# Fat activism's relationship to fat porn



## Ben from England (Feb 7, 2008)

I have been thinking about the relationship the size acceptance movement shares with the pornography that invariably seems to surround active communities such as dimensions and would love to hear some different perspectives on the issue. I would like to instigate a discussion around the following question. 

Do you think that fat activism can be hindered or trivialized by association with the fat porn industry? 

I remember seeing something a while back that read along the lines of 'the sexualized image of a fat person in and of itself helps to alter societal views', and always thought that was interesting and had, at least broadly speaking, some merit. But then I think about the cross purposes of the fat porn industry, aimed at generating profit, and the goal of the size acceptance movement in changing social attitudes toward fat people.

For my part, as an FA I became aware of NAAFA and size acceptance through my search for, if I'm being honest, the type of women that I'm attracted to. Any way, I am interested in what people have to say about this. I would also be interested in any historical perspective people can provide on how fat porn and fat acceptance have developed.


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## Elfcat (Feb 11, 2008)

It is a delicate dance we do here. When the women who are putting up images are, in effect, running their own businesses, one could say the only third party really capitalizing on these activities is CCBill and the credit card companies. Of course the latter are viruses which have their fingers in just about every economic activity there is. You'll get a whole spectrum of answers about your question I'm sure. Since we all agree fat women are victims of discrimination, fat porn viewers can be seen either as providing some affirmative action or taking advantage of the situation. I like to think the intent is a friendly one though. One advantage to the crossover is you can meet the women in the videos in person at various events and come to know them in far fuller ways than as just distant entertainers.


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## BBW Northwest (Feb 11, 2008)

I might disagree with calling credit card companies a "virus" ... where would internet porn or e-commerce in general be without them? I think the small percentage they charge in exchange for enabling and processing online transactions, not to mention dealing with fraud and chargebacks is a fair service for a fair price.

Back to the topic, as much as I enjoy adult content, in my opinion as a size acceptance advocate I have to say that some of the ways in which the ladies depict themselves doesn't exactly foster changing social attitudes toward fat people.

For instance, I'm sure there are no shortage of guys who get off on watching a woman gorge herself with food, but how do depictions of being fed to immobilization further size acceptance? Yes, show a BBW having wild sex with men, women or both at the same time. Bring in the toys, lingerie, leather and lace. Show the world that a fat woman can be just as sexually attractive and desired as a thin one.

But a naked fat woman stuffing herself with food? Even if there are plenty of guys who'll line up (with their credit cards) to see it, how does that send a positive message about size acceptance?

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with whatever legal activities consenting adults choose to engage in. I'm all about free enterprise. I own websites that link to BBW adult content. And no slam to the gals who have such niche fetish sites that engage in these scenes who may not give a whit about the size acceptance movement.

But speaking just for me, I'm with Ben in my incredulity on how some of this content furthers changing social attitudes.


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## pudgy (Feb 12, 2008)

Unfortuantly the porn industires of both "conventional" fare and not-so-conventional include things that people don't really support in real life. Though there are some women on the paysites on here who actually are feeders, most do it because it's simply good entertainment. Just like conventional porn might show somethings that some girls actually do in real life, but most don't.

Regardless, when I'm asked about this site and how I found out about Fat Acceptance and such, I'm always a tadbit wary to give this site's name to a person due to it's connection with pornography. I know that it will make some people just snap. I wish there was a way around it, and I understand the reasons for it (at least I think I do), but it makes it inconvenient sometimes.


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## Zoom (Feb 12, 2008)

One could have fat activism _within_ the context of fat porn.

Such as, "Hey! How come you don't stock any fat porn in this porn store? I'll have to take my business and my drooling elsewhere!"


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## chunkeymonkey (Feb 12, 2008)

I remember the first time I ever saw a SSBBW or BBW in a porn. There was a mix of different clips of people most just having random sex. I remember thinking OMG they set it up as if she was some sort of side show freak it was only a 5 min clip. There was a SSBBW woman in a cage with 3 guys and they circled her lifting her folds and jacking off on her ,one of the guys commented to her if she could even feel his cock with all her fat. It really bothered me to think that people may portray me as anything other than a human being. I am all for BBW and SSBBW porn however I would love to see it set aside from the fetish. Not all FAT girls want to see squashing or feeding if its not a turn on for them. I dont know maybe its just me on a drug induced fuzzy head thought.....that is just my 2.1 cents.


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## FaxMachine1234 (Feb 13, 2008)

As much as gay porn has hurt the gay acceptance movement. Conservative people don't like to run into (even indrectly) hardcore versions of concepts they're already uncomfortable with.

As for me personally, as I've been around the FA circles for years now (tho never "active" or even that vocal about it), I can say that I don't see a problem with feederism stuff showing up in BBW paysites (maybe because I've flirted with that side many times), but I think too many do it insincerely as just an advertising tool, not to name names.

Gaining Goddess is great because she's sincere about the feederism stuff she puts on the site, and makes the weigh-in and eating stuff "work" due to that. And Mandy Blake is a fine example of a BBW model who completely doesn't touch on any of that, but is just as successful by playing it "straight", if you will. My only problem is with the ones in the murky middle, because they do send a bad message: does a big girl have to gain weight in order to be attractive in these circles? I don't think so, but others could get a bad impression.

But if we're talking about "porn" porn...well, that's up to the individual. I'm very much a non-hardcore guy, but guys love that kind of stuff with both small and big women, so both should have an equal opportunity in that field. It's just important that they keep their own identity throughout, rather then pretending to be what they think people want them to be.


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## Jon Blaze (Feb 13, 2008)

Elfcat + BBW NorthWest + the lovely chunkemonkey = My opinion on the whole thing.

I'd also like to add that the other extreme ("Let's all be covered, and never flaunt our figures to any degree!" BZZT! WRONG! That's what society wants you to do! ) doesn't float my boat if you were to compare the difference like that. That's what I'm doing anyway.

1. "It is a delicate dance we do here."
I'd say so. It's sort of balancing act if you will.

2. Minus the credit virus debate (I'm not jumping into that ): I agree with most of those two answers.

The pornography and/or adult modeling that occurs in itself does not hinder the movement. If anything, it has the potential to strengthen it as said by changing social perceptions.

The extremes I think, however, do have the potential to hinder, if not worsen the movement.

On the other hand: Things have improved a lot since the beginning. The old content sometimes was really distasteful (i.e. Flopping around like a whale).

The fetish vs normal content debate is a good one too. I don't know my stance on that issue though. I'm not really into the fetishistic concept behind it, but my position isn't concrete.


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## butch (Feb 13, 2008)

I'll be honest, I think the key stumbling block to the increased tolerance for fat people in the US is the question of desirability. As long as it is perfectly OK in our society (and in fact encouraged) for fat people to be considered the exact opposite of sexually desirable and attractive, then the huge stigma associated with fat will continue.

So, fat porn has an ambivalent relationship to fat acceptance/size acceptance. On one hand, certain types of pornographic material might increase the possibility of tolerance for fat bodies out in the mainstream. On the other hand, if those people within the fat subculture (and by subculture, I don't mean anything negative or a niche within fat acceptance, but that the whole amalgamation of people invested in lessening the stigma that fat people face would be considered a subculture, in social science terms) might enjoy certain types of porn that would appear to reinforce stereotypes out in the mainstream, how do we reconcile the need for acceptance with the need for sexual satisfaction?

Thats why I wouldn't be so quick to claim, as someone did in this thread, that gay porn has hurt the gay rights movement. I think you'd find that most gay scholars, theorists, and activists would claim quite the opposite. Only a tiny, but vocal (Hello, Andrew Sullivan!) might claim otherwise.

I'd argue that the greater visibility of gay porn has actually benefitted straight people, as well. There is a greater freedom and tolerance for all kinds of heterosexual sexual activity and pornographic product today, and that is in part due to the increased tolerance for gay people and the sexual practices they perform. Plus, why should gay people (or fat people/FAs) have to submlimate or deny their own sexual pleasures in order to gain 'acceptance' from the mainstream? 

I know its fashionable today to think that gay rights is only about wanting the freedom to love whoever you want, regardless of gender, and nothing more (and that us queers are 'just like you hets!'). Gay rights is, and has always been, also about granting rights to people who go against the sex/gender grain, and that includes homosexual activity that straight people might find repulsive. I think the fat subculture would be wise to find a way to manage the tension between the world of mainstream acceptance and the 'fat desire' world the challenges preconceived notions about what is sexy, what is pleasurable, what is desirable when it comes to the size of the body being lusted after.


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## LillyBBBW (Feb 13, 2008)

BBW Northwest said:


> I might disagree with calling credit card companies a "virus" ... where would internet porn or e-commerce in general be without them? I think the small percentage they charge in exchange for enabling and processing online transactions, not to mention dealing with fraud and chargebacks is a fair service for a fair price.
> 
> Back to the topic, as much as I enjoy adult content, in my opinion as a size acceptance advocate I have to say that some of the ways in which the ladies depict themselves doesn't exactly foster changing social attitudes toward fat people.
> 
> ...



It won't change social attitudes but we shouldn't have to send all fat people to charm school to get people to stop treating us like dirt. Seeing a thin woman puking in a toilet would not induce people to pass legislation that restricts the amount of time a thin person can spend in the bathroom. A snuff video of puking thin girls might be thought distasteful enough to want to make it stop but the fear that it will hurt the thin community would not be the motivating factor. To me it speaks of an even bigger problem that lies within the fat community itself thinking we are not deserving of social justice unless every single one of us is consuming under 1500 calories a day. Someone steps on the line and they are ruining it for all of us. This idea is part of the social disease in my view. 

Not sure I'm saying this right. I'm a dull as dishwater today.


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## BeautifulPoeticDisaster (Feb 13, 2008)

define fat porn please. Is it any fat woman with a paysite? Is it the girls who pose teasingly grabbing a roll? Is it only the girls how show bits and pieces? Is it the girls who show sexual acts? What is fat porm?

Once this is defined, then I might have a response. But as for labeling all the paysites as porn is wrong. Most of the poses I do, no one would look twice if I was a skinny chick.

I have touched on the feeding thing a bit in some of my sets. I'm not a fake, I'm not a feedee....food can be freaking sexy, especially if the person eating is really enjoying it. I like to be hand fed sometimes...not enough to get full, but I do find it a loving sexual act when a partner feeds out of love. Just my opinion though.

Porn has divided the feminist movement. Some feminist love porn, make porn, are in porn, sell porn, LOVE IT. Other feminists are anti porn at any and all costs. I think within any political movement there are going to be people on both sides with valid arguments. At the end of the day it is about self respect and how much of yourself you are willing to give to the world. 

Ok I'm done. But I really would like an explaination to what "porn" is in this context.

K thnx bye


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## Jes (Feb 13, 2008)

I'm cutting and pasting the mission statement from Adipositivity. It touches on what some of the OP was asking about.

The Adipositivity Project aims to promote size acceptance, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather, through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that's normally unseen. 

The hope is to widen definitions of physical beauty. Literally. 

The photographs here are close details of the fat female form, without the inclusion of faces. One reason for this is to coax observers into imagining they're looking at the fat women in their own lives, ideally then accepting them as having aesthetic appeal which, for better or worse, often translates into more complete forms of acceptance. 

The women you'll see in these images represent educators, executives, mothers, musicians, professionals, performers, artists, clerks, and writers. They are perhaps even the women you've clucked at on the subway, rolled your eyes at in the market, or joked about with your friends. 

This is what they look like with their clothes off. 

-----------

Agree? Disagree? Discuss?


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## MissToodles (Feb 13, 2008)

No, don't agree. You can't force attraction or make someone find fat aesthically pleasing. Like someone on that "oomph" level and respect are two different things. Maybe I can some part of this vision, as many have a visceral reaction of disgust to the larger form, because it's rarely displayed as enticing/erotic and often mocked. Secondly, such displays are usually used as novelty, sideshow freak value and I just don't see the visuals changing mainstream ideals. I can see it helping someone who is already big struggling with body image but changing the minds of others, no way.


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## Jes (Feb 13, 2008)

do you think a beautifully composed photo can be aesthetically pleasing? The project gets comments from people who say they don't necessarily find fat bodies attractive but that the photos are very artistic and beautiful. I mean, there's lots of evidence of beautiful or moving photos that don't display things of beauty. Perhaps seeing beautiful photos can transfer some of that beauty to the subjects of those photos and that can start some people thinking? Not changing minds about what is beautiful but seeing some things as worthy of being photographed/looked at. I don't know. When you focus a camera, you really are making a statement. You can't hide anything away and keep it in a back room when you're making an 8 by 10 glossy.


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## Ben from England (Feb 13, 2008)

> It won't change social attitudes but we shouldn't have to send all fat people to charm school to get people to stop treating us like dirt.



I tried, in the first post, to remain fairly non committal as a way to invite different points of view. The above quote by Lilly resonated, that porn of any sort shouldn't effect a group of peoples right to be treated equally. I think it's more idealistic than realistic, but thats the kind of idea worth arguing. 



> define fat porn please.



I should have been more specific. I am broadly defining it, in terms of this discussion, as the depiction of something intended to sexually excite a viewer. Looking back, I guess this question is more about peoples attitudes toward pornography in some ways. 

My opinion is that fat porn is buried within the size acceptance culture sufficiently to not be a principle issue in altering or reinforcing stereo types at this point (but an interesting one to talk about). There are bigger fires to fight, in some ways. I also agree with Lilly's observation that fat porn shouldn't impinge on people's right to be treated equally, though I don't think it's realistic unfortunatly.


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## FaxMachine1234 (Feb 13, 2008)

butch said:


> Thats why I wouldn't be so quick to claim, as someone did in this thread, that gay porn has hurt the gay rights movement. I think you'd find that most gay scholars, theorists, and activists would claim quite the opposite. Only a tiny, but vocal (Hello, Andrew Sullivan!) might claim otherwise.



I'll clarify. I don't mean it hurt the gay movement itself (as it undoubtedly emboldened them and gave them confidence socially and all that jazz), but it strengthened conservatives' opposition to them because of its "shocking" nature, and thus likely set back total acceptance for years. The gay pride parade would be a good example of something that serves both as a celebration but also as a target for ridicule due to the way it's presented to the world. And that's what we're talking about here; how things are viewed externally by society.

I'm not sure that the fat issue is exactly the same as that (mostly because, while it's a stigma, it's not a political one), but concerning this question I think there are connections.



MissToodles said:


> No, don't agree. You can't force attraction or make someone find fat aesthically pleasing. Like someone on that "oomph" level and respect are two different things. Maybe I can some part of this vision, as many have a visceral reaction of disgust to the larger form, because it's rarely displayed as enticing/erotic and often mocked. Secondly, such displays are usually used as novelty, sideshow freak value and I just don't see the visuals changing mainstream ideals. I can see it helping someone who is already big struggling with body image but changing the minds of others, no way.



I'm not so sure; Velvet has gotten favorable news coverage from her modeling, and a lot of comments I've read on web stories about her have been quite positive. I'm not saying this represents a social trend, but there are non-FAs out there who can still find a larger form aesthetically pleasing, I'm sure.

But if we're talking about porn...then those are a whole different set of parameters, and should be discussed separately from straight-up "modeling".


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## LoveBHMS (Feb 13, 2008)

Let's say porn is defined as material which is intended to sexually gratify the reader, whether it's a magazine or internet site.

Porn of any kind exists for the purpose of sexual gratification. If you like women with huge breasts, you'll buy Juggs Magazine. If you have a sexual fetish for shoes, feet, fat women, or amputees, you will seek out pornography with images of those things because it sexually excites you to look at it.

I don't see it having anything to do with the Fat/Size Activism because people's sexuality is wholly independent of any social or civil rights movements. Nobody is going to be more or less of an FA because Southwest does or does not let fat people buy two airline seats for the price of one.


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## Zandoz (Feb 14, 2008)

I do not buy into the whole victimization by association thing...no matter if the association is size, gender, race, ethnicity, religion or what ever. When it comes to porn, the only people who can be wronged by it's making and/or content is those involved in it's making. If it's legal, the people involved have legally consented, and therefore essentially signed off on their right to claim foul after the fact. If legal consent is absent, there is a whole different set of issues...none of which have anything to do with class association. For those who find any particular form of _____ (fill in the blank) distasteful, don't watch it!


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## William (Feb 14, 2008)

Sometimes the fringes of the Fat Acceptance Community hurts the cause more than they help support Fat Acceptance. 

I remembered a article in a NY magazine that was able to focus on the extreme activities of people in the BBW Dance/Admirers crowd to make Fat Acceptance look like something less than a movement to advance the cause of Fat People.

William




Zandoz said:


> I do not buy into the whole victimization by association thing...no matter if the association is size, gender, race, ethnicity, religion or what ever. When it comes to porn, the only people who can be wronged by it's making and/or content is those involved in it's making. If it's legal, the people involved have legally consented, and therefore essentially signed off on their right to claim foul after the fact. If legal consent is absent, there is a whole different set of issues...none of which have anything to do with class association. For those who find any particular form of _____ (fill in the blank) distasteful, don't watch it!


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## Zandoz (Feb 15, 2008)

William said:


> Sometimes the fringes of the Fat Acceptance Community hurts the cause more than they help support Fat Acceptance.
> 
> I remembered a article in a NY magazine that was able to focus on the extreme activities of people in the BBW Dance/Admirers crowd to make Fat Acceptance look like something less than a movement to advance the cause of Fat People.
> 
> William



Unless you are talking about groups of one, every group will be made up of some with more extreme positions/behavior/etc than others. Those that define any group by it's extreme members, is looking for a reason to dislike the group in general. Ostracize the extreme from the group, and the next in line becomes extreme...and the next "any excuse will do" excuse for those looking for justification for their dislike of the group in general. 

Worry not about who we should exclude to placate the small of mind...wonder how many more we can include to make the collective mind stronger and more diverse.


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## William (Feb 15, 2008)

Hi Zandoz

Fat Acceptance is more than just a Lifestyle movement, it is a social/action movement and should be compare with like social movements that do not have similar activities on their fringes.

William




Zandoz said:


> Unless you are talking about groups of one, every group will be made up of some with more extreme positions/behavior/etc than others. Those that define any group by it's extreme members, is looking for a reason to dislike the group in general. Ostracize the extreme from the group, and the next in line becomes extreme...and the next "any excuse will do" excuse for those looking for justification for their dislike of the group in general.
> 
> Worry not about who we should exclude to placate the small of mind...wonder how many more we can include to make the collective mind stronger and more diverse.


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## Zandoz (Feb 15, 2008)

William said:


> Hi Zandoz
> 
> Fat Acceptance is more than just a Lifestyle movement, it is a social/action movement and should be compare with like social movements that do not have similar activities on their fringes.
> 
> William



By who's definition? And what is their qualification for defining for every one else? I've seen no official mission statements or membership qualifications. And I definitely have not been issued the secret decoder ring.

But then again, I'd be leary of any group whos official qualifications I met :blink:


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## William (Feb 15, 2008)

Hi Zandoz

I would say that the issues facing the Fat Acceptance Community makes it a social movement similar to feminism, regional issues, Fatherhood Rights, neighborhood coalitions and many other issues.

None of these other communities have the associated activities that Fat Acceptance does and none of them when Googled return the weird, vulgar results that "Fat Acceptance" gets. Heck sometimes when using a search engine I will use Obese or Morbid Obesity because they do not return all the Porno activity that the words "Fat Acceptance" or BBW or BHM does. The words "Fat Men" and "Fat Women" are not much better.

William




Zandoz said:


> By who's definition? And what is their qualification for defining for every one else? I've seen no official mission statements or membership qualifications. And I definitely have not been issued the secret decoder ring.
> 
> But then again, I'd be leary of any group whos official qualifications I met :blink:


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## LillyBBBW (Feb 15, 2008)

Zandoz said:


> By who's definition? And what is their qualification for defining for every one else? I've seen no official mission statements or membership qualifications. And I definitely have not been issued the secret decoder ring.
> 
> But then again, I'd be leary of any group whos official qualifications I met :blink:



Sounds more like an exclusive social order. It's all inclusive!  Except for the following:

People who eat too much
People who eat too little
Skinny people
Rich people
Poor people
Men who are attracted to fat
Men who are not attracted to fat
Fat women who hate their fat
Fat women who love their fat
etc.


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## stefanie (Feb 15, 2008)

Jes said:


> do you think a beautifully composed photo can be aesthetically pleasing?



I do, personally. Aesthetic and erotic pleasure *can* go together - but they don't necessarily have to. "Beauty" has been often used as an exclusive club, to keep fat women out. (Similarly, fat men are seen as not-handsome, and not-manly.) Widening the definition of beauty is what Adipositivity is doing, hopefully with success.



Jes said:


> The project gets comments from people who say they don't necessarily find fat bodies attractive but that the photos are very artistic and beautiful.



Yes! I have had similar comments from a few people regarding my fiction writing, where I've incorporated big men as characters. Some friends who read it said it made them uncomfortable; others said that I helped them "see" someone as desirable whom they wouldn't have, normally. It's kind of a fine line, between being able to see someone as desirable *even if you don't desire them yourself.* But that IMO is how cultural attitudes change, and art (I believe) can be a powerful force for that change.

This goes so much beyond simply sexual response. I think the point of Adipositivity is not just to see the models as desirable (although that's nice, if it happens), but to see them as beautiful - as part of the "club of beauty." It's an attempt to engender a new way of seeing.


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## Elfcat (Feb 15, 2008)

And where are these groups exactly? I've heard even some of the Coalition for the Headwaters folks talk about how great sex is several hundred feet up on a sequoia tree-sit platform.


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## Webmaster (Feb 15, 2008)

Well, size is a physical issue, and wherever a cause includes physical issues, it also includes sexuality. The social versus activism issue was a hotly debated topic when I was in NAAFA's leadership for over 20 years, and it's probably a hotly debated topic in any movement or organization facing this issue. I separated Dimensions from NAAFA back in 1989 or so precisely because I felt that there should be sufficient distance between social activities and activism. The problem back then always was that it was the social activities (like dances and a convention) that brought in the money that made the activist side possible in the first place.

I definitely take issue with placing everything relating to fat sexuality into the "fat porn" bucket. There is a significant difference between sensuous depiction of the allure and beauty of the fat female form, and simply pornography. To the Harper Valley PTA it may all be porn (unless they do it), but to me there is a distinct difference.


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## Zandoz (Feb 15, 2008)

William said:


> Hi Zandoz
> 
> I would say that the issues facing the Fat Acceptance Community makes it a social movement similar to feminism, regional issues, Fatherhood Rights, neighborhood coalitions and many other issues.
> 
> ...



There are all kinds of radical feminists out there...I know one who advocates castrating males at birth. Regional issues? Pick a region of the country and it won't take long to find fringe advocates of succession...or "Girls of ____" porn. Father's rights? Check how many Amber alerts involve fathers taking the kids unlawfully. Neighborhood coalitions? The guy next door wants skateboards prohibited, and violating kids jailed....and has already pushed city legislation prohibiting kids from playing ball outside of parks. Every group or cause has their extreme...some more outright harmful/hateful/spiteful than others. The extremes only define for the narrow minded...and I personally do not give a flying squat what the narrow minded think.

And as far as porn goes, it's only a matter of time before there is something someone considers porn related to those issues to. 

Anyway, anyone that does not grasp the concept that personally distasteful items are likely to come up with ANY web search, shouldn't be playing around on the web.


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## William (Feb 15, 2008)

Hi Conrad

When you type Dimensionsmagazine into Google the results are rather PG safe 

Also it seems that something has cleaned up the results for other words like BBW, BHM. and "Fat Acceptance". A year ago the Google results were XXX.

William





Webmaster said:


> Well, size is a physical issue, and wherever a cause includes physical issues, it also includes sexuality. The social versus activism issue was a hotly debated topic when I was in NAAFA's leadership for over 20 years, and it's probably a hotly debated topic in any movement or organization facing this issue. I separated Dimensions from NAAFA back in 1989 or so precisely because I felt that there should be sufficient distance between social activities and activism. The problem back then always was that it was the social activities (like dances and a convention) that brought in the money that made the activist side possible in the first place.
> 
> I definitely take issue with placing everything relating to fat sexuality into the "fat porn" bucket. There is a significant difference between sensuous depiction of the allure and beauty of the fat female form, and simply pornography. To the Harper Valley PTA it may all be porn (unless they do it), but to me there is a distinct difference.


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## LillyBBBW (Feb 15, 2008)

William said:


> Hi Conrad
> 
> When you type Dimensionsmagazine into Google the results are rather PG safe
> 
> ...



William, porn is HUGE all over the world. If you typed in 'granny boots,' 'pleated skirt,' 'black hair care,' you got porn. The world is full of pervs and hell raisers. We all know and accept this without feeling somehow personally tainted by its existance. 

The only time I hear anyone associate porn with fat is among fat activists. The obsession and fear over it all seems fueled by the way society views us as a collective but do we really want to be viewed as a collective? I'm not sure acceptance should include switching one sterotype of what fat people are like with another approved stereotype selected by fat think tankers. The point is to be respected or disrespected as individuals based on personal merit and not summarily dismissed on sight because of our weight. At least to me it is. *shrugs*


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## William (Feb 15, 2008)

Hi Lilly

Let me make it clear that I am not talking about Dimensions, I tell most Fat Acceptance Bloggers that they could learn a lot about acceptance and inclusion from Dimensions. They also could learn about how to establish a dialog with issues like WLS, Diet and other issues without officially supporting them.

I am talking about the activity way beyond dimensions that is used by the media to say that Fat Acceptance is not serious. 

Here is a short list of of Social Movements and aside from the "Free Love" movement what other movement's social events are liability like Fat Acceptance's"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_movements

William



LillyBBBW said:


> William, porn is HUGE all over the world. If you typed in 'granny boots,' 'pleated skirt,' 'black hair care,' you got porn. The world is full of pervs and hell raisers. We all know and accept this without feeling somehow personally tainted by its existance.
> 
> The only time I hear anyone associate porn with fat is among fat activists. The obsession and fear over it all seems fueled by the way society views us as a collective but do we really want to be viewed as a collective? I'm not sure acceptance should include switching one sterotype of what fat people are like with another approved stereotype selected by fat think tankers. The point is to be respected or disrespected as individuals based on personal merit and not summarily dismissed on sight because of our weight. At least to me it is. *shrugs*


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## Zandoz (Feb 15, 2008)

William said:


> Hi Lilly
> 
> Let me make it clear that I am not talking about Dimensions, I tell most Fat Acceptance Bloggers that they could learn a lot about acceptance and inclusion from Dimensions. They also could learn about how to establish a dialog with issues like WLS, Diet and other issues without officially supporting them.
> 
> ...



For those wishing to dismiss the "seriousness" of any movement, latching on to the extremes as justification is going to happen where ever the arbitrary extreme line is drawn. You're taking about folks who for the most part, if every member of the size acceptance community were qualified for sainthood, would still consider the basic concept that "Fat can be OK" to be an extreme position. 

Again, by what authority can anyone declare any group's social events a blanket liability? If one considers them a liability, there is a simple solution...don't go, and leave them for those who do enjoy them. Judging by the increasing popularity, I'd say there are no shortage of folks who do enjoy them. For those who don't like them, they can go join a holier than thou tiddly winks club, or what ever other organization that trips their trigger to their liking.


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## wrestlingguy (Feb 15, 2008)

> I definitely take issue with placing everything relating to fat sexuality into the "fat porn" bucket. There is a significant difference between sensuous depiction of the allure and beauty of the fat female form, and simply pornography. To the Harper Valley PTA it may all be porn (unless they do it), but to me there is a distinct difference.



Conrad, I think most would ideally want to feel that way, but I would disagree, inasmuch as most of the guys here come not so much to further the cause, but to look at the pics. And when they look at the pics.......well, you know.

I think that porn is PRECISELY the reason that most men frequent Dimensions. I remember fondly the day my ex-fiance found Dims on my internet favorites, and after looking at the website, accused me of looking at porn. In my mind, I felt it was, at least initially. Today, thank God I see much more in Dimensions & other fat positive sites.

A few weeks ago, a banned member returned and said that Dimensions would be nothing without the pics. While I don't know that this is in fact true, the fact remains that the paysite board is thriving, even though there are very few active posters there.

In addition, Yahoo groups like the infamous Very Fat Women steal pics from here and other parts of the net that create a "porn haven" for the trolls that are only interested in the tittilation of the fat female form, not the aesthetic, or anything to do with furthering fat acceptance. Many of these groups & sites call fat women "pigs" and "sows", and too many other degrading words to wast space with here. So, in essence, many of these guys could care less about the fat acceptance movement, only the movement of their hand against their privates.

I could go on and give you countless links to boards & websites that portray fat women as nothing more than a slab of meat to have sex with, ot masturbate to, but I won't give the lurking trolls the satisfaction of not doing their own homework.


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## William (Feb 15, 2008)

Hi Zandoz

The core of your message is soo correct. When people in Fat Acceptance are questioned about the the worst that goes on in the Fat Social Community they need to distance themselves and not claim ownership. They need to tell the reporter to go question a person that runs this or that event.

I am not making a moral statement, I am just saying that the historical connection of Fat Acceptance with certain events decreases the validity of Fat Acceptance. I am not saying there is not a need or place for those activities.

Maybe my feelings comes from years of working in the non-profit Community Action Industry that I feel if a cause is just then the organization that represents them should be worthy.

William





Zandoz said:


> For those wishing to dismiss the "seriousness" of any movement, latching on to the extremes as justification is going to happen where ever the arbitrary extreme line is drawn. You're taking about folks who for the most part, if every member of the size acceptance community were qualified for sainthood, would still consider the basic concept that "Fat can be OK" to be an extreme position.
> 
> Again, by what authority can anyone declare any group's social events a blanket liability? If one considers them a liability, there is a simple solution...don't go, and leave them for those who do enjoy them. Judging by the increasing popularity, I'd say there are no shortage of folks who do enjoy them. For those who don't like them, they can go join a holier than thou tiddly winks club, or what ever other organization that trips their trigger to their liking.


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## Zandoz (Feb 15, 2008)

William said:


> When people in Fat Acceptance are questioned about the the worst that goes on in the Fat Social Community they need to distance themselves and not claim ownership. They need to tell the reporter to go question a person that runs this or that event.



No, one needs to point out to them that no one appointed them judge and jury of what's appropriate, and if they are imposing their values, they are editorializing and/or sensationalizing, and not reporting. To report, one must keep personal judgment out, and exercise due diligence to give all sides and not just focus on the sensational.



William said:


> I am not making a moral statement, I am just saying that the historical connection of Fat Acceptance with certain events decreases the validity of Fat Acceptance. I am not saying there is not a need or place for those activities.
> 
> Maybe my feelings comes from years of working in the non-profit Community Action Industry that I feel if a cause is just then the organization that represents them should be worthy.



When you start talking "worst that goes on" and making judgment calls on what is worthy, you are in deed making a moral statement...which is fine for you...but as soon as anyone or any group expects others to conduct themselves by their moral compass, it's a big issue...and it has nothing to do with the content of pictures, clips, or the goings on at social events.


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## Fascinita (Feb 15, 2008)

Webmaster said:


> the allure and beauty of the fat female form, and simply pornography.




Female bodies are not the only bodies depicted in erotic and pornographic materials. Male bodies are depicted, too. Not everyone who enjoys pornography and/or "the beauty of the (human) form" wants to see only naked women. Some enjoy looking at the male body.


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## William (Feb 16, 2008)

Hi Zandoz

I am saying that I am not making a moral statement because I am not trying to revamp the Fat Community but I am stating what associations do not benefit Fat Acceptance and Fat Activism which is the topic of the thread.

Most Fat Activists have drawn a line of what they think is acceptable and what is not, the rest of the Fat Community has not which lumps the best in with the worst. You have notice that aside from saying that I am not talking about Dimensions that I have not pointed a finger at any one group because it is hard say where the lines are drawn in the Fat *Social* Community.


William 





Zandoz said:


> No, one needs to point out to them that no one appointed them judge and jury of what's appropriate, and if they are imposing their values, they are editorializing and/or sensationalizing, and not reporting. To report, one must keep personal judgment out, and exercise due diligence to give all sides and not just focus on the sensational.
> 
> 
> 
> When you start talking "worst that goes on" and making judgment calls on what is worthy, you are in deed making a moral statement...which is fine for you...but as soon as anyone or any group expects others to conduct themselves by their moral compass, it's a big issue...and it has nothing to do with the content of pictures, clips, or the goings on at social events.


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## DoctorBreen (Feb 16, 2008)

Does fat porn help the fat acceptance movement? As some said, it's divided over it. The more "mainstream" BBW porn, basically featuring nudity and sex probably helps the cause. 
More fetish orientated, perhaps seems odd, but at the same time might increase understanding. Though people who hate fat women/anorexia fetishists are bound to be put off by it.
What is attractive to most people on the forum, might be offputting for others, but should that stop us from looking at fetish porn?


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## butch (Feb 16, 2008)

Setting aside the debate about whether fat sexuality as viewed 'out there' in the non fat world makes fat activisim look bad, and that no other social movement has this problem (which is dead wrong, since the gay rights movement has a little something to do with sex, don't it?), I think fat porn helps illuminate an interesting dichotomy in terms of what porn looks like.

Recently one of the paysite women started a thread in the weight board about how youtube was taking down her videos because they were considered too salacious for youtube. She wasn't showing pink bits, and she was eating, but somehow this was flagged as inappropriate and shut down by the youtube administrators. Why?

As she went on to point out (and I apologize for not remembering her name), videos of thin women doing similar things were still up on youtube, and not considered salacious and in need of censoring. Is there something inherently pornographic about any fat person daring to present themselves as sexy, I wonder?

As Heather BBW has pointed out, fat women who don't show the pink bits but do show exposed bellies, thighs, etc, are considered 'porn' outside the BBW/FA world, but the same images of thin women aren't (and if you're interested in this source, find a copy of the book Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession for more on fat porn). For example, a BBW paysite girl in a bathing suit=porn, but a thin woman in a bathing suit=Baywatch. The ridiculousness of labeling the fat woman in this comparison as 'porn' I hope is apparent.

Why the double standard? Why is any exposure of fat flesh considered pornographic and inappropriate, and possibly 'damaging' to the SA/FA movement, when these images are no different than what we can pull up on our TV everyday?

That is one reason why I think fat activists shouldn't be so quick to demonize fat sexuality, or fat culture that includes sexuality. Until we can show the non fat-world that fat bodies aren't something only to be objectified, either as an object of lust or disgust, then we need to be able to find a vocabulary that speaks of fat sexuality outside of any moral framework, if we hope to remove the double standard that seeks to label any and all exposed fat flesh as pornographic.

That, to me, seems like a crucial goal of fat activism, to make the fat body something more than the 'other' that we can project our loves and our hates onto. And we won't do that if we close our eyes and hope that the most extreme fat porn just goes away. We need to learn to understand that, just like the most extreme porn featuring only thin people doesn't represent the lives of all thin people, that extreme fat porn isn't a representation of all fat people. 

Thats how fat bodies move from the realm of the other to the realm of the 'just like us, but fat.' Isn't that the ultimate goal of fat acceptance? To show that fat people are just as worthy and no different from thin people? 

And, just like thin people, don't fat people and FAs have a right to have porn catering to their desires? If thats the case, than any objection to fat porn should logically be an objection to all porn, and that, of course, is a whole other debate.


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## BeautifulPoeticDisaster (Feb 16, 2008)

Butch, you rock my world. Seriously, you ooze intelligence and it is very sexy.



ETA: I must spread myself, I mean rep, around before I can give it to you again


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## LillyBBBW (Feb 16, 2008)

BigBellySSBBW said:


> Butch, you rock my world. Seriously, you ooze intelligence and it is very sexy.
> 
> 
> 
> ETA: I must spread myself, I mean rep, around before I can give it to you again



I hit her with some. Excellent post m'lady. :bow:


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## butch (Feb 16, 2008)

Thanks, ladies. It is very much appreciated.


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## Jon Blaze (Feb 16, 2008)

butch said:


> Setting aside the debate about whether fat sexuality as viewed 'out there' in the non fat world makes fat activisim look bad, and that no other social movement has this problem (which is dead wrong, since the gay rights movement has a little something to do with sex, don't it?), I think fat porn helps illuminate an interesting dichotomy in terms of what porn looks like.
> 
> Recently one of the paysite women started a thread in the weight board about how youtube was taking down her videos because they were considered too salacious for youtube. She wasn't showing pink bits, and she was eating, but somehow this was flagged as inappropriate and shut down by the youtube administrators. Why?
> 
> ...



Reps I say damnit!


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## AnnMarie (Feb 16, 2008)

Ekim said:


> And Mandy Blake is a fine example of a BBW model who completely doesn't touch on any of that, but is just as successful by playing it "straight", if you will.



She actually does a lot of eating stuff.... just look on the board at her clip updates.


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## Fascinita (Feb 16, 2008)

butch said:


> Recently one of the paysite women started a thread in the weight board about how youtube was taking down her videos because they were considered too salacious for youtube. She wasn't showing pink bits, and she was eating, but somehow this was flagged as inappropriate and shut down by the youtube administrators. Why?



Well, let me complicate your excellent analysis, butch.

Aren't there those in our own ranks who eroticize and sexualize fat of itself? I know that I've seen talk on Dimensions, for instance, of "fucking folds." While that may not represent mainstream FA desires, I think I've noticed that there is a definite sexualization of "curves" in conversations that veer to the sexual around here. To a certain extent, I think large bodies are seen by many as more inherently sexual, thus more inherently "obscene." People talk about fat women being "goddesses" in a sexual context. And many fertility symbols depict women with exaggerated bellies, hips, breasts, etc. Whether those large features are treated as erotic positives or negatives, I suppose depends on the eye of the beholder. Whether any of it's right or wrong, I'm not sure.


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## LillyBBBW (Feb 17, 2008)

Fascinita said:


> Well, let me complicate your excellent analysis, butch.
> 
> Aren't there those in our own ranks who eroticize and sexualize fat of itself? I know that I've seen talk on Dimensions, for instance, of "fucking folds." While that may not represent mainstream FA desires, I think I've noticed that there is a definite sexualization of "curves" in conversations that veer to the sexual around here. To a certain extent, I think large bodies are seen by many as more inherently sexual, thus more inherently "obscene." People talk about fat women being "goddesses" in a sexual context. And many fertility symbols depict women with exaggerated bellies, hips, breasts, etc. Whether those large features are treated as erotic positives or negatives, I suppose depends on the eye of the beholder. Whether any of it's right or wrong, I'm not sure.



That may be true for here but somehow I don't see the moguls at youtube saying to themselves, "Oh no, that girl's just too sexy for this site. We better take her down pronto." It goes beyond a fat women's body being categorized as obscene due to raw sexuality. It's the opinion that a fat body on display is in poor taste and must be hidden from view. Fat women should not be allowed to wear sleeveless shirts, a bathing suit, expose her legs, etc. and it's okay to face public humiliation from onlookers at any given time if you do. Since the government has no "Poor Taste" label, porn must do. We as a society rise with one voice to decry the practice of hiding women under burkhas in the middle east yet support the same kind of thinking here when it comes to fat women and other marginalized groups.


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## liz (di-va) (Feb 17, 2008)

I am going to give a hopelessly personal answer, because I don't know how else to handle. Untangling the ways in which Prurient/Puritan American perceives fat porn (when the whole world is seriously pornified to boot) gives me a headache on the easiest of days.

I think porn is a given, a gimme, a common denominator, an equalizer. If there is a Thing, there is a group that gets wood lookin at it and people taking pictures of it. The first thing humans do with any new medium is take photos of their ass.

As a result...I have found fat porn *extremely* crucial to size acceptance in my life. It's a fundamentally crassly commercial endeavor (speaking broadly here)--I knew there wouldn't be videos of men shaggin fat girls if it didn't give them wood/make them buy more. 'Twas kind of the ultimate validation in a bizarrely matter-of-fact way. Nobody ever made porn to do anybody any favors, you know? 

At the time I was coming to think this, I was working on a fat sex zine called _Zaftig_!, based on the idea that "no group of people should be deprived of their own image." So I was mucking around in porn (stories and images) with a strongly articulated ideological feeling at base, which helped solidify things for me.

[[I have never sought out food-related fat porn and don't have a sense of how up front it's positioned/how prevalent it is, so I can't speak well to how it helps/hurts fat acceptance. For my tastes I find it unbelievably tedious. The whole world already looks at me and can't see me except through a haze of what they imagine I eat; that kinda porn/the Dims story library feels the same way to me. Just...irrelevant (when I'm not offended, honestly). However....CHACUN A SON GOUT (is the point). I know there are people who like it, so it's always gonna be there. My only worry is that how it's positioned confirms the idea that fat people are about food first, always, what they consume, rather than just people. Especially sexually.]]


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

BigBellySSBBW said:


> define fat porn please. Is it any fat woman with a paysite? Is it the girls who pose teasingly grabbing a roll? Is it only the girls how show bits and pieces? Is it the girls who show sexual acts? What is fat porm?
> 
> Once this is defined, then I might have a response. But as for labeling all the paysites as porn is wrong. Most of the poses I do, no one would look twice if I was a skinny chick.
> 
> *I have touched on the feeding thing a bit in some of my sets. I'm not a fake, I'm not a feedee....food can be freaking sexy, especially if the person eating is really enjoying it. I like to be hand fed sometimes...not enough to get full, but I do find it a loving sexual act when a partner feeds out of love. Just my opinion though.*



Methinks thou has made an excellent point here......if it was two skinny chicks eating strawberries and rubbing them against each others nipples...then that's just sexy. Let two fat ladies do it though and suddenly someone will be screaming about fetishes and feederism.


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## butch (Feb 17, 2008)

I tried to rep ya'll, Fascinita, LillyBBBW, and Liz, but couldn't. Great discussion, and great points you all have made.

Liz's post reminds me that, hell yeah, I'm not going to sacrifice my sexual side to the gods of propriety in order to get my due rights as a human being, and if fat activisim or any social justice movement expects us to repress our sexuality as fat people and/or people who are atrracted to fat people, then it isn't much of a social justice movement afterall, because we're still having to capitulate to a worldview that says fat is ugly, unsexy, and obscene.

As with everything else, there's nothing 'natural' about those beliefs many hold about fat being ugly, unsexy, and obscene. We need to destroy those linkages between fat and ugly, unsexy, and obscene if we're going to make any progress with fat activism, and, as Liz points out, fat porn can do a lot to help break the chains that link fat to all those negative connotations.

And, hell yeah, no fat woman should have to wear a burkah, and I raise my chubby fist in solidarity with that mantra-no metaphoric burkahs for fatties!


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

MissToodles said:


> No, don't agree. You can't force attraction or make someone find fat aesthically pleasing. Like someone on that "oomph" level and respect are two different things. Maybe I can some part of this vision, as many have a visceral reaction of disgust to the larger form, because it's rarely displayed as enticing/erotic and often mocked. Secondly, such displays are usually used as novelty, sideshow freak value and I just don't see the visuals changing mainstream ideals. I can see it helping someone who is already big struggling with body image but changing the minds of others, no way.




I agree with your main point...but then again I don't. Why are fat people so down on themselves to begin with? Because we are told we are ugly, stupid, worthless, not worth living, etc. Then all of this is reinforced when we see models like Kate Moss being revered for doing nothing more than posing. We see Meg Ryan skinny as a stick being held up as "sexy" in movies like Proof of Life. It is all around us- being "force fed" to us, if I might say...... Showing the other side of the coin might not change the world overnight, or even in our lifetimes, but it's definitely a good place to start, IMO.


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## butch (Feb 17, 2008)

Green Eyed Fairy said:


> Methinks thou has made an excellent point here......if it was two skinny chicks eating strawberries and rubbing them against each others nipples...then that's just sexy. Let two fat ladies do it though and suddenly someone will be screaming about fetishes and feederism.



Yes! Is it any wonder that food would be sexy for all humans, not just those into fat people? Food is the first comfort thing we get as infants, and unlike so many others thing in life that bring us pleasure, food is a requirement for the continuation of our life.


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

Zandoz said:


> Unless you are talking about groups of one, every group will be made up of some with more extreme positions/behavior/etc than others. Those that define any group by it's extreme members, is looking for a reason to dislike the group in general. Ostracize the extreme from the group, and the next in line becomes extreme...and the next "any excuse will do" excuse for those looking for justification for their dislike of the group in general.
> 
> Worry not about who we should exclude to placate the small of mind...wonder how many more we can include to make the collective mind stronger and more diverse.



Excellent point here....kind of goes back to what Lilly said previously, too. 



LillyBBBW said:


> It won't change social attitudes but we shouldn't have to send all fat people to charm school to get people to stop treating us like dirt. Seeing a thin woman puking in a toilet would not induce people to pass legislation that restricts the amount of time a thin person can spend in the bathroom. A snuff video of puking thin girls might be thought distasteful enough to want to make it stop but the fear that it will hurt the thin community would not be the motivating factor. To me it speaks of an even bigger problem that lies within the fat community itself thinking we are not deserving of social justice unless every single one of us is consuming under 1500 calories a day. Someone steps on the line and they are ruining it for all of us. This idea is part of the social disease in my view.
> 
> Not sure I'm saying this right. I'm a dull as dishwater today.




I haven't finished reading the whole thread but you did kinda say what I was thinking as I read his post....wtf does it matter if we "eat too much" or not? 

Also, though.....I do think the "fetish" side of it all could be problematic. Why? Because I have seen people...within our own community, many times....say that people that prefer fat people are fetishists simply for the desire/preference. Hell, if we can't sort it out ourselves, how in hell do we expect the "mainstream" aka rest of the world to do it for us?


It makes me ask a question...how important is a "unified front"? My mind's first response is extremely important.......


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

William said:


> Hi Zandoz
> 
> I would say that the issues facing the Fat Acceptance Community makes it a social movement similar to feminism, regional issues, Fatherhood Rights, neighborhood coalitions and many other issues.
> *
> ...



I'm unclear....are you blaming the Fat Acceptance movement for this or the search engines that latch onto the word "fat"?

Btw....google the word "gay" and see what happens.....or "woman" or "adult". All pretty mundane words until a search engine gets hold of them......


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

stefanie said:


> But that IMO is how cultural attitudes change, and art (I believe) can be a powerful force for that change.
> 
> This goes so much beyond simply sexual response. I think the point of Adipositivity is not just to see the models as desirable (although that's nice, if it happens), but to see them as beautiful - as part of the "club of beauty." It's an attempt to engender a new way of seeing.



Funny how I always seem to find myself agreeing with you  :bow:


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

Webmaster said:


> Well, size is a physical issue, and wherever a cause includes physical issues, it also includes sexuality. The social versus activism issue was a hotly debated topic when I was in NAAFA's leadership for over 20 years, and it's probably a hotly debated topic in any movement or organization facing this issue. I separated Dimensions from NAAFA back in 1989 or so precisely because I felt that there should be sufficient distance between social activities and activism. The problem back then always was that it was the social activities (like dances and a convention) that brought in the money that made the activist side possible in the first place.
> 
> I definitely take issue with placing everything relating to fat sexuality into the "fat porn" bucket. There is a significant difference between sensuous depiction of the allure and beauty of the fat female form, and simply pornography. To the Harper Valley PTA it may all be porn (unless they do it), but to me there is a distinct difference.




I concur here, too......probably because I always start giggling when Conrad mentions the Harper Valley PTA


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

Zandoz said:


> There are all kinds of radical feminists out there...I know one who advocates castrating males at birth. Regional issues? Pick a region of the country and it won't take long to find fringe advocates of succession...or "Girls of ____" porn. Father's rights? Check how many Amber alerts involve fathers taking the kids unlawfully. Neighborhood coalitions? The guy next door wants skateboards prohibited, and violating kids jailed....and has already pushed city legislation prohibiting kids from playing ball outside of parks. Every group or cause has their extreme...some more outright harmful/hateful/spiteful than others. The extremes only define for the narrow minded...and I personally do not give a flying squat what the narrow minded think.
> 
> And as far as porn goes, it's only a matter of time before there is something someone considers porn related to those issues to.
> 
> Anyway, anyone that does not grasp the concept that personally distasteful items are likely to come up with ANY web search, shouldn't be playing around on the web.





OoOOOoOoO I see that you have already said it much better than I :bow:

So did Lilly :kiss:


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

wrestlingguy said:


> Conrad, I think most would ideally want to feel that way, but I would disagree, inasmuch as most of the guys here come not so much to further the cause, but to look at the pics. And when they look at the pics.......well, you know.
> 
> I think that porn is PRECISELY the reason that most men frequent Dimensions. I remember fondly the day my ex-fiance found Dims on my internet favorites, and after looking at the website, accused me of looking at porn. In my mind, I felt it was, at least initially. Today, thank God I see much more in Dimensions & other fat positive sites.
> 
> ...



Ahhhhh the "other side of the coin" again, that myself have noted, too, on many occasions. But you did say one thing that helps to offset it.....



wrestlingguy said:


> Today, thank God I see much more in Dimensions & other fat positive sites..



You see helluva lot more than that on these boards. You also see women that WON'T take their clothes off, women that are intelligent, caring and wickedly clever. You see women...and many men....that care about each other. Okay if there is a paysite....for those that care to look further, there really IS a lot more to see here 
I suspect that might be why this site does seem to have a large population of women posters? 
Women usually don't come for the nekkid pics..........


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

butch said:


> Thanks, ladies. It is very much appreciated.



YOU are very much appreciated Julia


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

LillyBBBW said:


> That may be true for here but somehow I don't see the moguls at youtube saying to themselves, "Oh no, that girl's just too sexy for this site. We better take her down pronto." It goes beyond a fat women's body being categorized as obscene due to raw sexuality. It's the opinion that a fat body on display is in poor taste and must be hidden from view. Fat women should not be allowed to wear sleeveless shirts, a bathing suit, expose her legs, etc. and it's okay to face public humiliation from onlookers at any given time if you do. Since the government has no "Poor Taste" label, porn must do. We as a society rise with one voice to decry the practice of hiding women under burkhas in the middle east yet support the same kind of thinking here when it comes to fat women and other marginalized groups.



OH jeez...if only I could marry you and Julia at the same time.....:wubu: :bow:


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## Jes (Feb 17, 2008)

Years ago, on soc.support.fat-acceptance, or a similar usenet group, there was a story about a fat woman in a bikini doing...something. I don't know. I don't know if it was an activisim thing, a college prank, I don't know. A bikini, yes, but no pink parts, and she was standing on a median strip, or by the side of the road, and cars were going crazy. Honking and stopping and staring (in support? in horror? both? I don't know, and it doesn't matter for the purposes of this story). The police came out and removed the woman and as I recall, they were saying it was inappropriate for her to be out there in a bikini. 

Would a thin woman in a bikini have been removed? I feel like the reaction from traffic would have probably been the same and maybe the police would've taken a look, but I just don't feel they would have removed her for inappropriate behavior.

And what we all took away from that story, on the newsgroup, was that a fat woman in a bikini is somehow much more naked than a thin/avg. woman in a bikini. That suddenly it becomes a public decency issue instead of just a traffic thing. 

There are reasons for that, I think (in the sense that we see it less and so it's more 'shocking,' if you will) but the implications are staggering.


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## William (Feb 17, 2008)

Hi GEF 

Yes anything (words) on Google can be latched on by the porno merchants. What is different about Fat Porno there was a strong connection established long before the invention of Google. That was a not too huge a problem before Search Engines like Google begun showing everything about subjects. Media articles on Fat Acceptance from the early 90s and late 80s did not tie in to the Porno and Fetish activities to the Fat Acceptance community like they do today.

I like Fat Porn and I like Black Porn, but I do not want Black Porn to be associated to Black Social Movements. There is no Porno community associated with MADD, NOW, Civil Rights, Labor Movements and so on. The analogy of the Gay Rights movement is not valid one because a large part of that movement is about sexual preference like the Free Love movement and the Lesbian Community also seems to be able to get by without a porno connection, although it seems that we Heterosexual Men can not live without Lesbian Porno 

In my posts here I am placing the interests of Fat Acceptance first, Porno will always take care of itself, it even created the need for many of the inovations that the internet benefits from today.






Green Eyed Fairy said:


> I'm unclear....are you blaming the Fat Acceptance movement for this or the search engines that latch onto the word "fat"?
> 
> Btw....google the word "gay" and see what happens.....or "woman" or "adult". All pretty mundane words until a search engine gets hold of them......


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## butch (Feb 17, 2008)

William said:


> Hi GEF
> 
> Yes anything (words) on Google can be latched on by the porno merchants. What is different about Fat Porno there was a strong connection established long before the invention of Google. That was a not too huge a problem before Search Engines like Google begun showing everything about subjects. Media articles on Fat Acceptance from the early 90s and late 80s did not tie in to the Porno and Fetish activities to the Fat Acceptance community like they do today.
> 
> ...



The gay rights analogy is valid, because, for one thing, a lot of the earliest supporters for AIDS acitivists, in terms of money and the lending of space and resources to fledgling groups like the GMHC and Act Up came from people who earned a living in the gay porn industry.

And lets not forget Stonewall, when a bunch of drag queens fought back against the police. Many folks consider transvesites and transexualims more broadly as nothing more than a fetish. Isn't anything fetish considered pornographic?


And there is a lesbian porn industry, too. Lesbian porn made for women by women, and that is an activist move in and of itself, removing the obejctifying male, heterosexual gaze from lesbian bodies and instead allowing women to assert their own pleasures as sexual beings with the same sort of agency that men take for granted.


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## William (Feb 17, 2008)

Hi Butch

That lesbian activist porn must not have a wide distribution. Porno, Fat Porn, Black Porn, Gay Porn and Lesbian Porn geared for men are in your face all over the internet.

Still the Gay Movement is centered around being able to live a Gay Lifestyle. Fat Acceptance from the start has been about a fat person being able to exist with dignity and it did not matter if a person had their clothes on or off 

I am not saying that there is not a place for porn in the Fat Social Community, but it does not help having Fat Acceptance associated with Fat Porn. You know what is weird is that I can not remember reading a mainstream media article about Gay Rights that included statements about Gay Porn, but I have seen references to Fat Porn, feederism and squashing in magazine articles about Fat Acceptance, Maybe that is another good topic to talk about.

William






butch said:


> The gay rights analogy is valid, because, for one thing, a lot of the earliest supporters for AIDS activists, in terms of money and the lending of space and resources to fledgling groups like the GMHC and Act Up came from people who earned a living in the gay porn industry.
> 
> And lets not forget Stonewall, when a bunch of drag queens fought back against the police. Many folks consider transvesites and transexualims more broadly as nothing more than a fetish. Isn't anything fetish considered pornographic?
> 
> ...


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## LalaCity (Feb 17, 2008)

I happen to be someone who finds most (straight) pornography inherently degrading to women (can't comment on the "degradation factor" in gay porn as I haven't seen enough of it). At the least, it tends to cater overwhelmingly to the desires of men (true, there is feminist/female-centric porn, but its an infinitessimally tiny percentage of the overall industry).

The writer Martin Amis (son of Kingsly) once did an expose of the porn industry wherein he described its actresses as functioning "sink-holes" for the male ejaculate, all of whom, on that day of filming which he observed in the San Fernando valley, resorted to cocaine and other drugs in order to endure the repeated sex acts. As one producer eloquently put it to him when describing the hierarchy of actresses in the industry, "if you've got stretch marks, you're doing anal." In other words, if you're less than aesthetically "perfect," it's the "brutal" and "degrading" stuff for you. So I long ago stopped buying the argument that pornography is the liberation of women.

Now I realize that this general take on porn may not apply in certain senses to fat porn -- there is much less fat porn produced than "regular" porn, so the demands on fat porn actresses might be markedly different from those of their non-fat counterparts...I don't know.

With regard to the question of whether fat porn hurts the size-acceptance movement: if one looks at the boards menu for Dims, one will see that, at any given time, the non-paysite boards have a few to a few dozen viewers, whereas the paysite board has typically around two hundred viewers. So, in this (admittedly non-scientific) analysis, pornography and/or sexually-charged/erotic imagery has more influence over the question of fat attractiveness and sexuality than do our thoughtful arguments. That begs the question, then: is there a greater onus on those who are the purveyors of such imagery to be cautious of the way in which said imagery is depicted? And is this "responsibility" further complicated by the fact that fat people in our society are a demonized group and that images which are arguably degrading do even more harm to them than they do to more widely-accepted members of the populace? I realize that the porn industry is not traditionally known for its sensitivity to issues of political correctness, but these are still questions to consider...

I appreciate erotic, beautiful images of the fat female form, but I am personally offended when the appreciation of fat women crosses into fetishizing, for sexual pleasure, certain images of immobility, force-feeding, and those things which engender pleasure at the expense of the women depicted. Some of you will, for example, be familiar with the work of the Japanese artist Mutsuki (sic?) whose work revolves around depicting women who are utterly immobilized by their fat. These women invariably have expressions of pain and helplessness on their faces, their eyes brimming with tears, indicating that the artist and his audience enjoy, as part of their fantasy, the idea of suffering SSBBWs.

I am also disgusted by those drawings I have seen which portray a large (again, typically immobilized) woman greedily consuming food with a bib showing an image of a pig on it tied around her neck. Can anyone really argue that comparing a large woman to a barnyard animal is somehow furthering the size-acceptance movement?

As is the case with any kind of sexual or pornographic imagery, it all falls somewhere within the spectrum of erotica -- and, I would argue, each point on the spectrum deserves its own discussion as to whether the involved images hurt or help those people depicted therein.


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## Ernest Nagel (Feb 17, 2008)

This is probably just some part of my faulty neuro-wiring associated with Asperger's, although I've not seen it referenced in any of the literature. Porn does nothing for me, never has, bbw or otherwise. I can become aroused to a picture of a woman I'm in a relationship with but otherwise, nada. Maybe I need the pheromone's or something? Even on the couple of occasions I've seen fat strippers who I considered beautiful I got no rise. Not disgusted or anything, just not interested. I don't have any probs in the erectile department but if I ever had to make a deposit in a sperm bank I'd def need a bigger room. 

Any other guys out there with this ambivalence to porn? I don't have any judgments about it, nothing religious or moral. Fine with the peeps who engage with it on any and all levels (save kiddos) but it just does not float my boat. Kinda wish it did but I need to feel the reel rolls and rock live with a BBW, not a vid or a mag.


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## LalaCity (Feb 17, 2008)

oops...correction: the name of the Japanese artist I mentioned above is Igabito (I think "Mutsuki" is actually the name of one of his drawings).


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

William said:


> Hi GEF
> 
> Yes anything (words) on Google can be latched on by the porno merchants. What is different about Fat Porno there was a strong connection established long before the invention of Google. That was a not too huge a problem before Search Engines like Google begun showing everything about subjects. Media articles on Fat Acceptance from the early 90s and late 80s did not tie in to the Porno and Fetish activities to the Fat Acceptance community like they do today.



Hi William 
I can see your point...I really do. However, YOU chose the example of google...and why is it being taken as a given that google is deciding the mindset of people in reality? What "proof" or exampes do you have that, outside of the net, people are linking Fat Acceptance to porn? Is there something other than google? I don't like the idea that we should give mindless, programmed for profit search engines so much influence over our decision making abilities.....




William said:


> I like Fat Porn and I like Black Porn, but I do not want Black Porn to be associated to Black Social Movements. There is no Porno community associated with MADD, NOW, Civil Rights, Labor Movements and so on. The analogy of the Gay Rights movement is not valid one because a large part of that movement is about sexual preference like the Free Love movement and the Lesbian Community also seems to be able to get by without a porno connection, although it seems that we Heterosexual Men can not live without Lesbian Porno


 
I think Conrad best answered this already when he pointed out that fat acceptance, though I recognize that is a discrimination based upon societal pressures, is a physical characteristic. That the physical will always be linked to sex..... simple enough. 
It also seems that some hetero men can't live without big breasts, asses, blondes or whatever..... google an innocent word like blonde...I bet you find a porno site somewhere in the mix. Why? Because blonde is a physical preference- and the physical is often most discussed when it comes to sex.
I don't think that google finding some porno in the mix when someone types in Fat Acceptance is a deciding factor for anything.


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Feb 17, 2008)

Ernest Nagel said:


> This is probably just some part of my faulty neuro-wiring associated with Asperger's, although I've not seen it referenced in any of the literature. Porn does nothing for me, never has, bbw or otherwise. I can become aroused to a picture of a woman I'm in a relationship with but otherwise, nada. Maybe I need the pheromone's or something? Even on the couple of occasions I've seen fat strippers who I considered beautiful I got no rise. Not disgusted or anything, just not interested. I don't have any probs in the erectile department but if I ever had to make a deposit in a sperm bank I'd def need a bigger room.
> 
> Any other guys out there with this ambivalence to porn? I don't have any judgments about it, nothing religious or moral. Fine with the peeps who engage with it on any and all levels (save kiddos) but it just does not float my boat. Kinda wish it did but I need to feel the reel rolls and rock live with a BBW, not a vid or a mag.




It turns me on....well, some of it anyway.....


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## Rojodi (Feb 17, 2008)

Green Eyed Fairy said:


> It turns me on....well, some of it anyway.....



I'm with you, Greenie. I like some of it. I like the amatuer stuff, the obvious amateur...and I love to read erotica and porn literature


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## William (Feb 17, 2008)

Hi GEF

I did not save the News Articles over the years that have made the Fat Acceptance Porno connection, but there have been enough. Porno merchants have taken the phrase "Fat Acceptance" as part of their lingo. What other social rights group has their name regularly used by pornographers?

We could debate this forever which is a waste of time, 

I say until the Google search for BBW

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bbw&btnG=Google+Search

Looks as unexploited as a Google search for Women

http://www.google.com/search?q=women&btnG=Search&hl=en&safe=off

or 

Woman

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=woman&btnG=Search


That there is something wrong with the results

William



Green Eyed Fairy said:


> Hi William
> I can see your point...I really do. However, YOU chose the example of google...and why is it being taken as a given that google is deciding the mindset of people in reality? What "proof" or exampes do you have that, outside of the net, people are linking Fat Acceptance to porn? Is there something other than google? I don't like the idea that we should give mindless, programmed for profit search engines so much influence over our decision making abilities.....
> 
> 
> ...


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## butch (Feb 17, 2008)

But here's the difference, William-BBW is a specific label that is only really know by those in the subculture of fat social and/or activist circles. My non-fat friends have no idea what BBW is, so my guess is, people googling 'BBW' are equal parts people looking for porn and those interested in social activities for fat people, not your average person looking for info on fat rights, etc. In the fatosphere, with the younger activists, they use 'fat' exclusively when describing the people they're advocating for, so someone looking for more activist-oriented stuff aren't going to be using BBW either as a search term.

As long as many parts of the mainstream views a fat woman in a bathing suit as somehow obscene and something to be kept out of sight, then I will continue to stress that being resitant to those stigmatized messages requires us to not shy away from the erotic and the sexually arousing aspects of fat embodiment. That doesn't mean I think all forms of fat porn is wonderful, but this debate does seem very much an all or nothing discussion. 

I'd venture a guess that if we were successful in lessening the stigma that surronds the visual and sexual materiality of the fat body, we'd see a lot less of those images of immobile, miserable fat women. Part of their power, their ability to arose, comes precisely because we live in a world that promotes loathing and disgust of the fat body. I'd also sugget that we not capitulate to the fat haters and label whole portions of the available fat porn and fat sexuality as a fetish. Since a fetish is by design something that is not a sentinent being, but either innanimate objects or mere body parts, then we tacitly endorse the idea that fat people are less than human.

As a fat person who finds other fat people attractive, there's nothing fetishistic about my desires, and any fat-themed sexual material that gets me aroused is no different from that being peddled for people who get turned on by slender blonde women or tall, dark, and handsome men. Why should I somehow feel that my desires AS A FAT PERSON, are something that fat acceptance/size acceptance should try to distance themselves from? I know that my life, and my desires, have nothing to do with a lot of the extreme fat porn one finds on the net, and I actually have enough hope in my fellow humans that they get it, on some level, too. And if they don't, then I'll force them to see it, by not letting them deny me my rights as a sexual being.


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## LalaCity (Feb 17, 2008)

butch said:


> As a fat person who finds other fat people attractive, there's nothing fetishistic about my desires, and any fat-themed sexual material that gets me aroused is no different from that being peddled for people.



Again, I ask, is there perhaps a difference when one group is more demonized by society than another? If fat people experience, on the whole, a greater degree of discrimination than do than their slender counterparts, then is there not a greater burden, on behalf of those who depict "fat erotica," to normalize imagery of fat sexuality to the extent that it it is not seen as "freakish," but as a part of the whole spectrum of human erotica? I realize that this discussion is largely hypothetical, as those who derive pleasure from certain "fetishes" will not be deterred from depicting said fetishes under any circumstace; but the question remains: does a "demonized" segment of the populace suffer more from extreme and _potentially_ more degrading imagery than does the more-accepted (i.e., thin) part of the populace? If we all want so deeply to advance the idea that fat women are equally beautiful as slim women, should we not, then, in principle, be only advocating images of fat women as purely beautiful, minus all the fetishisim of extreme, lust-induced immobility and force-feeding and all the other ways that fat women are portrayed as preyed-upon victims? I think that, in the case of an oppressed group -- such as larger women are -- more care must be taken with regard to how they are portrayed, if we ever hope to achieve larger acceptance...


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## William (Feb 18, 2008)

Hi Butch

The Term BBW should not receive any different results than the term Women and Fat Acceptance should be no more associated with Porno than NOW, PETA or MADD or other Social Movements. This has nothing to do with the quality of Fat Porn. Most of the statements in this thread have nothing to do with the topic which is Fat Activism's relationship to Fat Porn. Fat Acceptance's Mission Statement is not to promote Fat Porn, but to promote the rights of Fat People. Having such a close association with Fat Porn just trivalizes Fat Acceptance's cause and lessen its validity.

Fat Acceptance does not have the same goals of Gay rights and Free Love who's missions centers around promoting sexual life styles. Artistic nude photos and painting are one thing but a association with Porno has no benefits for Fat Acceptance. As I said before Fat Porno Merchants will do well without the Fat Acceptance seal of approval.

William



butch said:


> But here's the difference, William-BBW is a specific label that is only really know by those in the subculture of fat social and/or activist circles. My non-fat friends have no idea what BBW is, so my guess is, people googling 'BBW' are equal parts people looking for porn and those interested in social activities for fat people, not your average person looking for info on fat rights, etc. In the fatosphere, with the younger activists, they use 'fat' exclusively when describing the people they're advocating for, so someone looking for more activist-oriented stuff aren't going to be using BBW either as a search term.
> 
> As long as many parts of the mainstream views a fat woman in a bathing suit as somehow obscene and something to be kept out of sight, then I will continue to stress that being resitant to those stigmatized messages requires us to not shy away from the erotic and the sexually arousing aspects of fat embodiment. That doesn't mean I think all forms of fat porn is wonderful, but this debate does seem very much an all or nothing discussion.
> 
> ...


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## Fascinita (Feb 18, 2008)

Why do I keep reading about "the fat female form" over and over? Do we not see the naked male bodies in porn? Are women the only ones implicated in pornography? Are female bodies the only bodies fit for consumption? I grow a little tired of the objectifying talk of "the beauty of the female form." The female body is no more aesthetically beautiful than the male body, so if we're going to say that depictions of naked females are somehow more appealing than of naked males, I question whether the assumptions are not run-o-the-mill sexism.


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## LillyBBBW (Feb 18, 2008)

Fascinita said:


> Why do I keep reading about "the fat female form" over and over? Do we not see the naked male bodies in porn? Are women the only ones implicated in pornography? Are female bodies the only bodies fit for consumption? I grow a little tired of the objectifying talk of "the beauty of the female form." The female body is no more aesthetically beautiful than the male body, so if we're going to say that depictions of naked females are somehow more appealing than of naked males, I question whether the assumptions are not run-o-the-mill sexism.



Because a fat man in boxers will not be removed from youtube. He can be in a commercial without raising the censors. A fat man in a porno movie does not require his own subcategory. Fat men in porn are not seen as the smoking gun against fat acceptance among people in the movement like fat women are. Finding fat beautiful is niether wished for nor required in acceptance so the beauty of fat men is not relevant in this argument. To argue the use of the fat man as a comedic entity in the media deserves its own thread but this one is about porn.


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## butch (Feb 18, 2008)

I've already gone on much more than I had planned to in this thread, but let me just say, in response to LalaCity's good points, that I would argue that if we want true parity with thin people in our society, then fat porn will just have to be as freak nasty as the porn that is produced with thin 'actors.'

Yes, I think it would be great if all fat porn worked to elevate the fatties, but I think one reason why won't see a lot of this 'self-aware/self-actualized' fat porn for some time is the fact that most fat porn is made for non fat people, the FAs. 

It would be interesting to compare fat porn for the straight market vs. fat porn for the gay male market. I think the folks who make fat gay male porn realize that their audience is a good mix of fat and non fat men, but I don't think fat porn made for straight men has a noticible amount of fat people watching becuase they get off at images of fatness. That is an interesting thought to ponder, btw.

You know, I don't think that fat acceptance should link arms and walk hand in hand with fat porn into the sunset, hoping to advocate for the rights of fat people, but I do think we shouldn't have to deny our own pleasures in order to make thin people 'like us.' And while porn actually has a small role in that, since, as I said, most fat porn is made to satisfy the tastes of non-fat people, it isn't much different than the same fat activists who think all fat people should be eating and exercising in a certain way so that they can be a 'good fattie.' No gluttons or lazy folks allowed in the FA movement, some folks loudly proclaim.

Fat people, like thin people, aren't always 'good' and 'proper.' If we want to have lurid sexual fantasies involving copious amounts of food and an immobile partner, or we want to forgo exercising, and eat at McDonalds once in a while, then that is our right. The reality is, those same people who would make the most outlandish stereotypical assumptions about us fatties because of our sexual or gastronomic desires would make those assumptions with much less 'evidence' than an extreme fat porn video or someone sitting in McDonalds with 10 big mac wrappers surrounding them. 

Which is why, as Lilly points out, this topic becomes gendered, because it is the image of the fat woman that is marked as obscene, in a way that men don't have happen to them until they're of the 'half-ton man' size and featured in a Discovery Health Channel show. I do think it would be interesting to include more of a discussion of fat gay porn in this thread, but I've never watched any fat gay porn, and the stories I've read are, for the most part, pretty similar to the stories here at Dims.


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## Jes (Feb 18, 2008)

LalaCity said:


> Can anyone really argue that comparing a large woman to a barnyard animal is somehow furthering the size-acceptance movement?
> .


I consider myself a sex positive feminist (and in this case, I mean it as it relates to porn) but certainly, I'm troubled by this. I've seen it done here, and it has given me pause. But maybe the personal isn't always the political? I don't know.


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## SparklingBBW (Feb 18, 2008)

William said:


> Fat Acceptance does not have the same goals of Gay rights and Free Love who's missions centers around promoting sexual life styles.



If you believe that the goals of Gay rights does not include anything more than promoting a sexual life style, then you clearly don't know anything much about the level of acceptance and equal rights that are the true goals of the GLBT movement. Perhaps you should considering making a comparison argument about something you actually do understand the full width and breadth of.


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## LillyBBBW (Feb 18, 2008)

My keyboad is broken so I can't be as much of a nuisance in this thread as I would like.  I must come out and cheer once more for this post though. I've expressed the sentiment before of bearing the weight of having to avoid stereotypical behavior at all costs for the sake of the cause but are we not still prisoners to toxic thinking if we can't even live our lives the way we see fit? I don't want a gold tooth but what if I did? I'm expected to stay away at all personal costs or be saddled with the consequence of bringing all people of color down in the gutter by my actions which is rediculous and merely a part of the disease. I don't want to live out my life according to any pattern other than the one I set for myself and anything less is slavery. It's a price quite frankly I don't want to pay and I don't think anyone should. It's a step in the wrong direction.





butch said:


> I've already gone on much more than I had planned to in this thread, but let me just say, in response to LalaCity's good points, that I would argue that if we want true parity with thin people in our society, then fat porn will just have to be as freak nasty as the porn that is produced with thin 'actors.'
> 
> Yes, I think it would be great if all fat porn worked to elevate the fatties, but I think one reason why won't see a lot of this 'self-aware/self-actualized' fat porn for some time is the fact that most fat porn is made for non fat people, the FAs.
> 
> ...


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## William (Feb 18, 2008)

I know that they are seeking the rights and protection that heterosexual people expect, but sexual preference is a core importance to their cause.

We are comparing apples to oranges when we compare Gay Rights to Fat Rights that is why I did not even include it in my analogy. Fat Rights is more inline with civil rights which seeks to protect the rights of people to exist with dignity.

William




Genarose54 said:


> If you believe that the goals of Gay rights does not include anything more than promoting a sexual life style, then you clearly don't know anything much about the level of acceptance and equal rights that are the true goals of the GLBT movement. Perhaps you should considering making a comparison argument about something you actually do understand the full width and breadth of.


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## Fascinita (Feb 18, 2008)

LillyBBBW said:


> Because a fat man in boxers will not be removed from youtube. He can be in a commercial without raising the censors. A fat man in a porno movie does not require his own subcategory. Fat men in porn are not seen as the smoking gun against fat acceptance among people in the movement like fat women are. Finding fat beautiful is niether wished for nor required in acceptance so the beauty of fat men is not relevant in this argument. To argue the use of the fat man as a comedic entity in the media deserves its own thread but this one is about porn.



I'm not even talking specifically fat people. I mean, with a broad scope, that the fallacy of speaking of porn only in terms of the women it depicts, appears to carry over into fat porn as well.

I'll say it again. I'm tried of seeing women--fat women among them--idealized as aesthetic objects. This leads down all kinds of crap roads. We need to be prepared to treat women as human beings, along with men.

That is WE need to alter our own discourse so it's more inclusive. I don't think it bears that "they" (the fat haters) portray us this way or that. I'm talking about the speech that WE use to talk about ourselves.


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## exile in thighville (Feb 18, 2008)

Ben from England said:


> I have been thinking about the relationship the size acceptance movement shares with the pornography that invariably seems to surround active communities such as dimensions and would love to hear some different perspectives on the issue. I would like to instigate a discussion around the following question.
> 
> Do you think that fat activism can be hindered or trivialized by association with the fat porn industry?
> 
> ...



there are obviously different schools of thought on this. as someone who sees porn as a positive thing when the women are in control of what they're doing and being treated properly, and most importantly, setting their own standards of dignity, i believe a big part of size acceptance is the belief that fat women who decide to model are no better or worse than thin ones. there are people who believe black porn stars are setting back black people, though. what really has to change is the idea that anyone who doesn't fit into the defined norm is some kind of deviant, when they're really doing what everyone else is doing. this could mean anything from doing porn to exposing your arms. either way, if one person has the right, everyone does. to say fat people shouldn't be doing porn is to say nobody should be, or else you're not promoting size acceptance.


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## Jack Skellington (Feb 19, 2008)

William said:


> Fat Rights is more inline with civil rights which seeks to protect the rights of people to exist with dignity.



Honestly, man, how can someone even think this? GLBT rights is all about civil rights, equality and existing with dignity. Damn.


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## William (Feb 19, 2008)

Hi 

I meant that Gay Rights is about protecting the rights to live a different lifestyle. Fat Rights is more like Civil/Racial Rights because it is about the right to exist. It is not about living a different lifestyle or believing in a different religion. Fat people get discrimination for just being alive. 

Someone else brought the Gay Rights into the conversation, I did not because I new it was not a good comparison and it did not have anything to do with Fat Porno and Fat Activism.

William





Jack Skellington said:


> Honestly, man, how can someone even think this? GLBT rights is all about civil rights, equality and existing with dignity. Damn.


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## SparklingBBW (Feb 19, 2008)

William said:


> I meant that Gay Rights is about protecting the rights to live a different lifestyle. Fat Rights is more like Civil/Racial Rights because it is about the right to exist. It is not about living a different lifestyle or believing in a different religion. Fat people get discrimination for just being alive.



And that doesn't happen to Gay people? My God! Are you really that obtuse or naive? Do you realize how many GLBT people are physically harmed or even killed each year just for being ALIVE? 

As a fat woman, I sometimes don't relish the idea of going out in public because of the stares I might get, but I NEVER, EVER fear for my life or physical safety from others just for walking outside my door, and if I do have those fears, it isn't because I'm fat, it's because I am a woman and happen to have a vagina with me at all times. 

And BTW, just because you didn't first bring this comparision into the argument doesn't excuse you. You are the one who keeps repeating this misguided notion.


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## butch (Feb 19, 2008)

William said:


> Hi
> 
> I meant that Gay Rights is about protecting the rights to live a different lifestyle. Fat Rights is more like Civil/Racial Rights because it is about the right to exist. It is not about living a different lifestyle or believing in a different religion. Fat people get discrimination for just being alive.
> 
> ...



William, you didn't bring up gay rights originally, but when you tried to claim that no other social justice movement had a link to sex, I briefly pointed out that this was wrong, and cited gay rights as an example. It wasn't part of my core argument, but since then, your backpeddling and contradictory statements about gay rights has made gay rights part of this debate.

Just admit you don't know very much about the history and theory behind gay rights, and move on. Then you don't have to make claims that gay rights is all about equality and not about sex at one point, and then turn around and say gay rights is all about a lifestyle and sex and not equality. Its about both, OK?

Look, I'd already planned to drop out of this thread, so this isn't me picking on you, William. Its about making sure you weren't trying to claim that I brought up gay rights as part of some agenda, when you tried to defend yourself by claiming you didn't bring up gay rights. I merely corrected your error, and that is how gay rights got injected into this debate. 

Any links I made between gay rights and fat rights AFTER correcting your error was to illustrate that sex is a basic human right, and that everyone has a right to their sexuality, if it is, again, sane, safe, and consensual (and of legal age). Today, the current societal view of fat people is that they are not sexy, and a lot of fat people suffer from that view. If I stress that fat sexuality and images of fat sexual behavior have some relevance to fat rights, it is because fat rights isn't just about getting others to accept us fatties, its about making things better for us fatties, and removing the stimga that says fat people aren't desirable and that sex with a fat person is somehow shameful is a very crucial part of making things better for fatties like me.

Thats a very similar move to what gay people historically have had to respond to-that what they do is somehow unnatural, shameful, disgusting. And it is very interesting to me that, today, gays don't have to fight those battles except with the most hardcore conservatives. But fat people haven't even made a dent in changing the widely accepted view that fat people are disgusting and unnatural. Why is that?

I have one more thought about this, and then I'll shut up for good. The saddest thing to me about making any comparisons between gay rights and fat rights illuminates the fact that fat rights has made so little progress since NAAFA was founded in the late 1960's. Stonewall happened around the same time as NAAFA's founding, and so to see how one movement has made huge progress, and the other one hasn't, is profoundly sad to me. Its also heartbreaking to realize that today the majority of fat people have no interest or belief in fat rights/acceptance, and willfully buy into the very worst beliefs about fat people, and don't want to change anything about our society that makes fat such a stigmatized identity. Think about it-in the course of 40 years, gay people have gone from a place where the majority of gay people themselves felt shame about their identity, to a place where only a tiny minority of gay people feel shame about it. Fat people can not make that same claim after 40 years, and that is a true shame.


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## Tina (Feb 19, 2008)

William said:


> Hi
> 
> I meant that Gay Rights is about protecting the rights to live a different lifestyle. Fat Rights is more like Civil/Racial Rights because it is about the right to exist. It is not about living a different lifestyle or believing in a different religion. Fat people get discrimination for just being alive.
> 
> ...


I disagree with you, William, and here's why.

First, gays are fighting for their right to exist, too. Homosexuality and lesbianism is something a person is born with. Yes, some might experiment, but experimentation does not gayness make. So if you're born this way, and some backwards idiots want to deny you employment because of it; deny you housing because of it; deny you entry to various groups because of it -- or even kill you because of it, that is pretty much a denial of existence, isn't it? Doesn't that make a case for gays being descriminated against simply for being alive? Being gay is not a lifestyle; it is a state of being that is no more malleable than being heterosexual. Is being heterosexual a lifestyle? I believe it's more a state of being and intrinsic to one's life, not life_style_.

Bleh.


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## SilkyAngela (Feb 19, 2008)

butch said:


> William, you didn't bring up gay rights originally, but when you tried to claim that no other social justice movement had a link to sex, I briefly pointed out that this was wrong, and cited gay rights as an example. It wasn't part of my core argument, but since then, your backpeddling and contradictory statements about gay rights has made gay rights part of this debate.
> 
> Just admit you don't know very much about the history and theory behind gay rights, and move on. Then you don't have to make claims that gay rights is all about equality and not about sex at one point, and then turn around and say gay rights is all about a lifestyle and sex and not equality. Its about both, OK?
> 
> ...



I agree with you completely and I think you have your finger on the answer here as well. 

Fat people possess far more power and authority in society than we realize -simply because there are so many of us who still believe we should be ashamed of who and what we are. While society has played its role in shaping that, I think our movement should be working more on building the esteem of fat people and empowering each other to chase our dreams and pursue happiness as individuals. (concerning itself less with changing opinions of the masses.) Then we can collectively propel to a place where we no longer settle for what "society" allows us to have. A united front of fat people who know their worth and value each other equally is the kind of force it will take to make the monumental changes we seek.


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## Jack Skellington (Feb 19, 2008)

William said:


> Hi
> 
> I meant that Gay Rights is about protecting the rights to live a different lifestyle. Fat Rights is more like Civil/Racial Rights because it is about the right to exist. It is not about living a different lifestyle or believing in a different religion. Fat people get discrimination for just being alive.



Do you even hear what you are saying!? My god, man. The mind boggles. :doh:


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## Keb (Feb 19, 2008)

The only difference between gay rights and fat rights is that if you're fat, you can't hide it. You can't lie about it. The minute someone sees you, they know. In that way, it's far more like racial discrimination or sexual (as in male/female) discrimination than homosexual discrimination. That is not to say that a homosexual person should have to hide it, or should want to...only that it is possible.

Of course, there are those who would argue that weight is changable and the others are not. If people practiced love for one another and treated all humans as humans, regardless of their specifics, we'd be a lot better off.


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## Tina (Feb 19, 2008)

Keb said:


> The only difference between gay rights and fat rights is that if you're fat, you can't hide it.


True. However, some who are gay are not able to hide it and couldn't if their lives depended upon it, and sometimes it does. Also, how long should one be expected to have to play a role? I understand your point, but IMO it's semantics.


> Of course, there are those who would argue that weight is changable and the others are not. If people practiced love for one another and treated all humans as humans, regardless of their specifics, we'd be a lot better off.


I totally agree there, Keb.


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## William (Feb 19, 2008)

Hi

There is no way to do justice to either Fat Acceptance or Gay Rights in this conversation. The person who interjected Gay Rights into this conversation did so because they felt that Gay Porn was associated with Gay Rights. The truth now that I think of it is that what Gay Fat Porno that I have seen is far less associated with Gay Rights than Fat Porn is to Fat Acceptance. I do not think that I have seen the term GLBT used in Gay Fat Porn, but I have seen the term "Fat Acceptance" used plenty of times in even in the most extreme Fat Porno.

If you want to discuss Gay Rights and Gay Porn that is another topic, in this discussion I have only been trying to emphasize facts about Fat Porn and Fat Acceptance, Gay Rights was not covered completely or adequately, just the areas that relate to Gay Porn.

William




Jack Skellington said:


> Do you even hear what you are saying!? My god, man. The mind boggles. :doh:


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## William (Feb 19, 2008)

Hi Keb

Even Gay and skinny heterosexual Porn is not on the same level as Fat Porn. I find Fat Porn to be far less extreme compared to many other types of Porn.

William




Keb said:


> The only difference between gay rights and fat rights is that if you're fat, you can't hide it. You can't lie about it. The minute someone sees you, they know. In that way, it's far more like racial discrimination or sexual (as in male/female) discrimination than homosexual discrimination. That is not to say that a homosexual person should have to hide it, or should want to...only that it is possible.
> 
> Of course, there are those who would argue that weight is changable and the others are not. If people practiced love for one another and treated all humans as humans, regardless of their specifics, we'd be a lot better off.


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## butch (Feb 19, 2008)

William said:


> Hi
> 
> There is no way to do justice to either Fat Acceptance or Gay Rights in this conversation. The person who interjected Gay Rights into this conversation did so because they felt that Gay Porn was associated with Gay Rights. The truth now that I think of it is that what Gay Fat Porno that I have seen is far less associated with Gay Rights than Fat Porn is to Fat Acceptance. I do not think that I have seen the term GLBT used in Gay Fat Porn, but I have seen the term "Fat Acceptance" used plenty of times in even in the most extreme Fat Porno.
> 
> ...



Again, you're not quite correct. Ekim was the first person to mention gay rights in this thread, not me, and not you. My intention with Ekim and you was only to point out the errors you both hold about gay rights. Is it so hard for you to say you made a mistake or two in characterizing gay rights?

I truly am sorry if you feel like I'm attacking you, but I'm very frustrated with your discourse in this thread. You're using terms like fat porn, fat acceptance, gay rights, BBW, and the like in very monolithic, black and white ways, and what many of us are saying is, these terms, these ideas, are much more nuanced than that, and that one person's porn is another person's tastful art photograph. 

I've been clear that I don't think all porn is AOK, but I've also been clear that people have defined things as pornographic in the gay and fat cultures that aren't pornogrpahic when it comes to the straight, thin culture, and one way to abolish this double standard is not to hide all aspects of fat sexuality in order to gain accpetance, but to educate people by example that there is nothing pornogrpahic about the fat body and the physical intimacy of fat people. This is what the gay culture has done, with some important success, in my opinion.

Bottom line, if the supreme court of the US can only come up with 'I know it when I see it' as a definition of pornography, then I don't think either you or I can make absolute claims about fat porn or gay porn. If I haven't been as nuanced as I would have liked in my usages of the terms and ideas we're discussing here, then I apologize.


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## William (Feb 19, 2008)

Hi Butch

I still feel that if you are going to make a analogy of Gay Rights and Gay Porn then you are not talking about the full spectreme of the Gay Rights Movement or even the Gay Community. I was not focusing on Gay Rights and Porno.

William





butch said:


> William, you didn't bring up gay..........snip


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## William (Feb 19, 2008)

Hi Butch

Well this will be my last post on this subject and to summarize my point of view.

Fat Acceptance is more important than Fat Porn, its is that simple. Out of the hundreds of human rights movements only a tiny faction have an association with Porn and there is no reason for Fat Acceptance to be one of these few. This has nothing to do with the question if Fat Porn should exist, just a comment on the relationship between Fat Acceptance and Fat Porn.

William



butch said:


> Again, you're not quite correct. Ekim was the first person to mention gay rights in this thread, not me, and not you. My intention with Ekim and you was only to point out the errors you both hold about gay rights. Is it so hard for you to say you made a mistake or two in characterizing gay rights?
> 
> I truly am sorry if you feel like I'm attacking you, but I'm very frustrated with your discourse in this thread. You're using terms like fat porn, fat acceptance, gay rights, BBW, and the like in very monolithic, black and white ways, and what many of us are saying is, these terms, these ideas, are much more nuanced than that, and that one person's porn is another person's tastful art photograph.
> 
> ...


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## Fascinita (Feb 19, 2008)

GLBT identity is not separable from "being alive," William. Do you think heterosexual people view being hetero as a "lifestyle choice"? Do heterosexuals see their heterosexuality as a choice that they make somewhere along the way, as if you could pick between random sexualities?


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## Fascinita (Feb 19, 2008)

Keb said:


> The only difference between gay rights and fat rights is that if you're fat, you can't hide it. You can't lie about it. The minute someone sees you, they know. In that way, it's far more like racial discrimination or sexual (as in male/female) discrimination than homosexual discrimination. That is not to say that a homosexual person should have to hide it, or should want to...only that it is possible.
> 
> Of course, there are those who would argue that weight is changable and the others are not. If people practiced love for one another and treated all humans as humans, regardless of their specifics, we'd be a lot better off.



But as soon as you live openly, without hiding the facts of your life, you are just as visible as a GLBT than as a fat person. To random strangers, maybe not. But to the people who employ you, who work with you, who live around you--either you're in or you're out, and if you're out there is often a price to pay.


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## T_Devil (Feb 19, 2008)

Question. Who keeps up with fat porn?

Seriously. Are we talking about something someone seen about 5 or 10 years ago or something that was put out only last week. I'm not talking websites here either. Websites have their own trip. If we are talking about porn, I'm keeping it simple at DVD and Published magazines.

I keep up with it. It's kind of my job, so it's a little bit more than an interest for me. Does Fat Porn hurt the Size Acceptance movement? No more than the Size acceptance movement could hurt itself. Actually, as of lately, it's probobly been more of an influence than anything else.

First example is my favorite magazine, *BODacious*. Heard of it?
Of course! If you haven't, it has generated a buzz by depicting fat girls in the most flattering and visually stunning ways possible. Think Playboy for big women here. Zik (the publisher) has a philosophy that I embrace as well. that philosophy is to show the world what we see and how we as admierers see it. It isn't so much a pornographic context as it is a revealing view into a world that is difficult for people to understand. After they see the girls in the magazine though, they are impressed with what they see.

So we have that going for us.... but if we want to dig into the hardcore porn, we can do that as well.

West Coast Productions has been making BBW Porn for a while now, but they have a man named CJ Wright who is not only a performer, but he is also a director. In a sense of hardcore pornography, the man knows what he's doing. I've seen fat porn come and go, but what is being released these days is a new context to seeing a fat womans sexuality, as well as answering skinny questions like.... "how would that even work?"

sure, there's going to be degrading crap out there, but that's how it goes. If you could ban all of the offensive material, it would still surface in some other form. So some of it is degrading, you can hardly measure the success of a social movement on the demerits of something degrading because degradation is easy. But, if you can make it attractive, well then, you have something there.

BBW Porn will gain even more popularity. This can't be stopped. The photographers, filmmakers, publishers and directors are going to tap further into this culture. Many are going to be a product of it in some form and with that, more noteriety to the size acceptance movement. There are going to be scoffs and critics. They exist just to exist. They will laugh and ridicule and degradate and humiliate. But in spite of their efforts, the mainstream will increasingly embrace the genre. It will have to if they want to remain profitable. Specialty markets are experiencing a tidal wave of popularity, BBW is right on the crest of that wave because of the people in the industry that are taking it seriously right now.

You can tell a lot about a society by examining what turns them on. Porn is a social window into the bedrooms and private lives of people. So, when you know what sells, you know what people desire, even if they are not vocal about it. Money doesn't lie. BBW sells! Because of the internet, it recieved a groundswell of fans and now those fans have taken it off the net and put it into stores as magazines and DVDs.

The size acceptance community is at a crossroads. They can either seperate itself from the adult industry and go about social acceptance on it's own without the aid of an industry that makes billions of dollars a year, or they can embrace it and show the rest of the world that size acceptance accepts how skilled and talented people can make fat sexuality erotic. Personally, I think fat porn ought to be embraced because of the very reason of its popularity. It's getting away from the "side show freakishness" and is being seen as a legitiment form of erotic entertainment. 

The SA movement can do whatever it likes. I'm staying aligned on the porn front. I think that is where the greatest degree of social change and acceptance is going to come from, to be totally honest with you. The acceptance is going to come from the bedroom and it's going to change perceptions. Gone will be the days of the old "fat girl/moped/roll-'em-in-flour
jokes. People will still tell them, but they aren't going to be as funny. Why? Because the joke is going to be told to someone that is not only happy to have a fat girl in their bed, but proud of it because of the porn they watch. Sounds shallow, but so is a beach when you first step into the water. 

It'll take time, but social change is often slow. From what I've seen recently from the industry, we are taking steps in the right direction. That's just my opinion though. Do what you like.


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## Tina (Feb 20, 2008)

T_Devil said:


> You can tell a lot about a society by examining what turns them on. Porn is a social window into the bedrooms and private lives of people. So, when you know what sells, you know what people desire, even if they are not vocal about it.


I disagree with this. Porn wasn't created to mirror real sex lives. It was created to go beyond that, and it has been so ubiquitous that it's rather brainwashed a segment of society who were never interested in, say, being pissed on, to find that sexy. It's not "a window into bedrooms and private lives of people," it is a huge business -- probably larger than just about any other, as a whole, and it thrives at getting more and more extreme in order to keep people interested and paying their money. That's all they care about is the money. It's not real life; it's a construct.


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## Fascinita (Feb 20, 2008)

I feel about porn as I do about cigarettes: It hits the spot, but it's kind of not good for me, too. I look at it from time to time, but it's hard to forget that as a product it is basically built on exploitation of bodies for money. No matter how much I want to see it as "empowering," I can't get away from the fact that, ultimately, it promotes a model of sexuality as commodity, just as it almost always portrays women as objects to be used and discarded. I think its feel-good, liberating potential is far outweighed by the real damage it does.


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## FaxMachine1234 (Feb 20, 2008)

Fascinita said:


> I feel about porn as I do about cigarettes: It hits the spot, but it's kind of not good for me, too. I look at it from time to time, but it's hard to forget that as a product it is basically built on exploitation of bodies for money. No matter how much I want to see it as "empowering," I can't get away from the fact that, ultimately, it promotes a model of sexuality as commodity, just as it almost always portrays women as objects to be used and discarded. I think its feel-good, liberating potential is far outweighed by the real damage it does.



I dunno, I think they're about equal, but again that depends on the context of the person modeling. I'm the most comfortable with models running their own sites, and the least with guys who hire models and control their site in that way. Like with BigCuties, I don't get the feeling the women are being exploited, because a BBW is running the show; same with BBW Pinups. Stuffer31 is, however, different in numerous, negative ways IMO.

EDIT: Oh hey, 500.


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## wrestlingguy (Feb 20, 2008)

William said:


> Hi Butch
> 
> Well this will be my last post on this subject and to summarize my point of view.
> 
> ...


While I'm not trying to drag William back into this discussion, I can speak from my point of view, which may not be as absolute as William's perspective, who is so entrenched in how he feels, he assumes everyone else here agrees with him.

I don't. When I came to Dimensions about 10 years ago, my sexual curiousity was tweaked. I discussed this in my previous post on this thread.
Again, my opinion, but, as time went on, the sexual aspect of my attraction to BBW's was suplemented with the experience of what many fat people go through, and subsequent to that, a better understanding of what the size acceptance movement is all about.

You all know that my wife is a paysite model, yet I rarely post on the paysite board. My tendency is to post everywhere else, as I have more of an urge to comment on issues greater than whose ass is larger than everyone else's.

In a nutshell, while "porn" (and I mean ALL pictures of women here, read my previous post) got me here, fat activism keeps me here.


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## stefanie (Feb 20, 2008)

butch said:


> Today, the current societal view of fat people is that they are not sexy, and a lot of fat people suffer from that view. If I stress that fat sexuality and images of fat sexual behavior have some relevance to fat rights, it is because fat rights isn't just about getting others to accept us fatties, its about making things better for us fatties, and removing the stimga that says fat people aren't desirable and that sex with a fat person is somehow shameful is a very crucial part of making things better for fatties like me.
> 
> Thats a very similar move to what gay people historically have had to respond to-that what they do is somehow unnatural, shameful, disgusting. And it is very interesting to me that, today, gays don't have to fight those battles except with the most hardcore conservatives. But fat people haven't even made a dent in changing the widely accepted view that fat people are disgusting and unnatural. Why is that?



*Butch*, I hope you haven't checked out of the thread permanently, because the question you raise is important and deserves consideration.

If I step on any toes here, or fail to understand something about a particular movement, I am humbly open to correction. Just wanted to get that out.

Sex seems to be tied up in a lot of liberation movements, because sex is so important to most people. Restricting or debasing sex seems to be part of many kinds of oppression. Decades ago, interracial relationships were illegal in some states. Movies like "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" may seem awkward and contrived now, but in the early 1960s they were groundbreaking. James Baldwin and other writers dealt with these questions. 

In the women's movement, there have been a lot of impassioned discussions over sexuality, with widely different views. Again, art and literature played a tremendous role, with huge numbers of women writers (Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, Marge Piercy, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison to name a few) challenging readers to look at women - including women's sexuality, including lesbian sexuality - from new points of view.

Similarly, in the gay movements of the 1960s, there was a tremendous sense (as I see it, as an outsider) that both gay men and gay women, in their own spheres, were going to defy laws and social customs, and come together not only for an end to legal discrimination, but for the right to live their lives *as sexual beings,* as they defined it. For men, the AIDS epidemic changed some views and behavior, but the point still remains that for many gay people, sex and liberation *are* intertwined (hence the phrase, "An army of lovers cannot lose."

So what's different about "fat liberation?" For one thing, while it's pretty hard for fat people to become un-fat, for a small percentage it does work. This gets generalized to the whole, and people say, "You don't *have* to be fat. You could chose *not* to be fat." (It sounds a lot like the pressure on gays from some conservative groups to become not-gay, which to my knowledge really doesn't work.) 

"Passing" was something out of our sad past. It *was* possible for some people of African-American ancestry to pass, but at some terrible costs. For decades, no one wanted to challenge *why* passing would seem necessary to some. Similarly, gay people could live "in the closet" or in a "Boston marriage." Those who stuck their heads too far out of the closet could be committed to mental hospitals and given "therapy" to change. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if some gay people simply fooled the doctors, just to get released.

Not all movements go along at the same rate. In my view, fat acceptance is stuck solidly in the equivalent of the 1950s, so to speak. Many fat people are ashamed of being fat. Many are trying to "pass" as thin or "average" people (i.e. by extreme starvation and exercise.) Many think they're not sexually attractive. Some are seen as hypersexual - but just to have casual sex with, not to date or take as a committed partner (i.e. the horrible practice of "hogging.")

So while I personally don't like porn, and while on my own web site I tend to focus more on the artsy and non-explicit, at the same time I do believe in the "An army of lovers cannot lose" principle. Seeing fat people as desirable lovers *as well as* someone you would be proud to have on your arm, or take to the family reunion, is *equally* important as working for legal and social rights. As feminists used to say, "the personal is political," and I think it is still true.

Finally, I think we need more artists, writers, photographers, movie makers, etc. to portray fat experience *authentically,* not as a freak show, or joke, or expression of "the monstrous," but simply as another part of experience - and that includes sex as well. When a fat man, for instance, can be shown in a romantic-lead position (or a fat woman as a leading lady) *without self-conscious comment or embarrassment,* then you'll know we've really gone somewhere.

The first step, though, is to exorcize the shame.


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## Jon Blaze (Feb 20, 2008)

stefanie said:


> *Snipped*



Best post in here.


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## stefanie (Feb 20, 2008)

Jon Blaze said:


> Best post in here.



Thanks for the comment, and for the rep. I appreciate it.


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## T_Devil (Feb 20, 2008)

Tina said:


> I disagree with this. Porn wasn't created to mirror real sex lives. It was created to go beyond that, and it has been so ubiquitous that it's rather brainwashed a segment of society who were never interested in, say, being pissed on, to find that sexy. It's not "a window into bedrooms and private lives of people," it is a huge business -- probably larger than just about any other, as a whole, and it thrives at getting more and more extreme in order to keep people interested and paying their money. That's all they care about is the money. It's not real life; it's a construct.


You see what you want to see. I work in the business and I see things you don't see. One of those things that is so popular is amature porn. Just regular people with a video camera. _Nobody getting pissed on._

Yeah, take the most extreme thing you can think of and throw it in my face, very nice, but all porn isn't golden showers. Some people are into that, most are not. Most just want to see naked fun. But, whatever. 

If all anyone sees in porn is degradation, then there is absolutly nothing I can say that will get them to even consider otherwise. Too set in their belief that it's nasty. All I can say is that they are wrong. I can't prove it because the subject is arbitrary, but that's how I feel.

I'm outta this thread. I'm just getting frustrated by all of the hypocrisy. It leaves me with a bitter resentment towards _the movement_. Go ahead and think however you want, but wether anyone wants to admit it or not, it does not matter how you feel about it, but porn is a big part of the size acceptance movement because size acceptance is a largly visual thing. All anyone sees is our fat. At least porn makes it look appealing to SOME people.

no, you don't want to know how I really feel.


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## Tina (Feb 20, 2008)

T_Devil said:


> You see what you want to see.


And so do you. I do not claim to be an expert. We're each allowed our opinion. Whether you consider yourself an 'expert' or not that doesn't make your opinion any more valid than mine. You would have to see into everyone's bedrooms in order to have support for your opinion, and that's impossible. There is enough twisted shit out there continuing to earn money to convince me that the extreme and bizarre end of the business is, unfortunately, doing just fine.


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## William (Feb 20, 2008)

Hi WG

You assume a lot about me. I really did not say much about what I thought about Porn, just that it did not belong in association with a Human Rights Movement. Everything else you said is what you assumed about me. 

I also do not assume that everyone agrees with me, that is what makes debating so much fun. There is no need for little snipes, that will just dump a conversation in the Toilet.

William




wrestlingguy said:


> While I'm not trying to drag William back into this discussion, I can speak from my point of view, which may not be as absolute as William's perspective, who is so entrenched in how he feels, he assumes everyone else here agrees with him.
> 
> I don't. When I came to Dimensions about 10 years ago, my sexual curiousity was tweaked. I discussed this in my previous post on this thread.
> Again, my opinion, but, as time went on, the sexual aspect of my attraction to BBW's was suplemented with the experience of what many fat people go through, and subsequent to that, a better understanding of what the size acceptance movement is all about.
> ...


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## William (Feb 20, 2008)

Hi Stefanie

You are so right about Fat Acceptance still being in its infancy, I am always surprised when I meet a new person on my Fat Acceptance Group that is 100% new to Fat Acceptance and who knows how many fat people are out there who are unaware of the Fat Acceptance Community. 

William




stefanie said:


> *Butch*, I hope you haven't checked out of the thread permanently, because the question you raise is important and deserves consideration.
> 
> Snip/Edit


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## EtobicokeFA (Feb 22, 2008)

William said:


> Hi Stefanie
> 
> You are so right about Fat Acceptance still being in its infancy, I am always surprised when I meet a new person on my Fat Acceptance Group that is 100% new to Fat Acceptance and who knows how many fat people are out there who are unaware of the Fat Acceptance Community.
> 
> ...


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## Ashamed (Feb 22, 2008)

EtobicokeFA said:


> Maybe we should brainstorm on ways to get people to aware of the Fat Acceptance Community, specially in a positive way.



Honestly, it will never amount to more than a fringe movement. Mainstream acceptance of obesity will never even come close to the mainstreams acceptance of homosexuals, because with obesity will always be viewed as a choice one made.


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## William (Feb 22, 2008)

Hi Ashamed

That is one reason that I have never been much of Letter writer in regards to my Fat Acceptance, but I do post on Blogs a lot which I see as immediate support for people that need support and it helps me as I do it.

William




Ashamed said:


> Honestly, it will never amount to more than a fringe movement. Mainstream acceptance of obesity will never even come close to the mainstreams acceptance of homosexuals, because with obesity will always be viewed as a choice one made.


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## William (Feb 22, 2008)

Hi EFA

Even if mainstream society never accepts Fat Acceptance, marketers will if they think there is a big enough market. Which is one reason it is good for Fat Acceptance to be a large as possible (not a pun).

William




EtobicokeFA said:


> William said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Stefanie
> ...


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## EtobicokeFA (Feb 25, 2008)

Ashamed said:


> Honestly, it will never amount to more than a fringe movement. Mainstream acceptance of obesity will never even come close to the mainstreams acceptance of homosexuals, because with obesity will always be viewed as a choice one made.



Firstly we shouldn't think of it as the pursuit of acceptance of obesity. It has always been the pursuit of acceptance for fat or plus-size people. 

Secondly, homosexually has been and still is (in some religious circles) to be a matter of choice. Plus they where not always at the level of acceptance they are now. 

Thirdly, while I too get frustrated by the slow pace of the movement, however remember we we already done. Weight discrimination laws in three regions of the United States and a fourth one in the process. 

Depending on where you look, people are slowly learn the being fat is not always a choice. 

Hell, even Weight Watchers have to reinvent their marketing campaign. 

We need to fight for acceptance!


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