Sure, fat people come from all walks of life. But are all fat people alike? Definitely not when it comes to relationships and sex! Find out about the different roles and meanings fatness has for heterosexuals, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, kink aficionados, transgender people, fat admirers, and more. Where do you fit in to the big fat picture of sexuality, and who else is out there whom you might like to meet?
Numerically speaking, the majority of people identify themselves as heterosexual, and so do the majority of fat people and their partners. At the same time, in our fat-loathing culture it’s considered a little odd, a little unusual, a little bit “queer,” if you will, for fat people to be sexual at all. For people who are used to thinking of themselves as being sexually “normal” because they identify as heterosexual, this realization can come as a bit of a shock.
In much the same way as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people have had to learn to do, fat people often have to defend their own sexualities. Our society does not like the idea of fat people having even the most heterosexual sex any more than it likes the idea of any other “deviant” sexual activity. Being straight does not save fat people from having their sexuality mocked, shamed, and used to humiliate and hurt them. You don’t have to look any further than the “slap a thigh and ride the wave in” or “pick a fold and fuck it” comments that get made about fat women to see just how pervasive the disgust can be at the idea that fat people are sexual beings at all.
This is why straight fat people can benefit from taking a few pages from the LGBTI movement’s playbook. You might not have to come out of the closet about being fat, but you probably will have to come out of the closet as a forthright and unashamed fat person who enjoys a sex life that is very much not a joke. You might not have to defend yourself against gay bashing, but you will probably at some point need to defend yourself or a friend or a lover against fatphobic remarks or cruelty. Just as LGBTI people often have to go to extra effort to get appropriate, respectful sexual health care, so do many fat people. And just as LGBTI people often end up having to justify themselves as human beings deserving of reasonably happy lives even though they do not fit the mainstream ideal, fat people often must do exactly the same.
The LGBTI movement has had great success, and has made great strides in terms of gaining more equality and respect, by refusing to be silent, refusing to be invisible, and refusing to put up with being treated like second-class citizens because their desires and their sexuality happen to make some people uncomfortable. Heterosexual fat people can, and should, do the same. Everybody, and every body, is entitled to dignity and respect, no matter whom they sleep with or what they weigh.
Fat admirers. Chubby chasers. Plumper humpers. You can call ’em what you like, but they all have one thing in common: they like fat. They gravitate toward partners whose bodies are anything but the mainstream thin-is-in ideal. They like the roundness and heaviness and fullness of fat bodies, the curve and the roll of them, the heft and the sturdiness, the softness and the generosity and the warmth. There are male fat admirers and female and trans, straight and queer and bisexual. They come in all colors, from all places, and from all different kinds of backgrounds. Although fat admirer and FA are most often used to refer to heterosexual men who are interested in fat women, fat admirer as a phrase describes anyone who has a sexual or romantic interest in fat partner(s).
Not all fat admirers like the same exact things. It makes sense: people who are attracted to thinner people aren’t necessarily attracted to every thin person they see, either. People have their special likes and their particular quirks. Some fat admirers are most attracted to fat bodies that are on the fattest end of the fat spectrum, preferring supersized bodies over any others. But other fat admirers might prefer people who are sort of medium fat or maybe even bodies that some people would say were merely on the large end of average.
The same diversity exists in terms of liking different body shapes and types. There are diehard belly fans and equally fervent devotees of big butts and thighs. Big breasts in women are a favorite for lots of people, but not everyone who is attracted to fat women is automatically a breast fan. In some cases, fat admirers are open to a wide variety of body shapes and sizes and types. In other cases, only one very specific body shape or type will trip their trigger.
This might seem disheartening if you’re a fat person. If fat admirers’ tastes are so specific, what are the chances that any given fat person, namely you, will fill the bill? It may seem like yet again, the odds are against you. In reality, this hasn’t got anything to do with you. Nor does it affect your odds of finding a partner who is into exactly what you are. All it means is that fat admirers are no different from anyone else. Liking fat bodies doesn’t mean you necessarily like all fat bodies, or even all fat people who have the particular type of fat body you prefer. Fat or thin, attraction still depends an awful lot on some very personal and subjective chemistry.
Fat admirers have their own particular set of issues that are covered in more detail in chapter 4, For Fat Admirers Only. Many fat admirers struggle with being closeted about their attractions as do their fat partners who have to deal with the fallout of closeting. These partners may end up feeling like their partners consider them good enough for sex but not good enough for more full-fledged relationships or for sharing a life. Fat-admirer culture and the different roles that fat admirers can play in the lives of fat people are also issues that have specific resonance.
It’s worth noting that not every fat admirer has always been a fat admirer, and not all fat admirers will be attracted to fat people all the time or every time. Some fat admirers know they are fat admirers from the earliest moments that they are aware of having romantic and sexual interests. Other people come to it later in life. Still others are not fat admirers in any general sense of the term but are absolutely 100 percent smitten by one particular fat person and completely thrilled by that person’s body and appearance along with everything else. Some fat admirers, although certainly not all of them, are specifically sexually aroused by fatness itself, or by the particular visual and sensory stimulation that fat can provide. Some of these people might consider themselves fat fetishists, although others may not. (See “Fat as Fetish”.)
Fat-admirer issues apply to all of these people. Anyone who likes, desires, and appreciates fat partners, whether once or consistently throughout their lifetime, is engaging in fat admiration. Being a fat admirer is not limited to the relatively small number of people who self-label that way. In fact, it’s quite a bit more common than you may think.
Fat people and fat admirers alike should bear in mind that a liking for bigger bodies is not the same thing as being open minded, accepting, and tolerant of difference across the board. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that since fat admirers are open to something so far removed from the mainstream, namely finding fat bodies attractive, they must be just as free thinking and groovy about other kinds of nonmainstream personal differences. Alas, this is not the case. It is quite possible to not participate in mainstream prejudices on the issue of fatness while still participating in others. Fat admirers can still be prejudiced about, and discriminate against, people on the basis of disability, age, race, class, looks, and all manner of other things. One could wish it were otherwise, but this too is merely more evidence that desiring fat people is really not so different than desiring any other kind of people. Desire is one thing, and political principles are typically another.
Asexuality has only recently started to be recognized as a genuine, valid manifestation of human sexuality. This is long overdue. Not everybody is interested in sex in the same ways. Some people aren’t interested in sex at all. Others don’t experience strong sexual or romantic attraction to anyone; yet other people experience romantic attraction but not sexual desire. Other people experience these things only once or twice and otherwise don’t feel the pull. For some people a lack of interest in sex and/or romance is something that comes and goes. Any of this, and all of this, can be perfectly normal, healthy, and okay. Asexuality is just another place on the spectrum of sexual and romantic interest and desire.
People who identify themselves as asexual come in all shapes, sizes, colors, sexes, and types. They do not share any common history. They do not all feel or think the same way about their asexuality. All they have in common is that they don’t have the same degree or kind of interest in many or any of the kinds of sexual and sexual-romantic relationships that tend to be of so much interest to other people.
Fat people who are asexual may seem, to some people, to be the living embodiment of a fat-hating cliché. Because fat people are so often perceived and portrayed as being people who should not be sexual, or for whom sexuality is inappropriate, actually being fat and asexual comes with a whole array of stereotypes that can make it hard to feel positive or even neutral about one’s asexuality. There is a whole train of anti-fat psychoanalytical thought that claims that fat people are fat because they are hiding from their sexuality, as if being fat would automatically put all sexual concerns on hold. Being fat doesn’t do this, first of all. (If it did, there’d be no point to this book!) Second, having confronted and identified one’s asexuality is not the same thing as being afraid of one’s sexuality or hiding from it.
One asexual woman interviewed for this book spoke directly to this cliché. “The classic psychoanalytic interpretation is that fat is a barrier to intimacy. But I know this to be nonsense: the only times I want to be ‘intimate’ (in a loving, but nonsexual, way) are when I’m overweight. If the weight were a barrier, it would logically follow that when you removed it, you would want the intimacy. In fact, the exact opposite is true: when I diet and lose a lot of weight, I become completely ascetic and solitary, not desiring human contact at all. I only feel ‘sexy,’ or have any hormonal urges, when I’m overweight. When I lose weight, all of the sensualities (like food and sex) are eradicated simultaneously.”
Another asexually identifying woman agreed: “When we’re talking about negative responses to asexuality, there are two common appearance-related ones: ‘You’re asexual because you can’t get laid’ and ‘Since you could get laid, you can’t be asexual.’ I’ve been told the second one and even though it seems more complimentary, and people might mean it as a good thing, it’s equally insulting because it’s a total denial of my identity.” So much for the stereotypes!
Another common stereotype about asexuality and fatness is that asexuals must have an easier time with self-acceptance and with having a positive body image because they don’t have to worry about sex or whether or not other people find them sexually desirable. This is not necessarily the case. “I have had asexual relationships and still have issues with body acceptance [of myself],” a third asexually identified interviewee said. “This is due to a variety of factors (childhood, environment, media, self-esteem), but asexuality is not one of them.… Why would my not having expectations of sex have anything to do with how fat I am, or how pretty I look?”
Asexuals, in other words, may face as wide and varied an array of issues relating to size, weight, and sex as everybody else. Asexuality does not, in fact, simplify the complicated landscape of size and sexuality. We can’t jump to conclusions about asexuality on the basis of a person’s weight or size, and we certainly can’t jump to conclusions about weight or size on the basis of a person’s asexuality. Even the “fat acceptance” movement should take care, in its efforts to help fat people reclaim their sexual autonomy, not to assume that everyone is sexual. “What I hear a lot in the fat acceptance community is stuff like, ‘Fat people have been desexualized, but actually we are sexual beings,’ ” one woman said. “That kind of thing is frustrating because 99 percent of [fat people] may be sexual beings, but that’s no reason to erase the 1 percent (at least) who aren’t.”
Gay and bisexual men are legendary for forming sexuality-based communities, and fat-related sexuality has been no exception. Although the body standards of mainstream gay male culture can at times be so narrow and exacting as to border on the fascistic, and many gay men are primarily or exclusively attracted to “thin and beautiful” men, queer men’s tastes and desires run the same wide gamut as anybody else’s. Men who celebrate and enjoy fat men are just as likely to be vocal, visible, and proud as any other queer guys.
Across North America and around the world, there are chapters of an organization called Girth and Mirth, a social club for fat gay men and the men who are attracted to them. Gay fat admirers are usually called chasers or chub chasers, and fat gay men are called chubs. Girth and Mirth chapters hold get-togethers at restaurants and bars, are a presence in Pride parades and community organizing, do work to benefit charities, hold parties for their members, and participate in regional, national, and even international conferences. Girth and Mirth chapters can be located by looking for listings in local and regional gay community newspapers, by calling local gay community centers, and by searching for “Girth and Mirth” online. Associated Big Men’s Clubs is an umbrella organization that includes numerous chub/chaser organizations.
“Finding my local Girth and Mirth was a great thing for me. Learning that there were guys who totally loved my body made up for a lot of the really nasty vicious bullshit I had experienced at clubs. I would recommend Girth and Mirth to any fat gay man, especially if he’s just coming out. It’s really nice to get to know other guys who deal with the same issues. And of course the guys who think you’re hot.”
Gay male culture also encompasses the “bear” subculture, which also includes a large number of fat men and guys who are attracted to them. There is some overlap between bear and chub. Bears tend to be hairy, in terms of both facial hair and body hair, and may dress and groom themselves in a style that is very traditionally masculine and rugged. Chubs may or may not be hairy, and their dress and other aspects of their gender vary more widely. More to the point, not all bears are fat, while fatness is a defining characteristic of chubs. Not all chubs are bears, but some bears are definitely chubs.
Bears also have their own distinctive subculture. There are “bear bars” and bear social groups, bear clubs, and bear events including weekends, conferences, and even chartered cruise ship journeys just for bears and bear lovers.
In addition to social opportunities and community building, there are many other resources available to the fat gay/bi man and those who desire him. Bear- and chub-themed books and media, including plenty of pornography, are available online and at many LGBTI bookstores.
Looksism can still be a major issue in chub/chaser and bear culture, and so can sizeism. A handsome face still counts for a great deal, as do grooming, clothes, and whether or not a man fits in well with the aesthetic standards of his particular community: a bear with a badly kept beard may be a lonely one. As for body sizes, tastes differ just as they do among other fat admirers. Some men prefer bears who are not so much fat as burly and muscular; others seek out the big hairy bellies like homing beacons. As in other orientational demographics, knowing that someone is a fat admirer does not necessarily tell you everything there is to know about what he specifically likes.
Lesbian culture has long been a highly political culture, and queer women of all stripes have a long and well-deserved reputation as political and social firebrands of extraordinary capability, strength, and persistence. This is also true when it comes to fat issues. Much that is central to body-acceptance politics, art, and social organizing has had roots in the queer women’s community, and some of the most exciting fat-acceptance work going on today is also based there.
This is not to say that the queer women’s community is a magic fat utopia where everyone is universally accepting. Individual queer women, including fat queer women, may carry around hefty amounts of anti-fat prejudice. In the queer women’s community, as everywhere, fatness can be controversial and is sometimes reviled. However, the influence of feminist politics on the queer women’s community means that women are less likely, overall, to be judged overtly for their appearance than they are in mainstream heterosexually oriented culture. For political reasons, standards of politeness and civility in queer women’s spaces generally include at least public (if not always private) tolerance of all women’s bodies and a general philosophical agreement that women do not have to conform to mainstream beauty standards to be beautiful and desirable. It may not be utopia, but it’s certainly a far cry from mainstream culture’s take on these issues.
Perhaps the biggest jewel in the crown of queer women’s current organizing and political work around fatness is the organization NOLOSE, the National Organization of Lesbians of SizE. NOLOSE is a volunteer-run organization that is “dedicated to ending the oppression of fat people and creating vibrant fat queer culture.” It includes a wide range of women and trans-identified people who are fat or who are allies of fat queer women and trans-identified people. NOLOSE’s conferences are a highlight of the radical political scene, and many attendees find the experience transformative, both personally and politically. For more information about NOLOSE, see the Resource Guide.
Some urban areas also have social groups and/or events centering on fat queer women, including clothing swaps or clothes recycling events like the Fat Girl Flea Market that takes place yearly in New York City. These are sometimes word-of-mouth affairs, but they may also be listed in area LGBTI newspapers, or information may be available from gay community centers. If there is no queer fat women’s group where you are, or simply no fat women’s group (most, whether they originate in the queer movement or not, are welcoming to all women), you might consider starting one. Fat-accepting women’s culture is and always has been very much a DIY phenomenon, and grassroots activity is central to its existence and its success.
Oh, and since we’re on the subject, no, fat women don’t become lesbians because they are too fat to get men. Fat women who want to have sex or relationships with men can generally find men willing to oblige them. Fat women who are lesbians are generally lesbians for the same reason any thinner lesbian is a lesbian: they are sexually attracted by and emotionally drawn to other women. Weight has nothing to do with this.
Some lesbians report that they feel more accepting of their own fatness because they feel that heterosexual mainstream ideals about beauty and body size are simply irrelevant to their lives. Others don’t feel any less body size or weight pressure from mainstream culture just because they are queer. Not every fat queer woman will have the same experience.
Yes, Virginia, there are fat bisexuals, just as there are fat gay men, lesbians, transgender folks, asexuals, and oh, yes, straight people. Unfortunately, however, bisexuals have yet to succeed in forming the same kind of extensive community around sexuality that other queer cultures have produced. (This is not, I must note, for lack of trying. Many bisexual activists, some of whom are fat, continue to fight that good fight.) Fat bisexuals can thus be found everywhere fat people exist—in straight, gay, trans, lesbian, queer, kinky, celibate, and every other kind of milieu.
Fatness does not make people bisexual. Occasionally, you will run across a person who is convinced that a fat bisexual became bisexual because fatness ruined his or her chances with the opposite sex so the person decided to turn to same-sex partners instead. In reality bisexual people are bisexual because they’re attracted to and sexually interested in more than just one sex, something that has nothing to do with fatness.
Transgender people come in all shapes and sizes, just like everyone else. Fatness can be an asset to some trans people and can pose a hurdle for others. But whether and how it is an asset can depend quite a bit on what sort of trans person one is, is expected to be, or aspires to become.
Male-to-female trans people, like biological women generally, often find that fatness is more of a burden than it is a blessing. Depending on where a trans woman carries her fat, and whether it is firm or squishy, she may be able to use her fat to produce more feminine body shape and curves. The right foundation garments can help a lot with this. If a trans woman carries her fat in the male-typical “apple” pattern, however, it can make a traditionally feminine body shape more difficult to achieve.
Some trans women, especially those who are heterosexually identified, may be very invested in achieving mainstream ideals of feminine beauty, including a thin body. The thin mainstream beauty ideal can also become an issue in medical care. Doctors who manage trans women’s hormonal and other medical maintenance often hold their patients to a strict and narrow definition of what acceptable femininity should look like; some trans women have experienced doctors threatening to withhold hormone prescriptions until weight loss occurs. Doctors may claim that a trans woman’s failure to toe the line of the thin-centric female beauty ideal means that she is not really serious about being a woman. (One wonders whether they also believe that genetic females who are fat are likewise not really serious about being women.) Or they may contend that there are too many health risks for fat people to take estrogen. (Oddly, genetic females who are fat manage to get along just fine with both fat and estrogen in their bodies.) Healthy women’s bodies can exist in a full range of types and sizes and shapes, and transgender women are no different.
Female-to-male trans people, like biological men generally, often find that they can get away with greater amounts of fatness without taking too much guff for it. Fat can, in fact, help produce a more believably masculine body shape. Trans men who naturally carry their weight in the male-typical “apple” pattern have a built-in boost to their gender presentation. Trans men whose bodies naturally store fat in other places, such as breasts and hips, can use binders (undergarments with heavy elastic) to smooth out the curves into something more burly than curvy, although just as with born-male people, pear-shaped bodies can still suggest a certain femininity that may not be welcome.
Again, though, the boost to gender presentation provided by fatness can be a double-edged sword. Gay-identified trans men, depending on the types of men and gay male subcultures they are interested in, may or may not find that fatness helps their case. For trans men who are interested in chub/chaser or bear dynamics, fatness would not be much of a liability, but for trans men who are more interested in, for example, the dance club scene, it may make fitting in more difficult.
The definition of kinky can depend a lot on the person using the word. Human beings have an almost infinite variety of sexual variety at their disposal, and the reasons that some things are labeled “kinky” and other things designated “vanilla” are complicated, subjective, and not entirely devoid of controversy. Is it kinky for a woman to be sexually submissive to her male partner? Or is that just an expression of normative sexual roles? (And is a normative sex role structure that historically requires the submission of one group of people and their domination by another kinky all by itself? People have been fighting over this one for decades.) We could just as easily ask if it is kinky to desire a fat partner. Certainly it is typically seen, especially in the pornography industry, as a specialized taste, sometimes as a fetish. To call it a kink, though, would certainly be controversial to many people.
For most purposes, the word kinky is a stand-in for a collection of what psychiatry has historically called paraphilias—erotic interests in things that are not part of genitally oriented sex. The kinky spectrum includes fetishes for body parts or inanimate objects, interest in particular types of sensations (including pain), interest in particular emotional or psychological states, interest in certain social power dynamics, and much else. BDSM (Bondage/Discipline/Dominance/Submission/Sadism/Masochism) is part of what falls under the kinky umbrella, but so do many other things. It’s commonly considered kinky to find latex clothing erotic or to get sexual satisfaction from being tickled.
Large and extensive communities of people with interests in kink exist both online and off. Some kinky communities are specifically oriented toward people who are heterosexually identified, some to people who are LGBTI-identified, and some are open to anyone regardless of how they identify in terms of sexual orientation. Fat people may be part of any of these.
Many people have noticed that it sometimes seems as if there are far more fat than thin people in kinky communities. This is often attributed to the fact that kinky sexuality often has different priorities and aesthetics than mainstream “vanilla” sexuality. Where mainstream sexuality might be all about conforming to a Hollywood beauty ideal or how many porn-star positions someone can manage, kinky sexuality might focus on the physical strength and imposing size of a dominant or the pleasing way that a big soft rear end offers a fantastic surface for paddling. In kinky communities, too, chemistry between potential partners can have a lot more to do with compatible tastes in kink than it does with more superficial factors like pants size.
Occasionally, one encounters situations where kink-like power dynamics are brought into play specifically with regard to weight gain or weight loss. If one partner demands that the other partner either lose or gain weight, this should set off special alarm bells in your head: only the person whose body it is should be making decisions about changing that body. No one else gets to be the boss of your body but you. If someone else is insisting or demanding that you change your body shape or size for that person’s pleasure, or hinting that if you really loved them you would do this or that thing to your body, do not hesitate to say no or even to leave the relationship if necessary. This is a situation with an enormous potential for abuse.
This is also true of any activity that someone else asks you to do or wants to do to you but to which you cannot give your informed and enthusiastic consent. Being kinky does not mean that you have to do everything that some other kinky person asks. Even if you identify as a “submissive” or a “slave,” you are entitled to your own boundaries about what is and isn’t okay for you. Kink is negotiated, self-aware, respectful of boundaries, and mutually consensual. Abuse is not. If it feels like abuse, it probably is. (For more on various forms of kink, see “BDSM”; “Fat as Fetish”; and “Feederism”.)