I totally agree! I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness and tolerance in this thread! I'm not a BBW, but I have gained weight on my rear in the last couple years. My hubby doesn't really like the look of it on my thighs, but he does say it's a lot nicer to "tap it," as they say. He says he doesn't get bruises on his hips anymore. hahahha I personally can't stand the anorexic supermodel look, either. My own personal hero looks-wise is Dahlia Grey (of Andrew Blake fame). It's too bad about the boob job, but at least it looks very real. Scars Totally turn me off.

Anyway, that's my say.

also, for clothes, try www.torrid.com I walked into their vegas store, fell in love :-)

A great place for finding people in your area, articles, and links to other sites about specific traditions is The Witches' Voice. Other than that, I've never really been able to find anything very worthwhile online...lots of places are more along the lines of WannaBlessedBe's and teenieboppers looking for something "weird" to make their parents freak out.

I've been a Wiccan for over 12 years now, and what I ended up doing was learning what I could from a few good books, from training with friends who were initiates of various traditions, and otherwise just letting my fancy tell me what to study next.

The books I would wholeheartedly recommend are anything by Starhawk (esp. The Spiral Dance), SilverFox, "21st Century Wicca" by Jennifer Hunter, any of Scott Cunningham's books, Raymond Buckland's books, Dan & Pauline Campenelli. Just remember that no book is The Book, and that they're all guides, not laws or immutable "This Way Or Elses."

Other than that...if you're serious about learning about this as a religion, listen to yourself. Lessons tend to crop up in the most unexpected places...I go through periods where I'll read voraciously about one subject or another, and they all end up coming back to and somehow informing or expanding my meditative and magical practice. I went through a heavy Kali Ma the Destroyer/Creatrix period while I was dealing with some past abuse issues, and then a time where my explorations in BDSM were also connected to my religious practice...now I'm deep into the stories of Inanna and Ishtar and sacred Temple Whores.

Feel free to ICQ me or e-mail me at liz [at] fetishdyke dot net if I can be of any more help. :)

here ya go...

http://download.consumptionjunction....a/cj_21278.jpg