chapter 4 (pt. 3)

Eric wasn't finished, though, and subtly, yet unmistakably, their roles as patient and therapist briefly reversed.

"Doctor, I've heard people say you're one of the top minds on the psychology behind sexual fetishes. What exactly drew you to that field? I see the degree from that Ivy League school hanging on your wall. You could have done anything you wanted with that. Instead, you chose to spend your time talking with perverted guys like me, who can't get it up without cramming doughnuts in their face! Surely there were more lucrative ventures to pursue?"

"Maybe I just appreciate men with a healthy appetite," Dr. Thrace teased with a wink, fully aware of how horrendously she was tantalizing Eric.

"Come on. Don't dodge the question. Why are you the 'fetish shrink?'"

"Fair enough." Dr. Thrace conceded, setting her pen down to focus her attention to the question at hand. "There is so much confusion, misinformation, and prejudice surrounding sexual fetishes in academic literature and society by and large."

"You're really gonna use the phrase 'by and large' to discuss why you're an expert on fat fetishes?"

Dr. Thrace laughed. "Do you want an answer to your question, or not?"

"By all means. Continue."

"I chose this field, because people act as though they're experts, when they've never experienced a word of what they've written. They cherry-pick extreme cases within respondent groups and then act as if they've drawn scientific conclusions from a blind-study."

"I take it these conclusions are wrong?" Eric added, 'astutely' connecting-the-dots.

"Completely! Take your fetish for instance. I've argued for years with those who continue to publish dribble asserting that feederism inherently acts as vehicle of misogyny."

"You've argued about whether my fetish inherently hates women?"

"Well it sounds absurd when you put it that way, but yes. I have," Dr. Thrace spoke up passionately. "More precisely, whether your fetish objectifies women sexually and is harmful towards them."

Eric had no horse in that race, nor had even contemplated the issue previously. He did not want the conversation to end, however, and so Eric chose to play devil's advocate. "In fairness, Doctor. I've noticed there are far more male feeders, than female. Wouldn't that tend to refute your position?"

Dr. Thrace's bullshit radar was raging at that remark. "You have? I thought you'd been gaining alone Eric?"

"Just...observations."

"Ahh...well than your observations would be from fetish websites you peruse, am I right?" Dr. Thrace accurately surmised.

"Mostly."

"There's your first mistake. You assume by the sheer reason that more men partake in an activity on the internet, it somehow automatically makes a practice misogynistic. More men pee standing up, but you'd never say leaving the seat up was somehow misogynistic. Correlation does not equate causation, Eric."

Eric loved the fire in her voice. "That's a cute metaphor, Doctor, but it doesn't seem like you've spent much time on the sites you speak of. Numbers don't lie. It's not that there's a few more men hunting down women to fatten, or hoping to be fattened themselves. There's astronomically more men then women on those sites. Doesn't that make you a little suspicious of misogyny?"

"Alright, fine. You say numbers don't lie and I'm wholly unfamiliar with Feabie, fantasy feeder, or whatever other site you're referring to. If that's the case, let's take a look at them. You would argue that if something were NOT misogynistic, there'd be an even gender split, reflective of male to female ratios in the real world. Do you follow?"

"I do, but it's hardly a 50/50 split on those sites, Doctor."

"You're right. It's not. Take Feabie for instance, where the ratios are horribly lopsided. There are, according to a recent profile search, a little over 125,000 users there, of which roughly 94,000 are male. So 75% of all users are men, give or take."

"You did your homework, Dr. Thrace, but I don't see where you're going with this."

"Bear with me. If lopsided participation were indicative of misogyny, you'd find greater gender disparities on fetish sites when compared to other sexually themed websites. But that's not the case."

Eric started to see the bigger picture. "You mean there are more men on sex sites in general, not just sexual fetish sites."

"Precisely. Is it any surprise to you there are more men looking for 'game' on the internet, than woman? Whether this phenomena is the result of societal conditioning, or is somehow genetically ingrained, is a topic for another day. Yet, if anything, a three-to-one male to female ratio is LESS disparate than many equivalent sites that have NO relation to recognized sexual paraphilia."

"Alright. I'll certainly give you that there are more creeper guys online than women. But wouldn't you agree the act of making women overweight, or ridiculing them for gaining weight, is abusive or misogynistic."

"You don't seem to mind, Eric."

"I'm not a woman."

Dr. Thrace rolled her eyes at how easily Eric had dismissed her point, solely on the basis that he did not have a vagina.

"I'd say that what you just said was sexist, but if you really want me to wade deeper into the waters, so be it. To start, you're using the term misogynistic very loosely. You can't just dismiss a practice because you don't personally like it and then choose to apply the label of misogyny, post-hoc."

"Humor me."

"Very well. Many feeders would disagree with your assertion that their fetish degrades their partner. To be certain, so-called 'evil feeders' are lurking and wholeheartedly embrace a certain level of imposed degradation. Yet many describe their fetish as a desire to nurture or spoil their partner. That would more closely resemble an objective manifestation of affection, hardly the degrading aspects you choose to characterize as misogynistic."

"I didn't know you interacted with many feeders, Doctor, you're so thin! None of those 94,000 guys struck your fancy?" Eric sarcastically inquired.

Dr. Thrace spit the mocking question right back. "94,000 men, Eric. I never said 94,000 male feeders. A woman can't be a feeder? What makes you so certain I wouldn't be the one feeding them?"

This stopped Eric dead in his tracks. Was she admitting to it? Was she so passionate about the subject because the same fire that burned within him kindled inside of her? Or was that just wishful thinking? Before Eric could probe further, Dr. Thrace went on.

"Don't worry. I'm not offended. It's very common for people to incorrectly assume gender roles. Haven't you heard the riddle about the father and son involved in a terrible automobile accident? The father is killed instantly and the son is rushed to the emergency room. Then, on the cusp of emergency surgery, the surgeon shouts 'I can't operate on this boy, he's my son!'"

Eric acted as if the answer was readily apparent to him, when in fact he'd struggled the first time he'd heard the riddle posed. "Right. The mother's the surgeon."

"Correct. That's not obvious to everyone, though, and it's the same with feederism. Academics scrutinize the fetish, but always seem to forget that female feeders even exist. If the practice is so misogynistic, why do so many women revel in the role of feeder? It's possibly the greatest hole in your argument."

"I never said it was MY argument, Doctor, but are you sure you want to rest your case on the ever illusive female feeder? If I were you, I'd wager first on Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster rearing their head. Better odds of finding them, I'd say."

"Oh they're out there, Eric. She's probably closer than you think." Dr. Thrace said with confidence.

Her points made perfect sense to Eric. It was to be expected that people like his wife feared the fetish. For decades the fetish was presented in the form of morbidly obese women paraded in front of a live live studio audience, complete with chauvinistic husbands straight from an episode of 'Sister Wives.' Daytime television wasn't there to impartially present the subject, or educate its viewers on a concept alien to them. Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil were more concerned with ratings than facts. It was an all to common formula: sensationalize and then sell. The human cost of the stigmatization they engendered, was an externality left out of the media's cost-benefit analysis.