Big Big Love! by Hanne Blank

In August of last year I wrote here about the revised version of Big Big Love coming out in 2011. Well...it's here! And can be bought by anyone desirous of doing so, as of a few days ago.

The subtitle of Big Big Love is "A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them)." Which is just what it is, in the best, broadest, kindest, firmest, most positive way. I actually think it's a great resource for anybody, whatever your size, and a great primer for managing your own needs and treating yourself well while navigating life as a sexual being. There is an air of kindly authority to (especially the new version of) this book that ever pleases me.

In addition to the delicious and nutritious text from Ms. Blank, and the wonderful slidy, bosomy cover photo by Fat Bottom Boudoir, there are interviews with:

• Substantia Jones, photographer/founder of Adipositivity
• Lesley Kinzel of Two Whole Cakes (formerly Fatshionista.com)
• Golda Poretsky of Body Love Wellness

and others; wonderful peeps with great specific ideas and advice.

Look, it's a snippet!
A sexy snippet.

What I didn't mention in my last blog entry about this book--and didn't know at the time--was that I'd be illustrating it. There aren't many illustrations in this book--just five--but they were all extremely carefully chosen, and drawn, to complement the text in very specific ways. I mean, duh, right--that is what illustrations are for--but a lot of thought went into them, from Hanne, from her great editor, from me. I hope they please.

It is a wonderful book and I am honored to have been part of it. I have seen it in every stage (and I mean every): from working on the zine from which it grew in the late 90s; to reading the edits in the original version ten years ago; reading edits for this one; offering bits of input all along the way. And I still find helpful and new information in it. I still go back to it for its solid yet nuanced perspective, and I'm sure I always will. If I hadn't gotten my illustrator's copy, I'd buy it. I can't recommend it more highly than that.

Hanne will be doing readings and events in the fall. You can find out more about them here. HB is one of the best public speakers I know--go have fun.

Love love!

Mrs. Avoirdupois

If you don't already, I recommend you follow Mrs. Clarence L. Avoirdupois on Twitter or perhaps 'like' her Facebook page to enjoy her teachings. Her firmly sensible advice for the plump, offered in the face of life's confusing little challenges and the occasional ill-mannered boor, is both charming and pragmatic. Enjoy, plumplings!

tell us again, Grandma--

Tell us about the days of Print!

I was visiting our friendly locally-owned sex store recently (have you visited yours? they are happy places) and while browsing through their library suddenly remembered being at Good for Her in Toronto sometime in 2001. I was looking at their magazines, and there in the rack to my surprise was a well-thumbed copy of a zine I worked on, Zaftig!. It was a funny feeling, to find something so familiar so far away. It was cool.

Zaftig! Sex for the Well-Rounded, which was the brainchild of Hanne Blank, was published between 1999 and 2001. Hanne was the editor, which meant, among other things, plowing through a bizillion badly-spelled and sometimes hilarious submissions, and I--recruited after the first two issues--did everything else, which meant, among other things, Photoshopping beautiful, very naughty art and agonizing over baseline alignment and diacritical marks. Hanne began Zaftig! with the idea in mind that "no people should be deprived of their own image," and I think we both believed passionately in the worth of what we were doing. Also: our cats were on the masthead.

Unfortunately, the last planned issue of Zaftig! never happened, although we have as a memorial to the experience this amazing piece of cover art by Les Toil, which I conceived as a kind of Russian Constructivist gesture, and I think he succeeded amazingly. I still love this work. I adore our pen-guns.

Zaftig! ultimately helped give birth to two of Hanne's books: Zaftig: Well Rounded Erotica (ed.) and Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them. The very good news right now is that Ten Speed Press is going to publish a reworked and embiggened version of Big Big Love, a book for which I think the demand has only grown in the ten years since it was published.

And you can be part of the new Big Big Love by taking Hanne's survey that will help inform the book. The link is here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BBL2010survey

The survey is "designed to gather information about the sexual and romantic lives and experiences of people who either identify themselves as fat, who are or have been attracted to fat romantic/sexual partners, or both." So if you fit--tightly or not--into any of these categories, consider taking the time to click through the pages and be part of something important.

Yay books!

blogs of size

I agonized quite a while over what to name this blog.

My other blog was named on a whim, and I still regret it, inasmuch as saying the name out loud makes me squirm: it's pretentious, I don't really know how to pronounce it correctly, and I usually mumble it like an embarrassed teenager, less and less coherently (invariably people don't hear it on the first pass) when people ask me what it's called. It's not catchy at all, except to call it "tha ki-YAY" sometimes. I like it well enough in print, but that's different. All this I hoped to avoid here.

I also wanted to avoid the absolute sea of puns that exist for fat clothing stores and fat social groups and dating sites: More to Love, Big [Whatever]s, Large and in Charge, etc. Any good or thought-provoking punnery in amongst the cheese (and there's a lot) there has long since been exhausted, and I just didn't feel like those kinds of names would strike the right tone. They are too focused, ultimately, anyhow. I love names like Big Fat Blog, but I didn't want to go that kind of route anymore either.

I ended up with a few runner-ups. After speaking with my friend Hanne, I was seriously pondering two somewhat similar ones:

LIPOFILIA
or
LESSONS IN LIPO-LITERACY

...the latter being a nod to sociologist Mark Graham's brilliant term. Another contender was something my friend Damian used to say when he wanted to win an argument (I think it's already a blog name):

IPSO FATSO

The winner, though, came from Martha Bayne, tossed off from behind the bar, no less, in a fit of brainstorming while she served drinks. It's still working for me, and I really like the definite article. Let's meet at The Extender, shall we?

Thanks, Martha.