s control. Often delays are actually part of the spiritual growth process. The result is that issues like weight problems are often very hard to deal with for a lot of women and they shouldn’t be judged for them or feel judged or shamed for them the way a lot even in the Church do.
Our word of encouragement to Christian women who are overweight is do not deny your sexuality or spirituality just because you have a weight problem. Do not deny that God made you in so many wonderful ways and to be valued and to achieve amazing wonderful works He created for you before the foundation of the world. Your sexuality is an amazing gift from God that is not dependent on your physical appearance to function. It may be somewhat impeded but many people live in their lives with some sort of physical disability and yet disabilities from other causes are not judged in the same way as weight issues are. It is desirable for you aspire to be better than you are and therefore have a long term goal of attaining a healthy weight in your body but you cannot actually control the timing of it, so just try to make an effort to achieve something healthy in your life without it taking your whole life over. Making yourself a desirable person for marriage is only partly related to your physical appearance and of equal importance is your general attitudes to life such as emotional and spiritual maturity. You can be a real role model to Christian femininity and womanhood even if you have a weight problem and can lead other women in ministry if you have the right attitude overall in your life, so don’t let a weight issue drag you down all the time. It is true that sin is associated with overconsumption and food addiction but this does not mean that your overweight body is inherently sinful; you must not let the sinfulness in one part of your life flow over and become shame in other parts of your life. Therefore do not let your perception of your sexuality be dominated by the struggles you have in other areas of your life. It is not a sin to let a chubbier part of your body be cuddled by your husband and to experience sexual pleasure or fulfilment as a result of being more cuddly in various areas from weight gain. It is not sin to enjoy normal sexual relations with your husband in your marriage just because you are overweight. If you are single, focus on addressing as much negativity in your life as you possibly can, but if your weight is an issue that is currently too hard to fix, don’t let it drag you down into a cesspool of despair. You will have far more success in finding a husband, if that is your goal, from being positive and having lots of love to give away regardless of some struggles you may have; if marriage is not what you are seeking then dealing with as much negativity in your life that you can readily fix will serve you just as well in ministry endeavours whereever you go (so long as you choose a church that affirms placing women in ministry roles). This in no way means you should give up aspiring to a more physically healthy lifestyle, but don’t put off doing things in the rest of your life and let that one issue take you over.
We have chosen the belly as the appropriate metaphor to address specific issues that affect womens’ perceptions of female sexuality. We made this choice of metaphors because a woman’s belly is the part of her body whose size has the biggest impact on physical acts between a husband and a wife in marriage. As such, the issues which result in increased belly size are some of the most significant for all women in relation to their sexuality and it impacts all of the PSS functions that we talk about often on this blog. There are now expected to be more than three articles in this series, probably five, as there will be a BS 2B and possibly BS 2C article looking at additional aspects of fat belly sexuality, along with the BS 3 article already planned to look at pregnant belly sexuality. Keep an eye on the Size Sexuality category of this site for the additional posts planned as they are gradually added (should be completed by the end of September 2023).