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I have always wanted to be carried by a man. Not emotionally. (Though: Sure, nice!) I mean physically carried. I want someone to pick me up and throw me on the bed. To give me a piggyback ride to the car. To, dare I say, throw me over his shoulder? Jesus, a girl can dream. Imagine a girlfriend running into her boyfriend’s arms, him effortlessly grabbing her waist and lifting her up so their lips meet — that’s what I want. I’ve never had it.
The men I date are usually my height — I’m five-foot-ten — sometimes shorter, and much more “Did you read the new Sally Rooney?” than “I’ll see you after Crossfit, babe.” Which means I’m never Sleeping Beauty–ed to bed if I doze off on the couch. I’m never hoisted up for a running arrivals-gate hug, or during sex (nature’s body hug). Once, in my 20s, a tall boyfriend hiked me a couple inches off the floor during a makeout, but it was against a wall so he had support.
To get the obvious question out of the way: I’m not a tiny lady. This makes the logistics more complicated. Years ago, when I lived in Brooklyn, there was a restaurant on Flatbush Avenue, Born Thai, that offered a giant appetizer combo called “Born to be a Size L.” I’ve never identified so much with a batch of spring rolls. To be clear, I don’t walk around day in and day out hating my body. There are advantages. I never need pants taken up in length. I can see pretty well at concerts. And if my car stalls, I can push it over to the shoulder. (I’ve never had to do this, but I feel very confident that I could.)
Jeremy is the first man I’ve ever told about my desire to be carried. We met earlier this year, matching on Bumble, while he was visiting Los Angeles. He’s six-two and cute and from New Zealand, and we went on three great dates. Improbably, we kept in contact after he returned home. We asked each other the “36 Questions That Lead to Love” over FaceTime. We volleyed try-hard jokes over text all day. We told each other vulnerable things from the safety of our little screens way too early in our courtship, because when you’re 7,000 miles apart, you can’t just meet up to go bowling.
And while yes, wanting to be carried is basically the fetish equivalent of proclaiming “I love vanilla lattes,” I still felt nervous when I said it aloud to him. Probably because the fantasy is so heteronormative that it’s deeply humiliating. Even on a scale of incredibly trite desires, getting literally picked up by a man is obviously on the most Nicholas Sparks–iest end of things. Not that it’s stopping anyone from publicly feeling the same way I do. The entire internet swooned when one of the Mumford fellas carried Carey Mulligan in her gorgeous princess dress down the hotel hallway after the Oscars this year. (I was not immune. Ask my text chains.) And while I don’t think there’s been a global study in a journal of science yet, on Reddit, when the “Do you like to be lifted?” question was posed on r/AskWomenover30, more than half the respondents wrote things like: “I’m a stout gal. A partner who can physically lift me is impressive and hella sexy.” and “Once in a while I say CURL ME! And he holds me similarly to a barbell and does bicep curls. It’s fun.” (Can you imagine?)
Jeremy thought my admission was funny, mostly because I prefaced it like I was about to tell him I enjoy being bound and gagged and slathered with Miracle Whip. Of course he could lift me, he replied, like I had simply asked him to pass the TV remote. Then he asked, “How do you want to be lifted?” My stomach dropped. “Any way?” I answered. It had been so abstract up until now I didn’t even know what to ask for.
Suddenly, it was a plan for the next time we saw each other. We already had tickets booked to meet at our geographic halfway point — Hawaii — in a couple weeks, for what would either be a weeklong fourth date or a cautionary Dateline episode. And now I was going to be carried on a tropical island, alive or dead.
Like any unctuous therapy patient, after voicing this desire aloud and — if I may compliment myself — pretty much manifesting it, I dedicated time to try to figure out what the fuck it was actually about. Is it a perverse, body-image-related ache to be small? Sure, that’s probably kicking around somewhere deep inside my lizard brain. Once in a while I order some cellulite-fighting cream off Instagram at 3 a.m. and then hate myself when it shows up at my door in the clear light of day. But most days, I like my body, or at least feel neutral toward it — which for a middle-aged woman who grew up on Weight Watchers commercials is kinda as good as it gets.
I think maybe it’s less about being small and more about being small again. A Lacanian yearning for childhood. As a kid, my favorite game was “one, two, three — swing!” It was the only way anyone could get me to go for a walk outside. You stand between two adults, holding their hands, then say the words and they swing you into the air. You’re Tarzan on ropes made of human limbs. You land. You squeal. You make them do it again every five steps. Until one day the adults start groaning and saying things like “You’re too heavy,” “My arm hurts,” or “C’mon, you’re big now!” The game is suddenly over, never to be played again no matter how much you long for it. Sorry to be dramatic, but the end of “one, two, three — swing!” was … my first heartbreak? One day you’re flying on the arms of people who love you, and then suddenly it’s taken away because your body grows a couple inches. Horrific. Everyone always wanted me to take pride in becoming a “big girl,” but getting bigger mostly resulted in losing a cherished form of caregiving in the name of self-sufficiency. Until I was big enough to want physical caregiving from a different kind of grown-up.
That’s the angle I had the hardest time digesting. Could my desire to be rag-dolled by a big, strong man be a symptom of some sort of patriarchal Disney brain virus contracted during childhood? Do I want to be romantically rescued by a man? Saved by love? Yeah, unfortunately. Like honestly, that sounds fucking great. Is that gross? Sure. Okay, let’s sit with that for a minute. It’s not like I want to be a trad wife or anything, but there’s a reason a bunch 20-something TikTokers are singing the virtues of baking all day. Life is hard. Jobs are hard. I could never give up my sense of self-worth for the trade-off of being a large adult dependent, but maybe that’s what the fantasy is really about — having a brief moment where someone else is responsible for me again. At this point, I’ve been married, divorced, and now I’m a single parent … I’m tired. I don’t want to endlessly swipe through Hinge while I eat Popsicles on the couch at night anymore. The idea of a man sweeping me off my feet sounds incredible. So does ten hours of sleep. Probably neither will happen, but it’s nice to think about.
As my therapist says, I can “interrogate” my fantasies, but I don’t have to actively fight against them. So thanks to her, we can now get to the part where I get picked up.
Jeremy and I are both nervous when we first see each other in person at the airport. He’s sweating a little. I’m blinking too much. But we hold hands and talk and warm up on the 90-minute drive to the hotel. The moment we step inside our room, Jeremy sweeps my feet off the ground in a hug. I scream. It feels wrong. I’m terrified I’m going to injure him. But also? I’m completely thrilled. I get butterflies in my stomach. I’m turned on. Woman contains multitudes! Then we had sex, obviously.
Over the course of the week, it was a true buffet of heteronormative rescue fantasies: He carries me like a princess across the resort pool; he helps me back onto a paddleboard after I fall off multiple times; he strong-man-pulls me under a waterfall when I couldn’t manage the current alone. I’m somewhat disappointed to say I loved them all. (Both for feminism and for the purposes of this essay — it would be a better twist if I actually detested my checkout-aisle-romance-novel proclivities.) Sure, maybe once in a while I experienced a modicum of embarrassment knowing people were watching and probably rolling their eyes. I would too if I encountered this happening to someone who wasn’t me. But the main takeaway is: I desperately wanted to be carried, I was carried, and it stirred things in my (large) body.
Or, as Virginia Woolf puts it in a quote card I definitely found on Google Images: “The strongest natures, when they are influenced, submit the most unreservedly; it is perhaps a sign of their strength.” This is the most flattering interpretation. The person being carried is actually the strong one. The one brave enough to give herself up to it. It takes guts to relinquish your power. My Gmail currently has 371,530 unread messages. I have to take my daughter to a dentist appointment later and finish a TV pitch by tomorrow morning. Often, it feels like my daily self-assurance is “You’ve got this under control.” Sometimes I would like to feel not in control.
On one of the last nights of our trip, Jeremy and I were alone in the pool and he scooped me up, princess style, and started rocking me across the water. Apparently I made a face. “What?” he asked me. I replied, or slurred — I’d downed two piña coladas in quick succession — “I wish I could do this to you.” It surprised me when it came out, but I actually meant it. It’s just nice to be held and moved by another person. To feel completely taken care of. Maybe that’s all there is to it.
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Lauren Bans , 2024-05-29 13:00:35
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