Dear Sugar,
Ever since I was small girl of about six, I have delighted in the idea of growth. And I don’t mean spiritual or emotional or mental growth. I mean literal growth. The idea of expansion has always excited me. I liked the idea of women growing. Usually it was something to do with eating.
I’m a teenager now. Over the years, as I started using the Internet, I began to see that I was not the only one out there with desires related to this. There is even a name for us: Female Fat Admirers or FFAs. Of course, there aren’t a whole lot of women preoccupied with inflation or expansion or feederism, especially when it involves other women, but communities are out there.
As I grew older, I realized that what I was doing with these thoughts was masturbation. Soon after that, I realized that my thoughts were not only simply strange, but utterly bizarre and mildly horrifying. I figured this out through tests with my friends—for example, I’d link to a drawing of an obese girl that I found intoxicating and say “Oh my God, look at this!” and watch their reaction. I’ve begun to worry more and more about what my parents and friends might think if they ever found out.
The logic of it doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t find fat in real life to be attractive, on myself or most others. I don’t like the idea of myself masturbating, and I don’t like the idea of anyone ever knowing about my desires. I’ve tried to stop, but find that I can’t.
This is the first time I have ever admitted my fetish to anyone, which I thought I would never do. But, Sugar, I need help. I want this to go away. It doesn’t rule my life, but every second of enjoyment I get out of it just feels dirty and wrong. It makes me sort of sick sometimes. I’ve tried chalking it up to being a horny teenage girl, but I don’t sense that this kind of thing is normal.
I don’t know what to do, Sugar. I don’t know what to think. Is it okay? Is it normal? Am I just another one of those freaky people who spends too much time in the deep, dark places of the Internet? Please help.
With love,
Worse Than A Furry
Dear WTAF,
What a letter. I’m so glad you wrote it. I know it wasn’t easy to do. Before I say anything more I want to tell you that it’s okay. Everything you wrote about the way you feel about your inexplicable sexual desire is everything that everyone feels who has ever had an inexplicable sexual desire, which is just about every one of us. What you’re doing right now—in writing to me, in searching for a deeper understanding of your sexuality, in spite of your fear and self-loathing—is courageous and important. It’s work that many people never do, no matter how old they get to be, and they are miserable for it. You won’t be one of them.
So you are turned on by images of fat women. That’s interesting. You ask whether it’s “normal” or not, but I can’t rightly answer that. If by normal you mean common among the populace, I’d say no. But then you need to remember that what is common among the populace when it comes to sexual fantasies entails things such as raping others or being raped, fucking one’s big daddy or pretending to be him, having threesomes that involve the neighbor/postal carrier/local grocery store cashier, being tied up and whipped or tying up others and whipping them, performing sex acts in view of others or watching others perform sex acts, doing strangers in back alleys and bar bathrooms, and so on.
Is any of that normal? Most people wouldn’t think so, at least not when viewed through the lens of our actual, moral, practical selves.
But sexual desire exists in another realm. Our fantasies reflect not who we are, not how we live, but what we need to get us off. The vast majority of the people who fantasize about rape would never, under any circumstances, be turned on by actual rape. Oodles of people who are aroused by power dynamics in their erotic lives do not remotely condone or romanticize child abuse, violence, or cruelty. There are a whole lot of people fantasizing about things they don’t, won’t, and never want to actually do, and another bunch of people who are actually doing those things, but only in the very specific context of their bedrooms or dungeons or showers or cars.
Sexual desire is just weird like that. Your desires are no weirder, WTAF. They’re simply more unique.
This is the pinch you’re experiencing, sweet pea. The thing that’s sickening to you is you. But that doesn’t mean you’re sick. You’re only ashamed that your surprising sexual psyche runs counter to your better wishes, the values of the culture at large, and even the generally accepted parameters of garden-variety kink. No wonder you’re freaking out.
So let’s talk you down from at least a couple of these trees.
The part of your letter that concerns me the most is the part where you tell me you need help because you want this desire for the big ladies to go away. The thing is, I’m about 99.5% sure that it won’t, at least not in the shazam way you’re hoping for. Your fantasies don’t have to rule your life. They may change slightly over time. But they’re there and they’ve been there from the very dawn of your sexual self, which tells me that they’re core and they’re powerful and the sooner you make peace with them, the better off you’ll be.
Because being a Female Fat Admirer is not common among your peers, I feel a little afraid for you in the same way I’d feel afraid for a gay or lesbian teen living in a hostile environment. You’d benefit from support that extends beyond this letter—an adult who will listen and offer guidance as you articulate and grapple with the complexities of your sexuality. The best person would be a psychotherapist, who will provide you with unbiased information and unconditional positive regard. If your parents’ financial situation is such that you can see a therapist and if you live in a community in which a therapist with whom you feel comfortable is available, I implore you to make an appointment soon. If either or both of those things are not the case, please write to me and I will do my best to find a therapist for you—one who can see you in person for no charge if money is the issue or consult with you over the phone if access is a challenge.
You say that you’d be mortified if your parents knew of your proclivities, but I want to assure you that just about anyone would be mortified if their parents knew about such things. One’s parents’ reaction to one’s fantasies, no matter the details, is not the barometer to use to determine whether one is a crazy sex fiend or not, so rest easy on that front, sister. Having said that, I encourage you to take measures to secure your privacy. Be careful, be discreet, and be smart when it comes to your Internet wanderings. And for the love of god, if you don’t know already, learn how to use the “clear history” function on your browser.
As for the Internet itself, I think it’s wise for you ask yourself whether you’re spending “too much time in the deep, dark places of” it. You might be. I’m going to sound like someone who could be your mother here because I am someone who could be your mother, but there was no Internet when I was a teenager, and when it comes to my budding sexual self, I don’t think that was a bad thing. I had the dirty passages in my mom’s James Michener novels (which were fairly disappointing in the area of dirty) and my own hand. Both of which I made extensive use.
The Internet has offered you something valuable I didn’t need because I got it from the culture all around me: a definition and validation of your more unique sexuality. But it also allows you a private and anonymous portal into which you could go further than is healthy. You told me what you absolutely do not desire in your “real life”—the very thing you most desire in your fantasy life, it turns out—but you made no mention of what you do desire. There is the photograph of the obese woman when you click that link, the masturbatory dream that both intoxicates and repulses you. But what is it you really want in your living, breathing sex life? Have you even allowed yourself to imagine a partner or the things you’d like to do? What if it turns out to be the obese woman? What if it doesn’t?
Some fantasies are just idle thoughts one doesn’t wish to act out with another, but most find their way into our metaphorical bed, to a greater or lesser extent. If they don’t, they often come out twisted in the lives we feel compelled to keep sadly covert instead. You never thought you’d tell anyone that you are a Female Fat Admirer, but you told me. Who’s next? And who after that? Your fear of your desires gives them more power than is their due. The way to normalize this kink of yours is to accept it for what it is: the thing that turns you on. Once you stop attempting to push it away, you can figure out what you’d like to do with it and how it might be placed among the diverse facets of your life.
When I was a teenager I had two main sexual fantasies. I was profoundly ashamed of both of them. The first was that I would be a stripper at a bachelor party and my estranged father would be in attendance at this party and I would see him and recognize him but he would not recognize me because I’d grown up since he last saw me and I would strip in front of him and the other men and be paid for it. The other was that I would be at a Superbowl party at a rich person’s house, working as a cocktail waitress, serving drinks to a bunch of men in business suits. I would be wearing something incredibly slutty that was nothing like I owned—some impossibly short skirt, with high heels and a tight top that showed off the bust I didn’t actually (then) have. I would be carrying this tray of drinks around the room while the men watched the game, indifferent to my hospitality, until they noticed my body and leered. Pretty soon, they would stop ordering drinks and instead they’d order me to do things like take off my top and I would.
I vividly remember the first time I ever told anyone about these fantasies. I was walking with Mr. Sugar down a quiet lane in Taos, New Mexico a year or so into our relationship. I can still feel the same sick, queasy feeling I had when I stammered my way through them, my whole body burning not with arousal but embarrassment. It was so humiliating, so not reflective of who I am, so contrary to everything I want or believe or seek or honor or trust or have in my life. I’d spent years feeling sickened by myself the way you feel sickened by yourself, WTAF, always trying to purge those fantasies from my head.
But the strangest thing happened once I told Mr. Sugar about those first fantasies of mine. I realized that I’d been wrong all along when I’d believed they had nothing to do with the woman I actually was. I realized instead how very much they belonged to me. I understood at last that these two truths could be contained at once—that my sexual self and my actual self could live together ever so contradictorily as one. It was true that those sad and basically despicable things I thought about to get myself off were not in any way a definition of who I was in the world. And it was also true that those things were an accurate report from the darkest underworld of my most primal longings. Much as I wanted to deny it, those shameful desires of mine could be traced back to my deepest traumas when it came to men on both a personal and a cultural level. How profoundly my father had failed me. How totally I’d internalized the message that I was here to service the great white American cock.
I don’t know why, from the age of six, you’ve been attracted to the combination of women and expansion. But I know there’s a reason. And I know that someday you will know what it is if you are brave enough to let yourself know. What is it you’re hungry for, dear one, and why? Root it out. Put it in a pot. And feed it to yourself. It will nourish you.
Yours,
Sugar
46 responses
I read this eagerly, Sugar, wondering how on earth you can find the wisdom to help out this young lady with this unusual circumstance. You did it, as always, with loving, non-judgmental, and sure-footed clarity.
And yes, eventually knowing the “what” of it will go a long way in understanding the “why”.
Amen, amen, and amen again.
Sugar, you are one of the most significant gifts to humanity I’ve ever encountered.
Dear young woman,
You are just fine. Just like Sugar said.
Many of us feel, at some point, that who we really, really are is somehow repugnant and unlovable, especially when we are young. It’s never true.
Even if 100 people rejected you, 200 wouldn’t give a damn.
You are just fine in your desire.
I want to give you a hug and tell you way too much about my own young self. I won’t do that as this is not the place, but trust me when I say that so many of us have sat where you sit today. And in the big, beginning world, everything turned out okay.
Never fear.
What a wise, supportive gift to WTAF. And totally applicable to lots of other folks, of all persuasions and sexual fantasies.
Thank you Sugar. The realm of kink, specifically the topic of channeling our deepest and sometimes darkest desires into healthy, satisfying and even healing sexual kink, is something that sadly doesn’t get spoken openly about in our social system as we live it today. Which of course is why a response like yours is so very important as it places a great big “its more than just ok, its who you are” stamp on something that I am quite sure is meaningful to more people than just our letter writer.
And if I may say a word directly to WTAF… I don’t know where you live, but most larger communities have some form of open, supportive and very understanding of sexual diversity sex-positive social organization. There you will find other people who have come to peace with their own unique turn-ons and now get to channel them in ways that enrich their lives and celebrate exactly who they are. Best of luck and have fun with it!!
I was so moved by this. One of the most punishing and limiting lies we tell ourselves is that we are “freaks” so that we end up in this cycle of self shame. I think the key is to search ourselves for the root of our sexual identities and to find a way to experience our sexual selves in a healthy way, hopefully, with a partner that gets us. It should be less about denial and more about growth. Sugar gave such a beautiful, kick ass answer. One I think most of us could use to hear.
Sugar, I’m a devoted fan but you are way off the mark on this one. What about the humanity of the ‘obese’ women whose images simultaneously arouse and disgust the letter-writer? Being attracted to fat women “runs counter to [her] better wishes”? Why? Is being attracted to fat people so abnormal that in and of itself it qualifies as a kink? For someone who’s written so compellingly about body acceptance, I would have thought you’d push back on the idea that the only way to sexually value fat people is to reduce them to the fact of their size (which, in our culture, is often understood to signify loneliness and desperation). Can’t lie, Sugar, I’m disappointed.
“How profoundly my father had failed me. How totally I’d internalized the message that I was here to service the great white American cock.”
Crying. You always take it that one step farther than I already had in my head.
As a fat woman, I find this letter, and the response, quite upsetting. WTAF veers between sexually fetishing fat women, and despising fat ‘in real life’. Fat women are real people! We don’t exist to be objects of people’s sexual fantasies or their scorn.
It’s one thing to have sexual fetishes and fantasies, but quite another to completely invisibilise the real selves and real experiences of real fat women.
There is a problem with people who are attracted to fat women, and the idea of ‘expansion’, and that problem, in a word, is ‘feeders’. There is more to this than just someone’s sexual fetish. This is about power dynamics and abuse in the real world. Now I realise that WTAF is not expressing that they are or wish to be involved in that kind of thing. But even so, as a fat woman, I am totally uninterested in anyone who is sexually attracted to me *because* I’m fat. It’s pretty creepy, in real life.
Plenty of people are in loving/sexual relationships with real life fat women and they don’t see the need to point out the fact that they’re attracted to a fat person as some kind of freakish thing to be ashamed of.
WTAF’s letter sounds to me like ‘Ugh I fancy fat women! What is wrong with me? I’m a freak! Make it stop!’ – making it clear, once again, that there is nothing so disgusting and freakish as fat people.
Sorry if this sounds harsh, but actually – no, why am I apologising? Once again, fat women are told they are less-than, and I feel the need to point out that this is not OK. WTAF, maybe you need to meet some actual real-life fat women, and realise perhaps that they are real people who just happen to have a body shape you admire, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Bravo! Beautiful. You’ve done it again, Sugar.
I had to comment because I desperately hope the letter writer is reading — I too have a strong sexual kink, somewhat related to hers, which I am too embarrassed to detail here and which has also been living in my brain in some way since I was small. When I first started having sexual fantasies, this kink would sometimes be featured. Then I discovered the Internet, got up the courage to search for people like me, and something odd happened; what had previously just been an interest or preference suddenly became the *only* thing I could fantasize about.
So I have two thoughts for you, WTAF. The first is that no, you are not alone in being incredibly aroused by something most of the world would find bizarre and which you never intend to act upon. It is shameful and awkward, I know, but no one has a right to the inside of your head and if you want to fantasize about anything you like (even during sex with someone else!), that is perfectly okay. The second thing, though, is that a kink like that can definitely get intensified the further down the rabbit hole you go and the more time you spend thinking about it. I have had times in my life when I can only orgasm thinking about my kink, which I don’t like, and so I have to make an effort to create fantasies about other things that arouse me and train myself to get off to them *as well*. Sexual variety is a good thing, and if you have a kink that isn’t very easy to make a real part of your life, I would suggest based on my experience working on making it part of a stable of fantasies rather than focusing only on it.
But mostly I just wanted to say you are not alone! It’s somehow harder to be a female with a weird fetish because the typical idea is of a male foot fetishist or “chubby chaser”, so you have my sympathy.
Sugar, I love you, but this “teenage girl” writes like a 40-year-old man. I smell a hoax.
I’m a fat woman, but I don’t think the letter is offensive, and neither is Sugar’s response. Yes, fat people are people, but fantasy fat people are no more real than fantasy postmen or fantasy sentient octopi or the characters in rape fantasies. WTAF isn’t hurting anyone with her fantasies, and isn’t treating real people as sex objects.
She will one day sort through whether she’s attracted to women generally, and whether she only feels real-life fat people are unattractive because she’s a teenager and society says so. (A whole lot of people mellow out about ideal body shapes once they start having frequent adult sex.) And maybe she’ll discover she only falls in love with extremely skinny men who are passionate about RPGs. That’s okay. Maybe she’ll fall in love with a fat woman who also plays the clarinet and loves Shark Week. That’s okay too. As long as she doesn’t start treating her hypothetical fat girlfriend as a prop, she can still have her fetish either way.
But she can’t go about discovering any of those things until she starts not hating herself. Body acceptance starts with self-acceptance. Everything starts with self-acceptance. I think, when WTAF sorts that out, she’ll be good to go!
Thanks Sugar! That was particularly wonderful. As I was reading it, I was thinking “Gee, this can help me understand people who are very different from myself”, but by the end, I was brought back to the reality that we aren’t so different after all. Genius.
I love this, Sugar. Yet again, I didn’t think I related to the person who wrote the letter, but once I read your response I recognize myself. It’s wonderful how affirming you are. This is, in the end, about acceptance, no matter your sexual fantasy or your body type. I also appreciate the part where you challenge WTAF to consider her real (ie not internet or image based) sex life. As you suggest, she may be attracted to women who are heavy in real life and not know it yet or she may not. Either way, cutting out the self-loathing and shame will allow her to answer this for herself so she can find a way to feel comfortable with her desires. I hope you do it, WTAF. Thank you, Sugar.
Sugar, I think you did a great job with this letter. It is unfortunate that a couple of people above didn’t connect with the piece in the same way I did. I think what is difficult for some people is that your response is not about the “problem” of getting off on fatness, but more importantly dealing with the “otherness” of having a sexual desire that is not mainstream. Thank you for answering as you did. I think you did this girl a huge, huge favor that she will not forget.
As always,
M
I’m also a fat woman and I wasn’t, in the slightest, offended by the letter or the answer. Yes, there are people out there who get off on being “chubby chasers.” There are people out there who view fat people as less than human. There are even people out there who blame everything, from the raise in health insurance premiums to the destruction of American civilization on fat people. I’ve seen and heard it all and trust me when I say I get angry when I do. But, in this case, it isn’t about that. Come on people, we are talking about a teenage girl and Sugar – neither of whom are likely to start or promote an anti-fat agenda.
WTAF, you are young and you are just finding yourself in many ways at this point in your life. At 33 years old, I’m still discovering things about myself that I never knew and, believe me, I’ve learned some things that I enjoy sexually that would absolutely make me die of embarrassment if my parents ever found out. Does that stop me from enjoying them? Not a damn bit. Tell you a secret – I get off on lesbian porn….and I am totally straight. I do not desire women in real life, but I find watching two (or three or four) women together is incredibly erotic. Now, I admit that this is rather vanilla in comparison to your fetish but my point is that a fetish does not define a person. You are you and your fetish is only a small part of makes you unique. So, whether you “outgrow” your fetish or you learn to embrace it as time goes by, just know that this is only a small part of who you are. As Dr. Seuss said, “Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Good luck!
I want to chime in with a few voices:
– Sugar’s last paragraph, which is very deep wisdom on a subject too superficially discussed;
– The protests of the commenters who point out that fat women are people, too, and this letter and the response;
– Emma’s caution not to let one kink become your whole sexual life.
I am a bisexual woman, but for a long formative time, I could only get off by fantasizing I was a man– usually fucking other men. There are reasons for this. One is my first sexual influences (slash fanfic, embarrassingly). Another is because I find it hot. The last is because I had such an antipathy toward the idea of degradation and my feeling was that, as a female, I would never escape degrading sex.
I still have these fantasies, but they are one option on the buffet: as I came to grips with the fact that sex as a woman was not intrinsically humiliating to me, I began to become aroused by new things, by situations with people I found attractive in real life. In my libidinous wanderings, I picked up a few other kinks along the way, a few of which have given me very gratifying sexual experiences.
Be sure to use the internet to explore the wider world of sexuality, in addition to your kink. Emma is definitely right that things “get intensified the further down the rabbit hole you go.” Whatever you do with your sexuality, whatever place it will take in your life, don’t limit yourself as a sexual being.
This entire post and thread hit eerily close to home for me.
I have a similar kink to the writer than the letter, though I’m in my late 20s now, and it took me a long time to come to terms with it. I ended up dating a bunch of kinky guys, and essentially doing whatever they liked, without ever talking about what I wanted, and I grew resentful, stopped wanting sex, and dumped everyone I dated.
The thing is, if you keep a part of yourself like this a secret from the people you’re intimate with, you’re not really going to be satisfied with your sex life. But, telling people really isn’t so bad. When you open up, you give people the chance to reject you, but until you do you never give them the chance to accept you. You feel a little less horrible and freakish when you tell someone all about all your awful things and they love you anyway.
As for fat women who find how people sexualize them creepy – I assure you that the way people sexualize thin women can be deeply creepy too. But, I think you’ll find that the dynamics will be different from person to person and it’s not always about “control” or forcing someone to do something against their will. For me, my dad was a prick to my overweight mom when I was growing up and I think I sort of eroticized the inverse of that? He was angry at her when she ate, so eating became somehow erotic or forbidden to me? I’m not too sure.
But, I hope there are at least some fat women (or men) out there who aren’t totally creeped out by what I think of them because I totally want to fuck them.
I am also hoping the girl who wrote the letter is reading these replies. Well, not the replies of the Very Offended (Just ignore them, PLEASE) but the replies of the people urging you to understand that you are FINE.
What concerns me the most is the line “I don’t like the idea of myself masturbating.” THIS is what your true problem is, because it is not a problem to be turned on by fat, or growing women. You need to learn that it is OK, and normal and healthy to masturbate. You need to know that if a woman is not masturbating, THAT is what is abnormal. Sex is a wonderful part of being alive. Masturbating is also a wonderful, and necessary part of your sex life. PLEASE START LISTENING TO DAN SAVAGE. His podcasts and articles will help you in a gigantic way.
I think this is the time and place for over sharing, so here I go. When I was five or six, I had fantasies about masked, clothed men tying me down and burning my vagina with a hot iron. I still have a very, very active fantasy life that revolves around humiliation, power, bdsm, etc, etc and if you listen to Dan Savage, you will see that EVERYONE has their own little kink. Own it. Relax. I, thank god, grew up in NYC, where the village voice was free, and from a young age read Dan’s columns, so I grew up believing my sexuality was normal and OK. Now I have a great sex life with my wonderful husband.
Everything Sugar says is amazing. She is like the warm, fuzzy, magical-way-with-words version of Dan Savage. If only we could all have them both as parents. Sigh……..
ALL FAT LOVELIES PLEASE CALM DOWN!
We are talking about a fantasy, NOT REAL LIFE.
If WTAF had a recurring sexual fantasy about a postal worker, would we accuse her of “demeaning mailboxes everywhere?”
Now it is true, that fat people are completely and totally prejudiced against in our very sick society, and that may in fact be WHY WTAF has these fantasies in the first place. That we, as women, are asked to be as very small as possible, and that she dreams of expansion.
Sugar can’t heal every societal ill, all at once. But what she could do was allow this young girl to breathe, and to be. Those of us who are met with acceptance, are in turn much more compassionate to everyone we encounter.
Dream on, WTAF, and be proud!
@Jean: If acceptance is the goal then we should also accept that what WTAF wrote and how she described her reactions to her fantasies hurt or bothered some people. The postal worker comparison is minimizing what other people felt and that isn’t necessary to validate WTAF’s struggles.
What the letter writer is describing is a fantasy but the way she describes it and her reactions are real. There could be many explanations for why she described things how she did.
But that doesn’t change or invalidate the experiences of people who felt insulted or objectified, however. WTAF can take in their reactions and let them influence her thinking or behavior without having to either flagellate herself for being insensitive or dismissing their experiences out of hand. There are more than two options here.
Who knows? Maybe years later she’ll end up with a badass feminist fatpositive perspective on her desires around women and expansion…
“I don’t like the idea of myself masturbating, and I don’t like the idea of anyone ever knowing about my desires.”
Wait, is no-one else saddened by this? It’s okay to be a sexual person, WTAF. It’s okay to enjoy the way you feel when you masturbate.
Thank you to everyone who’s commented. I really appreciate those of you who are being so encouraging, as well as those who are expressing the fact that they aren’t okay with it. I’m thankful for all of you, and definitely mulling it all over. Your input is really helpful.
I hope all of you have a really fantastic today.
As a fat person, I bristle at being fetishized for all the reasons already expressed (and not every fat person will, some even enjoy it, we are unique fucking snowflakes like all human persons), but I also really appreciate Sugar’s advice here. We all have our Things. We all have the capacity to be dirty and kinky and abnormal and hurtful and hateful – and loving and open and accepting. I hope WTAF finds this in herself. I hope she comes to know that she is not “worse than” anyone. We all have our Things.
Hmm. As always, I appreciate and honor Sugar’s affirming words and ability to draw greater lessons out of very personal/individual questions.
But, there’s something niggling at me here. Aren’t some fantasies dangerous? I don’t know if it’s quantifiable, but I can’t help but think that regularly fantasizing about sexual encounters with minors or cheating on your SO with a particular person is a bad road to go down & would SOMETIMES lead to a real-life occurrence. Perhaps it’s not always the best thing to indulge every fantasy? No need to shame yourself if something like the above pops up, but maybe the most responsible thing is to note it and attempt to control it.
First – @ Alex S – yes, I had the same feeling – that this letter writer didn’t quite sound like a teenage girl. (If you are truly a teenage girl, WTAF, I apologize profusely – but you are uncannily eloquent for a teenage girl, frankly.)
Second – I offer the teenage girl, WTAF this: please do not think that you are alone in this. You are completely normal. There is nothing wrong with you. Don’t be ashamed of this fetish.
The earliest humans made fetishes out of well endowed, large women.
http://arthistoryresources.net/willendorf/willendorfwoman.html
The attraction of a well-endowed female body is a longstanding, instinctual urge in our species. It’s our (relatively) recent Western societal and cultural bias toward the idea that only skinny woman can be considered legitimate or “beautiful” sex objects that makes you abhorrent of what was probably at one time a fairly average sexual turn on.
Michelle, I was going to say the same thing. Statues and paintings of beautiful large, full bellied, large breasted women have been worshipped for tens of thousands of years by humans. Being well fed was probably a unique condition in human history and well worth worshipping. Of course fat leads to fertility so the plus side is well fed babies.
Thank you Sugar for this magnificent letter of advice and wisdom to WTAF and all of us.
Lizzy, in the past 10 years I’ve swung between #350 and #175, at present I’m #240, I have loved myself at every size, and I’m the opposite of creeped out – thanks for what you said. (I’m happily coupled up but just wanted to encourage you ALL – some of us like changing size 🙂 )
Cate, you unique fucking snowflake, YES.
Lora, here’s a shout out for fanfic. Writing my version of Jane Eyre (Harry=Jane, Draco=Rochester, NC-17) was a very healing experience. What you wrote about the WHOLE BUFFET is very important.
Dear WTAF, those were my three faves among many great comments above. I respect your courage and am so glad you started by being honest with yourself, because lying to oneself is even more horrible (and stops growth dead, too). Once you speak the unspeakable and start working to accept yourself…well, they’ve all said it already. I just want to add that despite the awesome work Dan Savage has done, I am saddened by the way he talks to/about transpeople. Each of us (as Cate has said) is just another individual with Things.
I think the issue is that the women in these videos are not fantasies, they are real people. Ethical porn is I think an issue in general, but I do think it’s fair to make a distinction between porn involving a paid actress who gets to go home at the end of the day, and feederism porn, which often involves real women, some of them very vulnerable because discrimination, and in extreme cases, health issues, prevent them from earning an income, some of them in relationships with men who have taken advantage of the isolation or insecurity some women feel in a world that says fat is “less than,” and are abusively force feeding them. So where does fantasy cross the line? Even being a viewer of kiddie porn or snuff films or other clearly abusive forms of porn is considered, rightfully, participation and support. I don’t think someone has to die or be a child for porn to be abusive, and I think anyone watching abusive porn (which is distinct from consensual BDSM porn) is complicit in that abuse– the guilt in that complicity is worth addressing, and is a totally distinct conversation than feeling guilty about having a particular fetish or kink.
I have been interested in and later turned on by the same things starting a very very young age. I probably could have been the author “Worse than a Furry” when I was a teen. Feederism isn’t the end of the world. You likely will NEVER know why you are into fat expanding women as the end of the advise letter says. Looking for why is a lost cause, at least in my experience. Suggesting you see a psychotherapist is extreme. There is no reason to assume that is necessary. You should talk to others with a similar interest in feederism you can find people on tumblr including myself http://feedeeorunicorn.tumblr.com/. You can go to FantasyFeeder.com and other sites where people will actual stop and lend a caring ear because we were all very confused about feederism at one time or another. Most of us are still confused just not in such a crippling way.
Oh, Kid A, psychotherapy can be good for everyone as long as you have a good therapist. It’s not an extreme course of action, just a safe place that lets you open up about things you’re afraid to tell other people (or sometimes yourself).
Also, I agree with Michelle. I don’t think the love of large female bodies is as uncommon as most people think. I like them myself, though not exclusively.
Cheers to this community of love and support and thoughtful response.
Not that it has anything to do with anything, but I can tell you that this fat guy is totally cool with being fantasized over, objectified, lusted after or “chubby chased” because of his gut.
To those who were upset by the response, please remember that someone being interested in a particular physical characteristic, even fetishizing that characteristic, has nothing to do with you or the fact that you may possess that characteristic. Nor is it an expression of a belief, opinion or general world view. It is, as Sugar so wisely told WTAF, a part of her, a part that has been there since the dawn of her sexual self and one that need not define her but will probably never leave her. And to imply that WTAF has in any way objectified you or anyone else by allowing herself to explore a fantasy is to drape yet another layer of shame and guilt onto her.
In neither WTAF’s letter nor Sugar’s response were fat women portrayed as lesser or abnormal. All that was expressed was WTAF’s confusion over the contrast between what she wanted and what she wanted to fantasize about, and it was that contrast that was being referred to as abnormal. But more importantly, this letter isn’t about fat women. It’s about coming to terms with a sexual desire that is confusing and scary, and Sugar, because she’s smarter than all of us, knew that’s what needed to be discussed, not WTAF’s or the general public’s view of obesity.
I’d just like to say, as a fat or BBW woman, that the idea of people being attracted to obese women is hardly a unique, fringe, or abnormal “fetish.” I’m certainly on the larger end of the female size spectrum, and I recieve sexual advances from all types of people, constantly. It is also my understanding that BBW porn is one of the growing segments of the porn industry.
Feederism, on the other hand, may be more of a fringe fetish. I don’t meet many people who want to feed me food to make me fatter. They just want to touch and “make love” to my extra curvy body.
As far as I know, teenagers feel awkward, weird and wrong about something. This just seems to be the way it is during those teen years. It is possible, WTAF, to outgrow that overwhelming freaky feeling. More life experience, changing priorities, yadda yadda. It does happen. Meanwhile, be gentle with yourself. This may not sound terribly reassuring right now, but you’re no freakier than the rest of us out here, and much less than some!
Reading the line “I don’t like the idea of myself masturbating” worries and saddens me a lot more than anything else.
WTAF, working out your specific fantasies and how you feel about them is important, but I think this may be more important still — and definitely something to discuss with a therapist, even if you don’t feel ready to discuss anything more detailed.
Please believe me: it is okay.
-I’m obese. I wasn’t insulted. Maybe it’s because I’m at home with my fatness, something that is generally frowned upon due to current social stigmas against me being a size twenty six. Doesn’t matter, fact is you can be a female fat admirer all you want. Power to you.
-There’s nothing wrong with you, chica. That I promise.
-Even if you aren’t a chica- even if, as someone insinuated, you’re a lonely forty something- my opinion remains the same. Nothing wrong with you.
-and someday you’ll get it.
-but until then, Do as the Good Sugar says, and all, I feel, will be fine.
-and for the record, masturbation is a natural act. We all do it. We like to pretend we don’t, because for some reason someone somewhere decided that our sexual urges were immoral and disgusting, but the truth is we do.
WTAF, I think I know where you’re coming from. I too have a kink that has been with me since I was extremely young. I found it so embarrassing that I used to WISH it was something like a rape fantasy. For years I envied people who just thought about “sex;” whose fantasies involved sexual acts that were at least clearly “sexual” and not some weird, left-over oedipal thing like I thought mine was. But now, as a mid-twenties woman, who has thought about this A LOT over the years, I’ve come to almost cherish the profound effect this kink has had on my sexual development, and my development as a “person,” wherever the separation lies. Having an “unfashionable” kink has led me to some really weird places. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of the internet, I’ve felt filthy, I’ve felt extreme shame, and I’ve seen/ gotten off to some really ugly stuff. Only two people on the planet know about my kink, and one was an abusive ex who threw it back in my face out of anger, who used it to make me feel bad. And because of all this, I feel like I have a greater understanding of the strange places sexual desire comes from, and from that a greater openness towards others. It is VERY DIFFICULT to weird me out. My kink is something I’m still trying to understand, but it gets easier, WTAF. You grown and learn, and the more sexual experiences you have, whether they have to do explicitly with your kink or no, your interior world widens (no pun intended) and you begin to see you kink in it’s context. To tie this up, some bullet point advice from me: 1. go down the rabbit hole. Getting a little inundated with this for a while is better than spending your hole life wondering whats down there. 2. No one has to know about this unless you want them to, and even though it’s risky, telling a partner you trust, when the time comes, can be very rewarding, EVEN IF you don’t engage in your kink with them. If they are a good person and love you, they will be intrigued at the very least. 3. That being said, meditate, think about your kink, watch it change, and know that no one can tell what you’re thinking. And finally, you are NOT disgusting, stunted, wrong or anything. Your journey toward sexual fulfillment (which is a shifting animal anyway) will be stranger than most, but it will be worth it. You will learn so much. I wish you the best, WTAF. You are not alone!
Darling WATF,
I so love what Sugar said in her note to the Sugar Group: It takes faith to make a home in the body. That’s so beautiful, and it says it all — your body is your home.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of. As other people have expressed, I’m concerned when you say you don’t like yourself when you masturbate — because I think you deserve to feel wonderful about yourself.
I would be careful about the rabbit hole too — spending too much time there, especially if it makes you feel bad. I think desire is a lot more plastic than most people realize, and there’s no need for it to define you. People who sell porn have a vested interest in wanting you to define yourself this way. But you don’t want your kink to become WHO you are, how you see yourself in the world, how you connect socially. What I mean is you don’t want a kink to be a trap. It’s part of your sexual imagination — the way your mind is creating the world you live in. And that’s beautiful. Big women are beautiful — you’ve got great taste, like Rembrandt, Titian, Rubens, and the unknown sculptor of Nike of Thrace. Wanting to nourish is beautiful — it’s probably an evolutionarily necessary urge. So I’m celebrating you as I write this.
SUGAR!!!
You forgot the most important fact smack-down of all!
ONLY in Western Culture is “thin” considered the ideal!
There are 196 countries in the world. In the majority of them, the idealization of thinness is considered sick and abnormal.
We need to get over our Neo-Colonialist selves and remember the, ahem, big picture.
I love the compassion & common sense Sugar doles out, working within the system, dealing with emergent sexuality, issues of desire, and fantasy.
But if this letter isn’t a sign of the damage we’re actively participating in and how small our worlds are in this era of “globalization,” I don’t know what is.
Hey – WTAF – YOU are totally normal & cool. You know what you like! Do you know how healthy, and what a gift that is? Our dominant culture is sick. Not you, lovely.
I just saw this piece on GQ today and I think Sugar’s column here is a great response to it: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/mens-lives/201111/hardcore-porn-obsession-morality-shalom-auslander
I think I’m a really good person. I’m a good listener; I am never violent; I love my friends and make sure they know it; I am successful in my career without being obsessive; I’m very good at putting myself in other people’s shoes, and so often do; sharing and generosity are at the core of my being.
I also love to watch women shit.
It’s something that tortured me for so many years–something that I kept brutally secret. I would visit it for pleasure, and then revisit it many times in between in torture. I couldn’t do hallucinogenic drugs because I would spend the entire time dwelling on what a disgusting freak I was.
I am at ease with it now. There are a couple reasons I can list that I believe contributed to this.
I have worked my way into a circle of very loving friends–intelligent and mature people who have a high enough understanding of life that they know how pervasive fetishes are. People have fetishes. Some people have more specialized ones. They rarely make sense. I have a female friend in her early twenties who is sexually attracted to elderly women. She knows I like poop. We think each other are great.
Another reason is becoming more confident in myself in general. “Yeah I like fat girls, so what? I like other stuff too,” is the attitude you should take. But not with a scowl on your face, which might be your first reaction, but with a smile. Say it with a look like, “Don’t act like you don’t have some weird sex thing.” Because chances are very good they do. Try to learn all that you can, not only about your fetish, but all of them in general. Convince yourself that it is not weird to have a fetish, and that the fetish doesn’t have any real bearing on who you are as a person.
I wanted to weigh in on this topic because I have a fetish that is even further from societal standards than yours, and I wanted to make sure you knew that there is such a thing. You can watch fatty porn on any multi-genre porn site on the web. Not mine. Mine is even illegal in a lot of countries. Yet I have found peace with it. As long as you don’t practice a fetish that encroaches on other people’s free will, you are a good person. You might have to keep your secret for a while, but one day you will find yourself comfortably lodged between caring, mature, understanding people, and you will find yourself letting your secret out, and feeling good about it.
I’m in my mid thirties, for reference.
WTAF: It is perfectly okay for you to have these fantasies. And, honestly, FUCK NORMAL. There is nothing morally superior about having any particular taste in sex, whether that is completely kinky or completely ordinary, as long as what you are doing is not hurting anyone without their consent. There’s nothing wrong with fantasies, period, no matter how bizarre. And this isn’t that bizarre. Unusual to find in a young woman, granted, but you are hardly alone.
Besides, most people don’t have normal sex lives. Most people have a weird fantasy or two tucked away somewhere, and many of those people have REALLY weird fantasies.
My earliest sexual fantasies were . . . a little odd. Overtones of rape/nonconsent and BDSM. As I’ve gotten older, my fantasies have changed and blossomed and shifted, and I have many, many fantasies. Some of them are completely “unacceptable.”
Now, I do have a kinky sex life, and there is nothing wrong or shameful about that. I act out some of my fantasies, and it is a really wonderful and powerful thing, sometimes heartbreaking in its clarity. I write about others, to give myself an outlet, and that (writing) is something I suggest that WTAF think about doing someday when she has a safe place to do it.
But the really fringe stuff, the stuff I have never really told any one person all of, that’s stuff that I don’t want to do in reality. I don’t want to fuck a horse or a dog or pee on anyone or physically harm someone who had not consented to it. Fantasies about medical play are arousing to me, but real doctors, and even acting it out IRL, make me feel sick to my stomach.
We, as sexual beings, human beings, are very complicated. What we fantasize about says very little about what kind of person we are, morally. In everyone I have ever spoken to who has outre tastes, tastes the really freaky shit, they indicated that the theme cropped up very early. It isn’t something for which we should feel ashamed or responsible in the sense that we did it to ourselves and have the power and obligation to stop doing it to ourselves.
What bothers me most, the thing I would most like to personally sit WTAF down and talk to her about, is the feeling shameful about masturbation thing. And that is something that it might be helpful to talk about with a professional. You don’t even have to divulge the nature of your fantasies if you aren’t comfortable doing so. But having someone help you through this difficulty, someone to help you see why it upsets you and see that it’s really and truly for-real okay, might be very helpful. And I would say this to anyone, even if they had no bizarre fantasies at all (maybe ESPECIALLY then). Clearly you have a sex drive, clearly it wants to come out and play, and I think finding healthy expression for that would be good. And it’s better, in my experience, to do that with yourself first, than with someone else. Get a grip on yourself, so to speak. Become okay with how you think and comfortable with making yourself feel good. Work from there.
I would recommend, if you can get it, WTAF, is any of the books by Nancy Friday about women’s sexual fantasies. Forbidden Flowers, My Secret Garden, Women on Top, any of them, or better yet, ALL of them. They are scholarly works, not properly erotica, and should be available in libraries. Even if you only read them AT the library, hidden in a corner, read them. You will find it liberating in the extreme to realize just how alone you are not. Please, read them.
And, on a final note, I am an avid proponent of fat acceptance, and I find fat fetishism to be deeply disturbing when directed *at me personally* at the expense of actually getting to know me as a person, not just a fat person, because it fetishizes a part of my identity that is not, to me personally, sexual, and is also a part of my identity that makes me vulnerable socially (I’ve had people tell me I should kill myself because I’m fat . . . no, really).
The idea of the fetish itself, that people have that fetish, is not bothersome to me at all. I think it’s fine and wonderful that people have such a variety of tastes.
To me, fat fetishism is not the same as fat acceptance as a political movement. That is its liability AND its strength. A liability in that people often mistake sexualization for acceptance, and that is a grave and disturbing error, especially when made AT you; and a strength in that it is separate, in that having a fat fetish does NOT necessarily say anything about how you feel, politically, about fat as a social justice issue (good or bad), or even how you feel about real fat people.
There’s a lot for you to explore here, a lot of questions, and it’s a terrifying time, being a teenager, one I remember with zero fondness, but there’s nothing wrong with you, or your thoughts, and they won’t hurt you or make you hurt anyone else or turn you into a bad person or make you into something you are not. They don’t change you or say anything bad about you.
If you seek understanding, and I hope that you do — the fact that you’ve written to Sugar says you do — seek it because this is a part of yourself that is interesting and strange and human, and which could bring you a lot of entertainment and pleasure; not because it’s something you want to understand so you can get rid of it.
It doesn’t work, trying to burn that stuff out. It only complicates things, makes things grow ugly, and that WILL hurt you, make you hurt yourself. And I don’t want that. None of us reading this want that. Look at it this way: literally all I know about you is that you are a teenager, a woman, and you have nobody to talk to about this, and that you are into this to-you bizarre and frightening thing. And I still think you are a good and fine person, even though I know what must seem, to you, to be the very least flattering thing about you. It’s not. It’s not a bad thing that says bad things about you. Obviously. It’s just A Thing.
It’s okay. I promise.
I don’t understand why ANYONE, fat or not, would be upset at being fetishized. It means someone wants to fuck you because something about you turns them on. Get over it.
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