Baby Robot
Active Member
This post is a fairly general pondering of fat sociology and history, but I started it as a response to the question, "Can someone become a feeder/feedee, or is something that's there from birth?"
It can be done, and I'm living proof. There's obviously no single standard for female beauty worldwide. There's a dominant one, sure, for white, blonde, blue-eyed members of the Swedish bikini team, but people find sexiness in rebellions from that image, regardless of the politics of their choice (e.g. white American men tend to fetishize the "otherness" of Latinas in America, believing them to be more passionate, or Asian women, feeling there's something about them that's more submissive and obedient.) With the way that beauty standards have changed so rapidly on a historical scale, genetics don't nearly play as big a part in what we find attractive as we might think. That's not to say there aren't biological proclivities that feeder/feedees tap into in our own little kink, but it's hardly as cut and dried an issue as "feeder/feedees are born, not made."
For instance, previous beauty ideals tended to lift up the economically unattainable and reinforce a class system which dictates that the wealthiest people are also the most attractive and desirable. When Western society was primarily agricultural, the poorest members (men and women) of that society were out in the fields all day under the sun and didn't always have much to eat, becoming tan and lean as a result. Not surprisingly, the dominant beauty image at the time for women was fair skin and plump curves. When the opposite began to come true in post-WWII America, with farming diminishing as a viable occupational avenue and men making enough money to let their women grow plump and fair in a booming economy, the paradigm radically shifted again; within ten years we had Twiggy and a similarly slim crop of models. Unfortunately as a culture we have a staggeringly short memory when it comes to determining what we find attractive. Now we talk about "classic beauty" as being something that started in the 1940s.
However, even this is shifting again. With gyms and diets and tanning salons available fairly cheap, the "tan and skinny" look is becoming more accessible to more people. Too accessible in fact, to be significant as an indicator of economic success. As a result, the beauty image is shifting to now idolize youth, with treatments to keep one's skin forever young and beautiful and paralyzed with toxins appropriately expensive so that only the wealthy can afford it.
Fat Admiration in general and Feeder/Feedee in particular reject this standard and therefore are kinks with a political dimension, although not always one that is acknowledged. I'd say there is a greater proportion of pro-fat activism because fat is not always a voluntary aspect of one's life, and fat is much more visible a kink (for those who find it kinky) than, say, being a furry. This is especially true for gainers. As anyone who's come back from college 30 pounds heavier than when their family last saw them, there are intense personal and public pressures to lose weight, coming from people we love (our families) and people we've been conditioned to trust (our doctors.)
When I mentioned biology up front, it's because despite all the societal conditioning against fat people, we've got most of the biology on our side. Human dietary patterns until the rise of agriculture has been feast and famine, such as when a large animal was killed or when trees dropped their fruit. As such, since our stomachs could only hold so much at one time, we developed an evolutionary taste for sugar and fat, where we could get the most energy from in times of famine. We're also biologically programmed to look for prosperity as determined by how much food one had as determined by how fat people are, so the next time someone says they aren't into fat girls/guys, they're lying, either to you or to themselves. We're also attracted to youth, which implies longer fertility and greater yields of genetic survival, which I feel (although I have no statistically significant data to go off of) explains the fetishization of phenotypes prevalent in youth: blonde hair and blue eyes.
This post is already insanely long, but I think it serves to illustrate that if you've tossed off the shackles of feeling guilty about being fat, you're a revolutionary. The most insidious aspect of this system is that it is self perpetuating; the next generation of people will have to deal with the same oppressive body image conditioning, if not a more vicious and malevolent form of it. So take up the pudgy flag, and say it loud: I'm fat, and I'm proud! (or "I like fat people, and I'm proud!")
It can be done, and I'm living proof. There's obviously no single standard for female beauty worldwide. There's a dominant one, sure, for white, blonde, blue-eyed members of the Swedish bikini team, but people find sexiness in rebellions from that image, regardless of the politics of their choice (e.g. white American men tend to fetishize the "otherness" of Latinas in America, believing them to be more passionate, or Asian women, feeling there's something about them that's more submissive and obedient.) With the way that beauty standards have changed so rapidly on a historical scale, genetics don't nearly play as big a part in what we find attractive as we might think. That's not to say there aren't biological proclivities that feeder/feedees tap into in our own little kink, but it's hardly as cut and dried an issue as "feeder/feedees are born, not made."
For instance, previous beauty ideals tended to lift up the economically unattainable and reinforce a class system which dictates that the wealthiest people are also the most attractive and desirable. When Western society was primarily agricultural, the poorest members (men and women) of that society were out in the fields all day under the sun and didn't always have much to eat, becoming tan and lean as a result. Not surprisingly, the dominant beauty image at the time for women was fair skin and plump curves. When the opposite began to come true in post-WWII America, with farming diminishing as a viable occupational avenue and men making enough money to let their women grow plump and fair in a booming economy, the paradigm radically shifted again; within ten years we had Twiggy and a similarly slim crop of models. Unfortunately as a culture we have a staggeringly short memory when it comes to determining what we find attractive. Now we talk about "classic beauty" as being something that started in the 1940s.
However, even this is shifting again. With gyms and diets and tanning salons available fairly cheap, the "tan and skinny" look is becoming more accessible to more people. Too accessible in fact, to be significant as an indicator of economic success. As a result, the beauty image is shifting to now idolize youth, with treatments to keep one's skin forever young and beautiful and paralyzed with toxins appropriately expensive so that only the wealthy can afford it.
Fat Admiration in general and Feeder/Feedee in particular reject this standard and therefore are kinks with a political dimension, although not always one that is acknowledged. I'd say there is a greater proportion of pro-fat activism because fat is not always a voluntary aspect of one's life, and fat is much more visible a kink (for those who find it kinky) than, say, being a furry. This is especially true for gainers. As anyone who's come back from college 30 pounds heavier than when their family last saw them, there are intense personal and public pressures to lose weight, coming from people we love (our families) and people we've been conditioned to trust (our doctors.)
When I mentioned biology up front, it's because despite all the societal conditioning against fat people, we've got most of the biology on our side. Human dietary patterns until the rise of agriculture has been feast and famine, such as when a large animal was killed or when trees dropped their fruit. As such, since our stomachs could only hold so much at one time, we developed an evolutionary taste for sugar and fat, where we could get the most energy from in times of famine. We're also biologically programmed to look for prosperity as determined by how much food one had as determined by how fat people are, so the next time someone says they aren't into fat girls/guys, they're lying, either to you or to themselves. We're also attracted to youth, which implies longer fertility and greater yields of genetic survival, which I feel (although I have no statistically significant data to go off of) explains the fetishization of phenotypes prevalent in youth: blonde hair and blue eyes.
This post is already insanely long, but I think it serves to illustrate that if you've tossed off the shackles of feeling guilty about being fat, you're a revolutionary. The most insidious aspect of this system is that it is self perpetuating; the next generation of people will have to deal with the same oppressive body image conditioning, if not a more vicious and malevolent form of it. So take up the pudgy flag, and say it loud: I'm fat, and I'm proud! (or "I like fat people, and I'm proud!")
