Breaking the Love Diet

A reflection on restriction, on kink, and on a relationship

I’m back!! I was feeling a bit iffy about this entry. I hope the first section of this entry does not come off as out of touch, coming from a thin person discussing diet culture. For some context, I’ve struggled most of my life with disordered eating, and I found synchronicity in restricting, binging, and orthorexia with current trends in dating, dieting, and the economy.

All love, and let me know what you think <3

“Breaking the Love Diet”

Are we applying diet culture to our dating lives?

I had the immense privilege of traveling to Paris after Christmas to spend time with one of my closest friends. My last night in Paris, we had dinner with another American girl living and working there, and a native Parisian who spent a few summers with my family in Ohio. Somehow, over decadent bowls of cassoulet and duck confit, the topic of situationships came up. The conversation simmered, as everyone had some input to throw into the pot.

What I took away from our conversation was a general dissatisfaction with love and the object of our affections’ (or our own) shying away from it. It seems that universally, Gen Z is being crushed by the perils of nonchalance and emotional restriction. Everyone is so goddamn scared of getting hurt. Everyone is starving to feel special, chosen. Everyone is afraid to show their hunger, more than ever.

I’m sure essays about situationships and avoidance in romantic relationships have been published ad nauseum, but I did have a conversation while in Paris that triggered the thought of this essay. How many young people are on Love Diets? Intimacy diets? Flirting diets? Weighing and shaping and training their romantic and sexual habits to some ideal of perfection?

I’m sure we’ve all noticed that the heroic efforts of the body positivity movement, which I would say peaked around 2018 or 2019, have been thoroughly undone. I say it peaked, because the trend of women’s body types swung from the rail thin standard we saw heralded in the “Tumblr Era” to the “Slim Thick” expectation that demanding in a different way. I traded my Pro-Ana blog obsession with a Fitspo obsession, and at 16 years old, dreamed of getting a Brazilian Butt Lift to repurpose the fat on my arms, stomach, and thighs to fill out my ass and hips.

Now, a casual scroll on TikTok will present me with videos of young women body checking, ‘What I Eat in a Day’s’ galore, and images of celebrities who are half of what they once were. I’ve been engaging with content that examines the new “thin is in” trend and its connection to rising fascism and the celebration of white supremaist beauty ideals, and I can see how it’s got a ripple effect into our intimate lives.

Walk with me! Hold on!

The rise of thinness as ideal, loneliness, a dying party culture, and rising cost of basic amenities like groceries and housing certainly puts one off dating. Our generation is on a precarious edge of overindulgence in the not-real (social media, video games, fantasy universes) and total restriction of the real (emotional vulnerability, in-person gatherings, commitment.) The not-real feels safer, less scary. But we all hate it, the lack of the real.

In recent years, studies have emerged that show America’s declining sex life. Partying is also on the way out. Excess is out, because most of us cannot even fathom excess, other than an excess of worry. Thin is back in, and the “Wellness Culture” to Alt-Right pipeline was a wolf in sheep’s clothing on popular platforms like Instagram and Tiktok for years before people began calling it out.

Separate from fitness, body trends have never ever, ever been about truly enjoying the body you’re in. It has always been about punishment; punishment wrapped in lycra, punishment called Pilates Princess, punishment called Looksmaxxing. Punishment in exchange for praise.

After the pandemic, I can surmise everyone is obsessed with being “clean” (eating clean, not standing closely, not going to crowded parties, not kissing strangers, not having a ‘messy’ dating life.) Purity culture has returned– how did we not see this coming after years of Catholic aesthetics returning? Perhaps we want to micromanage all aspects of our lives to avoid casualties and unforeseen expenses – emotional or otherwise. We’ve been told that celibacy, staying in, and living minimally will save us. But from what, exactly?

All this blathering on to say, I was struck by the universal frustration with restrictive relationships that were found on foreign shores. I connected the dots from the rise in this dissatisfaction to the growing fixation on “going without,” and it might mean nothing, but as a writer, I have to talk about it to make it mean something.

Funny enough, I attended a party in February that was titled “Hedonism.” The party took place way up north from Boston, and in a shared, multi-bedroom home that from another era entirely. As the evening was inspired by our current times in correlation with the fall of Rome, guests were encouraged to wear togas and drink as much wine as they wanted. The hosts even made their own wine from garden-grown grapes. The kitchen island was crammed with dozens of open bottles of wine that miraculously repopulated every hour. For the evening, we were free from want.

Big jumpscare — sorry!

Perhaps I’ve always erred on the side of hedonism. In fact, a college lover once wrote a poem for me that talked about how I ‘brought out the hedon in him.’ (Ugh, what happened to writing poetry for your lovers?) Perhaps I’m just being a bad influence on all of you. I guess I’ll end this with the question: Are you on a love diet?

“I want to be what you like” and the loneliness/communion of kink

Finding someone who “gets you” feels like arriving at a special paradise. Sexually speaking, finding someone who can give you what you are looking for organically and instinctively, is like finding a beautiful oasis in a desert. When fingers gingerly trace the throat and eyes meet to communicate an unspoken “yes, do that,” when a firm hand against the jaw presses into soft flesh to ask permission to slap, when being swept off your feet feels urgent and needy and perfectly timed– these are the quiet questions of consent.

In January, I saw Babygirl, and I left the theater feeling overstimulated and frayed. Scenes on screen showed things that lit a fire inside of me– Romy being offered a candy out of Samuel’s palm, then ordered to spit it back out; Romy being told good girl after finishing her glass of milk, a saucer of milk placed at the feet of Samuel’s spread legs. And I bristled when the audience behind me erupted in sprays of disbelief and amusement at these displays of affection. What’s so funny? I wondered, feeling my flame waver. Why are they laughing at this? Is this really that weird? What’s wrong with me?

Outside the theater, my girlfriend drew me to her side. “I liked the movie,” she told me.

“I liked the movie, too,” I replied, feeling safe and understood (both by her, and by the film.)

Although I am not a millionaire tech CEO with two houses, I resonated with Romy, the main character. As Samuel points out, all she wants is for someone to tell her what to do. All she wants is the sweet release of relinquishing control.

Romy tries to quell the strange desires she has. She engages in vanilla sex with her husband. She delivers motivational speeches about respect and uplifting women (which is a nod at anti-kink feminists who make claims that kinky sex is damaging to women and to the Movement ™). She goes to EMDR therapy to try and heal the childhood trauma that could be the root of said desires. She resists Samuel and the dominance he naturally commands until she cannot any longer.

Although Samuel’s approach to the D/s relationship is sloppy, dubious, and poorly communicated, it is clear that he recognizes what it is Romy desperately needs. He is young and has less to lose, but as another traumatized person navigating his relationship to kink, shame is a sharp knife that thoroughly undoes him. I saw myself in Samuel’s shame, I saw myself in Romy’s shame, and I saw myself in so many of their exchanges. I’m grateful to have experienced things similar, in bursts, and with a bit more of a container, over the years. I’m glad to know that kink can set me free.

The scene that evoked the most emotion from me occurs around the climax of the film. Romy, who confesses her affair to her husband, rambles her way through explaining her kinks and her desires. After several failed attempts at bringing kink into her married sex life – placing a pillow over her face, to which her husband responds, “I can’t do this– I’ll feel like a villain” – she tries to convey what she wants and why. Her husband does not understand and grows frustrated.

“I want to be what you like,” Romy concedes. She wishes she didn’t have these unorthodox desires. She wishes she could be “normal.”

This part hit me the hardest, because I spend 90% of my waking existence worried that I have harmed someone, and that I will be punished on a public scale (OCD + Catholic School baddie!!!) for acting on my own instinct. Expressions of my sexuality have been frowned upon, shut down, and shunned by previous partners, no matter how I went about introducing it. To the more vanilla-minded, the ritual of kink can feel exhausting, tedious, scary, or just overwhelming.

There is nothing wrong with being vanilla. But there is a strange pain that emerges when you know that your desires and needs may feel like a burden, a problem, or an unrewarding effort for someone you love and care about. Which is why someone who meets you where you are, someone who responds to your kink positively and with excitement, feels meteoric and sparkling. Your shame is removed, or at the very least, watered down momentarily.

Dating Update

Soooo, as you may have glimpsed in the above entries, I had a girlfriend. I do not anymore. H, the person I mentioned in my previous entry, and I dated from December to last weekend. I had a few concerns that were emphasized by a series of events that I must connect to Venus retrograde and the New Moon. I don’t think I ever felt ready to be with H, but everything is still cooling down, and I don’t know if I can write clearly about my decision to walk away.

We did enjoy several adventures. We spent a long weekend in Portland, Maine, and we drove up the coast to some remote harbor towns, where the water was precariously still and I could hear the breath of God. We often had “quiet reading time,” and she let me read passages I found particularly moving aloud. Most importantly, though, she was incredibly eager and generous with her time. This was the first time in a long time that I did not have to beg my partner to make time for me.

Also, this may or may not reveal some of my identity, but a poem I wrote was published in Dream Girl World Magazine’s ISSUE 2: Bitter! I encourage you to buy a copy, as it’s a really cool publication that centers queer women and totally aligns with the QCB mission.

Listening to…

Choke enough by Oklou

Watching…

Love is Blind season 8

Reading…

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (IT IS SO GOOD)

Kink: Stories edited by K.O. Kwan and Garth Greenwell (I don’t have much to report on regarding this book, even though it fits in with the Babygirl review. It’s good! I like it!)

That’s all from me. Take care and be well!

Free Palestine

Queer Carrie Bradshaw