Woman says she hid her loose skin under shapewear while dating again after losing 75 pounds — and one bedroom moment nearly wrecked her confidence before the next-day conversation changed everything

A 29-year-old woman on Reddit said she had spent the last 10 months losing about 75 pounds and, for the first time in a long time, finally felt ready to date again. She still had around 20 pounds left to reach her goal, but said she felt much better in her body overall. The problem was the loose skin left around her stomach and inner thighs. Her trainer told her continued strength training might help some, and she was also considering surgery eventually, but she did not want to put off dating until she felt “perfect.” So, when she went out, she wore shapewear under her clothes to smooth things out and help keep the loose skin in place.

She wrote that she had been seeing a man named Jake, 28, for about two months. In her telling, he was funny, cute, and easy to talk to, and the chemistry between them felt real. They had already kissed, and she had given him oral sex, but she had not been ready to have intercourse yet. Then one weekend, she finally felt ready to take that step. After a date, they went back to his place, and things started moving toward sex. Jake undressed first, and she described his body as very athletic, which made her feel even more vulnerable about her own.

When she started taking off her clothes, Jake noticed the shapewear and asked if it was a corset. She said she could not tell whether he was joking or not, but she kept undressing anyway. Once the shapewear came off and her loose skin was visible, she said his face changed immediately. In her words, he looked surprised, disappointed, and disgusted. She wrote that he quickly started apologizing and saying he had only been surprised she was wearing something like that, but by then the damage was already done. She felt exposed, ugly, and abruptly thrown back into the kind of shame she used to feel when men would lose interest as soon as they saw what she really looked like. She got dressed and left before they had sex.

Afterward, she talked with friends and got mixed reactions. Some thought Jake had handled the moment badly but did not mean harm. Others told her she should have been upfront before they ever got to the bedroom, so she could find someone who accepted her body without surprise. She said she did not think she had deceived him, but admitted she also knew he was used to dating women who were more athletic and conventionally fit, and that this made her feel like she would never really be what he expected. Even after she left, they kept texting, and he continued apologizing, but she said she was now afraid to face him at all.

The next day, she posted an update after reading through the comments. She explained that a lot of people had asked how she could date someone for two months without ever revealing the shapewear. Her answer was pretty simple: it was winter, she wore bulky coats and layers, and it had not been hard to keep that part of her body hidden. She also admitted something else in the update that seemed important to her in hindsight: she had never really brought up her weight loss with Jake at all. They had talked about things like the gym and sports leagues, but she realized she had been avoiding the subject instead of addressing it directly.

That same night, she called him. According to her update, the conversation was much better than the bedroom moment had been. She said Jake told her his reaction was not disgust. It was surprise. He said he wished she had talked to him beforehand because he felt terrible that his reaction had hurt her so badly. He also told her he did not find her body horrifying or disgusting with or without shapewear, and that he genuinely wished she had trusted him enough to tell him what she had been dealing with. She wrote that he also told her he was impressed by how much she had changed her life and even suggested they do some mixed recreational sports together when the weather got warmer, since she had admitted she still felt anxious around that kind of activity.

By the end of the update, she was no longer writing like someone convinced she had just been rejected. She said she regretted putting both of them in that position and realized that, in the future, she needed to be more open before a sexual moment made the conversation unavoidable. She also sounded relieved that Jake had not reacted the way she first feared. They had another date planned for that weekend, and she ended the update with one small, hopeful line: “no shapewear allowed :)”

Original Reddit post.