Fat Acceptance - 21st Century Zeitgeist?

[Guest]

So, I've noticed that discussions on Curvage aren't as vibrant as they once were, and the main role the site has played through the years, a depository of images of curvy/chubby women with a heavy emphasis on weight gain/feedist fetish, isn't as crucial or effective as it once was.

These days, there's such an abundance of beautiful curvy women on the web that it's likely seen by many as a large waste of time of reposting material here.  And because there's so much the task is also daunting.  I mean, where does one stop?!  There are so many beautiful fat girls today that it's absolutely impossible to share them all.

So I thought to myself, maybe Curvage's role is less important simply because we're living in a golden age of food, fat, and feedism.

A lot of guys used to scour the Internet for photographic evidence of a pretty girl's weight gain.  Today, I come across so much material that I usually don't even bother posting.  Give me 5 seconds and I'll find you a thousand gorgeous fat girls.  Give me just a minute more and they'll be plenty of girls who have gained significant weight in just the last couple years.

And the trend applies to feedism too.  Is anyone else old enough to remember when there were like 10 existing feedees on the Internet?  Head over to Tumblr now, and new feedees are starting blogs everyday!  And even outside the strict feedist fetish community, a lot of girls these days are so food and fat positive that you can hardly tell the difference from a true feedee/gainer and just a fat foodie.  Content that once would be seen only on the most hardcore feedee blogs, is now regularly being reposted by girls who simply love their body and love to eat.

Many aspects of the once fringe fat acceptance community and even of the feedist community have been making inroads, slowly becoming internalized by mainstream culture. 

It seems our culture is becoming rather blasé about weight gain and the body positivity movement has been increasing at a surprising rate.  While there are plenty of voices still raising concerns, it seems the zeitgeist of today is one of increasing acceptance of fat and obesity.

What do you think?

[OscarWinner]

I wouldn't say we're mainstream, yet. But as long as we go mainstream in an organic "this is what we're into to varying degrees and you may actually find that what we do is largely kinda cool" type of way.

If we go further mainstream hopefully we avoid this SJW type of movement where we shill anything tangible, and worse, demand unreasonable accommodations from society as a whole in every way, even from children, or preach utter supremacy from us and inferiority from the current standard. You know what I mean, i.e. Feminists, LGBT, BlackLivesMatter, Vegans/animal rights, public breast feeding advocates, etc. All they've done lately is give people the temptations and the reasons to hate them.

You don't have to be outspoken, just persuasive. If you want a presence, make your own presence and don't demand it from others - websites like these certainly help. Be persuasive by being yourself and comfortable, not smug and not smarmy. Pique interest, not annoyance.

[Serfontein]

Meanwhile in the UK, this was on the radio today:

"Obesity in women 'as dangerous as terror threat': Extraordinary claim by health chief as she uses speech to demand condition is added to list of emergency threats"

Dame Sally Davies

[Guest]

I suppose it would be more accurate to say we're living through the "fat wars".  Most recently, however, the fat-positive side has made huge advances.

[hiro]

If we go further mainstream hopefully we avoid this SJW type of movement where we shill anything tangible, and worse, demand unreasonable accommodations from society as a whole in every way, even from children, or preach utter supremacy from us and inferiority from the current standard. You know what I mean, i.e. Feminists, LGBT, BlackLivesMatter, Vegans/animal rights, public breast feeding advocates, etc. All they've done lately is give people the temptations and the reasons to hate them.

Shill anything tangible? What does that mean? ("Shill" means to give a fake endorsement. "Tangible" means something you can touch.)

[OscarWinner]

Shill anything tangible? What does that mean? ("Shill" means to give a fake endorsement. "Tangible" means something you can touch.)

They sell t-shirts and hats (like FCKH8), bracelets, naked "celeb" photoshoots (like PETA), crappy microaggression-inspired artwork from unknown indie artists who attach themselves to the movement in question, etc.

[lostonline040]

In twenty years there'll be a backlash as the pendulum swings the other way and well see FitLife movements and athleticism come back in vogue and then well die just in time for it to come back to the FatLove fad

So Ehh, lets enjoy it while it lasts.

[Batman76]

Main argument against that is that once someone is fat, statistically they're fat forever. And given how the obesity rate has done nothing but rise, to the point that fit states are ones that only have 1/4 of the population overweight, I doubt it's going away.

[Guest]

Our size and weight depends principally on our food supply.  Currently we have a caloric surplus, which we're able to tap into easily and with little expense in energy.  As such, we're fat and getting fatter.  So, a disaster such as famine would be the quickest way to bring humankind's weight down.  But, barring famine, I  think the future of our weight depends primarily on advancements in medicine.  If people keep getting bigger and we have huge percentages of the population with major diabetes complications, then I think people are going to start rethinking fat acceptance.  On the other hand, if medicine makes diabetes, and other related health problems, an easily manageable condition, then I think more people will come to accept fatness as part of the human condition.

Culture does swing back and forth, but I agree that culture isn't very effective at weight control.  In the last half-century, we've had a very vibrant diet and weight loss culture, yet people just kept getting bigger.  We were expecting culture to override basic biology.  But give a population of mice abundant food and they get fat; take away their food and they become thin.  We can't always expect humans to be so much more intellectually sophisticated that we're not bound by these basic rules of biology.  There are exceptions, of course.  Japan has effectively used culture to resist weight gain.  But Japan is a special case, a country with a very strong conformist culture that can effectively pressure its population to keep thin.

But, yes, statistically it is easier to become fat than to become thin.  And as there are more and more fat parents, who statistically have fat children, the effect snowballs.  So again, barring famine, or an unforeseen development in technology that makes it easy for people to lose/control weight (which is absolutely possible), I think we can expect to stay fat for some time.

[Guest grateful]

Zeitgeist!  One of Charlie Rose's favorite words.

Because of the opportunity for $$ on the net a branch of the world's oldest profession has many providers.

For the genuine FA craving to replay the GFE or BFE in this arena is still very much interested in genuine feedees.

We love to hear from those who crave to grow as much as we want them to.

Regardless of size acceptance and pot bellied girls all over the place now in RL, I think there are still niches that are best addressed in a special community of like thinkers.

Just the idea of wanting to fatten somebody, for real, is still somewhat of an outlaw postition and I don't think trying to get fatter or wanting someone to do so is ever going to be main stream.

I think the Curvage still serves a great purpose for our gathering and discussing and sharing and yes, looking too and it's not over yet and probably won't be for some time unless the genetic code changes.

Thank you for your post. This discussion wouldn't do well in other venues and I'm glad we can have it here.

Thanks to superJ and all the others who help keep this going.

[Guest The Costco Guy]

^ Couldn't agree more. Society tends to favour the more difficult to attain physique. In times of depression, or when food is scarce, men tend to favour a more curvy figure in women. However, nowadays when food is plentiful, The mass media, and men around the world prefer a more slender, boyish figure. For some reason, as of late this trend has been breaking, and more and more men prefer a slightly curvier figure, I'm no sociologist, but that seems odd, but it could certainly be positive.

[Guest]

For some reason, as of late this trend has been breaking, and more and more men prefer a slightly curvier figure, I'm no sociologist, but that seems odd, but it could certainly be positive.

It does seem that way, doesn't it?  I wonder if it's only an illusion, though.  Are more men preferring curvier figures or are men becoming more open about their preference for curvier figures?

There are some women about whom, if you asked a man if she was attractive in 1990, they'd likely say she might be attractive if she lost some weight, make a joke about her being chubby, or beat around the bush to avoid answering the question.  In 2015, if you asked men about the same woman, a much larger portion of them would simply tell you she's hot.

I think men go after what's available, but I doubt a little that their innate preferences shift...

[kururu]

I do not think it's become part of the zeitgeist (alas!). The content explosion on the internet is for the same reasons as many other fetishes, it has given people reason to connect. Also, as has been pointed out, people are getting bigger, and that's positive too. But think for a second of your social circles, at least here in Europe most people would think liking bigger girls is an anomaly, the health & fitness cult is alive and well, and people gaining weight is still perceived negatively. It is possible though that it may enter the zeitgeist, skinny preference is only a modern phenomenon, but I said it hasn't happened yet.

[Guest An Optimist]

It's never going to be mainstream and attractive and all that, because getting fat doesn't really take any effort for majority of people, and it doesn't signal status anymor.  It's more of a signal of addiction now.

Only in a completely morally perverse society would value it. Best you lot(1) can hope is grudging acceptance.

Whereas being fit does take effort and some thought in this weird modern world.

(1) while I admire fat women, up to a point, I believe fat acceptance as envisioned at present is  wrong and probably harmful.

[Guest]

It's never going to be mainstream and attractive and all that, because getting fat doesn't really take any effort for majority of people, and it doesn't signal status anymor.  It's more of a signal of addiction now.

Only in a completely morally perverse society would value it. Best you lot(1) can hope is grudging acceptance.

Whereas being fit does take effort and some thought in this weird modern world.

(1) while I admire fat women, up to a point, I believe fat acceptance as envisioned at present is  wrong and probably harmful.

While the "movement" itself isn't likely to be practiced by the majority or become status quo, the acceptance of fat has grown from trickle to a steady stream.  It's rising not as a result of a concerted effort, but due to an organic groundswell.  Fat is becoming more acceptable simply because there are so many fat people today.  When somewhere between two-third and three quarters of a population is some degree of fat, it's hard to maintain a culture that says fat is bad.  That would make the vast majority of a population "bad."  Of course, there is still a division of obesity along socio-economic lines, and it is people of higher status who shape much of our culture.  Nonetheless, culture has a way of moving up then down then up again, from the lower classes to the upper, always in transition.  Then again, due to the Internet, the development of culture is different now and doesn't operate by all the same rules as before.

I agree and disagree that fat is a symbol of addiction.  I'm not sure, however, if you're referring to specific addictions.  Are we addicted to the Internet and modern technology?  Yes, maybe we are.  But don't expect that change.  Humans have a tendency to assimilate many addictions into regular features of everyday human life.  The Internet and machines aren't going anywhere.  It can be terrifying and upsetting, but things are always in flux, always moving forward rather than back.  Humankind is likely to spent much of their life from this point on glued to computers and mobile devices.  Human society is changing drastically, and all of this "tech addiction" is set to become status quo: a new backbone of human society. 

If we're talking food addiction, while acute cases of it certainly do exist, the majority of fat people didn't become fat as result of it.  Did they become fat because they ate a lot?  Yes.  Did they eat a lot because of an addiction?  No.  Take any population of organisms, mammals in particular, and increase their food supply.  What happens?  The population gets fatter.  Organisms consume available resources.  When food is abundant, they eat food in abundance, and become abundant in size.  You can argue that calorically dense, high-sugar, high-fat foods are manufactured drugs.  Cake may be addicting, but it's also one of humanity's technological achievements, and was thousands of years in the making.  It is now ubiquitous, and some form of it exists in nearly every culture and every geographic location on the planet.  Cake may be an addicting drug of sorts, but it's not going anywhere.  It's another "addiction" that has become a regular feature of human society.

Next line of order: waving your hand and dismissing society as weird and morally perverse isn't saying anything.  Your opinions on morality and perversion or highly personal, and would need to be explained more fully.  While bombast may provoke discussion, it doesn’t provide much substance.  There’s not a lot there to actually agree with or argue against.  If you want attention, you’ll get it, but if you’re aiming to convince us, you need more real content in your argument.

Grudging acceptance?  Well, that’s not far off.  It’s acceptance after the fact: accepting fat after we’ve already become fat.  But that excludes cultural momentum and what effect current levels of tolerance toward obesity will have on the future.

Being fit does take thought and effort, sure.  But you’re making it sound like humanity is just wallowing around accomplishing nothing.  Human civilization is likely busier and more active than ever before, even if many people are fatter and physically moving less.  Energy and attention is simply being refocused elsewhere.

You say that fat acceptance is probably harmful, but remember that the fat acceptance movement proper grew from the need to reduce harm.  It came into being as a means to end self-hatred, reduce psychological trauma, and promote healthful living, even if that seem contradictory to you.

While human beings, as a whole, would be healthier if no one was obese, that doesn’t change the fact that fatness has become a common feature of human society.  Accompanying the rise in obesity has been a reduction in mortality and increase in longevity.  People would likely live longer if there was no obesity.  Nevertheless, the very factors that led to our increased longevity also made us fat.  Fat is unhealthy, and yet, humans are both fatter and healthier than ever before.  Not healthier because we're fat, but healthier nonetheless.  It’s hard to say how this will continue to play out in the future.

[Guest _Antipathy]

On 20/12/2015 at 11:38 AM, lostonline040 said:

In twenty years there'll be a backlash as the pendulum swings the other way and well see FitLife movements and athleticism come back in vogue and then well die just in time for it to come back to the FatLove fad

So Ehh, lets enjoy it while it lasts.

I doubt that'll ever happen, for a few reasons.

1. We're naturally lazy and most people would prefer getting fat rather than changing their habits. Men care little about their appearance and are perfectly fine with carrying a keg around if it means being able to enjoy eating as much as they want, drinking beer and spending the evenings sitting in front of the TV watching sports. For women it's different, they care a lot about their appearance but instead of losing weight they'll adapt their clothes and buy a bigger size, wearing corsets or loose clothes to hide their potbelly. Replacing your fave ice cream with vegetables and other healthy snacks would mean less pleasure. Getting dressed and going out running or to the gym would also be a pain in the ass when you could stay at home doing more enjoyable and relaxing activities. There's also the excuses such as "I don't have time", "I'm not that fat", "genetics, "I still eat healthy and do sports". The only time I've seen people lose weight was when they got heart problems.
2. It's OK to gain weight and become fat. While love handles and chubby thighs may still not be a common sight in women's magazines, we're getting close to that with fat acceptance as well as the fact that now skinny people are the minority. It's considered normal for a woman to get fat after pregnancy or when reaching a certain age. When she'll visit her friends she won't be concerned by her weight as her friends will also be overweight. If you walk around the street, you'll often see more fat people than thin people. Fat activists and SJW are making women believe that fat is ok and beautiful. There's plenty of images and websites showing slightly chubby women and claiming they're "real and healthy" beauties. As time will pass on and people will get even fatter, so will these "real" beauties. There's also the plus size industry which is quickly growing and giving confidence to big women. Political correctness also makes it hard to criticize fat people, be it for health or just looks.
3. The Fitness Community is weak. While surely bigger than the fat fetishist community as well as the fact activists, it's way less active when it comes to promoting their own standards of beauty. As they're not insecure and get sex often (unlike the fact activists which can be really ugly) they hardly ever bitch about how the beauty standards are oppressive and stuff like that. Although fat hate threads are very popular on some places such as 4chan fit, reddit (now removed) or the misc, they're just fat hate threads. The users will post pictures of obese people and mock them, but won't take action with blogs or in real life. There's also the political correctness which will prevent them from doing anything as they're "promoting hate". Another reason the community is weak is because of all the lies. Nearly all of the fitness models use steroids and care little about their clients, and will give them copy-pasted routines and diet plans. Female fitness models are the same, except that they're anorexic and have their tits and asses full of silicone (like Paige Hathaway). And as the average person knows nothing at all about fitness, they'll try to reach these bodies when they won't be able to.

From left to right, a woman who isn't concerned by her growing curves and belly, 2 "real" beauties looking quite soft and finally a video about how a steroid user makes you believe he's natural.

 

 

 

 

[Guest An Optimist]

17 hours ago, _Antipathy said:

I doubt that'll ever happen, for a few reasons.

1. We're naturally lazy and most people would prefer getting fat rather than changing their habits. Men care little about their appearance and are perfectly fine with carrying a keg around if it means being able to enjoy eating as much as they want, drinking beer and spending the evenings sitting in front of the TV watching sports. For women it's different, they care a lot about their appearance but instead of losing weight they'll adapt their clothes and buy a bigger size, wearing corsets or loose clothes to hide their potbelly. Replacing your fave ice cream with vegetables and other healthy snacks would mean less pleasure. Getting dressed and going out running or to the gym would also be a pain in the ass when you could stay at home doing more enjoyable and relaxing activities. There's also the excuses such as "I don't have time", "I'm not that fat", "genetics, "I still eat healthy and do sports". The only time I've seen people lose weight was when they got heart problems.
2. It's OK to gain weight and become fat. While love handles and chubby thighs may still not be a common sight in women's magazines, we're getting close to that with fat acceptance as well as the fact that now skinny people are the minority. It's considered normal for a woman to get fat after pregnancy or when reaching a certain age. When she'll visit her friends she won't be concerned by her weight as her friends will also be overweight. If you walk around the street, you'll often see more fat people than thin people. Fat activists and SJW are making women believe that fat is ok and beautiful. There's plenty of images and websites showing slightly chubby women and claiming they're "real and healthy" beauties. As time will pass on and people will get even fatter, so will these "real" beauties. There's also the plus size industry which is quickly growing and giving confidence to big women. Political correctness also makes it hard to criticize fat people, be it for health or just looks.
3. The Fitness Community is weak. While surely bigger than the fat fetishist community as well as the fact activists, it's way less active when it comes to promoting their own standards of beauty. As they're not insecure and get sex often (unlike the fact activists which can be really ugly) they hardly ever bitch about how the beauty standards are oppressive and stuff like that. Although fat hate threads are very popular on some places such as 4chan fit, reddit (now removed) or the misc, they're just fat hate threads. The users will post pictures of obese people and mock them, but won't take action with blogs or in real life. There's also the political correctness which will prevent them from doing anything as they're "promoting hate". Another reason the community is weak is because of all the lies. Nearly all of the fitness models use steroids and care little about their clients, and will give them copy-pasted routines and diet plans. Female fitness models are the same, except that they're anorexic and have their tits and asses full of silicone (like Paige Hathaway). And as the average person knows nothing at all about fitness, they'll try to reach these bodies when they won't be able to.

From left to right, a woman who isn't concerned by her growing curves and belly, 2 "real" beauties looking quite soft and finally a video about how a steroid user makes you believe he's natural.

 

Dude, get real.


Not eating like shit and being fit leads to feeling subjectively better. Not everyone likes to stuff themselves full of food and then lay on the couch in a food coma..

And you can't make people believe 'fat is beautiful'. Except for the odd fetishists, they'll always go for someone who looks healthy.

Also: you forget about status. Anything that's easy to get has no value. Being a couch potato is never going to be seen as something to aspire to or worth emulating.


 

[Guest _Antipathy]

5 hours ago, An Optimist said:

Not eating like shit and being fit leads to feeling subjectively better. Not everyone likes to stuff themselves full of food and then lay on the couch in a food coma.

While that statement being true, the people who exercise on a regular basis are a tiny minority. Also, I didn't imply stuffing yourself to death but rather eating food you'd enjoy, such as soda, cake, chocolate, fast food, etc.

5 hours ago, An Optimist said:

And you can't make people believe 'fat is beautiful'. Except for the odd fetishists, they'll always go for someone who looks healthy.

Also: you forget about status. Anything that's easy to get has no value. Being a couch potato is never going to be seen as something to aspire to or worth emulating.

Yeah but fat activists are already doing that. They minimize the effects of being overweight, glorify obese women like Tess Munster who is really popular, etc. If you ever say that being fat isn't good they'll have plenty of excuses, even if I don't know how you can be healthy without being able to run, do push ups or pull ups.

While a muscular and toned body will be more popular, I've already said that people are lazy and won't bother trying to achieve it. If they wanted it that badly, you'd already see the streets filled with perfectly slim women and strong-looking men. Fat positivity + "real" beauty (such as Dove's campaign) get a lot of approval from women who'd rather look up to these slightly chubby women instead of the anorexic models you see on the catwalks.

If it was easy everybody would do it.

 

 

[Heart and Mind]

2 hours ago, _Antipathy said:

If it was easy everybody would do it.

 

 

Hehe. So tell me, how's the guy on the right been doing lately? 

[Guest _Antipathy]

2 hours ago, Heart & Mind said:

Hehe. So tell me, how's the guy on the right been doing lately? 

He died back in 2011, too much gear and drugs.

The official excuse from his brother was a heart disease.

[Guest An Optimist]

On 1/11/2016 at 3:29 PM, _Antipathy said:

 

Yeah but fat activists are already doing that. They minimize the effects of being overweight, glorify obese women like Tess Munster who is really popular, etc. If you ever say that being fat isn't good they'll have plenty of excuses, even if I don't know how you can be healthy without being able to run, do push ups or pull ups.

 

 

Ok, but what % of people don't consider fat activists to be deluded idiots? 

[Guest _Antipathy]

1 hour ago, An Optimist said:

Ok, but what % of people don't consider fat activists to be deluded idiots? 

Most men think they're ridicule but they're really popular among american women. In first wold countries where everybody's getting fat you see more and more shit like this about body positivity and fat acceptance.

 

[Guest]

We should also remember that people aren't fat as a result of fat positivity.  Fat positivity exists because people are fat.  Of course, that doesn't mean that this trend hasn't gotten to the point where it's beginning to reinforce fatness and weight gain, making it more likely that people will become or remain fat.

What I've gathered so far, is that both of you, An Optimist and _Antipathy, regard body/fat positivity as a wholly negative trend.  Is that right?  If so, why?

[bluetech]

I think a lot of people are confusing/conflating the fat acceptance movement with the acceptance of fat. I think that as more people become fat, the general acceptance of being fat will increase, even if the fat acceptance movement does not. In a way, among the younger generations, fat will become like just another body trait. As an analogy, while there are people who consider being blonde beautiful and desirable to the point where they strive to make themselves blonder or seek out blondes romantically, there are others to whom being blonde is simply a neutral attribute of who a person happens to be. Yet very few people are repulsed at the idea of blondes, being blond, or being with a blonde. They simply 'accept' blondness. So it will become, I believe, with being fat. 

[Guest An Optimist]

23 hours ago, _Antipathy said:

Most men think they're ridicule but they're really popular among american women. In first wold countries where everybody's getting fat you see more and more shit like this about body positivity and fat acceptance.

 

Just wait till cash-starved gov't decide to tax fatness.