A Big Black Butt: Fetish Fears

+80, I wanted so badly to be the kind of forward thinking, fierce, fabulous and fun girl I faked for years. Part of that meant trying to love each and every pound of me and being unfettered by the strong societal pull to satisfy an MTV-certified standard of beauty. Sure, I wanted to be smaller (heart health, more clothes options––extensive fat-shion blog entry coming soon), but I certainly didn’t want to loathe my big body not on anyone’s account. Luckily, not everybody subscribes to stick-figure aesthetics. In fact many people, many black people, many black men, rather fancy them selves a bootilicious, thick-thighed, chubby-waisted woman (at least outside of Palo Alto, San Francisco Area and in particular on the continent). So do a bunch of white men… fancy themselves… some big ol’ black booty… which has its history, politics and problems.

In any case, I’d be at the club, faux-feeling myself, and some dude would spot my T&A from a mile away and come salivating for ALL THAT! Which was great and sucked. Attention, from anybody, confirmed my 232 fabulousness, my +80 self. But that twinkle in the eye for the thick-thigh didn’t make me feel beautiful, it made me feel like a spectacle. And I just didn’t know how to believe or accept that when somebody expresses an attraction to a woman they do not know, it’s going to be rooted in visceral pleasure. Those are the laws of club attraction. For anybody approaching anybody they don’t know, it’s pretty much because they like the way they look.

So when a stranger approached me +80, if there was one thing I knew about them before they even opened their mouth to speak, it was that they liked girls with large breasts. I secretly wanted to be objectified for reasons other than my excesses. I wanted somebody to see my face and want that, not the jiggles, not the rolls, not all that extra. But +80, I found it hard to believe that anybody was looking at my face (even when and if they were). I guess I found it hard to look at my body, only wanting to look at my face (headshots only for facebook photos). So people looking at my body and not my face… it didn’t sit right. -80, kind people compliment my new look, and speak not only of my body, but also my face. But -80, I’ve come to feel very protective of my +80 former self. It’s hard for me to hear a compliment about -80, without hearing a serious judgment on or insult to +80. And sure, I judge her too.  I think and talk about her as an accretion of body parts, easily fetishizable. But I wonder, was it possible for somebody to lust my +80 self, while recognizing a different kind of substance, recognizing me as more than big boobs, big butt, and a big mouth?

In college, I acted. I played the role of Venus Hottentot in Suzan-Lori Parks' "Venus." The play is based on the true story of a woman taken from South Africa to Europe and displayed in freak shows, science labs and eventually a museum all because of what they saw as a humungous butt. In our production, they used a prosthesis on top of my butt (probably to conceal the disturbing reality, which was that they were going to stage the objectification of Aida's large body). During rehearsals, castmates groped away at the big butt. After the performance, I received more attention than I trusted. To be desired reassured... briefly... but to be desired as a fetish... traumatized. I'd try to tell myself, I am an individual, I am unique... but reactions and experiences like this kept placing me back into history. +80, I felt like a spectacle that nobody was looking at; seen and unseen all at the same time.