Extreme obesity

First thank you for the reply. I was talking immobile only due to weight gain. Not an injury, illness etc only weight gain. Yes people can encourage them to be immobile i just my self won't i don't feel its right, n well think its sick.Im not judging anyone, to me personally plumping up someone who cant function normally just isn't right. To need help going to the bath room, bathing,cooking a meal, thats no kind of life, so for me ethically thats where i draw the line..

Ok, but how do you actually know when something is ethical or not? It seems like most people just go with their gut instinct and use "ethics" as a post-hoc justification. Does it feel right? Then it must be morally good. Does it sound icky? Then it must be unethical. I'm sure I don't have to point out that something as important as society's ethical code shouldn't just be left to emotion, so let's think through this for once. Broadly speaking, there are three major schools of thought about ethics.

Consequentialist or utilitarian ethics says that ANY action is ethically good so long as it is reasonably expected to have a positive outcome. By that they mean that it increases the overall amount of happiness while diminishing the overall amount of suffering. But whose happiness should be prioritized? If you want to go far into utilitarianism, you could say that immobility is unethical because it removes a worker's ability to contribute to the greater good. Of course, that's a pretty extreme position because it assumes all of us are obligated from birth to put personal interests aside in order to spend our lives working for the collective. But ignoring that, the wider impact on society of a couple pursuing this lifestyle is minimal either way.

What about the happiness and suffering of the gainer? Both of those are highly subjective terms that mean something different to everybody. You should know that there are many people out there who seriously want to become that size and live that lifestyle. For them, being immobile makes them happy, and the health issues don't seem like suffering to them. Encouraging them might be like helping them achieve a lifelong dream. If their lifestyle of choice is denied to them because other people "know better", then they will end up living a longer life for sure, but one full of sexual repression and regret. The only argument against it in that case would be if their immobility caused more suffering to other people than the gainer would suffer from giving up on their dreams. Like if they have children or if they had an elderly parent that was depending on them for care. So according to consequentialism, encouraging the right person in the right situation to immobility is morally good, because it increases their happiness and diminishes their emotional suffering.

Next, deontological ethics places emphasis on individual liberty as a value. The underlying belief here is that everyone is born with certain natural rights that can never be granted, only taken away. Speech, religion, right of assembly, bodily autonomy, and property ownership to name a few. So deontology focuses on creating a system of rules and boundaries that allow for the most amount of people to seek fulfillment in their own way. As long as everyone is playing by the same fair set of rules, then anything that results is considered a fair outcome. Underpinning all of these rules is the basic idea that you're in the clear so long as you do not cause harm to others without their consent. The majority of all laws are based on this concept. So according to deontology, as long as there is informed consent, then encouraging someone to immobility is morally neutral, because everyone involved wants to participate. Moreover, interfering with their desires could be seen as morally wrong because they did not consent to having their autonomy taken away.

Finally, there's virtue ethics, which is based on the idea that everyone should cultivate good personality traits (virtues) and act in accordance, while avoiding bad traits (vice). "Be the change you want to see in the world". Actions are only morally good if they reflect the moral ideal. Of course, the first question is who decides what counts as a virtue? There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer. Some have a personal role model, others trust in religious scripture as a guide, others take a philosophical approach. But in our case, let's just assume that Aristotle got it right the first time. He had a whole chart of virtues and vices. According to him, the 12 virtues are:

Courage or bravery in the face of fear,
Temperance, moderation, and restraint in the face of pleasure or pain,
Liberality or generosity with money,
Magnificence, industriousness, or doing something worthy with wealth and opportunity,
Magnanimity, humility and nobility with one's honor,
Proper ambition and pride in accomplishments,
Patience and good temper,
Truthfulness and honesty,
Wittiness and good humor in conversation,
Friendliness,
Modesty,
A sense of justice, and righteous indignation in the face of injury.

So let's see, helping someone to gain massive amounts of weight is self-indulgent, shameless, and probably a tasteless use of money (all vices). However, it also involves generosity, ambition and pride, courage to face the risks, and needs both honesty and patience to make such an arrangement work (all virtues). I haven't read deeply enough into Aristotle to find out if he had a system for weighing competing virtues against each other, but let's take the more conservative route and assume that someone must have every virtue all the time in order to avoid being unethical. So according to that standard of virtue ethics, encouraging someone to immobility is indeed morally wrong. But then, so is any degree of gluttony or even exploring kink in general, which display the same vices. The big question here is are you willing to live by that strict moral code and apply it to every situation? Will you try to avoid all forms of self-indulgence? The fact that your vices may be to a lesser degree than others won't excuse the fact that you are basically committing the same sin just by being part of this community.

So yeah, I guess it's up to everyone to decide for themselves, but unless there is some kind of rational foundation behind your ethics, it's pointless to hear about them.

This is a great conversation to have one that I have pondered on since I joined the feedersim community. Gaining and fat admiration for that matter no matter how we care to justify or frame it is a kink that has real health consequences.

Recently with this trend of weight loss surgery alot of former partners have had the surgery. While I will miss them having larger bodies I can`t discourage them because in my opinion it would be immoral. Even with the all that can go wrong with weight loss surgery and the side effects and the decreased life expectency the quality of life is better than that of an extremely obese person.

Overall if its between to consenting adults I have nothing to say about it. If they are into the kink and are willing to take that journey then more power to them.


I want to take the conversation further. I have noticed that many gainers or extremely obese people have experienced some sort of trauma. I have not done the research to support a claim that its more trauma than a skinnier person but i suspect there maybe a correlation. So I ask is it ethical to be an FA or a feeder if the person who is a larger or gaining weights weight gain is a result of trauma they have experienced?

It depends on the situation. If a person is using kink as an unhealthy coping mechanism, I would say that's unethical. Not because of the weight gain, but because of them not dealing with their issues in a productive way. It's like anything else, really.

Also, if a person gains weight, is unhappy that they gained weight, and is pushed to gain more? Well, I'd say that falls undercoersion.

But, if a person is dealing with their trauma in a healthy way, put on some pounds because of it, and decided that they want more? More power to them.

Good point, and I have noticed something similar regarding trauma. I agree that it depends on how they deal with it. For some, trauma is debilitating, and can lead to depression, kill their self-esteem, and they become apathetic about what happens to them, so food becomes an escape. I think that's probably most of the people who end up on My 600 lb life filled with regrets. In that case, encouraging them would be unethical because you'd be taking advantage of their weakness to help them do something that they know is self-harm, but they don't care about their own well-being. It's similar to how we view drinking alcohol, consent means less when judgment is impaired.

But for others, trauma can shape who they are, even as they move past it. Our personalities are influenced by our own life experiences, good and bad. It doesn't make their desires any less valid. As a personal example, I have had some pretty horrible experiences surrounding work. At this point, I don't trust any employer not to steal from my wages. These experiences have influenced me to want to start my own business. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that decision, even if something negative played a role in influencing it. The same can be true for weight gain.

I would never encourage someone to become a death feedist or get into a relationship with someone who was already. I have to think the end of it would be pretty grim whatever you do.

There is one scenario that I wonder about though: what if my feedee wanted to gain from, I don't know, 160 to 220 and we agree she'll stop there. Then she gets to 220 and loves it so much she doesn't want to stop.

She's out of control...maybe she'll go on a diet at times, but she always blows it and goes back to eating and gaining, even if I help her stay on the diet. At some point it's death feedism even if she doesn't want to call it that. Or maybe she does call it that...she loves eating so much she doesn't want to stop for anything.

I'd feel conflicted. Since I'd encourage her to gain the initial 60 pounds, I'd feel at least partly responsible for her going out of control. Thus I'd feel obliged to see to her comfort, maybe even to the point of making sure she could continue overeating.

I'm really not sure what I'd do in this scenario.

Of course 220 isn't death feedism. Just saying it could turn into that. As far as feeder responsibility goes...like I said, I'm conflicted about all of it. Glad to hear your opinion on this, but I'm not quite on the same page.

I think there’s nothing wrong with someone wanting to become immobile. At the end of the day it’s their body, they should be able to do what they want.

I guess the only thing would be the health issues that come with it. Some one would have to care for the immobile person. So when making the decision to become immobile it impacts someone elses life and impacts society indirectly by diverting resources to support that persons upkeep and welfare.