Rashi, for instance, comments: the people of Mehuza "were spoiled and fat"; and to the Talmudic phrase, he adds: "they consumed but did not labor—and thus lived off the plunder of their husbands, and worse, since they were accustomed to expecting and demanding the best food and drink, this forced their husbands into dishonest gaining of wealth"


In his seminar, Losch and his students, as well as other commentators, managed to explain the infamous punishments that had caused such difficulty for previous commentators. I will give their explanation in summary.

"They will lift you up on hooks"—meaning, you are accustomed to being lifted by the hands and litters of slaves because you don’t walk due to obesity and laziness, but God will punish you and instead you will be lifted up like meat carcasses, on hooks. This shouldn’t be taken literally, because the subsequent curses make it clear they remain alive; it’s simply a metaphor for some general punishments.

"And the rest/last part of you (i.e., your rear parts, buttocks) will be lifted on fishing hooks"—you are accustomed, when lying on your stomach for sex (because when you’re on your back, access to your female parts is less convenient), to having your buttocks and thighs parted ("raised, lifted" for getting access to your female parts, by hand, but the Lord God will part them for you as if by hooking fishing lines into your buttocks and pulling them apart with those lines. This is indeed the most plausible explanation, because alternative interpretations—taking this text as referring to offspring or the last of these women—make no sense. Why would offspring or the last of these women be lifted specifically on fishing hooks rather than meat hooks—what’s the point of that distinction? But if the first part of the sentence is metaphorically said about lifting the whole body and the second part of the sentence is metaphorically said about parting the buttocks, the difference makes sense: the whole body needs a larger hook, while the buttocks would be parted with several smaller hooks. Of course in reality it would be extremely painful procedure, and this sadistic metaphor is a part of Amos' wrath against these women.

"You will go out through breaches in the walls"—this immediately recalls modern media reports about how an extremely obese person couldn’t be carried out through a door because they simply didn’t fit, and a wall had to be broken to get them out through the opening. Here, it means: you’re used to not leaving the house at all because you can no longer fit through doors on your litters—but you’ll have to leave your homes through breaches in walls destroyed by God’s punishments.

"One woman after another in turn"—because in a house, there are several such women living together: wives of different brothers, women of different generations, and they’ll have to be pulled out through the breach in the wall one by one, because a breach wide enough to drag them out simultaneously won’t be made, and there simply won’t be enough hands for it.

"You will cast out onto a pile of filth." The meaning is also extremely clear: you’re accustomed to relieving yourselves with the help of servants who place you on some containers , or turn and and spread your body parts apart, but no one will do that anymore, so you’ll simply relieve yourselves sitting in your own pile of filth. The active form "you will cast out" is not a textual error—there’s no need to replace it with "you will be cast out"—it’s precisely meant that they will cast out, i.e., relieve themselves.

This isn’t about being taken into captivity, as is usually assumed—that always seemed unlikely from the start, because no one takes captives specifically through breaches in walls, and no one throws anyone onto a dung heap in the process. Nor does anyone lead captive women out of a house and drive them onward single-file, one by one...

In other words, Amos had in mind very real images of the lives of extremely obese women—women like those later described in various Arab medieval texts—and he threatens them with everything being the exact opposite of the care they currently receive.

Keeping all this in mind, for now, I’ll repeat what is absolutely certain in the text. There are some women who are fat—not just fat "like cows," but record-breakingly fat, specifically like the fattest cows on the fattest pastures—yet young (it’s not just cows, but specifically young cows), who are so spoiled and lazy (and, apparently, so fat that it’s hard for them to get up and walk) that they order their own husbands, without getting up themselves, to bring them wine. Normally, a woman should not only go get wine for herself but also serve it to her husband at the table, yet here it’s the opposite. And the husbands, according to Amos, fully indulge this behavior of their "heifers."

Next, it says they oppress the poor and crush the needy. Married women cannot oppress the poor and needy themselves; they live off their husbands’ support—it’s their husbands who might oppress someone, not the women themselves, directly. In Israelite and Judean society of that time, women were not independent property owners; as daughters, they depended on fathers and brothers, and as wives, on husbands. This means that the elite exhausts the people with taxes and spends them on these women, who demand luxurious upkeep from their husbands, making them too costly for the people and thus oppressing the people indirectly.

At the same time, the verbs themselves again suggest that they weigh a lot—they literally press down too heavily on the people with their weight.

What remains unclear is the list of punishments. "Lifted up on hooks"—yes, it’s long been suggested this is an analogy to how butchers hoist meat carcasses on hooks. But still, nothing is clear about "going out through breaches." Nothing is clear about the phrase "cast out onto Harmon/a dung heap."

What also draws attention is that this series of punishments implies a contrast: right now, things with you are this way and that way (and this way is very good), but they will be completely different, your brilliant situation will be changed to the most bad situation. Right now, your going out is like this and that, but you will go out through breaches. Right now, you cast out in this way, but you will cast out onto Harmon/a pile of filth.

The riddle was solved by Richard Losch (who was himself a priest, a rector, as well as a mathematician and biblical scholar), who simply consulted specialists among Jews knowledgeable about the Talmud and other traditions of commentaries on the Old Testament, took into account ethnographic materials about the fattening and extreme obesity of Jewish women in northwestern Africa, and noted that Amos compares these Samarian women not just to cows, but to cows record-breakingly fattened in the entire region, and that these women, according to Amos, without getting up themselves, demand that their husbands bring them food and drink, and the husbands comply.

He presented his conclusion as follows:
Richard R. Losch. All the Places in the Bible. An A-Z Guide to the Countries, Cities, Villages, and Other Places Mentioned in Scripture. Bloomington, 2013. P. 288, 468.
Amos’s "cows of Bashan" refers to the aristocratic women who, as a visible token of their wealth, intentionally became so fat that they could not walk by themselves. They loved to display their wealth by being carried on litters by their slaves among the poor who were on the verge of starvation (288). It became the fashion for the rich women, as a public display of their wealth, to become so obese that they could not possibly do any work. Amos called them "fat cows of Bashan" (468).

Developing and supplementing this viewpoint, in 2018, the authors of a specialized monograph on the perception of various animals in antiquity (Sian Lewis, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. The Culture of Animals in Antiquity: A Sourcebook with Commentaries. New York: Routledge, 2017, 2.7) specifically noted that the fattest cattle in the ancient Near East were fattened to such a degree of obesity that they could not move under their own weight, and such bulls and cows were transported on special carts and sledges (this is primarily known from Egyptian sources), and that Amos in 4:1 likely compared the women he condemned to precisely this kind of most overfed cattle (indeed, the epithet "Bashan" confirms that it refers to cattle known to the ancient Hebrews as record-breakingly fattened).

Jewish tradition’s commentaries on this passage align with all of this. In the Talmud, tractate Shabbat, 32b-a, it says in such a commentary: "The heifers of Bashan are like the women of the city of Mehuza... who only consumed but did not labor." The city of Mehuza, located in Babylon, where Jews lived very richly, was in ancient Hebrew tradition something akin to the fairy-tale lands of luxury, gluttony, and laziness in European folklore—an ordinary place where people lived who drastically surpassed the rest of the world in fatness, spoiledness, luxury, and idleness.

Just saw at bbw chan .

In the northern Israel kingdom, where the capital was Samaria, in the eighth century BCE, there lived a Biblical prophet named Amos, who, in the name of God, reproached the Israelites for their hedonism and refusal to submit to God, prophesying terrible punishments for them in God’s name. He particularly lashed out at the women from the capital district of the kingdom. This is Amos 4:1-3. He calls these women there "young cows (parah, in translations usually just 'cow,' but in Hebrew it is specifically young cows&apos of Bashan"

Bashan is a region with the best pastures in the entire area, where the cattle grazed there grew the fattest and most prosperous. This region was specifically used to fatten cattle to the maximum. Psalm 22:12 speaks of "fat cattle of Bashan," and the prophecy of Ezekiel 39:18 declares that in the time of future bliss, the Israelites will eat the meat of the fattest and most abundant cattle available—the meat of "cattle fattened in Bashan." In Deuteronomy 32:14-15, it is metaphorically said that by God’s mercy, eating the butter, milk, and fat of Bashan’s cattle of all kinds, "Israel grew fat and became rebellious; he grew fat, thickened, and became obese; and he abandoned the God who made him and despised the rock of his salvation."
So, the meaning of Amos’s phrase "young cows of Bashan" is not just "heavily fattened," which is already implied by the comparison to young cows as such, but specifically record-breakingly fattened women.

I provide the text in Hebrew, followed by a literal translation. The understanding is very difficult d in some places, and some words spark much debate there. I give it literally.

4:1
שִׁמְע֞וּ הַדָּבָ֣ר הַזֶּ֗ה פָּר֤וֹת הַבָּשָׁן֙ אֲשֶׁר֙ בְּהַ֣ר שֹֽׁמְר֔וֹן הָעֹשְׁק֣וֹת דַּלִּ֔ים הָרֹצְצ֖וֹת אֶבְיוֹנִ֑ים הָאֹמְרֹ֥ת לַאֲדֹֽנֵיהֶ֖ם הָבִ֥יאָה וְנִשְׁתֶּֽה׃
4:2
נִשְׁבַּ֨ע אֲדֹנָ֤י יְהוִה֙ בְּקָדְשׁ֔וֹ כִּ֛י הִנֵּ֥ה יָמִ֖ים בָּאִ֣ים עֲלֵיכֶ֑ם וְנִשָּׂ֤א אֶתְכֶם֙ בְּצִנּ֔וֹת וְאַחֲרִיתְכֶ֖ן בְּסִיר֥וֹת דּוּגָֽה׃
4:3
וּפְרָצִ֥ים תֵּצֶ֖אנָה אִשָּׁ֣ה נֶגְדָּ֑הּ וְהִשְׁלַכְתֶּ֥נָה הַהַרְמ֖וֹנָה נְאֻם־ יְהוָֽה׃

Literally:
4:1
Hear this word, you young cows of Bashan, who are on the hill of Samaria, you women who oppress the poor, who crush the needy (both verbs mean to suppress, oppress, or afflict, but they also carry the connotation of pressing down heavily from above, bearing down with huge weight), and (merely) say to their husbands, “Bring us something to drink (wine)!”

In some translations, to immediately clarify what these Bashan cows are, an expanded meaning is provided:
“You women on the hill of Samaria, who have grown fat like the overfed heifers of Bashan…”

4:2
The Lord Yahweh has sworn by His holiness that behold, days are coming upon you when they will lift you up with hooks, and "the rest of you/your remnant"will be lifted up with fishing hooks. (Literally, it says "the rest of you, your remnant," which can be understood either as "your backsides, your asses" meaning the rear as your hindmost, last part, or as "the last of you," or even as "your offspring," though the latter is especially unlikely. The most probable translation is "backsides, asses."

4:3
And through breaches (in the wall) you will go out, each woman in turn/one after another, and you will cast out onto h-r-m-n (what this "Harmon" means, remains unknown; it is currently often suggested that this is a scribal error, and "Harmon" stands for the graphically nearly identical Hebrew mdmn , "a pile of dung, a heap of manure", says the Lord.

In the text, it is in the active form, "you will cast out, you will expel": scholars, not understanding what the active form of the verb could mean here, suggest treating it as a scribal error for the passive form "you will be cast out onto Harmon." What Harmon is remains unclear; even if we assume it’s a mountain or some other place, as is often proposed, it’s not clear what kind of divine punishment this would be—to cast someone from Samaria onto some "Harmon." If we assume it means "a pile of dung," it would read "you will be cast out, that is, thrown onto/in a heap of manure," but this doesn’t quite fit with the previous phrase, because it says, "you will go out through breaches in the wall." And on its own, it’s not very clear what kind of punishment this is. There’s a theory that it refers to being taken captive by enemies from their ruined dwellings, but it’s entirely unclear why captivity would involve going through breached walls rather than regular doors and gates. Moreover, throwing someone onto a dung heap would only make sense for dead bodies. But "You will go out of your city/homes through breaches, after which you will be killed and thrown onto a dung heap" sounds somewhat absurd.

(Continuation of two preceding posting

The extreme obesity motif highly strengthens this "lazyness and selfindulgence fetish", but doesnt create it.

I often wonder, why now this fetish can be seen usually only in combination with dirtyness and filth fetish? After all the centuries when these things could exidt quite separately?

(continuation of previous post) I often wonder why these two components almost always go together in modern slob fetish, and why in frames of FAdmiration they are so closely connected to idea of extreme obesity which makes it very difficult or even impossible to take care about oneself.

I dont want to say anything against such a combination of fetishes, I just want to emphasize that it is namely a combination, and its components can exist and really existed as independent things.

For many centuries in Western and Eastern cultures there was a subculture, or fetish, or practice (call it with any word one wants), which can be named, may be in a paradoxal way, a "sweet-smeling slobbyness", or "an utterly lazy slobbyness, which is hygienic and sweet-smelling due to ful pampering". Its the most hedonistic version of "slobbyness". This included component (1) of modern slob fetish, but not its component (2). The heroines were as lazy and self- indulgent as in examples given above, but there were no consequences of type (2), because these heroines didnt want such consequences and received enough pampering and care to avoud them.

The heroine of such tales and real practics gives herself full freedom to fart, but she doesnt want to feel without neccessity an unpleasant smell, and doesnt want her lover etc. to feel it, so bad smelling is neutralized and eliminated by incenses, oils, perfumes and other aromatizers and bad-smell-killers

She eats messily, but maids, relatives or lover , or they all, take care of her during her meals, wipe and clean her face etc., as for a baby, so she is messing herself with food while eating, but doesnt remain messy

When feeling natural needs, she can go just on the spot onto the nappies / pads, just to avoid efforts and discomforts of standing up and walking and holding herself, - but she is helped with this and she is immediately fully cleaned by her "team of helpers", and unpleasant smells are neutralized in course of her going and being cleaned in the same way, as was told above, so she doesnt remain soiled, and her place doesnt remain dirty.

She sweats abundantly snd doesnt bother to clean herself, and the smell of her sweat is taken as good; but she has no unpleasant and foul body odor because she is bathed and wiped by her "helping team".

Her room and clothes are clean, because other people take full care of it.

She is lazy and therefore messy, because she spoils herself so much, but she is clean (and appreciates and wants it) because other people spoil her too. Her natural body life, from sweating to farting and relieving herself, is takenas nice and eroticized, so her body is fully free, but she is liberated from dirtyness component , without any her own effortsand bothering herself, because other people take care of her in this respect, to her own pkeasure and by her own hedonistic desire, not for some social discipline.

I think that dirty/messy slob fetish is partly an attempt to revolt against pressure of outer world. "Ladies, you must be slim, you must eliminate hair from your body, you must not fart, you must be clean , you must not snell with sweat, you must not show your body in its natural condition, you must smell only with perfumes , and spend many efforts to achieve all of this" - the society commands. And it causes somehow a desire to reject all the complex at once - it causes an image of combined bodily freedom to have hair on body, to be fat and to be dirty etc).

But in times of old natural body was not rejected and the idea of bodily freedom and utter lazyness was not so much combined with bad smelling, absense of hygiene and food stains on one's face.

Moreover, this " utter lazyness" was not tied specifically with only extreme obesity. Though hedonistic ideas almost always were connected with plumpness ( jusr because people like food), the "lazyness - slobbyness " in tge sense discussed was not determined by huge weight which makes it very physically difficult to mantain one clean by his/ her iwn efforts. It was determined just by overspoilnment and selfiindulgence, possible at any weight.

On some erotic miniatures we can see a girl, not more than a chubby, who deliberately relieves herself from her front and behind just while lying at some rich feast where she has luxurious meals. It is presumed, of course, that she will be cleaned immediately. She is not of such weight that would make it diffucult for her togo to the toilet, she js just so lazy and self indulgent. Nothing filthy is depicted.

On some european pieces of art men help their women with toilet and wipe their bottoms, not because its difficult for them to do it themselves. And it has nothing in common with femdom or toilet slavery, its presented as deliberate pampering of princess by her true knight (who well can remain a leading part of the couple), not a humiliating service of a slave to his domina. And nothing filtny is depicted here, too.

It seems to me that the modern "slob fetish" unites two rather different things:

1) hedonistic lazyness, full self- indulgence for any bodily needs and comfort = utter bodily hedonism, full freedom of satisfaction of any bodily needs ; avoiding efforts and self- compelling to do snything

2) dirtyness, being filthy, messy, smelling bad. This second part is presented as natural consequence of the first. But in fact its two rather independent fetishes.

In slob stories i've read, the herone farts without hesitation, because she just wants to relieve the pressure and to let full freedom to her body. Its about (1). But it is emphasized the bad smelling of her farts, the word "stinking" is used often. Its about (2).

She sweats abundantly from activitirs because of her plumpness, and she doesnt shower herself because she is so lazy and dont want to bother with any efforts. Its about (1). But the bad body odor is emphasized as the result. Its about (2)

She eats with passion and thatswhy she eats quite messily, because she is so devoted just to satisfation of her desire for food, not with the manners of clean eating , its about (1). As tge result she is depicted as a person with messy and greasy hands and face, with stains of food on tge skin snd clothing, etc. Its about (2).

She doesnt clean her room because she is lazy and avoids this work, its about (1). As the result the room is dirty and has bad smells in it, its about (2).

Sometimes its depicted how she relieves herself just on the spot, on tbe nappies / pads under herself, just not to bother with standing up , walking onto the toilet and holding all inside while she movrs herself there. Or it is stated that she doesnt wipe after her numbers 1 and 2, just because its a laborious thing for her, and she is so lazy. Its all about (1). But it is given too, that as the result she remains soiled and messy in her nether parts, her panties are dirty and smelling with her excretions etc. Its about (2).

The list of examples could be continued, but i wonder (see next post)

I got to learn that this thing was well known in many societies if old. For many centuries Western European medieval and early modern sources mention couples which, due to obesity if both partners or one partner, could not perform sex with penetration either in some poses (missionary first of all) ir even in any pose. The church authorities mentioned the first of this situations ( when missionary sex is fully impossible due to fatness of one or both partners) as only excuse for using of other positions (they were prohibited by the church in general), and there were discussions what is worse from the church point of view in such cases when missionary position was impossible due to fatness - to use another position or to abstain of any sexual consummation of married life at all (oral and hand sex were prohibited as sins at any case). There were also discussions if it is permissible to use help of other people in conjugal sex when its difficult or impossible without help due to obesity of both or one partner

Some byzantine texts express moral reproaches to such families, that, when seeing that their children grow rapidly too fat and soon would be too fat for penetrative sex, dont try to stop it snd to return these young offsprings to modest life, but just try to marry them as quickly as possible, so that at the very moment of marriage they would be still able to consummate it with penetrative sex, in any position and even with any help, and these families arei fully indifferent to the further possibilities of the couple, they care only for the fact that the brides would be able for penetrative sex just after marriage, to consummate it.

Some variants of Tale of beautiful slavegirls in Arabian Nights states, thst one of the beauties (a Fat one) is so fat that she cant be penetrated at all by any partner in any pose. And still she is sexually attractive. In other variants it is said that it is very difficult but still possible to penetrate her.

It is interesting that in one of medieval tradition of Middle East four levels of this kind were distinguished:

a ) when a person cant waddle on her legs without help, but can arise and stand up for a moment by herself, and well can move on her fours and crawl for short distances;

b ) when a person cant walk even with help, cant arise and stand up without help, but can arise and stand up for a moment with help, and can move on her fours without help though with much efforts:

c) when a person can't neither walk, nor arise and stand up even with help, but still can get on her fours and move on her fours, though prefers to receive help even with this, or stops for a rest after several movements on her fours.

d) when a woman can't even get on her fours and move on her fours or crawl, and she is able only to turn from side to side on the spot, and needs or prefers help even with this.

In formulas of " seven stages of fat beauty" the (c) stage was usually omitted.

It is told by several sources that Abda, the wife of caliph Hisham of 8th century, was so fat that she belonged to ( b ) level, namely she could stand up and make several steps only with assistance if 2, 3 or 4 maids, but could get up on her fours by herself, though with efforts.

Many wives of nobles and kings Great Lakes region in Africa werecso large tgat they on their could only crawl , but not stand up even with help, it is (c) level y Middle East classification.

Byzantine sources mention people so fat that they could move only "as seals, on their bellies", its (c) level too.

Some middle eastern folklore tales and byzantine and syrian texts mention women and couples of (d) stage, but its a very rare topic.

Extreme obesity in literature and folk-tales.


E.g., see fantasyfeeder.com/cms/infusions/forum/view-thread.php