Belly Sex 2: Fat Sexuality for Adults: Part B – Neurodiverse Obesity Sexuality & Feedism / Gaining
Here in this post today we are taking a look at some of our first exploration of neurodiverse sexuality. In fact we are looking at a hypothesis that we are calling neurodiverse obesity sexuality. This is a theory that some neurodiverse individuals (men and women) are predisposed to become obese as an expectation of their sexuality or body image. Neurodiverse sexuality is specialised enough that there is not too much known about it so far and academic journals as yet don’t carry much research into the topic. The NOS theory or hypothesis, however, engages with a specific community known as feedism/gaining. A particular characteristic of individuals involved in feedism/gaining is the idea that they can become sexually aroused through consuming large amounts of food, resulting in weight gain over a period of time. Some insight into trends of neurodiverse sexuality can be found on the internet in articles such as this one and perhaps help in arriving at a greater understanding of issues involved. Our goal here is to consider the possibility that some neurodiverse people are predisposed to obesity as a form of sexual development and that therefore, there is a specific branch of neurodiverse sexuality that encompasses obesity as a desirable sexual characteristic. Today’s author is Christian, theologically focused, neurodiverse and with personal experience of NOS.
In this type of sexuality there are key differences that may or may not be connected to neurodiversity. One of those involves the triggers for sexual arousal for NOS people. For normal situations these triggers are related to conventional sexual triggers that are already commonplace in the world at large, although it is recognised that for women there are a much greater variety of these generally than for men. For NOS people it appears that food is a significant trigger for sexual arousal, specifically that it will be produced by overconsumption of food to the point of being extremely full. This may be related to feelings of fulness, to temporary size increases that occur in the abdomen from a full stomach (bloating), or from the knowledge that weight gain is an expected outcome. This and other factors tend to suggest that NOS people consider their body shape / size, notably an exceptionally round and soft figure, to be a key aspect of their sexuality.
The main outcome that usually results from the practice of feedism/gaining is rapid increase in bodily weight; in other words, a woman who identifies as a feedist/gainer becomes extremely fat (obese) at quite a high rate of increase, when compared with the experiences of most everyday people who are gradually becoming heavier over time. This is obviously one of the most controversial aspects of this practice because of the numerous negative personal and societal consequences of these outcomes in the short or long term. The weight gain produces a highly sexually desirable outcome of causing the person to become more horny as their body becomes softer and therefore more cuddly. As we noted in the other belly sex posts in this series, there are no inherent spiritual barriers that exist for obese women in participation in church communities. Obese women are able to participate fully in all Christian faith activities and ministries without restrictions whatsoever. The main issue for Christians in relation to excessive weight are those that are connected with excessive food consumption or gluttony.
A typical example of the weight gain issue we have investigated at the time of doing indepth research for this article is in the case of a 29 year old woman (no partner has been identified in her social media feed to date) who was originally of a slim build standing 5 feet 2 inches (about 154 cm) and weighing 98 pounds (about 45 kg). Over a recent period of around 5 years she, for reasons not explained in limited public social media postings, began to participate in the feedist/gaining community and has reached a weight of more than 100 kg around the middle of 2023,and has stated a desired goal of reaching a weight of about 135 kg. At the time of writing this, her weight could be around 125 kg, implying she gained more than 80 kg over the past three or four years, which is clearly a significant and relatively rapid increase over that period. In more extreme cases, feedees/gainers have reached and maintained weights of 300 kg or more for many years, often with severe and predictable impacts on their physical health. If this woman chose to bow out upon reaching her her goal, she could return to her previous apparently healthy lifestyle with little long-term physical impact resulting, and spiritual / sexual impacts can generally be completely overcome by healing ministry. This particular case study identifies that feedees/gainers come from all walks of life; however the more common situation for membership is for those who are already obese and see the lifestyle as an extension of their existing one. The second case study we are going to cite here is for a woman now aged 34 years who currently identifies as “nonbinary” and finished her secondary level education aged 18 and weighing at that time around 175 kg, or about 200% overweight, which of course implies that she had been extremely obese for most of her childhood. She entered the feedist/gaining community at about that time and began to exhibit photographs of herself on a variety of specialised commercial and community websites. Sixteen years later she has attained a weight of around 300 kg and has also given birth to at least one child. She clearly felt that feedism/gaining was a natural progression for her in an existing lifestyle already characterised by long term severe obesity and it is not very likely that she could attain a healthy lifestyle even with medical intervention or live a long life in future.
The motivations for feedists / gainers entering the lifestyle are not wholly clear, but it is assumed that a significant or major motivator is sexual gratification. Feeding between husband and wife when practiced in a marriage can follow a semi-normal progression of sexual arousal to intercourse such as would be common in many households: the husband and wife eat a romantic dinner and retire to the couch for a cuddle and kiss, after some time they then progress to the bedroom where they have sex over a period of up to several hours. The entire activity can take up the whole evening. For feedees, the first stage is a very large meal, commonly referred to as a stuffing, which can go on for a lengthy period, possibly over the whole day rather than one mealtime, and the goal of which is to produce heightened sexual arousal leading up to intercourse (or masturbation for a single person). More extreme situations can involve stuffing sessions that take place over multiple consecutive days, and at times, are carried out along with friends or associates who also are feedists/gainers. These scenarios have been determined from following actual feedists/gainers on social media. Due to the fact that feedism/gaining is a very niche subject area that relatively few participate in and fewer still actually understand in a meaningful way, most feedists/gainers seek sexual gratification through specialised websites and social media communities, where they are often encouraged and even paid (through OnlyFans and the like) to continue increasing their size/weight.
There are many issues in this NOS hypothesis that aren’t particularly certain because there is so little known about it at the present time with hardly any research into neurodiverse sexuality as a whole, let alone divergences like NOS. Some key questions we shall pose here are:
- NOS people may start to adopt an obese lifestyle from a relatively young age or from the beginning of adolescence without being particularly aware of their sexuality as a whole. In fact one of the key facets of more severe neurodiversity in general is lack of social awareness, so there appears to be a situation where the desire for a round body shape is initially at least independent of the norms of sexuality as it may develop in late childhood or adolescence. It is not so clear how a NOS person might impute a sexual motivation for developing their desired round body shape in these scenarios and whether that precedes knowledge of sexuality in their life. Quoting from the Feedists For Fat Liberation website, we find this quote: “Many feedists are able to identify an early interest in feedism long before understanding sex”.
- NOS people often seek out support through various specialised internet communities as well as generalised social media (in the latter they are often subject to significant abuse as well). It isn’t clear how significant this support is in developing their sexuality. Or, in other words, whether they have already arrived at the sexuality they are developing prior to seeking this support, and the degree to which it influences their situation.
- NOS people tend to keep gaining weight with few disincentives in many cases until such a time as there is a major negative health consequence. Some are able to qualify for surgical intervention in more extreme situations but it seems that many societal norms opposing significant weight gain or obesity are generally ignored. Some feedists/gainers live in house with a partner who is identified as their feeder and there is the possibility of a codependent relationship creating psychological dependency issues that are interwined with everyday life. Certainly from much of the support coming in social media and other online communities, there is a very common theme of supporters constantly exhorting obese women to continue gaining weight, often to very large amounts of weight with seemingly little regard for the negative impacts on these women’s quality of life. As noted previously, generalised social media often carries a wide variety of views, including those from people who are more concerned about the negative health outcomes associated with significant weight gain.
- It is uncertain whether the personal disincentives to continual weight gain / size increase for NOS people are the normal difficulties of motivating for dieting or related measures of personal discipline, or are specifically neurodiverse / NOS in character, for example if part of the NOS personal psyche in the first place incorporates strong predisposition towards increasing body size or roundness/softness characteristics that are inherent with obesity that overrides wider health negativities generally associated with obesity.
- Our reading so far of neurodiverse sexuality (NDS) in general is that certain traits of NDS are often established well before the norms of sexual development or awareness in wider society for children. One example is the quote above from FFFL’s website. Another example we have become aware of as a general ministry insight is that neurodiverse children often have a predisposition for childhood masturbation, which essentially translates into some sort of early awareness of their sexuality outside the conventionally accepted norms. Only a percentage of children actually engage in masturbation in childhood and there are potentially a wide variety of factors contributing to this. We also have some ministry insight into a more extreme form of childhood masturbation we are referring to here as hypersexual childhood masturbation, which possibly is more strongly connected into neurodiversity. The Key Principles of Christian Sexuality series of articles suggest that children should not masturbate or orgasm more than four times per day. Our concept of hypersexual childhood masturbation arises from ministry insight into the lives of a very small percentage of children who actively seek out a significantly greater number of orgasms or masturbations daily, which from adolescence into adulthood multiples further, which is possibly linked to NDS. The big question for this topic as with all sexualised traits that arise in childhood is that (H)CM and NOS are possible examples of NDS awareness that arises outside of the expected developmental norms in sexuality awareness for children.
- Our understanding is that NOS women are significantly more willing to engage in sexual activity without the body image problems that other overweight women often struggle with. There appears to be an inbuilt psychological factor for NOS women that their obese bodies are sexually desirable and that the extra cuddles are a worthwhile aspect of NOS, much more than the problems of finding a partner who can adapt to an obese body. The latter factor is of course a pretty big deal for many adults, and explains part of the reason for NOS women to seek out affirmation from specialised forums and social media sites, including dating.
In summary this idea of neurodiverse obesity sexuality raises many questions and at the present time, relatively few answers. It is just a hypothesis and something that would need to be researched further. But the fact there are many questions and few answers is really a characteristic of neurodiverse sexuality as a whole. Feedism/gaining is such an odd sexual behaviour by the standards of human sexuality as a whole that it needs to be studied at length to aid our understanding of why feedists/gainers take this route of choosing to be obese for sexual reasons, not least because of widespread sexual biases against obese women and consequently the difficulties they experience in entering and sustaining sexual relationships – in many cases they would most likely find a partner only within feedist/gaining communities. What is it about NOS that makes it a desirable lifestyle for a percentage of people (apart from being able to eat large amounts of food) when these negative impacts can arise?
This has been a good time for us to look at a neurodiverse sexuality topic and we’ve chosen a really thorny one to get stuck into this time. If nothing else, we hope to inspire ongoing debate about the importance that we thing should be attached to the study of neurodiverse sexuality in society, inasmuch as society as a whole currently has relatively limited knowledge of neurodiversity as a whole, what causes it and how to deal with the apparent increase in prevalence of it. From a Christian perspective, care, sensitivity and specialised ministry skills are needed in being able to help NOS women, who are likely to be locked in a cycle of overeating and weight gain, in order to guide them towards a lifestyle that is more honouring to God and more healthy for them in the longer term. As far as NDS itself goes, we have another article to write in this series, which will be partly about NOS pregnancy, so that should be coming up soon under Belly Sex 1. Ka kite anō.