Does your size identity affect your body image?
-
(Trigger warning: I may dwelve into sensitive topics regarding body image, please stop reading if this post upsets you. Your mental health is important)
I read a section on mightytinygiant’s website going over her experience as a switch a little while back(if you are reading this mightytinygiant, shoutout to you, you are awsome). She mentioned dysphoria, a feeling when you are uncomfortable with something you have. And she related it to her sometimes feeling like being only a tiny but being forced to be big vice versa.
What she said had related to what I am currently going through.I hope you can see, obviously I identify strictly as a tiny and I cannot at all take a millisecond at the thought of being the opposite of tiny. I can’t understand fully what it is like to be a switch such as mightytinygiant, but her experience was still relatable.
I currently have an issue with my weight. My bmi is 24.4 which is healthy but almost to the overweight side. This has made me feel heavy and large, an absolutely terrible set of feelings for a strictly tiny identifying person such as myself.
I also have gotten jealous of short people in the past because to me it seemed so easy for them to feel tiny.
I wanted to post this to see if anybody feels the same way.Does your body make you have trouble feeling the size you want to be?
This was very hard for me to layout and explain, I feel as if it is size related enough for me to post on this site.
My size may be small, but my will is bigger than y’all
-
@TakoAlice8 Hi this makes sense to me, as a man who is “into” tiny ladies, I think my experience is more along the lines of making a size dysphoric woman feel more comfortable by constantly calling her tiny, small, short, any words that let her know I see her in that kind of light. I am a pretty monogamous and romantic person by nature, and for me it makes sense to constantly comfort a person in this way because genuinely I “LOVE” making them feel so small, over and over again, like a tourettes tick.
I think worrying about body image is also relatively normal. I started working out a couple years ago, and as I developed muscles, I started to connect it with my identity. I started to “see myself” more in my fantasies with tiny women, rather than just seeing them in a 3rd person kind of way because I used to be so skinny. It’s like “wanting” my body to look a certain way, though I don’t think for me it’s dysphoric because, well I’m a man into tiny women. But it’s kind of cool to see the slow (like years-long slow) but progressive transformation.
The other way I relate to you is through my addiction. I have an addiction to screens, and the thing is as I “fight” my addiction more, the more shame I feel about it. I’ve had to learn how to be kind to myself when I’m having a relapse and how to manage my addiction through a combination of self-compassion and genuine hard work. The working out stuff is related as it helps me with the addiction stuff. But basically I wonder if you feel like this, kind of way, and the difficulty of dealing with it like this. Maybe so maybe not.
Really appreciate you being vulnerable about this, it’s a neat topic
I hope that I didn’t invalidate any of your experience through my perspective. -
Oh and another way I relate - I’m 6’0 so usually I don’t feel a dysphoria, but being around taller men especially does give me a sense of dysphoria, like if a guy is 6’4 and has way bigger hands than me, I get this weird sense of maybe jealousy or insecurity inside. It’s kinda rare but it does happen. Similarly being around taller women makes me feel uncomfortable. When I’m the tallest person in the room, it feels “right”
-
@TakoAlice8 First and foremost, I’m so sorry you’re having difficulties with body image. Your health is the most important thing, and as long as you’re leading a healthy lifestyle and communicating with your doctor, your shape and size are perfectly fine.
If you feel this is causing you a lot of distress in life, it might be a good idea to speak to a professional? Genuine body dysmorphia is a common thing, but it is important to address if it is having a negative effect on you.
As far as fantasy goes, I am strictly in the shrunken woman role. I get extremely uncomfortable imagining myself as the larger half in a size interaction. I know that’s very dramatic (I like to think of myself as pretty laid back normally), but for some reason this particular dynamic feels way too awkward. It’s even more strange because I enjoy good giantess content! I just can’t insert myself into the role. I have no idea why this is.
As for real life dysmorphia? I don’t really experience any when it comes to size. I’m at a very average height and ideal weight, so I don’t really feel “too big” or “too small.” Growing up I was always one of the tallest girls in class, which made me feel pretty insecure at that age. You would think that might be the source of this fascination of mine, but I was dreaming about size stuff looong before I started noticing things I didn’t like about my body.
My younger self would be happy to know I stopped growing around middle school. Unfortunately, my adult self wishes I had longer legs.
Which I guess brings me to my next point.I don’t really associate size kink with real life height or weight, because the two are completely separated in my mind. Imagining myself as a giantess is very unpleasant, but I wouldn’t mind gaining a few inches to have modelesque legs. I don’t have a strong height preference for men- I’ve been into guys that towered over me, and guys that were shorter than me. When I’m coming up with stories and imagining the characters, I like to imagine them as all shapes and sizes. Rarely does it have a big influence on the plot- I just enjoy thinking of what is most fitting aesthetically.
The size I want to be in my fantasies is completely divorced from reality, so no realistic size is going to do anything for me.
Sorry for writing so much, but I think this is a very interesting topic! Thank you for posting! I hope my response was a little bit insightful.
But if you are ever feeling down about this sort of thing, feel free to reach out. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot people can say to make someone with body dysmorphia feel better. But sometimes it is nice to just talk and get things off your mind. 
-
First what they said plus as a 6 foot man that likes the tiny ladies I’ve been ask in the past if I’d be a giant and honestly I don’t think I’m attractive enough to go around naked and huge. Not that I’m uncomfortable being a 5X and 4X person just not a huge fan of being naked in public plus tiny naked women no matter there body type are much more fun that giant men in my eyes
-
I don’t experience body dysmorphia, with regard to Size Fantasy or otherwise. Like @blehb, Size Fantasy is for me completely separate from my IRL physical self. I’ve never felt particularly tall or short, and I’ve never been involved with particularly short or tall women. To me, the whole point is fantastic size difference, so one’s mundane size is irrelevant.
A primary reason why I’m always insisting on more depictions of male giants in Size Fantasy is that I want to imagine what male giants look like to those who find them attractive. It’s not that I find my IRL body “unsuitable” for imagining as a giant, I just don’t kid myself that there aren’t archetypes out there that people prefer.
-
My body image isn’t affected by my size identity, since I don’t really have a size identity- beside wanting to shrink ladies down, which makes me a relative giant I guess.
I’d rather not think of how I would look like from her vantage point - every defect magnified - my physical self-worth is low enough already. I honestly can’t fathom how scary I’d be to a 3" tall woman.
Beyond that, aging is something that is hitting me more than I anticipated, I’m over the midpoint of my life expectancy and while I’m not afraid of death per se, I’m already dreading the slow decline that will inescapably happen.
-
@foreverlurk Really sorry to hear that about your physical self worth. How is aging affecting you?
-
My size identity is “normal human size,” so no, my size identity doesn’t affect my body image. I’m 5’10", which is pretty average. Boring answer, I know.
@TakoAlice8 said in Does your size identity affect your body image?:
I hope you can see, obviously I identify strictly as a tiny
No, I CAN’T see…because you’re just so very, very small.
Maybe jump up and down and wave your arms around a bit?(I hope that made you feel small, if only for a split second.)
-
@coolguy69 Oh I’m not really too hung up on my physical appearance. It’s more a realistic take on what I have (and have not) to offer.
Growing older well - uh, this is off topic but - of course there’s the physical aspect : you’re not as much in shape in your 40s than in your early 20s. You need more regular visits to the doctor’s office, and medical tests. You feel signs that some parts of your body are raising the white flag.
But that’s not what scares me. I’ve recently lived through the pain of losing a parent to dementia. I would not wish it on even the most foul human being, yet it happened to the kindest, most gentle soul that ever was. She went away slowly, forgetting everything about her life, about the people she loved, and it took years for her suffering to end.
I’m not scared of death, but this is worse. That will not be my fate.
-
@foreverlurk Oh man I’m sorry. My aunt has that, and it looks terrifying. I wonder how you can ensure that it’s not your fate… lol. I know for me about 4 years ago after a 3673905489th binge of youtube and video games until 9 am in the morning, while COVID was going on, I went to bed and was uncontrollably shaking. It was my “rock bottom”. I never want to lose control of my body like that again. In my 20s it was like “oh it’s fine I’m fine” but that was my wake up call. I’m 34 now and I do a lot to keep up my physical health (It’s an on-and-off thing of course, motivation comes and goes)… I guess it taught me to not take my physical health for granted.
-
While for the most part all of this is a fantasy in my mind, I do enjoy aspects of it IRL. I’m also strictly a tiny and my skin crawls at the idea of being the bigger one. Even in VR, if for whatever reason I end up being bigger than someone, I immediately have to disassociate myself from my own body, like tell myself I’m piloting a mech or something, so that I can cope. I also like collecting giant-sized objects scaled to my ideal 3 inches tall, stuff like that. And I can indeed relate with feelings of body dysmorphia. I’m lucky in that I really am pretty short/petite IRL so it doesn’t come up too often, but if I ever meet an adult who’s shorter than me I legitimately feel uncomfortable about myself (thankfully for whatever reason this doesn’t apply with kids lol). And even though I might enjoy the height difference between me and my partner, I absolutely have moments where it’s like my body is just yearning to be an impossible size. So you are not alone, this is a thing! I feel like I remember Jitensha discussing this feeling as well, it can be hard to deal with.
-
@coolguy69 said in Does your size identity affect your body image?:
I wonder how you can ensure that it’s not your fate… lol
I don’t know if you were asking seriously, or maybe you misunderstand, but in my country we can make plans (with safeguards, of course) for this eventuality.
