*giggle* Thanks, Please, that's very sweet of you to say. Media studies, mostly entertainment media--film, tv, music.

I have once or twice gotten the feeling someone was finding me appealing, but I've never--in 20+ years of teaching--had a student hit on me. Strange.

OK, I agree with several points people have made (esp Chubosaurus). Here are some repeats and additions:

1. Spend time in contexts where you feel good. For me, FF is one of those, but also BBW club nights, dating sites, etc.--anywhere where we are understood to be as beautiful as we are. Looking at modeling sites is similar; you're filling yourself with images of fat beauty, so they get into your head.

2. When you go out, look around you, and imagine that some number of the men and women around you--I use 10% as an estimate I read somewhere--think you're gorgeous. This one helps me enormously. I love looking around and wondering who the secret fat lovers are.

3. Looking great is a big one. I'm *incredibly* fussy about my clothes--no wrinkles, no spots, no anything--because it's too easy to look sloppy if you're fat. Love your clothes and enjoy it!

4. Posting pics or vids here helps a lot of people, me included. If I feel in need of positive feedback, posting a pic does wonders.

5. If you like reading, reading some sassy fat positive books or blogs, or some sensuous fat erotica, really give me a renewed, more positive outlook, too.

Hope that helps!

Oy. Chat is a 24-hour under 30 playground. Most often under 25. I am quite happy in that environment--if I weren't, work would be *hell*. (I teach at a university.) But it is sometimes nice for us rotting, old, decrepit types to share each other's company.

I'm intrigued when I see something out of the norm--all the moreso since I started modding the video section, but many people watch all of them, I assume, even though I didn't until it became my assignment.

Something creative, something different. That's a big plus, I think.

Also, this might just be me, but there's something about a lot of fast motion, like the jiggling ones, that seems anti-sensual to me. I guess I think sensual is slow and takes time.

In general, I want to see people touching themselves the way I want a lover to touch me--does that make any sense to anyone else?

For those of you who haven't noticed yet, we have a new event on Sunday evenings. Every Sunday at 10:30 PM GMT, we will have an event especially for members 40 and older. Think of it as a virtual cocktail hour, where we serve drinks, hors d'oeuvres, and charming conversation.

It won't be difficult to find, even if you aren't used to chat. If you come into the main chat room, click on the 'Rooms' button in the upper right hand corner of the chat screen. You should see a list of different virtual rooms, one of which will be the Soiree.

If you're 40 and older, please do come join us.

If you're not yet 40, don't be jealous. Your time will come. And though we're wildly desirable, we will deign to chat with you all other times of the week.*

If you have any questions, or thoughts about how to improve this event, please don't hesitate to write me a PM on the site.

See you tomorrow!!!
{hugs} Juicy

*Please note the dripping irony and don't respond with things about being unfair to younger members.

I want to make two points about this, and I'll try really hard to be succinct:

1. One sees what one expects to see. If you feel negative, you see the absence of what you want. If you feel positive, you see its presence. Really trying to do a head count of who you come across might help. That doesn't mean there are people in your neighbourhood that are just waiting to be cherry-picked, but there are happy people of the kind you want to see, if you choose to see them.

2. This is very much a matter of the social context, and therefore a political issue in the larger sense of the term. Those of you who are complaining, ask yourselves these questions:
--are you reading fat activist literature? are you participating in size liberation stuff?
--when people say fatphobic things around you, do you counter them?
--are you out to your friends and family as FAs, or as happy fatties?
--are you confident about your preferences, and do you act on them without shame?

This is a fatphobic world, and that makes our lives harder. But if those of us who care about fat people, who enjoy being fat and/or being with fat partners, don't act, the fatphobia will change. It is up to EVERY individual member of this site to, as Gandhi put it, be the change you want to see.

Don't moan unless you're doing everything you can to make the world safe and happy for fat people. [And DO start participating in the Fat Liberation forum!]

There are some available on clips4sale, I'm fairly sure.

I don't think this is a small interest; rather, I think that (as a *sweeping* generalisation) women are less inclined to make videos of their partners than men. I think there are a number of great BHM/FFA couples here, including Shuefly, PiercedPrincess, ChrisVersion2, and I'm sure I'm missing other obvious active folks.

Just convince them to make some vids for ya Well, for all of us!

Thanks, all. I'm *fascinated* that at current count, I know of:

a. three new members from that article, but
b. no trolls.

Goes to show how crucial the angle of the article is, huh? Even I'm a bit surprised by that, although as I recall, there weren't trolls from the other two positive articles (Guardian and Times), were there? Hmmmmm. *strokes beard thoughtfully* It's too much to hope that things are getting less monolithically against us, so it must be the way the articles are written.

I think we should edit it to represent our opinion. There will be NO dearth of people editing it to be anti-fat, and in particular to express the opinion that the medical literature is clear on fat and health. That's their responsibility. We don't have to write to Wiki's policy--the purpose of the open form is that various contributors *lead to* neutrality, at least as I understand it.

I was hoping the thread would encourage people to have a conversation about what should be there, and then someone or -ones would go and edit. Any takers for the conversation before the 'storm'?

I thought about posting this video in a couple of different forums, but I finally decided to put it here. It is a burlesque video, but no nudity. It is, however, verbally lewd. For those of you who do not enjoy such things, please do not click:

tinyurl.com/385hrvo

Have fun, kiddies!

Oh, and for fans for big buff men, there is:

&feature=related

Genuine apologies--he's not fat. Just a different kind of big and yummy.