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Fat fetishism or adipophilia (Latin adeps - "fat" and Greek φιλία - "love") is a sexual attraction directed towards overweight or obese people due primarily to their weight and size.^[1]^[2]

A variety of fat fetishism is 'feed(er)ism' or 'gaining', where sexual gratification is obtained from the process of gaining, or helping others gain, body fat, not necessarily from the fat itself, though there is much overlap between these groups. Fat fetishism also incorporates 'stuffing' and 'padding', whereas the focus of arousal is on the sensations and properties of a real or simulated gain.^[3]

As a subculture

The fat fetishism community has overlapped with body positivity and fat feminism movements. The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) has worked as an advocacy organization for fat people, but was partly formed to help male fat fetishists and other fat admirers (FAs) find fat women to date and have sex with.^[4]^[5]

Fat fetishism as a community is predominantly heterosexual, focusing on fat women and thinner men. Fat fetishism includes both real-life and internet communities. Fat fetishism practices and subcultures include internet porn; "gaining" and "feeding", which involves eating to intentionally gain weight; "hogging", which is when men seek out fat women to sexually exploit; and "squashing" which is sexual attraction to the idea of being crushed by a fat person or people.^[4]

According to The Routledge Companion to Beauty Politics, "the gendered, raced, and classed power dynamics of many of these subcultures often mirror, reinforce, and even exaggerate existing racial, gender, class, and sexual inequalities."^[4] Sociologist Abigail C. Saguy has proposed that by objectifying women's weight, they are reinforcing the cultural importance of women's weight to their physical appearance, therefore also reinforcing gender inequality.^[6]^[5]

Feedism

Gainers and feedees are people who enjoy the fantasy or reality of being fed and/or gaining weight themselves. Encouragers and feeders typically enjoy the fantasy of helping someone else gain weight.^[3] 'Gainer' and 'encourager' are common labels among gay men, while both straight men and women as well as lesbian women often identify as feeders and feedees.^[7] Some prefer the term "feedism" over feederism, as it suggests a more equal relationship between the feeder and feedee.^[3]

While gaining and feeding are often considered fetishes, many within the gainer and feedism communities report viewing them more as a lifestyle, identity or sexual orientation.^[7]

Feedism is portrayed by media as a taboo or a niche interest.^[3] Negative media portrayals include the film Feed, which is an example of non-consensual feedism. Research has shown that the overwhelming majority of feedism relationships are fully consensual and immobility is mostly kept as a fantasy for participants.^[3]

The gay gainer community grew out of the Girth & Mirth movement in the '70s. By 1988 there were gainer-specific newsletters and in 1992, the first gainer event, called EncourageCon, was held in New Hope, Pennsylvania. In 1996, GainRWeb launched, the first website dedicated to gay men into weight gain.^[8]

References

^ Merkin, Daphne (22 August 2010). "The F Word". The New York Times.
^ Griffiths, Mark D. (30 June 2015). "The Fat Fetish, Explained". Psychology Today.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Charles, Kathy; Palkowski, Michael (2015). Feederism Eating, Weight Gain and Sexual Pleasure.
^ ^a ^b ^c Pfeffer, Carla A. (2021). "17: Fat Activism and Beauty Politics". In Craig, Maxine Leeds (ed.). The Routledge companion to beauty politics. Abingdon, Oxon. ISBN 9781032043319. Retrieved 19 August 2021.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ ^a ^b Saguy, Abigail C. (1 December 2002). "Sex, Inequality, and Ethnography: Response to Erich Goode". Qualitative Sociology. 25 (4): 549–556. doi:10.1023/A:1021071101130. S2CID 141282085.
^ Swami, V.; Tovée, M. J. (2009). "Big Beautiful Women: The Body Size Preferences of Male Fat Admirers". Journal of Sex Research. 46 (1): 89–96. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.614.550. doi:10.1080/00224490802645302. PMID 19116865. S2CID 19149163.
^ ^a ^b Bestard, Alyshia (September 2008). Feederism: an exploratory study into the stigma of erotic weight gain. University of Waterloo Thesis Paper (Master Thesis). pp. 27–28. OCLC 650872028.
^ Textor, Alex Robertson (July 1999). "Organization, Specialization, and Desires in the Big Men's Movement: Preliminary Research in the Study of Subculture-Formation" (PDF). International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies. 4 (3): 218–220. doi:10.1023/A:1023223013536. hdl:2027.42/44662. S2CID 55158491.

Sources

Giovanelli, Dina and Natalie Peluso. 2006. "Feederism: a new sexual pleasure and subculture"

pp 309–314 in The Handbook of New Sexuality Studies. Edited by Steven Seidman. Oxford, UK: Routledge.

Kathleen LeBesco. 2004. Revolting Bodies?: The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity. Univ of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-429-4
Don Kulick and Anne Meneley. 2005. Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession, ISBN 1-58542-386-6.
Charles, K and Palkowski, M. 2015. Feederism: Eating, Weight Gain and Sexual Pleasure, Palgrave, ISBN 978-1-137-47045-4.