Sex Gets Real 233: Jes Baker on fat bodies, sex, intimacy, & PCOS

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Jes Baker on Mormonism, sex, changing bodies, and saying “fuck it”.

If I had to point to a single person who caused my entire life to pivot and open up, it would be Jes Baker. She is the reason I even started questioning the stories I’d been given about my body. It was her blog, her fierce truths to fat folks, that was the catalyst for my own journey towards healing, towards being more curious about my pleasure and sexuality, towards nearly everything I have come to be at this point in my life.

So, it’s not an understatement to say that it has long been a dream of mine to interview Jes, and I had so much fun chatting with her for the show. Despite a LOT of technical difficulties, we made it work.

From her upbringing within the Mormon faith to confronting her deepest fears around intimacy in love, we cover quite a bit in this episode, and I am incredibly delighted to share it with you.

Follow Dawn on Instagram.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism

Jes Baker, Landwhale

In this episode, Jes and I talk about:

• Her experience around Mormonism and how she was taught that her body was a weapon. The ways rape culture and Mormonism reinforce victim-blaming and the weaponization of women’s bodies.
• The horrific trauma that Jes experienced and shared only to be told by others that this was not her experience at all.
• The trial and error process that many of us have to adopt around fat sex.
• Bodies changing and all the ways they can change, the feelings that creates, and the importance of having a partner or partners who get it.
• The weird and complex feelings that we have to work with around our bodies in order for us to process and heal.
• That very vulnerable space of shame around our bodies and the way we look, and how meeting that shame with empathy creates a more transformative perspective.
• The importance of finding and/or being with a partner/partners that help you feel safe where you can practice sexual authenticity and experiment on your terms.
• Having honest conversations about your body and understanding that your partner/partners can have bad body days, too.
• The Fuck it approach and why it’s worked for Jes.
• Jes’s experience with PCOS and how body hair has kept us locked in our heads and avoiding touch from people we love.
• Performing sex and performing femininity in order to gain access to more acceptance, kindness, and resources, especially if you’re in a fat body.
• Pleasure and how it shows up in Jes’ life now.

About Jes Baker:

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra, that’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships, from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love, as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics and liberation. This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So, welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.

Hey, you! Welcome to this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. I’m so excited that it’s with Jes Baker. Jes is the person who first brought me into body positivity and then fat activism. It was one of her articles that actually got me thinking about my body in a really different way. She was giving permission to fat people in a way that I just didn’t know was even possible. I thought the only way to exist in a fat body was to hate it or to want it to be different. She started me down a path of asking different questions. Not necessarily easy questions, but different questions. And here we are! Having the opportunity to talk with her is definitely a fangirl moment for me. 

Dawn Serra: The other thing that makes me so sad about that is we had some major technical difficulties when we were recording this. We could not get technology to be on our side. We had to start and stop about eight times. It took us about 40 minutes of trying and readjusting and recalibrating before we finally got a good conversation really going. But the technology agreed with. You will hear in this episode, as much as it pains me to say so, that there are some little hiccups and starts and stops. We put it together the best that we could because God, it was so wonderful chatting with her and she’s super busy. I really appreciated the fact that she made time for us to share her stories about her new book, “Landwhale,” which if you have not yet read it, it is such a sweet, vulnerable, real, raw, memoir of essays. 

I also want to let everybody know, if you heard last week’s episode, then you know in just like a week or two, I am going to be emailing out an official recommended book list based on an email that I got from someone who was looking for some resources on how to become more sex positive and what I recommended. So I’m putting together an official book list – the books that I recommend most to clients and also on the show. If you want to be the first to get that book list, then you just have to make sure you’re on the Sex Gets Real newsletter. There is a link in the show notes and also at dawnserra.com for this episode, where you can click to sign up with your name and your email and I will send you that book list in just a couple of weeks. Plus, it’ll also give you a chance to be in my newsletter where I ask all kinds of questions and offer stories and resources that you never hear on the show. So be sure to check that out. Also, don’t forget to support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/sgrpodcast, weekly bonus content, listener emails, all kinds of fun ways to support the show. 

Dawn Serra: Then, finally, I just bought a pack of cards from The Vulva Gallery known as Merry Clitmas Cards. They are beautiful paintings of vulvas, of course, from The Vulva Gallery. I will be holding a drawing in November to pull ten lucky listeners’ names and addresses. Then I will be handwriting a little note to each person who gets their name selected and then physically mailing cards to whoever those ten people are from me. So stay tuned for that. That’s going to be happening later in November and then I’ll start sending holiday cards out to the folks whose names get pulled. I’ll also be providing an address where people can mail me cards because I love snail mail! So if you’re the kind of person that sends holiday cards, then I would love to receive one from you. Details on that coming soon.

Let me tell you a little bit about Jes, if you’re not familiar with her, and then we’ll jump into my interview with her. Jes Baker is a positive, progressive and magnificently irreverent force to be reckoned with in the realm of self-love, advocacy and mental health. She is internationally known for preaching the importance of body liberation, hard conversations, strong coffee and even stronger language. Just burst into the body positivity scene when she created her own ads mocking Abercrombie & Fitch for discriminating against all body types, a move that landed her on The Today Show and garnered a loyal following for her raw, honest and attitude-filled blog missives. When not writing, Jes spends her time speaking around the world, working with plus size clothing companies, organizing body liberation events, taking pictures in her underwear and attempting to convince her cats that they like to wear bow ties. Here is my chat with the incredible Jes Baker. 

Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Jes. I’m ridiculously excited to talk to you today about “Landwhale” and all things related. So it’s great to have you on the show. 

Jes Baker: Oh. Thank you. I’m really excited. 

Dawn Serra: Oh. Good. Me, too. For listeners who don’t know – and I’m sure, Jes you hear this all the time, so just allow me a moment – it was probably eight or nine years ago that my journey into fat acceptance and body positivity and questioning all the things was from one of your blog posts and it changed the direction of everything that happened to me after that day. That just gave me full body goosebumps. 

Jes Baker: Yay! Oh my God. Thank you. That’s so kind.

Dawn Serra: No. You’re so welcome. It was honestly that I had ever– For the first time I’d ever read anybody say, “People know what you look like when you’re wearing your clothes, you’re not hiding anything.” And I was like, “What the fuck?”

Jes Baker: It doesn’t make you not fat. You’re still fat. If you are black, it’s cool. Your body is cool the way it is. 

Dawn Serra: Right. Maybe if people are still showing up, it’s because they’re okay with how your body is looking clothes on and off. I was like, “Holy shit! I haven’t been fooling anybody?” Then that was the start of all kinds of new questions. 

Jes Baker: Yes. Especially in the bedroom where it’s like so– Man, that’s… Yeah. I love that you’re doing this podcast because it’s such a one, we don’t talk about enough and two, it’s one thing to wear black in public, but how do you… When you’re having sex with someone else like, “Oh my God! I’m really excited.”

Dawn Serra: I know. Me too. So here’s what I would love to start. First of all, for people who aren’t aware, you have a new book out called “Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass” – which is a fantastic title. There’s a significant amount of the book really talking about the ways that growing up in the Mormon Church separated you from your body and the ways that you were taught that your body was dangerous and detestable and also all the messages that you got about what it meant to be in a relationship and to be sexual. So can we just start with that? I know a lot of listeners have been on a separating themselves from the religions that they grew up in journey. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like and where it led you?

Jes Baker: Am I allowed to swear on your podcast?

Dawn Serra: Fuck. Yes.

Jes Baker: Okay. That’s a really good thing for me to know. Oh my God, Mormonism. I feel like it’s such a small part of my story when it comes to sex and my body. Ultimately, it’s how I grew up, so very much part of my formative years. The world was telling me that my body shape was not okay, but the Mormon Church was telling me even more. It was telling me that my body was a weapon, it’s dangerous and then nothing else. There was no explanation. It was just kind of this, “If anything bad happens, it’s your fault. So cover up.” 

You know, it’s really interesting because I was Mormon throughout my childhood and then also into college. I went to BYU-Idaho, which is a Mormon College – Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), but we’re just going to go with Mormon. First of all, they have really terrible views on weirdness in general. But even for straight couples, they– In college, people were dating and getting married. But the furthest you could go, the most scandalous that you could do was– In the real world, if you sleep with someone, it’s like whatever. It’s a one night stand. At BYU-Idaho, they had something we called a NCMO, which is the non-committal make out session. That’s like breadth of sexuality that people experience. I don’t know. 

Jes Baker: Mormonism, for me specifically, really reminds me of the rape culture that we see because what I was told was my body was weapon and that it was my responsibility to keep myself in check, so that the boys would not be tempted. There was a lot of that kind of rhetoric. If they were tempted, it would be my fault. And if something happened, then they would lose their place in heaven and then that would also be my fault. There was a lot of protect at all costs for men and responsibility lying on the woman no matter what. It was kind of gross. 

But the interesting thing is that that point, when I was a teenager – even a preteen – I was already aware of the world’s messaging that my body was not desirable. So it was just– It really was a cluster fuck of “I don’t know much about anything, but I do know that I’m not okay for a million reasons.” That’s kind of where I sat during the 18, 19 years of Mormonism.

Dawn Serra: So coming out of this background where sex was seen as pre-marriage, this terrible, monstrous thing, and then post-marriage is this beautiful, sacred thing, and they’re supposed to be this magic switch. And also–

Jes Baker: Yes.

Dawn Serra: Danger around your body mixed with already getting these messages around what kind of body you had and how much value it had, it– I think one of the things that’s so beautifully demonstrated through your book and the way that you write always is just this relationship of distancing and cutting yourself off from your body and not really having a relationship with it where you can hear it and trust it. 

Jes Baker: Absolutely. And I think the intersection of modesty and that spirituality kind of world and fatness is really fascinating because the world tells us a lot of things about fat bodies. You know, there’s this on one end of the spectrum, there’s this desexualization of fat bodies. There is, in other ways, hypersexualization. So there was already this desexualization and disappearance, as a person, like people don’t see you. That plus this modesty and not–

For those who may not be familiar, in university, college-aged kids, you had to wear… Everything was below the knee. Even things like you couldn’t have a five o’clock shadow if you were a guy. You couldn’t wear flip flops. It was almost a very– I watched my mom do this where you could easily just disconnect completely and become like a wallflower, just not seen. You’re covered up. You’re fat. So there was this weird part that was like, “My body’s dangerous because sexualization but also I’m fat, so I don’t think I’m even worthy of being that kind of a fuck up.” So it’s just was so messy. 

Jes Baker: It took me a long time to figure out sexuality in general. That was a lot of awkward situation. They don’t teach you anything and my parents were horrified to talk about it. I got like a whiteboard presentation one night one time. So there was not knowing and then not understanding. There was a lot of trial and error. A lot of error.

When I left Mormonism, which was when I was about 19, 20 and… Yeah. I made a lot of really– Let’s just say I’m really glad that I am still okay. I wasn’t harmed really by anything that happened because I put myself in some really risky situations. 

Jes Baker: But that’s what happens when we  have a lack of information. We don’t talk about things. That’s, I think, the main thing about college that it’s really hard for me because I know that I had a date rape situation that I very rarely talk about now. Because I wrote about it openly online and then was instantly corrected by all these men, who they don’t even know me. They weren’t there. They have no idea, but it was just a fragile and hard thing to kind of wrap my head around, especially in rape culture, where it’s always the woman’s fault.

That was my first time ever kissing someone and having sex. That was my first experience. I had no idea how horrific and traumatizing it was because I had no information to come to a situation with and don’t talk about it, which is why we have podcast like this.

Dawn Serra: First of all, I just want to say on behalf of the human race, I’m sorry that you have experienced so many people just gaslighting and denying your reality. I think that that’s happened to a lot of people, especially women and queer folks and POC and disabled folks online. You know, where people come in and tell you, “That’s not your experience,” which is a shitty thing. But then also having to really navigate a situation where you didn’t really have resources and you didn’t have Information and you’re trying to figure things out for yourself and feeling like, “Holy shit! This thing happened” and trying to move ahead. 

It just breaks my heart that so many young people, especially come into adulthood and there’s this expectation culturally that like, “Oh. Well, now you’re 18, you just know all the things and go off and do your thing and you’re responsible for everything that happened” and kind of this silence that happens both around body politics and also around sexuality and the ways we relate to each other.

Jes Baker: Right. Absolutely. I think the most complicated part about that situation was I had no frame of reference for any of it, first of all. I had a very strange mixture of feelings were I couldn’t believe because of what the world had told me about my body, that someone would even find me fuckable. That was mind blowing. So in that way, I was like, “Oh my God.” Almost as if it was like a compliment. And then what I didn’t realize is how much trauma was stored up and the horror. I know that there was horror there because of what happened immediately afterwards. So it was a confusing combination. 

It wasn’t until I read Jessica Valenti’s “Full Frontal Feminism,” where she talks about rape culture, that I realized that that was exactly what happened. So a really heavy thing to start the podcast off with, but I remember just being like, “I want to find a Mormon girl out there and just start a school of sexuality because so much of these situations wouldn’t happen if we just gave people information, so they would know what to do. I still dream about it. How I would get a little classroom and teach them with my tattoos and scandalous thoughts.

Dawn Serra: Maybe scandalous is good.

Jes Baker: Let me teach you the ways of the real world so you don’t get hurt. That’s what I want. Yeah. I figured it out. I figured it out. Took a little bit of– Took quite a few years and a lot of healing, but I figured it out.

Dawn Serra: I sometimes feel like I’m still fucking figuring it out. It’s different levels.

Jes Baker: There’s totally different levels. I’ve got the base level and I’m proud of that. I got the base level to the point where I understand myself a little and I understand my worth a little bit. It’s a good place to be.

Dawn Serra: I would love to talk about that place that you’ve kind of trial and errored your way to and that you’ve grown into in this space, which is I frequently get questions from people who are feeling either insecure about their bodies because they’ve recently changed or because they’re in a new relationship and fat sex is a thing that some people are talking about. We’ve had Elle Chase on the show talking about curvy girl sex and all that goodness. But there’s still kind of this shame and confusion around it. 

As you’ve kind of come into yourself and you’ve had all these experiences and had a chance to really try things out and figure out, even the humiliating stuff, how to process that. When you think about fat sex, what comes to mind?

Jes Baker: Gratitude for the partner who understands that bodies change over time. I think that is the most beautiful, profound realization that when I had met my partner, I did not fully believe. I had this idea that my body, for most of my life, should be smaller. But then also, there’s always that concept of letting yourself go in a relationship, that is so shame-filled and so horrific and wrong. 

I walked into this relationship with this man who was like, “Yeah. Bodies change. It’s cool,” Just from this point of flexibility and that was so beautiful to hear. And then as I– Sometimes I have to learn from other people and that’s okay. But I slowly start to internalize that myself and I see the importance of accepting our bodies as they change because they change as we age. They change if we have a physical trauma. They change, if we take a different medication. They change all the time. But there’s a lot of different reasons that our bodies change. 

Jes Baker: And so I feel very comfortable, I guess, in my body changing. That doesn’t mean it’s not fat. That doesn’t mean I don’t freak out. But to have a reminder from someone that I love, that I trust inherently, it’s really wonderful.

Dawn Serra: There’s a chapter in your book called Three Vaginas. 

Jes Baker: Yes. There is.

Dawn Serra: I had this fantastic, just moment of being in that scene with you where I was laughing because the way you relate it is just so funny with the narrator talking about where, kind of what’s going on. But also just this deep sense of like, “Oh. Fuck. Have I been there.” Those moments of just “Look at this! I just need you to see the same thing that I’m seeing,” and then having it met with compassion and how fucking confusing that can be. 

Jes Baker: Yes.

Dawn Serra: I thought that was such a beautiful demonstration of what you’re talking about, of having this moment of, “Holy shit! What is my body even doing?” and freaking out and then having it met by someone who’s like, “Alright. We’re freaking out, but that’s okay. And your body’s cool.” And how just like totally healing, but also confounding that is. 

Jes Baker: Absolutely. I think we have to really hold space for those weird, complex feelings that feel like they don’t go together, but they have to hit together and create some sparks for us to do some healing.

Body dysmorphia is such a strange thing because I had been living in this body that has gained weight over a few years. I’ve seen my body in the mirror before, but for some reason that one night, it just felt monstrous. I don’t know why. But I saw it differently. Our brains are fascinating. And so, yeah. I crashed into the bedroom and I was like, “Andy, look at this monster you’re sleeping with. I just have to be– We rely on trust. I’m going to be honest with you. I’m hideous…” And, you know, pointed out all of the things that I look away from. 

Jes Baker: For him, God bless him. That man has so much patience. But he was just like– I don’t know. I actually have not asked him what he was thinking in the moment. My guess is, “I have seen you naked every day for five years. So I’m very well aware of what your body looks like.” But he was just… He was like, “Essentially, you’re not a monster. You want to cuddle? and I love you and every part of you.” So that was just a really transformative moment. 

I think I really believe in shame resiliency. This concept that shame is so harmful and destructive. I think that if I had to encapsulate my mission in all of its different facets, I think I would just go with shame resiliency. The fact that shame is so harmful, but there are ways– There’s one way to kill shame. Brené Brown explains it this way, which I agree with, and that is you have to say it to another person and it needs to be met with empathy. Shame cannot thrive in that situation. Sonya Renee Taylor also talks about shame as kind of like a virus and if it has a host, it will thrive. But if you were to take that virus outside of the body, it would die instantly when it was exposed to air. 

Jes Baker: So I think, for me, sex education, for myself and exploration, was getting rid of that shit was I have to face it head on and be like, “Look at me. I’m a monster” because that’s how I was feeling. I said my biggest shame and then it was met with empathy. Then it became a little easier. So sometimes it’s really hard, especially in very vulnerable places, like when you’re completely naked with someone else. You grow up being told your body’s not okay. Yeah. I’ve had positive and negative experience. That was a positive one.

Dawn Serra: There was something else that you named that really hit me in the fields, which is a thing that I have at various times throughout my life believed. But I don’t think I would have had the capacity to actually name it for what it was. I loved reading the statement that you wrote because I was like, “Holy fuck! That’s totally it,” which was you said, “Thanks to my deeply internalized and unshakable fat phobia. I wholeheartedly believe that if a thin person showed up in the bedroom, their partner needed nothing else.”

Jes Baker: Yeah.

Dawn Serra: That really… This kind of belief of, “Well, if I was thin, I literally wouldn’t have to do anything else. It would just cure all the things and the seductiveness of that story and also the harm of it.” I just kind of was like, “How many times have I secretly believed that to be true, even if I couldn’t have articulated it?” and I loved that you just named it so clearly.

Jes Baker: Yup. And that’s the story that so many of us are told. I remember in college – oh, a scandalous friend who probably had NCMOsed – I stayed in her bedroom and she had Cosmo Magazines underneath her bed, but I found, which to me, it was like the devil incarnate. I don’t know. It’s just so funny to think back of where I am now and where I was then. But I was just fascinated by them because I had never read Cosmo before. I was probably 18 it was “How to look thinner in bed, sex aside.”

I deeply internalized the concept. And they were like– So I know that I have a fat body and the person I’m with, I have a fat body and there’s no hiding that. But within this article, in detail explained how to lengthen your body and how to lay so that your stomach looks smaller and how to not– All of these really shaming instructions that are not possible if you’re actually enjoying having sex. So it was just like… That was where I was coming from. 

Jes Baker: And so if I was thin, I wouldn’t have to do any of that, those would be irrelevant. In my brain that was, yeah, deeply fat phobic, because that’s what I was raised. So I was like, “Yeah. If I was thin, I wouldn’t have to do any of these things that they teach women like me and I could just show up and people would be glad.” That’s what I was told through subconscious and very blatant messaging. That’s not the truth I’ve come to realize now. But that is, I think, something that we need. Even in 2018, if you were to watch, I’m thinking of Orange is the New Black. Even in current TV shows, there’s still that emphasis of needing to do less if you’re born traditionally attractive. 

Dawn Serra: Yup. And all the ways that so many of us sacrifice our pleasure on the altar of trying to guess what people are thinking and to position our bodies in such a way that the truth isn’t revealed and wondering if what we’re doing is good enough and the ways that pleasure becomes very challenging to just be in and savor and delight when we’ve got that inner monologue running and we’re just body checking endlessly. 

Jes Baker: Yes. And always for the other person. Yeah. I feel like it’s a lot like authenticity. Often, things will always be better if you are authentic in your writing. A lot of people are like, “How do I connect?” and the answer is always be authentic. And so for me, that endless monologue and trying to shift myself so that I don’t look a certain way or so that my whoever I’m with feels better. I mean, that’s not authentic at all. I’m not enjoying any of that and there’s no real connection. 

And so, I just think that it’s unnecessary. Once I’ve learned you have to have a safe person or people to experiment that sexual authenticity, to even know what’s possible. It’s hard to find once you realize, “Oh, man. I am never going back to that performance sex” where I put on a fucking play for another person and totally, yeah, sacrifice my pleasure for them as an apology for existing.

Dawn Serra: So you just mentioned the importance of finding that safe person or there’s safe people where you can actually fuck up and be imperfect and try the things and see what it’s like and be held. You mentioned this incredible trust that you have with your partner, Andy. I loved so much how you wrote about how your biggest fear was honest, committed, transparent, healthy, intimate love and vulnerability that came with that.

Jes Baker: Yeah. I kind of had a meltdown on my couch about it. This is too normal. I don’t understand not having people tell me I’m a horrible person in a relationship. What’s going on?

Dawn Serra: What’s it been like navigating that over the years of letting this thing unfold and consistently being met with that patience and that space when you do have a really bad body day or when the trolls do actually get to you. I think, for a lot of people, they haven’t yet experienced that. I think for some people the thought of experiencing it is fucking terrifying. So they just keep the self-sabotage going. I know, I have done that in the past. So what’s that been like to kind of grow into this place of trust and vulnerability?

Jes Baker: Well, I’ve definitely done the self-sabotage as well. I think the reason it feels different for me now is because… I’ve explained in “Landwhale,” we have a rocky start. But it was founded on trust and the promise that we would always say the hard things, even if we knew it might be met with other hard things. That is really difficult, especially I’m thinking of when we don’t have sex for a while. How do you have that conversation about why? You don’t actually really want to know why and you don’t want to talk about why. But for the chapter that I talk about – things that actually affect our sex life and things that don’t – I actually talked to Andy about it and we have had multiple conversations on like either he saying, “I wish–” And he’s never pressured me, which is also like a beautiful gift. 

I’ve had people who are very… Just put a pressure on you to always have sex and that’s not great. So he’s never pressured me, which is a really beautiful thing. I’ll bring it up and I’ll be like, “We haven’t had sex in a while and I’m just wondering why” and then we’ll talk about it. We’ll come up with– He’s brilliant and wonderful and so we’ll come up with the things like he has bad body days sometimes and things like if we make plans to have sex, then we then feel obligated, and obligation is a turn off, so let’s just let it happen. And identifying things like when you’re having an anxiety attack, it’s not really that much of a turn on. Things that really do get in the way and why and we name them, then it’s a little easier. You can write a chapter about it in a book called “Landwhale.” There’s a list of things that do affect our sex life and it’s things like lies I’ve been told, mental health, bad days. 

Jes Baker: There’s a whole list and the things that have not and I had to realize this… It was hard to realize, because we want to blame things on our body because we still, even if we’re in a liberation phase, we’re still on a cellular level because we’ve been taught this for so long. Think that we can change our bodies like we have control over them. And so I think a lot of times we want to blame on our body because we have control problem, because we can just change our body. And that’s the problem. But what I realized is that a lot of the things that were issues are things that I can’t change like my brain chemistry or the fact that diet culture exists and tells me that I’m not worth shit. 

And so having those honest conversations has been really, really meaningful. We’re now able to name, I mean, after doing this for a few years, what really have going on and then we address it. And then, yeah. It’s been it’s been a really interesting and difficult journey. I think they’re just things you don’t want to talk about. But we have and I’m really glad we have because I think it forms a greater bond between us and also removes the extra guilt and shame that is really unnecessary.

Dawn Serra: When you think about pleasure and sex and desirability, what do you wish for more fat folks, and in a similar vein, more disabled folks and trans folks. What do you wish for more people to know when it comes to the physical delight and the connection that can come from those things? 

Jes Baker: Well, I can’t speak for everyone. I don’t have everyone’s experiences. I think our histories really shape us. Mine is very different from others. But here’s what I would recommend. I would recommend leaving two things. Basically, I would– Okay. Here’s what I would commit. Basically, I would really recommend a fuck it attitude. That’s really hard if you’re in a long-term relationship/partnership that has a history. But what was most liberating for me was having experienced where one day I said, “Fuck it. I’m going to do things for me that bring me pleasure and I’m going to treat myself like I deserve it.” Even if I don’t internally believe that, I’m still going to try it and see what happens. 

It was really transformative for me, because then that was the day that I realized that my body was capable of so much more than I thought. Your fuck it could be with your partner or your partners or whoever it is in your life that you’re having sex with. You could say, “Fuck it. I’m going to be totally honest with you,” and then say that scary thing and just see what they say. Who knows? That’s also a scary thing because we can’t control other people. 

Jes Baker: But I think the fuck it attitude is a really, really challenging and healing thing to try. It could be challenging on different levels, so people will have to try it and kind of see how that applies to them. Every time I said fuck it and tried something and release myself of everyone else’s expectations, all the things I’ve been told and just followed my intuition and my worthiness, it has been a wonderful experience for me. So fuck it is my suggestion. 

Dawn Serra: Love it. I love too that what you’re offering is you don’t necessarily have to believe it. But if you give yourself a chance to just try it on without having to believe what might happen. 

Jes Baker: Yeah. Can I tell you about something really fascinating? Like a mental health therapy thing that actually applies here? 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. 

Jes Baker: Okay. I’ll make it brief. There is a therapy called dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). I quite honestly wish that the whole world could take an intensive class because what it does is it takes old survival tools and coping mechanisms that we use – have learned to survive that harm us – and it replaces it with tools that are helpful. 

So one of the tools that is my very favorite, it’s called opposite action. It literally applies in every area of life and it totally applies here. So the concept is, if you cannot– It’s talking about spiraling thinking, which I think that we all have in some area of our life. Let’s talk about sex. You spiraling thinking about how unworthy you are and you’re going to terrible at this and pleasures not meant for you. If that spiraling thinking is something that you can’t change mentally, you can’t talk yourself out of it– I’ve been there a million times, a million different things. We just can’t change your thoughts. It’s just not working. What Marsha Linehan says is you change your actions and that in turn, changes your thoughts. It’s kind of the physical manifestation of what you want to be thinking. 

Jes Baker: So that’s kind of what the fuck it approach is, whatever you feel you can’t get over, like what I just mentioned like “I’m unworthy,” “I can’t do it right” and “It’s not about me,” go in there and make it about you. Tell yourself that you’re worth it and do the things that you are so caught up in your head about and see what happens to the way you think. Because more often than not, thoughts then change. And so that’s like a really helpful thing for a lot of different reasons. But the opposite act, whatever you feel like you are not worthy of, can’t ever do, try it and see what happens.

Dawn Serra: That sounds like a juicy experiment just waiting to happen, everyone.

Jes Baker: A million times over. You could try it with everything. I just think it could be so much fun. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I’m even thinking about for people who are like unpacking diet culture or coming out of eating disorder recovery that kind of thought of like, “Well, I couldn’t possibly eat that cake. Oh my God! What happens if I eat the cake?” Well, maybe if you eat the cake, you’d feel differently about it.

Jes Baker: Absolutely. I use it and I wasn’t allowed to feel pleasure. I was like, “Fuck it. I’m going in. I’m going to feel pleasure making it about me” and I did. It really changed how I felt about things. This is not to say, I want to always give this disclaimer, that that should stick with you forever. Because we’re trying to relearn a whole lifetime of messaging. But having that first experience, it gives you a taste of something that I didn’t know I could have. Once you have that taste, you can’t really go back. Not completely cause you know it exists now. So be gentle on yourself and know that it’s a long process. But also, I just want people to have permission to try the things they’ve been told can’t do when they really want to do this thing.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. One of the other things that you share in your book and it’s something that I felt so personally too was just around the shame that you had around body hair and finding out that you had PCOS and then this coming out process that you had with Andy. I’d love to hear a little bit more. 

I know a lot of listeners out there have PCOS or in relationships with people who have PCOS. Can you talk a little bit about how your experience with PCOS merged and overlaid with your experience of being in a fat body and navigating the world as a woman? What’s that been like for you?

Jes Baker: My God. Yeah. So my symptoms of PCOS have increased as I’ve gotten older. But it started from a very young age where I was just very aware that facial hair was not okay. There’s a lot of shame around that even in middle school and I really, really wish that we talked more about this. The reality is that we don’t even have research. I think it’s one in five, I’m trying not to say women. But I’m just going to say one people that have ovaries have PCOS. So it’s something that we should be studying and talking about a hell of a lot more. 

But for me, how it manifested when it came to sex and relationships is that I was so embarrassed by– For me, the main part was the sideburny hair that I had and have. I’m having this thought multiple times of, “I don’t want to be in a long term relationship. I’m going to go to sleep next to this person. Then I’m going to wake up with some hair growth. They’re going to be able to see it.” I was so ashamed of that. Literally, throughout every person, including long term partners, I had never talked about it with anyone. Never mentioned it. We talked about shame. I never let that shame monster out. Instead, I hid it the best I could. 

Jes Baker: I would wake up in the morning, whether it was somebody I was sleeping with or it was somebody who was my partner, I will run to the bathroom and shave my face, quickly slip back into bed, and then pretend like I hadn’t done that. It sounds ridiculous to me that I have so much compassion for that version of me. That’s how shame was. I didn’t want to have to deal with that on a daily basis. So I was like, “Well, I guess we’ll just have one night stands for the rest of my life.” Because then I don’t have to worry about my hair growth. Literally, I was letting it dictate everything in my life. 

Again, first trusting relationship that I’ve had that’s for real, so I think that people might get tired of hearing about Andy, but really, it’s the trust that’s there. I think that’s the key part. I, for the first time ever in my whole life, was sitting next to him and I said, “Hey, Andy. We’ve been dating for years. But I have facial hairs.” And he was like, “I know.” It was just like, of course, he knows. 

Jes Baker: It’s so interesting to me that we think the amount of shame and then delusion that we cause ourselves, the pain that comes from that, which is not our fault. People teach us to feel that way. But I was like, “You know?” and I was like, “Okay. He really obviously doesn’t get it, how horrible this is because I’ve been dealing with this my whole life. It’s basically like the worst thing that has ever happened to me. And no, “But I have facial hair and it’s not sexy.” I had to tell him. He looked at me and he’s so kind. He’s like, “I can think of a lot of other things that are less sexy.” And I went back to watching the show. 

I now live in the space where I still have. It’s still gross. You can get laser hair removal and PCOS hair will come back. It’s just like one of those things that is just a part of my life. We talked about loving our bodies. You don’t have to love, I don’t think, but I think I’ve kind of made peace with it that it’s part of my life and so I do shave and I have good friends that don’t, and have full beards and it’s depends on the person… You know, just not talk about it and that shame that’s like really stunts a lot of joy, I think, that we could feel if we didn’t have all of that going on in our heads. Oh my God! How many mornings did I run to the bathroom to shave and then quietly get back in bed? So many, so many mornings.

Dawn Serra: Yes. That feels so familiar. I have done that for years around a couple of chin hairs that I have that have always just been like, “Don’t touch my face because you might feel that there’s hairs.” Just the distress around that which has kept me in so many moments like people have been touching me and I have not been feeling their touch. I’ve just been in my head thinking, “Oh. God. Don’t do this thing.” I mean, that makes me sad. I know why I did it. I don’t blame myself for it, but just like, “Holy shit. The mental Olympics.”

Jes Baker: Yes. You put it so much more eloquently. Really you’re… I’m just so amazed. You should have probably written the book that we’re talking about. It’s just what comes out of your mouth is amazing. 

Yes. One of the hottest things, and this was like a recommendation for you, the hottest thing is to be kissed on my neck like underneath, which is where facial hair was for me. And so, because I was so ashamed, yeah, I’m over that part. But to be honest with you also, there comes some back hair and a lot of other symptoms that are so difficult to deal with. And because we don’t talk about it– Man, when I talk about PCOS on Instagram it is the most commented post because we’re not being open about that because we’re all still living underneath this cloak of shame. 

Jes Baker: After I met with Andy, I was in Jamaica, I felt brave enough to show a picture with shaving cream on my face, pre-shaved, and  I think the caption just said, “The PCOS life” and so many people identified with it. I mean, there’s so many of us that have it and I lost out on a lot of pleasure, but no more. Neck kissing is absolutely allowed in my life now.

Dawn Serra: Yay! More neck kissing. 

Jes Baker: Hair be damned.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I’ve been challenging a lot of my stories around femininity and hair thanks to the amazing and beautiful ALOK.  I love how ALOK is like… I see myself as feminine and here is my fully hairy chest and my facial hair and my beard and it just really made me question like, “Yeah. Why the hell do I feel like I’m not feminine if I have underarm hair or if I stopped shaving my legs?”

I’ve been doing an experiment now for about eight months where I haven’t shaved my underarms and I’ve only shaved my legs once or twice. It brings me some distress, but it also feels good to be like, “Fuck you stories. I’m trying to figure out how to be in my body however it wants to be.” 

Jes Baker: Yeah. And as fat people, I also think we are told to put on or perform this hyper-femininity. For me, I didn’t really realize I was doing this until I really had to sit down and think about it. But I was performing this “good” fatty role by dressing up like a pin up for years when I was in my 20s. I was part of a pin up troupe. I only hung out with particular groups of people. I was really into rockabilly and the pinup world. I think I was so drawn to it because it was a place that was alternative. There’s a lot of tattoos. Also, very problematic. That’s another… That’s a whole other podcast. So they were a little more accepting. They were a little more alternative. 

But I think what I didn’t realize is that I was doing it because deep down, I was trying to compensate for the fact that I was fat and therefore, invisible or not sexy or not worthy. It was kind of a performance I was putting on for the world. 

Jes Baker: The thing that changed was not really how I dress since I do wear those things sometimes, except for heels. I’m so over heels. I think I wear heels once a year. They just are not comfortable.

Dawn Serra: Agreed. 

Jes Baker: I have a lot of respect for people who wear heels. I just do. I still do these things that I that I used to do, but now it comes from a place of I don’t need you to respect me more because I’m fat and performing this femininity in this “put togetherness.” I’m wearing this because it makes me feel good. We can deconstruct what we feel good for days, but we’re influenced by culture. And it makes me feel good. I’m wearing it because I want to, not because I need your approval. It could look completely the same to an outsider. But internally, it’s a completely different dialogue. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I totally agree. There’s such a shift when– Like in my experience, I spent a significant amount of my life performing the good fatty like talking about the workout regimens that I was doing and being as feminine as I could, in as many ways as I could, even if it was really uncomfortable or even painful, because I was being rewarded for that. I received praise for that. That felt like, “Finally, I’m being seen” and “Finally, it’s okay to be me.” A certain way by trying not to be me.

The internal experience of, “I’m just trying to chase the reward because I don’t feel good enough” is so different from “Fuck. Yeah. I’m wearing eyeliner and falsies because it makes me feel hot about myself and I could give a shit if you like it or not.” That’s a very different internal experiences when you take the falsies off at the end of the day, the person that you’re looking at in the mirror, you have very different feelings about.

Jes Baker: Absolutely. It’s such a complicated thing to work out internally. It took me out years. I’m still working on it. Because, you’re right, the world does reward us systematically on purpose so that we continue to follow their rules. 

Literally, a couple of weeks ago, I was doing a photoshoot. Andy takes pictures. I’m so lucky to have as a partner somebody who’s a photographer. So I was dressed up in a polka dot dress and winged eyeliner and a perfectly coutured quiff hair. Is it quiff?

Dawn Serra: That’s such a weird word.

Jes Baker: I’m the kind of person that reads things then just makes up how they actually are said. So a perfect hair and Andy was like, “Hey, we should stop by our favorite bar real fast. We must have a beer” because it’s hot out and I was like, “That’s great.” I’ve been in that bar many times before recently because it’s close to our house and I could feel the shift. 

How the patrons react to a fat person in the past instances that just for whatever and no makeup and was just there to exist and enjoy life versus this very hyper feminine, more like “I’m intentional in my makeup“ and looking beautiful. The difference, the energy, the way I was served, everything was so different. 

Jes Baker: It’s so hard because it’s created that way so that we continue these systematic rules of really oppression. And there’s reward built into that, but there’s reward in– And this is what I want to put my energy into. There’s also a reward that comes with knowing that you’re okay, you’re going to go shop for groceries in sweatpants and not doing your hair because that to me used to be a thing. I was scared to go buy food without looking put together, all the assumptions that people might make. So there is liberation in being like, “Whatever I’m wearing right now and however I look right now, I need to go to the grocery store and run this errand and I’m going to do it and I’m comfortable enough to just do it as I am.” That for me is the reward that I work towards. Everyone’s in a different place and that’s okay. 

Dawn Serra: Man, that gentleness is so important because there is no end there is just tomorrow and dealing with whatever comes up.

Jes Baker: Fucking true.

Dawn Serra: So I want to respect your time. I know we’re starting to run a little bit short. But I have one more question for you and I would just love to know, what is your relationship to pleasure now? Whether it’s sexual pleasure, physical pleasure, any other kind of pleasure. For so many of us that are in bodies that we either feel like have betrayed us or that are constantly the subject of violence, pleasure can sometimes be really complicated and hard to access. So I’m wondering, when you just think about the ways that pleasure shows up in your life and you make space for it now, what does that look like? What is your relationship to pleasure these days? 

Jes Baker: I think that the most pleasurable things for me are the ones that– I’m just learning this new thing of connecting my brain and my body and asking myself, both brain and body, what do you want? What do you need? Then doing those things. It changes everyday and allows flexibility. 

For me, pleasure has been about thinking what kind of thing can I do for myself today? What do I want to eat? Want to wear? Who do I want to see? And then trying it and then seeing if that really was pleasurable for me. If it was, that’s great, documented. If it’s not, great, documented. I’m learning and relearning. Relearning this body, this brain, right now in this moment, what feels good to me and what doesn’t. I know that that’s going to change, too. So I just allow a lot of flexibility and kindness towards myself. I’m trying to be as non-judgmental as I can. That applies for me within my relationship and within my sex life and in everything else outside of that as well.

Dawn Serra: Flexibility and kindness sound like something so many of us could use a lot more of.

Jes Baker: It’s also the hard thing. we’re not really given a framework to work within. We have to figure it out for ourself. We kind of live in the gray area and the gray areas where I think the most healing happens, but it’s also the most uncomfortable. Because we really want to know that, yes, everything will be okay. We want a promise and to go into a mission instead and kind of wade into that gray area is terrifying. It’s not something that people have to do. I think that it’s okay to also respect those boundaries and be like, “No. I’m not ready for this yet.” So whatever works for you.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I love that. Whatever it takes to get through today, whether it’s coping with food or coping with sleep or just cutting everything off and that’s how you survive today or getting through today is thriving and celebrating and trying scary things and leading into edges and having as many orgasms as you can and everything in between the gentle tenderness that’s in that of wherever you are, it’s where you are and that’s okay. You can change and stay the same. It’s your life, your body, do what you need to.

Jes Baker: Absolutely. I think, in summary, existing is ultimate victory. I feel like whatever that takes for you– Just summarizing what you said. But I think that’s also the end of my book is whatever you do existing is victory enough and that the ultimate award. Sometimes that is just staying under your covers and just continuing to breathe all day. Sometimes that means going out and chasing every fucking dream you’ve ever thought of. Those are both equal in value. They’re both keeping you here on this earth where we need you. Yeah. Existing is ultimate victory. I really do believe that. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Well, there’s so much more I’d love to talk to you about, but I know we are at the end of our time together. So for people who want to stay in touch with you, how can they find you online and follow along with your adventures?

Jes Baker: The easiest place is just to go to my blog, which I think it’s funny that I still have a blog. But I still like blogging. So it’s the themilitantbaker.com and then there you can find my book or where I’m speaking, or my social media – all that good stuff. 

Dawn Serra: Great. I will have links to all of that in the show notes, so everyone can just click through and follow and buy and do all the things. Jes, thank you so much for being here and lending your voice to the show and giving all of this wonderful permission and wisdom to everybody listening. I really appreciate it. 

Jes Baker: You’re so kind. I’m so honored you asked me. Thank you. 

Dawn Serra: You’re welcome. To everybody else who tuned in, thank you so much for being here. Of course, I will be back next week. If you’ve got any questions or comments just head to dawnserra.com and hit “Send a Note.” I love hearing from you. Until next time. This is Dawn Serra. Bye.

Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com. Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and get awesome weekly bonuses. 

As you look towards the next week, I wonder what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?