As a fat woman, I thought the sex scenes in Too Much were perfect
Fatphobia is increasing. Weight loss injections becoming the standard, #Skinnytok favoring food disorders (the hashtag itself can now be prohibited, but culture persists) and the return of Y2K fashion and ultra-thin aesthetics, it can feel as if the progress made by bodily positivity and fat-acceptance movements in the last decade or have been erased. As a big woman trying to keep my equanimity hard after a lifetime to hate my body, I find the current climate extremely depressing. Thank goodness, then, for the new Netflix series by Lena Dunham Too muchWho recently follows Jessica (Megan Stalter) as she leaves New York to find true love in London with Heartthrob-Slash-Muso Felix (Will Sharpe), while living in his more size frame with a spice without excuse. It was really a tonic.
Dunham is no stranger to represent non -compliant bodies: when his emblematic series Girls Was published for the first time in 2012, she collected praise and vitriol for spending her own self always larger than the average. With hindsight, it seems incredible that the reaction is so huge, because, really, the size variation between Dunham and it Girls The co-stars were negligible. I guess it is used to illustrate the intense stenosis of the dominant beauty standard, while even the slightest gap is considered an outrage. Likewise, Jessica de Stalter barely registered as a fat in the real world, and she is also unequivocal, with her siren hair and her sparkling eyes. In the world of television, however, it is a break in the convention, and a person personally at heart: in 2025, it is always so rare to see a big woman like a romantic track, so to look at a body even a bit like mine joyfully on the screen is remarkable.
Sex scenes in Girls displaced culture. Not only for their inclusion of Dunham’s body, but also for their frank representation of sex as granular and little glamorous. This realism is postponed in sex scenes in Too much: Jessica and Felix’s meetings are often annoying, because they grop to remove their clothes or find the most comfortable position. However, what was missing Girlsbut which is abundantly present in Too muchis a feeling of warmth and playful during sex; The couple laugh frequently and make jokes, even in the middle of the act. Indeed, their sex in many respects works as an extension of their conversation; Another way to connect, a bit as they exchange song recommendations, talk about their childhood or look Padadington (THE Padadington The scene is pure gold, Sharpe deserves all prices). Their sex is gloriously daily and resolutely intramatic – what sex so often looks like. In a brief moment when the drama threatens to enter the room – when Jessica expresses a momentary lack of confidence in her sexual prowess – she is quickly extinct by Felix: “I like your body”, he said, simply and directly, “I like everything on your body.”
Looking at this scene, I found myself dizzy with Glee. Admittedly, it is nothing that I have not heard of my own husband, because I am sure that it is for many of my position; He is in no way surprising for me as a man as attractive as Felix openly professes his desire for a big woman. However, there is something extremely rewarding – perhaps even justification – hearing this line delivered so clearly and casually on television, as if the truth it contains was so eminently obvious, it barely needed to be pronounced. But the fact is that it must absolutely be spoken, because it is still so rarely seen on our screens, if ever.
