Trigger warnings:
-Fat oppression
-Subculture exile dynamics
-Divergent sexual orientation
First defining some terms for ease of reading by a variety of people. An FA is a Fat Admirer, someone who specifically finds fat people attractive. A feedist is someone whose sexuality is integrated with eating, gaining weight or both and encompasses a range from fetishization to a sexual orientation.
I want to preface this by noting that the FA and feedist communities have lots of highly problematic people who contribute to fatphobia and sexual objectification with absolutely terrible behavior. For transparency I’m a feedist and FA with thin privilege, these communities need to do better in the fight for fat liberation. Being attracted to someone is not doing them a favor. If other people are trying to light someone on fire the person who wants to drown them instead isn’t doing anything good. This piece is not intended to demonize non-feedist fat people, just to note a phenomena and the structures that surround it.
For quite awhile feedists have been making communities through fat zine culture, or in modern times as social networking sites. Once a feedist community is created it predictably goes through a cycle. At first the community exists for the feedists, people are peers and share some level of common interests. They connect, create content and the new community begins to blossom. The content that gets created by sex workers, artists, and people who are just open about sharing their beauty ends up attracting non-feedist FAs because feedist content often contains beautiful fat people. FAs make up a substantially greater percent of the general population than feedists, because of this most of the community ends up being comprised of non-feedist FAs. Despite the variation in why people are there, this phase is often relatively harmonious aside from feedists from previous communities complaining since they know where things are going.
The next phase starts when there is a large enough number of FAs in the community. Non-feedist fat people who suffer through the fatphobia of the mainstream are attracted to the community because there is a wealth of people who value that aspect of their aesthetic instead of demonizing it as unattractive. Just like in the previous situation, there are a lot more non-feedist fat people than there are feedists in the general population, so over time the community ends up being mostly non-feedist fat people. A lot of non-feedist fat people are grossed out by feedists since an aspect of them that has caused them substantial suffering outside their control is being actively encouraged by the people who started the community. Conflicts occur between the feedists who feel upset that this area they created for themselves is now a space where they’re demonized regularly. A lot of non-feedist fat people are grossed out by what they see as a kink that is based in the sexualization of activities they are often shamed and oppressed for engaging in. Additionally, the feedists are the most fringe element that society would prefer exist the least, as both the smallest population and the objective set that is farthest from “normal” behavior. Thus feedists detract respectability from the community, impacting how okay it is for non-feedists to be public about participating in the community. Whoever is in charge of the community needs to process how to handle these conflicts and that sucks, the feedists just wanted a space to connect with each other, and the non-feedists found a space where their appearances aren’t demonized in the same way that mainstream society does. At some point the folks in charge realize that the majority of their user base are not feedists, and in order to serve the community they need to respond to what the community desires. The feedists are exiled from the community they created to serve the greater needs of that community’s new demographics. Now lacking community, one of those exiles makes a new community and the cycle repeats itself.
Similar to how white queer people escaped to San Francisco to flee the homophobia of most of America and displaced the people of color who had been living there, the non-feedist fat people flee to these feedist communities and displace the feedists. It sucks because every step of the way each party is making an entirely reasonable choice. The feedists are reasonable in creating a community to serve their needs. The FAs are reasonable in flocking to a community that has content which meets their needs. The non-feedist fat people are reasonable in embracing a space where their bodies won’t be demonized. The people in charge are reasonable for serving the community by doing what they can to meet the needs of the most people and keeping the community as respectable as possible so it can be more accessible to more people and more effectively meet those people’s needs. This has been going on since before I was born and is deeply intertwined with a lot of fat communities including fat liberation communities.
It’s frustrating as a feedist to know a place I was invited to that had been mostly feedists when I arrived has a continuously increasing percent of its population that hates that feedists exist. Based on what I’ve seen in the two times I’ve witnessed the cycle in full and the few times I’ve witnessed the cycle in part there are a few things that come to mind.
-1: The most impactful action to take in addressing this issue is fighting for fat liberation. If the general populace doesn’t treat fat people like shit there are dramatically less incentives for non-feedist fat people to dismantle feedist communities. This is useful for the people at every stage in this process, or who didn’t even know that these communities were a thing.
-2: The feedist community can take greater action to fight the problematic behavior that comes up within our community. There would be less incentive for the non-feedist fat people to exile us if there weren’t so many people who waste their calories on treating fat people like sex objects. This is accessible to both FAs and feedists.
I know this was a divergent topic that is wildly different from the discourse that most people are accustomed to. Thanks for making it through. Do you have additional ideas on how cycles like this work or how to effectively meet everyone’s needs without generating harm for other parties? I’d love to hear people’s thoughts!
May blessing and nourishment find all who read this,
--Isicera