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As a fat woman, I thought the sex scenes in Too Much were perfect
Fatphobia is on the rise. With weight-loss injections becoming the norm, #skinnytok promoting disordered eating (the hashtag itself may now be banned, but the culture persists) and the return of Y2K fashion and its ultra-thin aesthetic, it can feel as if the advances made by body positivity and fat acceptance movements over the last decade or so have been erased. As a fat woman trying to maintain my hard-won equanimity after a lifetime learning to hate my body, I find the current climate extremely depressing. Thank God, then, for Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series Too Much, which follows recently single Jessica (Megan Stalter) as she quits New York to find true love in London with heartthrob-slash-muso Felix (Will Sharpe), all the while inhabiting her plus-size frame with unapologetic pizzazz. It has truly been a tonic.
Dunham is no stranger to portraying non-conforming bodies: when her iconic series Girls was first released back in 2012, she garnered both praise and vitriol for depicting her own ever-so-slightly larger than average self having sex. In hindsight, it seems incredible that the reaction was so huge, because, really, the variation in size between Dunham and her Girls co-stars was negligible. I suppose it serves to illustrate the intense stricture of the prevailing beauty standard, when even the slightest deviation is considered an outrage. Similarly, Stalter’s Jessica would barely register as fat in the real world, and she is also unequivocally gorgeous, with her mermaid hair and sparkling eyes. In TV world, though, she is a break from convention, and one I personally take great heart from: in 2025, it is still so rare to see a fat woman as a romantic lead, so to watch a body even a little bit like mine joyfully shagging on screen feels remarkable.
The sex scenes in Girls shifted culture. Not only for their inclusion of Dunham’s body, but also for their frank depiction of sex as gritty and unglamorous. This realism is carried over in the sex scenes in Too Much: Jessica and Felix’s encounters are often awkward, as they fumble to remove their clothes or find the most comfortable position. However, what was lacking in Girls, but which is abundantly present in Too Much, is a sense of warmth and playfulness during sex; the couple frequently laugh and make jokes, even in the midst of the act. Indeed, their sex in many ways functions as an extension of their conversation; another way of connecting, much like how they swap song recommendations, talk about their childhoods or watch Paddington (the Paddington scene is pure gold, Sharpe deserves all the awards). Their sex is gloriously quotidian and resolutely undramatic—which is what sex can so often be like. In the one brief moment that drama does threaten to enter the bedroom—when Jessica expresses a momentary lack of confidence in her sexual prowess—it is swiftly extinguished by Felix: “I love your body,” he tells her, simply and straightforwardly, “I love everything about your body.”
When watching this scene, I found myself giddy with glee. True, it is nothing I haven’t heard from my own husband, as I’m sure is the case for many in my position; it isn’t in any way surprising to me that a man as attractive as Felix would openly profess his desire for a fat woman. Nonetheless, there is something extremely gratifying—perhaps even vindicating—about hearing this line delivered so clearly and casually on TV, as if the truth it contains is so eminently obvious, it barely needs to be spoken. But the thing is, it absolutely does need to be spoken, because it’s still so rarely seen on our screens, if ever.
