My Crush on Mr. Spock Comes Full Circle

Recently, during a chat with a friend, I suddenly realized that my two most major relationships were with men who bear a striking physical resemblance to Mr. Spock, of the original Star Trek series. I can remember finding him attractive at a very, very early age. My first crush, when I was five, was on a 22 year old friend of my cousin's who was, shock of all shocks, tall, lean, dark haired and of lowish voice. But I say that my fascination was with Spock, rather than the Leonard Nimoy,who portrayed the character (for those of you just crawling out of your cave or the womb or both) because the attraction was a full package. The "package" I refer to, of course, would be the combo of the pointy ears and eyebrows, unreasonably snug clothing, deep voice and unnaturally shiny hair. Until recently I hadn't much considered the character's phlegmatic, if somewhat patronizing nature to be any factor. Yet as I revisited my old flame via TVLAND, a few nights ago, I realized that I had largely found that attractive as well (not necessarily now, mind you). Not knowing what Leonard Nimoy was like, it just seemed right and reasonable and if I may... logical, to assign my penchant to his Vulcan alter-ego. And although I thought this would be a fun enough revelation to share as a blip, I found my way to New York Times article, while searching for a delicious image of my alien love model this morning, and it is just too fascinating (and relevant) to pass up pointing out.

It turns out, that Mr. Nimoy is a noted and published photographer. Naturally, since I don't follow the personal lives of performers I like, I didn't know that. Apparently, he had a very successful run with his Shekhina project and during that time was approached by an obese woman who had asked if he would like to photograph her. The article ends with pointing out that while Nimoy finds his models beautiful, that he is not necessarily sexually attracted to them which, I think, is entirely fair and intriguing that it be his response after seeing all of these women naked.


The reason this blog ended up here, in a place where I am sharing my feelings about how to come to terms with my body image and what I want that image to be, should seem obvious once you have read the article. If you can't be bothered to read it, I'll try to put this as plainly as I can. That is, naked, I look just like these women. To see them being portrayed, not as monsterous, boil festering, filthy, smelly ogres is so new it shocked me to see these images. Even pornography aimed at men who desire women just like the models in this project, usually features the most degrading and grotesque caricatures of everything hateful you could assume of a fat woman.

As I have said before, while I do not find myself to be ugly, nasty, gross, or any other of the usual negative adjectives assigned to women of such weight, I have had more negative input on my body than any other aspect of my life. I was conditioned from the time I was a toddler, as most are, to consider women who look like these models... women who look like me, to be nothing short of disgusting. It is a conditioning I fight every single day. I'm terrified that if I don't fit into the culturally imposed idea of beauty and sexiness, that the deficit of affection, intimate companionship, romance and sexual expression burning a hole in me, will swallow me. Yet my refusal to succumb to that expectation (coupled with my upbringing), is precisely what got me into this predicament. The irony of that fact is not lost on me.

Yes, I do still have a shred of hope that there are men out there who are less concerned with body image and more concerned about ALL of the things that make up the attractiveness of a woman. I've held onto ridiculous amounts of hope for a long, long time. Believe me. I have soldiered through the immense pain brought on by men who have cared deeply for me but could not get past the social stigma of being with a large woman (even when they found me sexually irresistible). I have courageously exposed my hope on dating sites full of men who lust after large women, and learned that a large percentage of them want such a woman for all the wrong reasons (certainly where I am concerned. The two biggest being the misconception that we are either all completely lacking in self esteem, or ball busting Brunhildas). One man described what he imagined my body to look like in a way that I am certain to have been a pleasurable, sexual image, but literally made me want to throw up. Not because he was being nasty, but because everything he had described was exactly what I been being trained to abhor in others, and particularly hate in myself. Just remebering my reaction, now, terrifies me and I believe that moment was the catalyst for realizing that I need to change. fter all, it would never occur to me to hate another person for not being just like me. How sad that I would feel revulsion over someone who does?!

Finding one more man, willing to assert the notion that a flat stomach, tiny breasts and boyish hips are not the only attributes of beauty in a woman gave me the dose of hope I needed today.

So maybe Mr. Spock got all the looks,

but it looks like Lenny got all the character. Maybe I was on the right track after all! ;-)