Tuesday, March 31, 2009

I know it's just a simple question but... Do you have any tips for someone who told their girlfriend about their sexuality from the get-go and wants to convince her that it's actually not that important to him? I've covered the "yes, I'm serious" step, it's just that it's not something I want her to dwell upon and be self-conscious about. Thanks!

-thedetails

Well, how's she taking it? I think you're in the clear unless you know, you dwell on it. You let her know and now it's up to her if she has any questions. If it really concerns you that she barely identify you with it, be warm and receptive if she brings it up but otherwise leave it be. If she's actually acting self-conscious, demonstrate in non-verbal ways that you're serious. Protect her waist with your arm. Don't neglect her fatty parts in bed. Be attentive to her reactions and adjust your behavior if she gets weird about it. And just to tack it on here again, "don't be creepy" is always a good rule of thumb.

Monday, March 30, 2009

I'm not on the cusp. I'm one hundred percent a fat girl. As far as I know I've never been with a guy who identifies as an FA, bit I have known several and am good friends with a handful, to the point where we've discussed their taste in women. Here's my question: do you think that there's possibly a bit of a gap in the continuum, between like 'Fat' and 'FAT.', where a girl is just frankly too fat for any 'regular' guy (non-FA), but completely not fat enough for an FA to ever be interested? Because at the end of the day, I'm pretty sure that's where I reside. Bodily speaking I've really got all the parts - huge belly, big old ham thighs, backrolls, the works. But altogether as a package I just fail to take up as much room as any of the fat women I know to whom FAs flock like swallows to Capistrano. I've even asked FAs whom I know if they would ever think I'm attractive (awkward, I realize, but less so in context), and whether it's deflection or not the answer I always get is: "You've got a great personality (etc), but I like women who are larger than you. Sorry! *noogie* Let's go get a beer, sport." Now I know the 'great personality' line is pretty much guyspeak for 'your face gives me dry heaves but you also tell funny jokes sometimes', but focusing on the fat aspect:...

Just asking: as a guy who likes fat chicks and who presumably networks with other guys who do, honestly: is there any hope for me? Because if there is, I know it's definitely not emanating from the non-FA end of the spectrum. Again, I am just way, way too fat for any of them. The FA end is the one I'm holding out hope for.

With that said, however, feel free to crush that hope if necessary.

-Fat? Fat.

I hope this blog doesn't turn into people just emailing to ask "is there hope for me?" because a) I don't know any of you and b) I could never tell anyone to just stop looking, you're hopeless. If I knew someone who was hopeless, I'd be able to identify why they're hopeless (body odor, prior sex offenses, sociopathic behavior) and give it to them straight, provided they won't kill me.

No need to crush that hope; there's not actually someone for everyone but that doesn't put you on one side or the other. I don't know if your face will make me dry-heave because I've never seen it, but your email displays a fair amount of personality so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you just Haven't Found One Yet.

That said, some of info you gave me is confusing or conflicted: you've never been with anyone who identifies as an FA but you also stated you're too fat for non-FAs. Because you said "as far as I know" and not "I've never had a date" I'm going to assume you've successfully dated a few non-FAs, actually! Then the issue of your size...I don't know what size you are exactly, but left to guess, I doubt the universe lined it up so you're at some one-in-a-million exact height/weight cutoff for FAs/non-FAs. More likely you just haven't found one yet.

So here are some suggestions. If you are indeed positive it's your size or shape that's unattractive, why not try toning exercises, not to slim down, but maybe to make your fat more shapely? I know people in the 300-400 lb. range who work out to retain their shape. I've never exercised in my life except for the occasional crunch, but I think squats shape your butt and push-ups do your chest. But before you do that even, if you have as good platonic relationships with your FA friends as you say, grant them amnesty (if you promise not to ask them out) and ask them if it's your face or some weird mole you haven't told me about or what. It's possible you're just too small for them but I find it hard to believe based on your history that non-FAs are off the table entirely if you're really that not-fat-enough. Oh, and keep looking.

EDIT: this reader has identified herself to me and I assure that she's perfectly cute. Either looking in the wrong places or she must smell horrible.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

So, here's a question: how much of the fat attraction is a taboo response to the 'obesity epidemic' rhetoric and the whole puritan hangup on pleasure/leisure in US society?

BTW, I'm making no claim one way or the other about this, just curious to see how you interpret this hypothesis.

-B

This subject fascinates me greatly and I'm interested at writing about it at length in the future, but here's the tip of the iceberg: this question is a big asterisk in my feelings on the fetish/preference debate. Shitty, yeah, but allow me to wax theoretical. Because I do believe that besides the internet, the other component of exponential growth in the fat community is that fat is more extremely, violently taboo in 2009 than it ever has. In the preceding decade, anorexia and bulimia and "heroin chic" and diet pills entered the mainstream lexicon. The 1990s also desensitized my generation to so-called taboo "sex," with the internet the final nail in the adult-filter coffin, resulting in the availability of the scantily clad female body everywhere from magazine shelves to MySpace. Except all the viewable sex is thin and fit, and visible body fat has been relegated to pornography in itself. I don't think the cumulative rise in the number of self-identified fat admirers since is coincidental, though plenty of fat admirers would disagree and claim to just like what they like. The desensitizing of thin sexuality has given fatness a notoriety that causes closet FAs to take thin wives as a cover from their families, private sector colleagues and themselves (any number of fatties I know could tell you stories of finding out they're the other woman).

I'm also interested in researching the even more preposterous claim of my own that beauty is cyclical; that fat is making a comeback very, very slowly for different reasons than when it was first popular a hundred-or-so years ago for representing power and wealth. Being fat in 2009 supposedly represents the lower class, dovetailing with unfortunate perceptions of blacks and Latinos and a base "consumer" culture that you can supposedly avoid if you're white and can afford a Bally's membership or digest Fast Food Nation. But black culture is the most imitated in America and around the late 90s, Latin culture (and J.Lo - famous for her unconventional body - in particular) has become a marketable obsession as well. As is the wont of a world where the privileged obsess over the unattainable credibility and freedom of the less so, it's not entirely foolish to suggest fat could be next.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Hi, I’m one of those on-the-cusp, chubby-but-not-huge girls and I had my first and so far only encounter with an Fat Admirer in the past year.

You know those jokes people tell that aren’t really jokes? I’ve kidded around with friends since adolescence that I’d die and go to heaven if I met a fat fetishist. Deep down, I secretly knew that I wasn’t kidding, although I really hoped that I was. Mostly, I did not want to admit to myself that I’d been harboring desires that might be deemed weird or, worse yet, might be excruciatingly difficult to satisfy, given the relative paucity of FAs in this world. Anyway, I was forced to acknowledge my secret predilection recently when I finally met an FA, whose proclivities were initially unknown to me until he had me in his bedroom. This FA introduced me to the concept of “fat sex,” which seemingly detonated all of the pleasure-centers in my brain at once. I felt something click, so to speak, as if I’d been waiting my whole life for someone to want to be squashed by my big ass, rub up against my flabby tummy, squeeze all my squishier bits, and so forth. Long story short: I think I might be an admirer of Fat Admirers, or fetishist of fat fetishists.

How do I meet more Fat Admirers, especially ones in my age range (early-to-mid-20s) and geographical region? The internet? Super-secret in-person enclaves?

Since my time with this FA, I’ve only met a succession of guys who find me attractive because they do not consider me prohibitively fat, or who are willing to overlook or ignore my fat because I have some conventionally attractive traits (i.e. I’m pretty, intelligent, and have big tits). That is to say – business as usual. I’ve tried having “thin sex” again but it’s no longer satisfying to me now that I’ve experienced what I apparently prefer. Asking my “normal” partners to replace or supplement “thin sex” with “fat sex” has also proven to be a futile endeavor. Guys either get really freaked out by what I'm requesting -- even when my suggestions are fairly innocuous -- or they honor my requests but are obviously just "going through the motions" out of a sense of obligation.

Should I gain a ton of weight to repulse more normal guys and allure more chubby chasers?

My questions have been a little sex-obsessed. I should mention that I’d be even more interested in dating a Fat Admirer than merely hooking up with one if I happened to meet the right person.

Best,

Frustrated Chub

You shouldn't have to gain "a ton of weight" to get the attention of more chubby chasers, FC. If you found one already, and you found this blog, you can find more. But definitely go with your instincts and ignore the dudes you'd be settling for. It's awfully nice of them to look past your on-the-cuspness, but you clearly long for passion--which you described as a detonation point--over politeness, which you noted an "obligation" and "business as usual." Keep doing what you're doing honestly, you sound determined and not held back by any delusions about your body or the men you've been finding.

The only advice I can offer (not that dissimilar to advice I offered a good friend with a similar query this week), is to be more shrewd in your pursuit. Put in your personal ads that an FA is mandatory and list the requirements you said above and all their squeezing and squashing detail. Craigslist is as teeming with FAs as anywhere else, though I can't attest to their quality, and for fat-oriented sites, the Dimensions Forums (check the Events forum) and pornier Fat Forums are thriving communities that generally weed out pricks better than others.

And if you do end up on a date with a polite non-FA, put him up to the challenge. Most of my female buddies can identify unquestionable FAs in their life who simply haven't researched the terminology on the internet, and clueless is better than closet. Why would they agree to a date with someone they don't want to squeeze? You may well be mistaking a good 'un's freaking out for shyness, though prudes are just as plentiful as noobs. One thing though: don't call them fat fetishists, which will freak 'em out more. Good luck.