A Non-Owner of Desire

An insight into my body's relationship with desire

I was never taught how to love my body. Instead, I was taught that it was only appropriate to hate it. I have always been larger than the other kids and I was made acutely aware of it. In many diaspora African households’ appearance is highly regarded: your body becomes a sight of shame or pride. Being fat is inherently a sign of failure. Your body and appearance become the umbrella under which all your achievements fall under. A fat body is a problem to be fixed.

Unsurprisingly, this makes it incredibly difficult for one to love themselves or conceive of themselves as desirable. Instead, you become hyper aware of your body and how other people perceive it. For me, this was made manifest at the young age of 11 when I started starving myself and looked for ways to be skinnier, including joining a pro-anorexia Whatsapp group chat. I hated my body, and felt like no one would ever love it simply because it was fat.

In my early teens I realised it was too taxing to hate my body. Instead of embarking on a journey of self love, I took the easier route of dissociating my body from my metaphysical self. Essentially, I became more comfortable in my own skin as I developed a stronger sense of self, whilst ignoring that I was choosing not to perceive my own body because it was fat. I valued my metaphysical self and apologised for my physical body. I became more confident being self assured that I was outspoken, funny, caring, compassionate whilst dissociating from my fat body. Although society encourages fat people to hate ourselves, a body is simply a body. We are not born with this self hatred that many people in larger bodies wear as a badge. It is also not our fault that our own families, or society at large has taught us that any love we will receive is conditional on us promising we will chase smaller bodies.

My dysfunctional relationship with my body came to my attention whenever I had a romantic interest. Every time someone did not like me back I would often assume that it was because of my body. Through the rampant fatphobic sentiments I grew up with, it became an internalised principle that once I lost weight, I’d be desirable. It was like this new body I was salivating over would provide me the key to the gates of heaven. As I approach the end of my teens and go into my twenties, my body has chased desire relentlessly as an apology for its fatness.

My dating history is a series of broken stories sprinkled with whispers of love. I would enter situationship after situationship, chasing the high that came with the promise of being loved and desired. If people were willing to date me, perhaps my body was not so bad after all.

The chase was fun. But every race comes to an end. During all these encounters, my dissociation between my metaphysical self and my physical body continued. I believed that people would necessarily have to see through my body to fully enjoy my metaphysical self. People could not possibly desire me for my body alone, desire did not call my name.

Interestingly, I believed my body’s desirability differed when it came to women versus men. When it came to romantic encounters with women, I presumed that they were ‘body blind.’ They could see past my body to appreciate and desire my metaphysical self. They could see that I was funny, smart, outspoken and extroverted. By contrast, I presumed men would look past me because they would be unable to see past my body. To men, I was a non-owner of desire. The premise underlying these presumptions was that people could not possibly be attracted to my body.

Over the past year and a half, I have whispered desire’s name relentlessly and she has flirted with me in response. I have initiated most of my romantic encounters. As the starting premise was that my fat body was undesirable, dating someone brought me closer to desirability. So when I went on dates, desire was mine for a night and she enjoyed my presence. When this would turn into a situationship, desire sat on my shoulder daily. My love or appreciation for my body laid in my lover’s perception of it. This was especially true in encounters with flirtatious strangers on nights out. Desire, for once, was chasing me. Said stranger does not know my metaphysical self. My body was the invitation letter into discovering me. My body was desirable, and thus loveable.

My pursuit of desire meant that I was unable to let go of romantic encounters that no longer served me. I would never be the one to end situationships, even if I could feel that it was dwindling. I had to hold on to desire, even if it was burning me. Indeed, why would I chase desire away the rare times that she called me by name?

I realise that in chasing desire through these romantic encounters, I was ‘othering’ myself from my own body. I wrote in a journal entry sometime in May, ‘I must allow myself to become the Self. I have always been concerned with the other, never been self. I am always ‘othered’ even from my own body.’

When you feel ‘othered’ from your own body, every sexual experience feels like an out of body experience because it can’t possibly be happening that someone wants to see, touch, admire and sleep with my fat, undesirable body. That it cannot be true that someone is attracted to my physical body as it exists. No changes needed. No weight loss programme in the back burner. Just my naked body and them. Surely, desire is now mine: I am finally fuckable. I am finally loveable.

When it comes to my body and men, I wonder how could they ever desire me? The male gaze lays on me differently, being something that I rarely receive, I am suspicious of it when it does come. For example, when I had an encounter with a guy that wanted me for my body, it was both uncomfortable and exhilarating. Desire was mine. For once, I felt wanted because of my body. But rather than engaging in my usual behaviour of not letting go, I did not pursue things further with him because the call for desire was not mutual. This felt like a turning point for me.

Now, I am coming to embrace my body as a temple. If it is true that I was made in God’s image, that I am the physical embodiment of God’s consciousness, how could I ever hate my body? I also hate to say it, but my romantic encounters did also aid me in this process. That is, if others can see the desirability in my body, then perhaps it is time I start seeing it myself. One of the best compliments I received from an ex lover was that I am perfect. The assertion that my body did not need to be changed to be perceived, loved, accepted and desired by her encouraged me to feel this way about myself.

All this being said, I am entering a new era of self love where I want to be the love of my life. The lyrics ‘If I was a bad bitch, I’d wanna fuck me too’ begin to resonate with me as I begin to embrace the reality that I am desirable just as I am. It has taken me a long time to begin to think like this.

In a capitalist society where the only way to be accepted is if you’re changing or ‘improving’ yourself, fat bodies are only acceptable if we are on some weight loss journey. Thus, my body is transitional because fat bodies are non-bodies. This is not (it cannot be) our final form. The acceptance of my body is predicated on me loosing the weight thus any love that is given to me is always conditional. The premise is that skinny bodies can be loved unconditionally.

In this light, a mundane act of resistance in the face of empire is to love myself unconditionally. To truly believe that love, pleasure, desire are accessible and available to me just as I am. I am full of love and I do not need to be in a smaller body to be desirable. The realisation came to me that because I’ve always been made hyper aware of my body as access (to love, to acceptance, and etc) and not as a vessel (which we must cherish and take care of), my love for my personality may have developed  to upkeep my dysfunctional relationship with my body. Now, I wish to internalise that I am desirable not in spite of my body, but through my body. My metaphysical self-need  not be separated from my physical self. Indeed, I am desire and desire is me. She lays in bed with me every night.

Body IS. The body is a vessel for your soul. I will take care of my body because my body takes care of me every day. Even when I mistreat it, it finds ways to remediate the harm that I do to it. My body loves me and it’s time I start loving it back. I will exercise, eat well, sleep and rest out of love. I will learn to radically love my body, if not because of my own ease, I will learn to love it because it is necessary. It is a necessary act of resistance to love yourself without condition. To look both past and through my body. I am worthy of desire and pleasure as I am. I am not saying I am there yet. I am saying I will continue staring at the mirror with kinder eyes, an open heart and a literate mind. If daily self-affirmations do not work, I will read and radicalise myself into unconditional self-love. When I stumble, I will rise again. I am getting to a point where I am beginning to think, ‘This is my fat body and I love it very much. If you do not desire it, then fuck you.’ I sit on desire’s face, daily.

I am whole. This is the biggest sentiment that is transforming my relationship with my body. I do not have to chase desire, because I am whole. Everyone and everything that I want will come to me, I am whole. I am not in a state of transition, nor stack of lack and I am certainly not a problem to be fixed, I am whole. Dear reader, you are whole too, and desire has always known your name.

The journey of self-love is a lifelong one and at least for me, it is not easy. It is inherently harder to choose to love yourself unconditionally in a society that salivates over your non-existence. You do not have to look far, shop sizes only go up to a certain size. Shrink or disappear. It will take me a lot more unlearning to internalise that: 1). My body is the least interesting thing about me and 2). Desire and love is inherently available to everyone. Especially as someone who is constantly reminded of her fatness, it is a hard but rewarding journey to learn to love yourself without condition. After all, the only thing you hold from life up until death, is yourself.

I am grateful for my fat body every day. It has always loved me and I am giving her the gift of learning to love her back.