Can a Big Girl Get Some Love? 

“No one wants a bone but a dog” is an old saying in the black community that affirms the traditional approval of plus size women by black men. But these attitudes may be changing because today male body-type preferences are no longer easily defined. Young African American men, products of the middle class, are inclined to adopt more mainstream American values, including a preference for a thinner woman. A January 2004 study published in the Journal of Black Studies reported that African American men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five found smaller women more attractive than women with larger body types in the majority of the cases.

Couple upward mobility with the Eurocentic standard of beauty—the tall, thin, long haired, light skinned, bootie bouncing vixen—screaming from MTV, BET, and other popular culture sources, and it’s no wonder what is considered sexy and attractive is changing among young African American men and women alike.

Does Size Really Matter?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, seven out of every ten black women are considered overweight or obese as defined by the current “body mass index” (BMI) standards. Bigger body types, a diet heavy in fat, salt, and sugar—so called “soul food”—the reliance on cheap and convenient “Mickey D’s” and other fast food, and lack of regular exercise mean millions of black women are fat.

Despite these dismal stats, nearly one-third of adult African American women are married, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and countless others live within committed relationships. Some women are overweight when they marry; others become “fat and happy” in the years after “jumping the broom.” Then there’s the weight gain that comes with childbearing and from aging. The lifestyle choices of married African Americans are also a factor in the high rates of obesity and overweight. A 2004 Centers for Disease Control study found that black married couples are less physically active than single, divorced, and widowed people; and, not surprisingly, more black husbands and wives are fat compared to African Americans who have never married, or are widowed or living with a partner.

Sometimes there’s camaraderie in pigging out. “My husband is my ‘snacking buddy,’ and he always sabotages me whenever I try to diet,” one stay-at-home mom reveals. Vanessa, a U.S. postal worker, watched her boyfriend grow so threatened by the idea that she was about to become a slimmer mate, he cursed her mere hours before she was scheduled to have a gastric bypass. “He told me, ‘I hope you die on the operating table,’” Vanessa recalls. She came through the surgery fine, dropped the excess weight, and lost the boyfriend too.

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones

Negative stereotypes about the sexual desirability of large black women abound. I will never forget the time I was giving a lecture, entitled “From Auction Block to Idiot Box,” on the image of African Americans in popular culture. I began by asking the audience at California State University, Fullerton, to tell me the first thing that comes to mind when they think of the black woman.

Overwhelmingly, the response was “someone who is strong.” When I asked them to come up with another adjective, most in the room exchanged puzzled looks, but one young man in the back had his answer ready.

“Black women are fat and angry,” he hollered. The room was stunned. “They’re mad because black men are dating white women,” he continued. “African American women are so fat, no one wants to date them.”

Some outraged young women in the audience joined me in asking the man what survey he had done to determine such nonsense. “I heard it on Tom Leykis,” the young man said proudly, referring to the radio shock-jock who broadcasts his sexist rants to multitudes of impressionable young men on a daily basis. I responded that the tendency to paint countless black women with one broad brush is an example of the destructive “idiot box” mentality.

Truth be told, the young man was simply repeating common misconceptions about the lovability of big black women, especially among those whose only knowledge of African Americans is gleaned from the evening news, movies, or TV. Demeaning attitudes are realities plus-size black women face every day. Folks assume because a woman is overweight, she is also lazy, bossy, lacking in personal hygiene and ambition, oversexed or asexual, and unmoved by ugly stereotyping.

Most of the young women I interviewed for Hungry for More professed pride in their lives and their appearance despite the gawking, the insults, and the constant fat prejudice. In many cases this self-assured attitude proved attractive to men, the women reported. In addition, a self-affirming exterior serves as a psychic armor in a fat-phobic world. Other women use an outwardly confident demeanor to mask the shame and helplessness they feel because of their weight. Valinda, a three hundred pound philosophy student, says she hangs on to her “extra padding” as a way to avoid sex. “Not intentionally, of course,” she admits. “It’s just when you have the man or different men coming on to you a lot, a way of discouraging so much sexual attention is to put on weight. Other than that, food is damn good,” Valinda laughs.

Men in Search of Queen Size Love

It’s true that some men prefer big women and choose them in the same way others favor blonds. Anecdotally speaking, a voluptuous woman could represent the ideal mother/lover image for some men. Ron, a fifty-three-year-old special education teacher, told me he never dates a woman “under a size 12” who has “food issues” and “does not like to eat.”

Many men associate a woman who has a passion for food with someone who is highly sexual and likes to cook. Other guys admit to being attracted to the body type they are most familiar with from their family of sisters and a mother who are big boned and fleshy. This can explain why some African American women are miffed when they see their favorite black movie star or NBA idol photographed with a white woman who has a “flat chest and no ass.”

Jerome, a middle-aged African American grocery clerk who has dated large women his entire life, buys into the notion that “big women are easier. They don’t expect much and if they reject a brother, he does not feel as bad as if a skinny woman disses him.” Besides, Jerome says that in his experience “little women are evil.”

Stephanie, a single mom who underwent a gastric bypass operation three years ago and lost one hundred and fifty pounds, remembers that even as a fat girl, she enjoyed positive dating relationships, including one with a well-to-do African American real estate entrepreneur. “I have known Michael for years and he treats me like a queen,” Stephanie says. “He tells me all the time he liked my body better when I weighed one hundred and fifty pounds more. He thinks I am too small now.”

“The men I meet adore me, my body,” says Elizabeth, a plus-size graphic artist. “They’ll say things like, ‘I like being with you because there is more to hold on to,’ and ‘You’re soft and cushy.’ I think some men see a woman with big breasts and imagine a cushion, a place they can bury their face and feel safe.”

An executive booking manager for a Los Angeles-area speakers’ bureau, Juanita describes herself as large and lovely and “a player in the dating scene.” She does not see herself as anyone’s wife—ever. “There are lots of men who like me because I am a big woman,” Juanita says. “I have never had a problem with men not liking me because of my weight; my personality shines. And men always comment on my pretty eyes. Obviously they admire the essence of me. They also like my other body parts too.”

Tina, a diminutive, thirty-eight-year-old African American woman who has dated both men and women for the past twelve years, says that guys are usually “looking for a woman who is smaller in size than they are, and women typically look for taller men. With lesbians, though, a woman’s shape and height are usually not that important.” Tina does believe that even within the gay community large women are often misjudged. “When I see a big woman at the clubs, I assume she is a ‘stud’—more stereotypically masculine than feminine—but that is not always true.”

Chubby Chasers

According to Stephanie, however there is a world of difference between a man who loves and appreciates big women and so-called “chubby chasers.”

The latter are men with a fetish, obsessed with fatty flesh. Elizabeth, the graphic designer, calls such men “vultures who find and exploit [a woman] they think may have low self-esteem because of her size. Chubby chasers really don’t like themselves and come to us figuring we must also feel bad about ourselves too. They think we’ll be a perfect match.”

Stephanie agrees. “Chasers are losers, weirdoes, outcasts, secretly gay or bisexual, too short, or otherwise physically unattractive. “Especially the guys who troll the Internet chat rooms and place personal ads,” says Stephanie. “Those are the kinds of guys who are really looking for vulnerable women to play ‘mama’ to them.”

Chubby chasers may be desperately seeking women to support them and forgive them for their infidelities and other faults in the same way that they might seek approval from an understanding parent. Chubby chasers are often in search of a woman with a big body and a big heart to match. Stephanie remembers encountering lots of men during her super-sized days who were “closet chubby chasers”—guys who wanted to be seen in public with a slender girl, but, when they got home, they wanted to “do it” with an obese or overweight woman.

With regards to Internet surfing, there are numerous porno sites designed to titillate chubby chasers into whipping out the plastic and purchasing copies of their favorite plus-sized, videotaped, and streamed fantasies. These videos feature images of dark hued, pouty models, spread eagled in close-ups and are similar in style and mood to the photos of their slimmer counterparts. The triple XL size black women are served up in typical X-rated style just like the thin ones are, splayed out for male gawking and self-pleasuring. In fact, the only difference between these streaming videos and digital pinups are thicker belly rolls, heavier, flabbier thighs, and humongous breasts. Such images prove irresistible to men all over the world, insists Lee Mack owner of a porno website featuring fat women. According to Mack, “my website has been so lucrative, I am planning to take my full-figured models on the road, on a so-called ‘Big Girls Gone Wild’ tour.”

Some people may view this kind of pornography as “fat equality” but it is really just a different shape of female exploitation.

Does Being Fat Affect Your Sex Life?

A controversial study called “Obesity and Sexual Quality of Life,” published by researchers at Duke University in 2004, report surprising data of the surveyed participants at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center. The report included 507 obese people who were seeking treatment, and 422 obese and 282 normal weight participants who were not seeking treatment. The survey concluded that obesity impairs sexual activity. “For blacks, the news could be of particular concern because of their rate of obesity,” said Dr. Martin Binks, co-author of the Duke study and director of behavioral health at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center. “Analyzing sexual activity or a lack thereof in any group can be a difficult task,” Binks said. “What we hear from our patients is that they experience difficulty and sometimes have a lack of sexual desire. This is a serious issue for quality of life.”

And forget about trying to maneuver into creative lovemaking positions, confessed one middle-aged African American wife who struggles with her weight and suffers from high blood pressure but who was not apart of the Duke study. “These days, I get tired and out of breath when I’m in bed with my husband. The missionary position is all we do.”

The Duke study also revealed that obese people have significantly more impairments in sexual activity than people who stayed within healthy ranges of weight, and that obese people who seek weight loss treatment report significantly lower sexual quality of life than obese people who do not seek treatment.

Seen and Unseen

Stephanie used to describe herself as “super-sized” when she weighed over three hundred pounds before weight loss surgery. She remembers feeling both “conspicuous and invisible” when it came to the opposite sex.

Etched in Stephanie’s mind is an incident in an L.A highrise. A professionally dressed black man got on the elevator with Stephanie and never made eye contact. Instead, remembers Stephanie, the atmosphere was tense, and the guy kept his gaze glued to the floor until the doors opened and he bolted out.

“I could write a book all about how black men treat fat women,” Stephanie proclaims. “I will never forget that time in the elevator. I wanted to shout at him ‘speak to a sista, will you? I am still your sister whether or not I am fat.’” After weight loss surgery, Stephanie lost one hundred and fifty pounds in just over two years. She did it because, even though she enjoyed healthy relationships with many men, some men reacted to her in a negative way. “[Before I lost the weight] they started treating me like ‘the fat girl’—a person who did not matter, who needn’t be acknowledged or spoken to, someone who was less than a human being.”

Typically upbeat and cheerful, Stephanie’s voice lowers with hurt and rage when she recalls the black men who ignored her and treated her like she was “nothing” when she was fat. “Black men would not even extend to me common courtesies, like holding the door open.” Stephanie insists that white and Hispanic men were more likely to look her in the eye and acknowledge her than were black men. “If you are physically unappealing to a black man in any way,” Stephanie believes, “some act like you don’t even exist.”

Crystal Crawford, the director of Public Policy for the California Black Women’s Health Project, which studied African American women’s health concerns, sees the increasing popularity of liposuction and weight loss surgeries with urban and suburban black women as a sign that African Americans are rejecting the “big mama” characterization—the sexless mistress of the kitchen that has been around since the days of slavery. “Today, women are willing to go to extremes to find a quick fix as a way of getting that male attention,” Crawford says. “Black women want to be perceived as so-called ‘cute and small.’ Society says that ‘petite’ is what is beautiful. We as black people have always embraced fuller figures. But nowadays, the media images are working on us in the sense that more and more black women desire to be thin.”

Robyn McGee is the author of Hungry for More: A Keeping-it-Real Guide for Black Women on Weight and Body Image Seal Press 2005. It is available at Amazon and bookstores everywhere.