The Freedom of Fat Sex with Bo Bickmore

The first time I had sex with another fat person, it was like releasing a long-held breath; a sweaty stumble into resplendent sex that was fearless, safe and free. I found a new moan, heard it escape alongside a sigh of relief. I think of that night often, pinpoint it to a shift in my thinking, my sexuality and my sense of self. I had finally tasted the sex I had been waiting for, a freefall into ecstasy and a relinquishing of inhibition. For the first time I had been fucked without any part of me wanting to hide, for the first time I felt safe enough to give myself to someone completely, to let all of me be seen and to learn that all of me was wanted.

I had never been someone who felt capable of taking my shirt off when I had sex, had never fucked someone without it becoming an unwilling three-way, my shame the uninvited third party, a ghostly voyeur I could not shake. That changed when I started sleeping with other fat Queers, with people who knew how to value my kind of body and who left no room for doubt or shame in their lust. Thinking back to that first night I still remember the ease in which he undressed, remember seeing his body – the swell of his stomach, his rolls and dimples and skin that sagged - I remember him standing proudly, hungry for me and this body that mirrored his own. 

He reached to pull up my shirt and I made no move to stop him, let him undress me and trace my body with kisses. Relishing in his soft caress I blinked away prickling tears, aware of how long these parts of me had waited to be seen, to be touched and to be tasted. He pushed me softly onto his bed, used his fingers and his tongue until I was quivering, breathless and begging for all of him. I remember pulling him toward me, moaning his name into his mouth as he pushed himself inside me. I remember the beauty of feeling our bellies pressed together, of skin against skin and nothing between us. With the slow rock of his body against mine I felt I was being recomposed, the score of my body rewritten and the first seeds of my sexual power uncovered. Swallowing any fear, I rolled over so that I was on top of him, rode him until he finished inside me and I had covered him in my own climax. We lay sweaty, panting, our bodies intertwined and the lights still on. It was the first time I had ever felt beautiful naked.

Learning to enjoy and feel comfortable during sex is a journey I am still taking; it is a difficult path of unlearning and forgiving, a slow reclamation and my own quiet revolution. While having sex with other fat Queers is not a band-aid or miracle cure, I am so grateful for how it has helped me see and love myself, for the ways it helped unlock my sexual prowess and unshackle me from the shame I could not rid myself of alone. There is so much power in loving and being loved by people who understand you, who see and want all of you and who fuck you like your body is an answered prayer, every inch of you an inch longed for.

Bo Bickmore Queer writer, producer and bookseller living and working on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri People. You can follow Bo on Instagram here or Taking Up Space here. Image credits: @j.davies.studio