Girl on the Net

This week’s guest blog is by an anonymous gainer and feeder. Gaining and feeding is a kink I’ve always been fascinated by, and his overview does an incredible job of painting a picture of just what it’s like to have this kink. The joys of gaining weight as well as the internal (and external) conflicts that come along with this kink. As with all guest blogs, I’m especially honoured that he’s chosen to share his experience here – please do comment if you can to thank him for sharing his story.

Gainer and feeder: the kink and the conflict

My face is covered jam, sugar and cream. Oh God, what the hell am I doing? A slap to my belly summons my attention back. “Eat it, pig”, he barks. My cock is already twitching its approval as he pushes the next donut into my mouth.

___

I’m what is usually called a ‘gainer’, and a feeder, and an encourager… this got complicated fast, didn’t it? As an umbrella term, ‘gainer’ usually refers to someone with an interest in getting fatter (with or without added muscle), while a feeder is someone who wants to make someone get fatter. There are nuances within these groups – an encourager tends to be more practically and emotionally supportive, while ‘feeder’ implies an active, dominant role. Bloaters are more interested in having a bigger belly than getting fatter. A gainer can be actively trying to gain weight, or can just fantasise about it. Throughout all the categories there is one universal: girth is good, and we want more.

Arousal from the idea of getting fatter, and making others fatter, might seem weird to you (and to me, at times!) but it’s been part of my sexuality for as long as I can remember. My first sexual memory, although I didn’t understand it at the time, was when I was a young kid. My Mum would get free magazines from friends and I would read them in the tub. One ran a weight loss story littered with ‘before and after’ photos and those big, round bellies filled my own with butterflies. I wanted to be one of those gorgeous men. I shoved pillows up my shirts and dreamed. Even during my pre-teens, I knew society would think this was weird. In a way, it’s gotten better, but it’s also gotten worse.

Gaining brings you into conflict with society. We’re demanded to ‘take care of our health’ – that means being slim and visibly fit (lots of gainers go to the gym!). These norms about what is an attractive body are exacerbated for women and gay men, with a great body of research on how representations of us in the media affect our relationship with our body. There’s a constant battle between physical health and mental health, self-esteem, sexual wellbeing; how attractive we feel and are to ‘the community’ vs how attractive we are to ‘civilians’. These pressures can weigh on you as much as or more than that 40lb belly. The internet – where virtually all of us truly discover gaining – is a blessing and a curse. It helps us reach similar people, and gives us a community. It also makes us targets – either of trolls or exploitative media putting us on show for laughs. On our websites, a lot of us are too scared to show our faces.

This fear travels into our ‘IRL’ relationships too. There are a great many posts on how to deal with a ‘civilian’ partner. Do we want to get fatter and we’re afraid they’ll leave us? Are they losing weight and we’re no longer physically attracted to them? If we discuss our sexual desires (emotional needs?) with them, are they going to freak out? The fear of rejection is powerful, and can lead to us accepting years of bad sex because the alternative is too scary.

That’s not to say our community is free of these problems. It often replicates a hierarchy based on attractiveness – the prettiest men, the fastest gainers, the most confident (and thus most able to upload photo after photo) are held up as a standard which the structure of our community almost demands we compare ourselves to. As a fat guy is already likely to have confidence issues, this obviously isn’t a good thing and it leads to ‘flip-flopping’, where people leave the community for their wellbeing in one area, only to need to return for their wellbeing in another. “Yes, I’m back again” frequently adorns profiles.

We know why people leave, but why do they come back? What do we get from gaining and the ‘community’ that we can’t get anywhere else? What makes it so hot? For me, there’s a big ‘breaking taboos’ element. I’ve always been a bit of a rebel, so what could be more fun than getting off on violating a cruel social norm, that knowing internal grin when your colleagues know you’ve outgrown another uniform? There’s a strong dominance and submission theme too, the taking of someone’s body and moulding it to your whims. The moulding of your own body to your own desires. That power and control are hot, but why is it gaining rather than body-building, tattoos, piercings? There’s the taboo factor certainly, but fat carries its own erotic value. The feelings of taking up space, of size and strength, the sensations of your body moving in new ways. The feelings of being physically bigger than someone. The look of lust on your partner’s face as you straddle their chest, your belly passionately worshiped and explored by their hands. And your feedee’s look of pride and contentment as they finish that second pizza, and their moans as you fuck them while rubbing their full, round gut.

That pleasure is in conflict with guilt. Pleasure in food and shame at gluttony, pleasure as the numbers on the scale creak upwards and shame at your next GP appointment. Pleasure at ‘ruining’ a ‘society-perfect’ body by covering it in fat, and guilt at the narcissism of getting off on your own body. I’ve yet to figure out how to navigate this particular conflict, but that guilt can itself become hot– a dominant feeder and submissive gainer can turn that guilt into a hedonistic act of transgression or resistance. There have been plenty of occasions where a passing insult in the street has become a very powerful wank fantasy. A stranger’s “oi, fat boy” as I walk back from the takeaway can lead to me lovingly caressing my belly and tits in front of a mirror, feeling their bulk shift as I tug on my cock, as much as it can lead self-disgust.

As with BDSM relationships (another kink I share), gainer/feeder relationships are often considered inherently abusive – the ‘active party’ ‘must’ be manipulating and harming the other. “Nobody would consent to this!” This is obviously ludicrous, but the 2005 movie ‘Feed’ helped popularise this, as does the media’s only attention on our community being ‘shock value’ or women being fattened by men. Outside of explicitly dom-sub gaining relationships, it’s usually a collaboration and a long-term one at that!

It’s all about balancing our own scales, deciding which trade-offs need to be made. Many gainers who’ve started as skinny say their body ‘didn’t feel right’ or they didn’t feel complete until they started getting fat. We need to balance our sexual needs, our self-image, our health and society’s demands, our interpersonal relationships. When it boils down to it, these are challenges any kinkster faces. We’re just like you, but with more cake and enough bulk to “take your breath way and give you something to hold onto.”

___

We stood in front of a mirror, him in a shirt he had recently outgrown. His gut is poking out from his slim-for-now body. We’re both hard as rock, and my cock is poking his arse through our jeans. Our hearts are racing. “You’re getting so big…” I whisper into his ear, reaching around to give his hard-earned belly an affectionate squeeze. His smile widens.