General

I stumbled across a (public-access) dissertation about feederism written in 2008, and it being the first (and perhaps only) research on the subject, I thought it might be an interesting read. It's nearly 200 pages long--double-spaced, thankfully--but here it is if you want to check it out.
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/002/MR43596.PDF

The research is exploratory in nature, and can be thought of as an establishing shot of the fetish. The author also frames their findings in the context of stigma (as a sociological concept) and how participants in the fetish manage or avoid the associated stigma (which is a subject I'm sure we're all quite familiar with). As with any good research paper, the author includes quite a bit of background information on the (limited and often misrepresentative) existing research on the subject as well as the terminology used in her analysis, which helped me--a relative lay person--digest the analysis quite easily.

Overall, I'd say it is a commendable piece that presents the kink with reasonable accuracy and keeps a clinical tone throughout, incorporating many primary source interviews from respondents found through Dimensions and Fantasy Feeder. (She does drop the clinical tone when she condemns some of the works she cites as being over-exaggerated; such works include blanket references to feeders as male and abusers and all feedees as female and victims, assertions which the author took great care to dismantle.)

There isn't much in the piece that anyone who has spent much time in this community wouldn't already know, but there are some choice quotes from the respondents (which I'll share below), the final list of questions respondents were asked (on page 146), and some opportunity for introspection as a community.


Starting off the quotes with quite a kicker:


Supporting Donna's point, one respondent had this to say on the topic of the author's identification as a BBW:


I don't think she really owes anyone anything, and this hardly feels appropriate to say to someone who is trying to act as an observer...

Moving on, the author makes the observation on page 101 that many of her feeder respondents use positive terminology (voluptuous, plus-sized, full-figured, etc.) to refer to feedee partners, rather than "obese," "overweight," or "fat." She guesses that this usage is motivated by an avoidance of the stigma of having a fat partner. Personally I wonder if this practice has changed over time or if it was ever true at all--maybe it was only a way to sanitize the language they used with an outsider. Maybe the motivation is actually more about being affirming to others in the community and lessening the stigma feedees might feel.

On the next page, a quote on being "out" about feederism (rather than just appreciating fat partners) reads:


As a man, I have been spared the attentions of my peers for most of my life, and I'm curious to know about the experiences Susan is talking about. I can guess that these bad experiences run the gamut from objectification to outright abuse. The feederism community suffers for the reputation that such interactions garner for us, and I wonder why people think they would be a good idea (who is socializing feeders to be jackasses? There aren't exactly a lot of us. Is it white knight syndrome? Something else?) and what can be done about it.

Finally, an interesting observation from Donna again:


This is an interesting topic. There are interesting parallels as well as definite differences. Both someone trying to gain weight and a visibly trans person are often seen as alien. But being fat is probably less transgressive and they can hide their intent from strangers. On the other hand, a trans person might eventually pass, presenting as the gender they identify with, but a fat person getting fatter only grows further from the norm with each pound.

I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on this dissertation or the excerpts I've provided.

Very interesting, as someone is in the field of psychology I always wondered why there was so little actual research on the topic. Its always interesting to know how we function as humans.

Maybe too taboo? But I mean, they research way more touchy subjects

I've always loved this kind of stuff. And it makes me happy to see how the researcher handled this.

I'm sick of how feedism is normally portrayed - a sick, predatory man who fattens up helpless, brain wash women. Or perverted men who prey on fat women and use them as a sex object.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying these people don't exist. I encounter them on the regular. But it's uncharitably painting the kink in a narrow light.

It's so hard to find anything accurate on this kink. So this is good.

I have some theories on this actually.

One theory is that feederism is too niche to have good publicity and too benign (compared to things like pedophilia and a number of other taboos that the dissertation touches on) to seem like something that needs urgent investigation. On the latter point, it's the extreme cases of abuse that serve as lightning rods when it does attract attention.

The second theory is aligned with yours, but generalized. Fat/weight gain in general is not only taboo, it was long considered a closed case as a biological and psychological phenomenon. There's a relative lack of research on why people gain weight (even disregarding intentional gainers); for a long time people subscribed to dogma, as noted in the dissertation, that people who eat too much and can't control their appetite gain weight and people who are disciplined can manage their weight. The role genetics, hormonal imbalances, and other factors play seem to have been quietly ignored for the most part; researchers and people in general just don't want to talk about it. I imagine that more interest in the processes of weight gain would have drawn more interest in feederism as a result.

The third theory is that, as a kink, attraction toward larger bodies and the desire to foster growth in partners is a primary taboo in the specific context of modern, western(-influenced) societies, further limiting an already limited scope, given the rarity of the kink. Furthermore, the ability for these tastes to crystalize into communities has only recently been facilitated by the advent of the internet; this isn't to say that there weren't feeders before--look at Dimensions. But I'm sure it would have been hard to conduct research on the subject prior to global mass communication facilitated by the web.

Agreed on all points. It's frustrating that the movie that comes to mind as specifically tackling feederism portrays a predatory relationship. I hope someday that some of the positive aspects of the kink and lifestyle--themes of nurturing and acceptance--rather than abuse are given proper treatment in media.

The thing is that there are many cultures that prize fatness. Don't get me wrong. They have their own problems and I am not upholding them as some kind of standard. But it just goes to show that there isn't just one standard of sexiness out there. You can be fat and attractive.

And people can love you for more than just your body. You can be 800 lbs, and find someone that loves you for you. They don't even have to have a fat kink.

All of this is really a reflection of how we as a society view things. How we view men as inherently predatory, women as inherently weak, and fat as inherently disgusting. And none of that is actually true.

Does anyone have a university account they can access this book with?

link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137470461

I'm curious about how the research has tracked since the 2008 dissertation.

Doing the Lord's work, my good sir.

Awesome, thank you tons!