Feedism Today - Trends & Developments

[Guest pangzi]

I want to sit down and record my thoughts and opinions on the state of feedism today.  Please share your on thoughts on past, present, and future of feedism.

Things have certainly come a long way since I was boy, and it hasn’t really been that long since then.  Back then you were lucky to hear even the slightest hint that something such as feedism even existed, and that was only on trashy talk shows like the Maury Show.  I didn’t truly know that it was a thing that existed outside of myself until my family got our first computer, and one night up alone I stumbled onto the Freshman 15 Challenge website.  The Internet was a barren place.  There was hardly a place to turn for guys who liked big women, even fewer for guys into feedism and weight gain, save a few Yahoo!Groups.  Feedees?  You could probably name every single known feedee at the time and the list wouldn’t even top 20.

Fast forward to 2016 and there are more feedees than you could possibly count.  There are new feedees joining the scene, posting content, and starting blogs on a daily basis.  Where people were once very closeted about their fetish, and feedees very hesitant to act on their desires, so many people are today are leaping right in wholeheartedly.  At the same time, you see a lot more feedees just casually engaging with their fetish, moving into and out of the lifestyle as their mood changes.  There are more spaces, sites, media, etc. for feedists to connect and network than ever before.  And as the network expands and the amount of content grows, I think people are becoming more comfortable and even enthusiastic about their fetish.

[Guest pangzi]

Concurrently, there’s another interesting trend happening in feedism, one that has to do with the nature of fetish.  In recent years, I’ve seen discussions around the question of whether fetishes or congenital or learned.  Originally, I would have told you that a fetish was something you’re born with.  Now I know that I was wrong.  I think there are feedists by nature: they were born that way and will always be that way.  But there’s also a growing group of individuals who, although they had previously never had any attraction to feedism whatsoever, have been turned on to feedism through a significant other or elsewhere.

Extending from this, I also think that non-feedists today are more open to experimenting with feedism than ever before.  10 years ago, if guy popped up on Curvage telling everyone that he was going to tell his girlfriend about his fetish and ask if she might be interesting in putting on some weight…  well, it would have been good luck to you buddy, but expect to be majorly disappointed.  It usually didn’t go over too well, unless you got very lucky.

Today, if that same guy signed on to Curvage saying the exact same thing, it would be a rather different story.  I’d tell him to go for it.  I’d tell him there’s a decent chance she’ll be willing to experiment with him, as well as a decent chance that she’ll actually enjoy it.

This trend runs parallel to people’s growing recognition and acceptance of sexual kinks in general.  Younger generations have been exposed to all manner of sexual fetishes, paraphilias, kinks, etc.  It’s often assumed that almost everyone has their own unique taste in sex that sets them apart from the rest.

[Guest pangzi]

While I don’t expect feedism to go mainstream, I do expect society to become considerably more accepting of feedism (especially when they finally learn that feedism isn’t all about sleazy dudes force feeding women to immobility).  This is largely due to the fact that, while most individuals are not feedists by nature, our culture is actually adopting many of the same values that feedism embraces.  Not to mention the fact that people will come to realize and accept that, just as many people lose weight to achieve their ideal bodies, others actually gain weight to achieve theirs.

Humans, by nature, love food.  We need it.  And while food was once scarce and hard to come by and humans obsessed over food simply because constantly worrying about food was necessary for survival, today it is abundant, and yet we’re nevertheless more obsessed with food than ever before.  We have access to more calories in more varieties of tastes and styles with more ease than ever before.  Society is adopting “foodie” culture: so much food, so little time, and such limited room in our stomachs!  Today, we eat food, talk about food, critique food, compare food, cook food, get excited about new restaurants, new fusions, new methods of cooking, new twists on old classics, new forms of snacks, new flavors of existing snacks; we photograph food, watch shows about food, browse food porn, read about food, blog about food… You get the idea.  Despite the ease with which we obtain food, I don’t think humans have ever spent more time thinking about food than they do today.  For some, an “eat to live” mentality is being supplanted by a “live to eat” attitude.  As a result, we are, on the whole, getting chubbier and chubbier.

Written into this foodie culture, is a trend that isn’t written about or discussed as often, but exists nonetheless: food positivity.  Similar to body positivity, a major component of which is actually fat positivity, food positivity says that it’s okay to love food, it’s okay to eat what you want, when you want, and however much you want.  It says that you shouldn’t feel ashamed for eating the foods you love, even if they’re fattening or not particularly healthy.  Of course, like body positivity, food positivity does not exclude health positivity.  This concern for health differs from the health consciousness of the past in that it turns it’s back on health for cosmetic reasons and also abandons the oppressive slogan of “diet and exercise” in favor of the more positive affirmation of “donuts and exercise.”  This trend can also be seen in the current slogan/hashtag #healthyisthenewskinny.

[Guest pangzi]

Left and right, people are rejecting the idea, as phrased by Kate Moss, that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”  People have been trying to keep skinny for decades with little success. Many who have tasted how skinny feels found it to be miserable, unsatisfying, and damaging to their psyche.  They finally obtained skinny, only to find themselves unhappier than they were before.  And so many have found that, in actuality, everything tastes better than skinny feels.  A chubby figure isn’t too great a price to pay for eating happily.  Especially when there’s no shame in having chubby thighs and plump belly.  Chubby thighs and a plump belly can be delightful and lovable!  So why not have your cake and love your soft, fluffy body?  All in all, many are happier and more content doing so than dieting and endeavoring to achieve a slim, sleek physique.  Health and exercise are good, but don’t scorn dessert!  Jog, get your cardio in, do yoga, do weight training, but do also treat yourself to a good burger and fries.

And so, why are people becoming more willing to give feedism and weight gain a try?  With the ascent of body positivity, the stigma of fat is being eroded.  And with the stigma of fat being eroded, potential feedees and gainers are less frightened by the idea of gaining weight.  One aspect of feedism has always been attractive to nearly everyone: eating whatever you want.  A second aspect, getting fat, is what frightened people from experimenting with it.  But now that getting fat is so commonplace and generally not as negative an experience as it once was seen, I think that a greater number of people are likely to get excited about or turned onto feedism than there were before.

It also helps that people in general are chubby and getting chubbier outside the feedist community.  When chubby is the norm, becoming chubby is much less distressing.  What happens when a skinny girl gain weight?  She simply joins the majority.  It’s harder for people to criticize your weight when everybody else is heavy too.  Maybe some people feel okay with feedism because they figure they’re probably going to get fat anyway?

 

That's all for now.  Let me know what you think!  

[riptoryx]

10 hours ago, pangzi said:

One aspect of feedism has always been attractive to nearly everyone: eating whatever you want.  A second aspect, getting fat, is what frightened people from experimenting with it.  But now that getting fat is so commonplace and generally not as negative an experience as it once was seen, I think that a greater number of people are likely to get excited about or turned onto feedism than there were before.

It also helps that people in general are chubby and getting chubbier outside the feedist community.  When chubby is the norm, becoming chubby is much less distressing.  What happens when a skinny girl gain weight?  She simply joins the majority.  It’s harder for people to criticize your weight when everybody else is heavy too.  Maybe some people feel okay with feedism because they figure they’re probably going to get fat anyway?

And yet there remains--as ever--a non-trivial segment of the "feedism" community for whom the various negative or otherwise taboo aspects of weight gain present not a barrier to realization of kinky pleasures but rather an essential component of that pleasure.  A larger and more broadly participatory community means more opportunities for diverging preferences and opinions to clash--particularly around subjects like "body positivity" and what are (or are not) acceptable expressions of preference. 

[Guest pangzi]

11 hours ago, riptoryx said:

And yet there remains--as ever--a non-trivial segment of the "feedism" community for whom the various negative or otherwise taboo aspects of weight gain present not a barrier to realization of kinky pleasures but rather an essential component of that pleasure.  A larger and more broadly participatory community means more opportunities for diverging preferences and opinions to clash--particularly around subjects like "body positivity" and what are (or are not) acceptable expressions of preference. 

That's true.  

And yeah, there are several women I can think of who are active in both the feedism and body positive community.  They do seem to have difficulty convincing many fellow body positive advocates that feedism is a legitimate lifestyle choice.  Regardless, I think a multiplication of opinions and general increase in discussion of these topics is a positive trend.  There are certain to be more clashes, but only because more people are talking about it more often.  Discourse and debate is healthy for any community.  I'm quite excited about the growing plurality of preferences and opinions in the feedism community.

[bbwlover217]

This was actually a pretty interesting read.The more I think about it now, the more I think it would interesting for someone to compile a history of the fetish. I would try, but I've only really been into it since 2008 when I was pretty young. I think someone older than me would do it more justice. 

[Guest chunkluva]

The culture is changing and for the better! But are we near the point where someone will say "I gained 20 pounds and love it!" I think in the future it could become acceptable!