Rebecca Jane Weinstein

Fat Sex is a much needed rebuff to the prevailing cultural assumption that women must be rail thin, and men cut, to be either sexy or sexual. Weinstein does a good job of relating the stories of a broad spectrum of fat men and women (I'm following her lead here in reclaiming the word instead of using it in a pejorative sense) and the myriad individual ways they relate to issues of size, sexuality, attractiveness, health, and well being. On the one hand, this is the book's greatest strength, as she doesn't try to shoehorn her subjects' experiences into any single agenda. On the other hand, it's also its greatest weakness. Some of the subjects' statements are downright embarrassing (e.g. the frequent assertion of a few that they "know exactly what gays and lesbians feel") and without any thesis to focus her writing, Weinstein tends to ramble, repeating herself ad nauseum every few paragraphs, which can make for tiresome reading. Had these issues been resolved pre-publication, Fat Sex would have been a fantastic book; as it stands, it's still flawed but good.… (more)