Clothes padding

"coming out" to others

Hey all. If any of y'all follow my posts, you'll know I love to get padded up and go out in public, presenting as a fat man with a large belly. I've done this dozens of times now, but there's always the persistent fear in the back of my head -- what if someone I know sees me??.

I'm sure most everyone here has had the same thoughts - even if you don't go out padded, you probably have the fear that someone will "walk in on you", and see you pretending to be fat (or fatter).

More and more lately, I'm wondering if that's actually as big a deal as I've always felt it is. I mean, for me (and I imagine, most of us), padding has direct links to sex/masturbation, so it's like there's a built-in link in my head -- as if the shame of getting caught with one (masturbation) is equal to the shame of getting caught in the other (padding).

But lately I feel like there's a growing disconnect, as most of my padded activities now have nothing (overtly) to do with sex! It's just me going to a clothes store, or out to eat, etc -- normal human activities (I guess I still have some sexual thrill by feeling like a fat man, but it's not like I'm jerking off in public!). And it's got me thinking about how if someone else enjoyed going out with say, a blue wig, should they feel ashamed that they get recognized in public? At this point, padding is basically a hobby to me, so why am I so embarrassed by it??

And more importantly, if I told my close friends about it how would they actually react? My wife knows about it and is surprisingly cool with it, but she also knows a lot more about my sexual preferences than my friends. I haven't worked up the courage yet, I mean it's not something you can just take back, but more and more I feel like it doesn't actually matter if they know. I mean, everyone does weird stuff, right? What's so bad about playing dress-up? Idk. I guess my ultimate goal is to be able to go out proudly, near my own house -- if someone from work, or a neighbor, sees me padded, I want to be able to own it. Be like "Oh this? Yeah, I like to tinker with this fat suit. How does it look? etc" and then go about my day, unembarrassed.

So I made this post to talk about it.

Do y'all agree?
Have any of you told anyone about your padding? Or have you gotten caught padding?
How'd they take it?
20 hours