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Fall

2007-10-23T14:50:00.000-07:00

As the dying of the warmth of summer progresses and the first cool tinges of fall coolness leak into the area, the FAs season of dreams comes to a close. This morning was a last summer fling with the temperature sufficiently warm that only the most calendar-centric dresser had on any outer garment, whether sweater or coat. The summer fashions were in ripe bloom and this FA was in righteous reverence of the coming end of a season.

The obesity epidemic has become pandemic if you listen to the solons of the media and organized(diet industry supported) medicine. My observations, more empirical than statistical suggest that this is of course an gross expedition in hyperbole and bullshit. Yes, there are many more fat people than there used to be, and many of the fat people are extraordinarily fat. But, the vast majority of the folks on the street(and certainly in Manhattan—New York County and what most people from out of town consider NYC) are not fat. They’re anywhere from anorexically miniscule to skinny to what passes for BMI normal to perhaps a few pounds beyond that.

But, the thing which has changed so dramatically in the last 5-10 years is that the fat people are not invisible. Well, for me they were never invisible, no matter how hard they tried to hide themselves in black and other stealthy clothing. But, I’ve noticed that most of the fat women on the streets are wearing much more attractive and size and curve revealing clothing than they used to. Yes, there are still 450 pound women with enormous butts wearing black polyester pants in the hopes that no one will notice(and they walk gingerly so as to avoid any eye contact with others). But, there are multitudes of women in all sizes of large who are gloriously and sensually clad in ways which highlight their physical charms. Without channeling the creepy side of FA adoration of sexy fat women, there were women wearing snug light colored pants which hugged their ample, curvy hips and delightfully demispherical derrieres, bountifully bellied beauties proudly presenting primely pulchritudinous paunches, magically mountainous mams worn proudly and without minimization enhanced in softly gathered tops which made these women’s electric endowments entirely examinable. All of the shapes we FAs find desirable, from hourglass to pear shaped, apple shaped to triangular, thighcentric to bellyrific, armtastic, breastmagorical and chinsational, are out on display.

The biggest difference.. no, it’s not the clothing, and no, it’s not the size(though both of these have improved over the years), it’s the attitudes. The new fat women KNOW they look good. They know that there are many who won’t find them attractive and in fact will be grossed out by them. But, they don’t care about these fatphobes and fathaters.. because they know that there are many men out there(and I suppose women too), who find their fat, fabulous forms to be the things of beauty that they see when they try on that new outfit and find that yeah.. it does make them look fat.. but not just fat, incredibly beautifully fat, amazingly delightfully fat, totally hot fat, simply gloriously and abundantly fat. And that fat.. it’s a good thing. It’s a thing to be displayed and taken pride in, not hidden or covered or made invisible.

And as an FA who takes the greatest pride in watching lovely fat women come into their own and acknowledge, accept and own their own beauty I can't express clearly enough the joy that I get from watching a fat woman really showing off her body with an attitude that says... I know that I'm hot, that I'm beautiful, that men of real discriminating taste find me attractive, arousing and all that. It really makes me feel personally all warm and fuzzy inside.

The biggest change that so many fat women have to deal with is that they have to move from feeling that they’re not objects of derision or hate or ugliness or invisibility, but beauty. Their beauty is not necessarily what they’ll find on the cover of Cosmo or the centerfold of Playboy, but it is a vibrant, sexy beauty that is their own. And there are many of us FAs out there that are living in the golden age for FAs where the fat women we adore are coming to grips with the bullshit that society is laying on them and fighting back to lay claim to their bodies, self images and sense of pride in their shapes and sizes.

And all I can say is Amen.

FA’s Find Friendship

2007-07-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

FA’s Find Friendship

In recent days I had the reprisal of an event which has come to be a very special event for me. The husband of one of my dear internet friends, a ssbbw of great beauty and wisdom and class and charm and lots more neat stuff, came into town. He usually comes into New York twice a year for business and ,being a New Yorker originally, he drools for several months in advance over the thought that he will have a chance to have a “real” tongue or corned beef or pastrami sandwich. On his arrival we usually retire to an old style Kosher Deli where the sandwich thickness is akin to the Manhattan Yellow Pages, digging deep into the culinary timewarp that accompanies this living embodiment of childhood memories.

However, as wonderful as the food and company is, his arrival triggers another event which I’ve truly looked forward to now with even greater anticipation(since I live in NY and can eat the deli whenever the urge grabs me). That other event is related to the fact that my friend, I’ll call him Sting, though as far as I know he doesn’t play bass, sing professionally or have any association with the Police, is a dyed in the wool, card carrying Fat Admirer. While he is faithful and adoring of his lovely wife, in his heart and soul, eyes and loins he feels the pull and attraction of the glories of fat women. Like all of us FAs he wanders through life attuned to the appearance and presence of the mystical, magical and magnificent charms of BBWs and SSBBWs in the wild.

It is an article of faith that when FAs write about their thoughts the concept of “the sighting” is never far from their writings. Many BBWs and SSBBWs seem mystified and/or insulted by this seeming obsession with the way in which FAs seem to share and trade sightings with each other like trading cards or rare stamps or coins. They sense that there is an objectification of the women into some “thing”, having a shape, size, face but devoid of personality or other characteristics of humanity. I think, that in many ways this is an unfair charge because, for the FA, the sighting is as much of as a FA’s being as is breathing, smelling fire to warn one when to run, smelling good food as a sign to eat or a dark shadowy alley alerts some primeval early warning system to prime the fight/flight responses. For an FA, the sighting in some primitive, hardwired way, prepares the FA for the presence of a potential partner. While in our complex society this function is generally not something that can be acted on(in the way it might have been in our distant past when the number of people was so low and the only way to assure procreation was to act on someone interesting to you pretty much immediately), the hardwired system is in place and triggers automatically, much in the way that the smell of fire triggers a bodily reaction or aroma of good food causes the saliva to begin flowing.

The interesting thing for me is that “most people” and even many BBWs and SSBBWs find the whole FA reaction to be gross, repulsive or in some fashion infantile, when, I suspect it is something completely natural, normal(among FAs), and proper. I will, however, agree that acting on that FA reaction without the usual societal restraints and controls would be improper.

The meeting with Sting, the FA, was a seminal event in the continuing evolution of my understanding of my own being(and no fluids were passed apart from mustard and ketchup). The reason is that by nature and probably more by virtue of the ostracism of our preferences, most FAs are loners, at least as to our preferences. While there are some highly evolved FAs who are not only open about their preferences but wear them on their sleeves like a badge of honor, more of us who are open about our preferences feel no need to broadcast our proclivities and taste because it generally isn’t most people’s business what we believe or find attractive. Anyhow, it appears that vast numbers of us(like Nixon’s Silent Majority), are rather lonely and cloistered in our FA’dom in real life. The internet has provided a more comfortable venue for finding other FAs, although again most FAs on the net are looking for BBWs and SSBBWs and see the other FAs more as competition than as comrades in arms(fat arms, naturally). So, even on the Dimensions Boards and Chat there tends to be more of a separation of FAs from other FAs. The women chat with the women, the men chat with the women(and vice versa), but only more rarely do the guys chat with the guys except as a way of besting another to vie for the attention of a woman. I suspect a certain amount of homophobia may be one of a number of reasons for this.

In real life environments where there are fat women and FAs grouped together the dynamics of the environments again tend to disfavor FAs grouping together in a way where they recognize, revel in or explore each other as a way to find out more about themselves or just have a good time. Having attended Naafa conventions over the years I see this playing itself out repeatedly. There are various social groups… all girls, one woman surrounded by a posse of men, one man surrounded by a posse of women(I like this one….) or a group of men and women sharing a space as a group. But only rarely are there groups of male FAs together to hang out and enjoy the time together and revel in the wonders of being an FA in such a beauty rich environment. I wrote about one such FA meeting at a Naafa convention on the dimensions boards many moons ago.

So, my FA friend’s visits to my town provide us a time to hang out, catch up on people we know in common, see how each of us is doing, and our families, and break bread together(preferably rye). And this has always been a source of enjoyment, but the FA side of us has in some way been tacitly accepted but not really discussed as some embarrassing wart or birthmark that we know the other knows we have, but isn’t to be discussed or compared. Usually, in the past we have danced around the subject and shared a rushed sighting of some extraordinary nature or the like. But, no real discussions as to what we really have happen inside as we wander the world locking in on flabulous fat women in the wild have surfaced.

Until the last time.

For the first time we somehow had a little extra time together and had a meal at a place more conducive to sitting and hanging out and lingering over a very pleasant dinner and talking. And, finally, our talk slowly, and initially scarily trespassed on the forbidden fruit of FA’dom. And, rather than a lightning bolt striking each of us down as we sat, or the other looking on in horror or disgust, the gates began to open and decades long private thoughts passed our lips and crackled off our tongues. And there was no horror or disgust, but amusement, knowing nods and serious belly laughs. The amazing secret that we discovered…. Inside we’re almost totally the same. We play the same private mental games, perform the same FA activities and enjoy the same internal debates about a woman’s size, shape, dimensions, weight and beauty. We each have elaborate mental constructs to calculate what a woman weighs, what her dimensions are, from height, to bust, to waist, hips and thighs. And, not wedded to a single estimation, as we continue to observe a fat woman we often tweak the initial calculation based on the way she moves, observations from different angles and other visual and sensory inputs.

As a game, and because it allowed us to spend more time together until I had to take my train home, he walked with me to Grand Central Terminal and we situated ourselves on the mid step landing at the Western end of the main room of the terminal, the one with the high ceiling with the stars of the Zodiac laid out on it. But rather than observe the stars on the ceiling we talked and followed the female stars below and in front of us. The area is so vast you can’t immediately see everyone across the whole expanse of the big space. Yet, we each would see all of the fat women within seconds of each other and then would share our estimates of their sizes if they were sufficiently interesting and ther weren’t too many at one time to focus on. My methods of calculation, honed over decades of FA’dom are empirical and subjective, not based on any formulaic approach. Sting’s approach is more highly mathematical, based on an evaluation of the basic three dimensions with some “weighting” factors, such as relative proportions and others. Yet, our guesses were usually quite closely linked together. Usually less than a ten percent variation, which in such a setting is quite small would divide our guesses.

We also discussed the way in which our bodies, eyes, brains are set up so that we need do nothing for a fat woman to trigger our attention .It is clearly some system from the dim past that continues to function and aid us in our search for the perfect mate. However, it is an acute sense like those of sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. Whether it’s a jungle sense that dates to the early sense of whether the sound you hear is prey or predator or friend or foe, I know that my FA sense of an approaching fat woman is as much a part of me as is my ability to distinguish the smell of frying bacon from burning rubber. One arouses my taste buds and salivary glands to action. The other alerts the cough reflex and eyes to churn out tears to fight the oncoming horrid stench and acrid smoke. In the same way the locking onto an attractive fat woman causes my heart to beat faster and some shrunken bony woman’s appearance devoid of any secondary signs of womanhood, breasts, hips, butts triggers no reaction apart from a slight uneasy agita, distaste or pity.

In many ways I wonder about non-FAs and if they experience the same sort of independent below consciousness tracking system for hunting out the women who appeal to them on some visceral level. And, of course, whether women have a similar sort of early warning system in place.

It’s funny, I started out intending to write about how wonderful it is as a FA to have another FA who is your friend, but moved beyond that to what I see as a core FA issue, which has never received much play in the discussion boards apart from some creepy sounding thing that sleezy FAs do when they leer and drool at fat women, making them at least uncomfortable and at worst totally skeevish and frightened/angry.

However, I believe, and put it out there for others to weigh in, that the FA’s BBW early warning system is an inherent element of the FA makeup and something that is just hardwired into our systems. Neither good nor evil, merely a part of us like arms and legs and bellies and a penis.

I’d be interested in other comments from FAs, whether men or women, about their relationships with other FAs and comments about this FA sixth sense I’ve tried to get a handle on.

But, to come full circle on the original thought, my friend is coming back into town this weekend and I’ll be able to revisit this subject and go into it in greater depth and perhaps to share inner FA thoughts openly with another connoiseur of curvy charms We have plans to attend a glorious food based event which he attends as part of his vocation and for me as part of my avocation. However, based on his prior visits he assures me that the ratio of bbws and ssbbws to the pool of women is much higher than that of the population in general. I stand prepared to be convinced, stupefied and delighted.

Reflections

2007-04-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

Reflections

I’ve been on hiatus for quite some time and I sense that there is a continuing malaise which pervades me preventing me from adding more to the blog. Perhaps it’s a matter of not wanting to repeat myself. Or perhaps it’s more a matter of not having anything to say. Or, perhaps it’s more of a sense that the time required to craft posts which rise to the level that I insist on is greater than I want to dedicate at this time. Or, perhaps I don’t want to limit the blog to a recitation of sightings of glorious fat women or similar such simple daily travelogue stuff.

My life has muddled on since the last times I’ve posted without a whole lot of substantive change. Of course things have happened, people have done things, I’ve reacted, emoted, responded, etc. But none of that has been related to the core vision or voice of this blog. So, in the absence of profundity I have preferred to be mute.

My reading of others blogs is relatively limited. I have found as time has progressed how frequently blogging seems to follow an arc from early excitement to blossoming maturity of purpose to exasperation and extinction. So many bloggers gush, as I did in the early days of their blogs, clearing the pipes, so to speak, of the pent up thoughts yearning to be free. With apologies to Emma Lazarus, having viewed the blogger’s statue of liberty, the passion, excitement and urgency of the early days fades. Perhaps this is very much like personal relationships which erupt in the early bloom of exploration, lust, passion and newness, but must then transition to a deeper and more mature stage, setting down roots, or dying on the vine without growing to adulthood and bearing fruit.

So many of the promising blogs that I read before I started mine and then read after mine came into being have come into being, flowered and now lay fallow. Few of these even gave notice of their passing or had a proper burial. Most just exist in the state of being as of the last post or comment, forever in anticipation of the next words. One ponders whether the bloggers are deceased, dying, decrepit, dillydallying on other things in real life or the net, or perhaps just lost their passwords(or had them hacked and then changed) and are prevented from even accessing their own blogs. This last one was new to me until I spoke with someone with a Yahoo site with their name and pictures attached who advised that they had no further control over the site because someone had hacked their password and now they couldn’t “get in” to change the site and Yahoo wouldn’t do anything about it. C’est la internet vie.

As I look at those bloggers I’ve read who have sustained themselves and their blogs over extended periods of time, and there aren’t many of them that I read, I often see the bloggers feeling a burden in putting the electrons to screen at times, but through force of will and perhaps just stubborness extend themselves to get something down, no matter how brief or banal in the hopes that the regular posting will serve some useful purpose in their lives.

I wonder, for these wonderful folks who persevere, whether they go back on occasion to review the posts they’ve made, either to see how their states of mind and being have changed or just to revisit some old friends. Some of these folks seem to blog as a way of keeping track of their journey. Others seem to blog to keep touch with the world and vent what seems to infuriate, excite or depress them. Others seem to blog because they have a physical need to keep expressing themselves.

For me, this need to express myself in words seems to be the strongest urge. At times this urge is met with my blog posts. At other times its met by email correspondence which can get as lengthy and involved as my blog posts have been. At other times I’ve wandered into the Dimensions Boards and expressed myself at length in that venue. However, I usually lose interest in that forum due to the depressingly overbearing short attention span of that medium and the way in which thoughtful comments are often hijacked, ridiculed or otherwise undermined. While it is the most wonderful environment in the BBW/FA world and one which I’m richly grateful for existing, I find that my natural predilection not to suffer fools would make me a pariah in short order if I spent too much time there. On other occasions I’ve visited the Dimensions Chatboard, but again, find that venue to be very limited both by the nature of the process and by the cattiness of many of the long time denizens. Perhaps it’s more a reflection of my growing impatience, but I find the number of close-minded, relatively uneducated(and I’m not referring to years of study but inherent lack of knowledge and study of life, our world and topics relevant to the BBW/FA world), immature individuals who pop in and out to be tiresome and toxic. Using a term from the field of electrical energy, the signal to noise ratio is way too low. There isn’t enough interesting discourse to justify the filtering out of all the boorish, stupid, repetitive, repeating, duplicative, unoriginal, posturing noise.

So, now I’m back with the blog and hoping that I make the time to ponder things that interest me. Early in my blogging I was more concerned with others reading my blog, commenting and getting some sense of recognition than I am now. I know that there are a few of my friends who read my blog and get some satisfaction from that activity. In this more mature phase of my blogging I find that thought sufficiently rewarding to meet whatever need for acceptance remains. In the early phases of the blogging I was intent on turning people on to my blog, hoping that they’d find something new, useful or interesting in it. This was particularly true with people who seemed to be struggling with similar issues that I’d struggled with and blogged. However, as the blog went on and the volume of the writing continued to grow new people were often overwhelmed by how many words there were and the difficulty of reading the blog in the order it was written. Somehow I find the posts to be more relevant in the order they were written, though most of the posts are independent works. Sometime soon I think I will collect all of the posts in one document, just to see how long it really is. If I do that I’ll share it with the blog. Something self-referential and similar to the photographs of mirrors reflecting into infinity in that.

Well, now that I’ve gotten myself worked up here I need to find a way to end things. In the absence of other inspiration…. That’s all folks…. For now. I do feel the tingle of excitement once again in writing for the blog, so stay tuned.

What is the Perfect Food? Or.. To Hell with Apples

2007-01-13T23:05:00.000-08:00

What is the Perfect Food? Or.. To Hell with Apples

Life in the Garden of Eden was incomplete and much less than perfect. How is this so, because it didn’t include nature’s perfect treat. As hard as it is to credit that some omnipotent being created an oasis of such complexity and perfection that it would be a place that no mortal would ever want to leave, we humans found the exit after not too long. It is interesting to consider what the Garden of Eden was and the way it is described in the bible and by commentators ever since. Quite frankly it is a place that only a scholar or religious fanatic would find to be perfect.

Once can read long and hard and fail to find any discussion of the eroticism of the Garden. No clothing was around, so lingerie wasn’t an option. The animals spoke to the humans so there was likely no privacy. There doesn’t appear to have been any living structure, beds, bathing apparatus, places to relieve oneself, toilet paper, internet, other people to talk to. God seems to have been a rather active parent in the process, checking on Adam and Eve(was this before they came out with their line of adult toy products?) telling them what they could do… anything except what he told them not to do. Obviously God wasn’t a very experienced parent as any parent in these days knows that the surest way to have your child do something is to insist and demand that he not do it(and there’s a big punishment if he disobeys).

As a foodie you wonder what they had to eat. One would imagine no meat was served since the animals apparently talked to you. Hard to see Adam sidling up to Elsie the Cow and saying… hey Elsie I’d really like a big juicy ribeye, mind if I slaughter you and barbecue up a piece of you? And, even if they did, how wasteful.. how much of a side of beef could two folks eat before it went bad. And, I didn’t see anything about Viking Stoves or SubZero Refrigerators or even Fisher & Paykel dishwashers, not to mention Cuisinarts or even decent knives and pots and pans. And a decent Weber grill.. I’ve read and reread the relevant parts of Genesis and I can tell you they just don’t mention it. I don’t even recall fire being part of the deal.

So, Adam and Eve were probably non-cooking Vegans eating raw veggies and fruit to their heart’s delight(apart from that apple tree) and were almost certainly completely regular. I don’t see any mention of salt and pepper or chili peppers or even garlic. I can tell you that given that ultra-bland tableaux I’d have followed old Adam and Eve out of that Garden as fast as I could. Come on, even if they had grapes and did up some wine how good could the local Cabernet Eden Vintage Year 1 have been? Was 1 a good year for Cabs, Pinot Noir, Merlot? And it doesn’t sound like they even had any glass for the bottles or glasses.

But yet, the religionists proclaim the perfection of the Garden of Eden and consider all these points to be irrelevant because there was total happiness in the Garden of Eden. Seems to me that Adam and Eve were just ignorant of all the good stuff they were missing out on, like kids who go to Kindergarten and discover that other kids watch cartoons, have PS2 games and can stay up past 7:30pm.

So, having moved beyond this fake theological arena of perfection I pondered whether there was or is a perfect food. And, one need not look much further in the Bible to find God’s second effort at perfection in the culinary areas. Manna from heaven. Massaging the old grey cells a bit drags the memories of what it was from the old memory banks. It fell every night and in the morning one went out and collected a day’s worth of the stuff and brought it back to tents.

You’ll recall that this was during that rather bizarre interlude in Exodus(the original, and not the Leon Uris remake which must have included a midnight ship’s buffet), where the Jews leave Egypt with the Egyptians hot on their tails until the Red Sea grabs the Egyptians and drowns them. Then the Jews, some million or so folks, wander aimlessly about the Sinai Peninsula, a very small desert surrounded by water, for 40 years waiting for all the brave souls who left Egypt to die off before finding the one spot in the Middle East with no oil. Now either God or whoever made up this story had a problem, a desert won’t feed 1,000 people for one year, that desert certainly won’t feed a million people for 40 years. So, a miracle(or deus ex machina, or some other literary device) is necessary to sustain these literally wandering Jews while cooling their heels in the hot desert sun.

So, bada bing bada boom … manna. It’s the latest greatest thing from the god almighty. No work, no cooking, no cleaning, just grab and serve. Rice a Roni wishes it thought of this. But what did this stuff look like? Did it come in colors, sizes, different shapes, textures? Not a lot of discussion of what this stuff was other than that you were supposed to get up in the morning and take an omer’s worth. If you took more than you needed of it by the next morning it was gone and you had to get more. Ahh, but the key was the taste… it tasted, supposedly like whatever you wanted it to taste like. Perhaps the exquisite sushi and sashimi of Masa’s or the incredibly redolent aroma of a crispy turkey skin guarding the mother lode of stuffing, or even the amazingly sweet taste of midsummer watermelon? It doesn’t say. But, what were these folks used to eating.. well, all we know is they had been slaves in dusty Egypt, had this thing for lamb and had eaten the unleavened bread in their haste to flee Egypt. For those of you who do the Matzoh thing, imagine 40 years of eating the stuff. And lamb is cool, but there has to be more to life than that… and there’s no reason to believe that people were that creative in what they wanted to eat if they weren’t creative enough to walk out of this little desert that contained them for 40 years. It’s not like the manna came with a card that described the specials tastes of the day.. a lovely pan fried sea bass with black bean sauce and a porcini risotto.

Well, I think you get the point. This manna stuff sounds like the creation of someone to whom food wasn’t a big thing. They were more interested in trumpets and praying and stone tablets and wandering around for 40 years in a sand box. Or, it was the work of someone looking back on the story of the 40 years in the desert and having told the story kept getting the response.. so Mr. Smart Guy, what did they all eat for 40 years, sand? Manna, a magical food from god, could be whatever you wanted it to be.

Hmmmm, sounds like a copout to me. Did it just taste like the food, or did also have its aroma, texture, mouthfeel, and did it look like the food you wanted(or just a mound of mush). And, since all these folks who left Egypt died off in the desert, how were the people born in the dessert supposed to know what they liked in real life if they’d never eaten anything but this manna stuff. Not a very good thing, I think. Faith is a great smoother over, but frankly the story has always struck me as a weak one.

So, where am I going with this.

Good question.

The answer is that as December rolled around and turned into January one of my favorite times of the year for eating a food began. That food, one definitely not found in the Garden of Eden(or available as a taste of Manna), was coming into the beginning of its season.

Whereas many foods require extensive preparation, treatment, handling, cooking, cleaning and pampering to tease the most out of it, this treat is truly Nature’s perfect food. It comes with its own container, needs no refrigeration or cooking and doesn’t need to be kept clean or washed. Once the container is opened the food is designed for easy service and even sharing. One can eat at one’s own pace, not being concerned that the food will cool or warm up or spoil as it sits there. If you want to eat it over time or even eat a portion of it and come back to it later(if you have the willpower to do so), it’s not a problem. No cutlery or plates are needed to eat it. And, once you’re done, there’s no garbage that you can’t just drop outside wherever you are. It has a delightful odor and eating it with your fingers will lightly scent your hands in a pleasant fashion. While not a beverage it is both filling and refreshing.

The food, you’ve probably guessed is not an apple. No, it is a Navel Orange. Not just any orange, but a navel orange. Unlike Eve in the Garden this Orange has a navel. In this case, the navel is actually a second orange(usually not edible, though in some cases you can see and eat a miniature second orange within the first) which has any seeds, so that you need not worry about any pits or seeds when you eat the orange. The Navel Orange has a smooth protective skin which with a little effort can be pierced with your nails and then peeled back easily with your fingers so that the completely edible innards are yours for eating.

Looking at the peeled Navel Orange one sees that the tightly clustered segments are individually wrapped and can usually be separated without damaging the segment walls. Inside the segment walls(which are quite edible unlike the grapefruit’s segment walls which are much hardier and less enjoyable. If one carefully opens up the segment walls you will see within it a tightly clustered collection of little juice tubes which again keep the juice from oozing out. All in all as perfect a food as Nature with man’s assistance has been able to produce.

So, anyone else have another candidate for the most perfect food?

A Day in the Life

2006-12-29T13:25:00.000-08:00

A Day in the Life

Heading home after a long day at work, obsessed with the thoughts of lovely fat women, pretty of face, ample of body and sharp and witty of mind, my path takes me through Grand Central Terminal and the thousands of people coming, going and at this time of year, seemingly just hanging out and watching the displayed holiday images on the ceiling and walls of the main room. The regular high powered, high speed zigzag used to reach my train platform, usually diagonally placed from the corner I enter GCT won’t work at this time of year. There are easily half again and perhaps twice as many people in the terminal, many of them milling around eyeing the visual display or, exhausted from a day of shopping or awaiting the appearance of friends and family stand like statues. To make matters worse from a FAs perspective they’re all wearing overcoats as winter, for some reason not in a hurry to stay, has made one of its cold feints into the Northeast. So, all these people, many of them bbws and ssbbws, are essentially hidden from view by the billowing coats and outerwear. Also, the shear volume of people tend to hide individuals from view as my attention as a faster moving pedestrian needs to be focused on the ten or twenty feet of space in front of me to navigate around slower moving folks, milling obstacles, people with abundant suitcases and the like. Clearly not for beginners.

But as I make my way finally to my platform the logjam is broken and the number of people is manageably reduced. On a slightly earlier train than usual to deal with something on the home front I hope to see a different crop of commuters and some infrequent visitors to the city on the train. My hopes are met as I swing into my usual car and look for an open seat. From the outside, looking in the windows I see at least three women who are bbws and one who appears to be a ssbbw. In fact, the woman entering the car in front of me has a swinging wide rear atop a lovely set of graceful full legs. That poetic pliability of flesh and fabric which follows a woman with thighs wider than the space between the two legs is working and my outlook has improved immediately. I’m also looking for a suitable seat, the aisle seat on a three seater row with no one in the middle. If the passenger sitting on the window seat is a bbw or ssbbw that would be even better. I pass the three bbws sitting in the car but no empty seats next to them. As I continue down the aisle and the open seats I know are there, I follow the gal with the mesmerizing meaty mambo and watch as she heads for the second open seat, so I head for the first one, in the row behind her.

As I approach my seat I look at the couple sitting together in the row behind the one I’ll be in. They are actually quite huge, surprisingly so. The man looks like you’d expect Santa Claus to look like if he stopped climbing in the sleigh so much and let himself really enjoy the food at the North Pole. I can’t tell how tall he is, but I’m guessing under 5’8” and the weight somewhere in the 400s with a very ample belly to go with his wide full face ringed by a white beard and wispy white hair. Sitting next to him is his wife, they both have their wedding bands in view, a ssbbw of similar vintage… probably early to mid 50s. My first impression is that she has one of the huge black and white cookies sold in the terminal resting on her bosom as if it were a table or shelf. They’re discussing some book the fella is reading and the woman keeps absently touching the cookie, almost stroking it, until I notice that she’s flipped it over so the black and white frosting is now pointed down and the baked bottom of the cookie is facing up. As I slowly take off my overcoat, scarf and suit jacket, stowing them on the overhead rack and letting people walk by(it’s easier to do this stuff while standing in the aisle then when in the row of seats(not enough room for this big fellow to maneuver gracefully there) I have an opportunity to observe the woman. She is sitting in the middle seat, tight up against her hubby, rather than the more roomy aisle seat which would give them some space. While not a spring chicken she has that smooth,unlined facial skin common among women of size who haven’t spent a lot of time losing and gaining weight. Her body shape seemed to be that of a pear shaped woman with a relatively smaller top spreading to a much wider base. I would consider her an ssbbw of middle size. My initial interest in why she elected to sit in the middle seat(sort of, since her husband extended somewhat into that seat) rather than the end seat which would have given them both more room, was answered about ten minutes after the train took off and I heard gentle snoring from both of them periodically. Of course, had someone wanted to sit in the same row(with three seats, nominally), the space between the aisle and the woman’s left hip was probably under a foot. How sweet it was to see the two of them together, growing older as a loving fat couple, the woman having eaten the black and white cookie before going to sleep.

After sitting for a few minutes and just before the train headed off, another bbw came up the aisle. A shortish, about 5’3” dirty blond with shoulder length hair and thick arms, smallish bust and slightly bigger belly but ample derriere. A tasty confection, if not a meal sized treat. And then, after she was settled she took out Tattoo Magazine. I spent the rest of the ride trying to imagine how many tattooes she must have and where they are located. None were apparent and she was dressed conservatively in a pair of black dockers and a purple wool sweater which seemed just a bit snug. I hoped that it would creep up exposing her back above her waistband and show a tattoo. Alas, when it was my stop she was still fully covered and apparently tattoo free.

And off I went….

Le Bernardin Beckons, Part II

2006-12-24T18:36:00.000-08:00

Le Bernardin Beckons, Part II

Picking up again at the beginning of the Main course of my luncheon at Le Bernardin, the salmon amuse bouche and the appetizer and bread have taken the edge off my hunger and tittilated my palate enough for me to be ready for the main course with its different elements.

I’ve been a fan of monkfish for quite some time and have enjoyed it at many restaurants and even in my own home but have never been able to get the texture as perfectly done as they achieve at Le Bernardin. When I first heard of Monkfish I had been told it was known as poor man’s lobster because of the texture and mouthfeel, if not taste of the fish. It does have a similar feel to it, not flaky like a flounder or steak-like as tuna or swordfish can be. The tender near white flesh resists the bite and maintains its shape and integrity as you chomp down on it, much in the way that lobster has an almost rubbery feel. The monkfish generally isn’t quite as elastic as the lobster, but also has a slightly less strident a flavor, making it more suitable to flavoring.

The menu called the Monkfish entrée a tribute to Gaudí: pan roasted Monkfish; confit peppers and fiery “patatas bravas”; Chorizo Albariño emulsion. The pan roasted monkfish appears on the plate as a series of slices fanned into a gently curved line in the middle of the plate. The finely diced peppers sit in a vertical orientation below the fish. The potatoes are smaller versions of the bar food known as potato logs, potatoes split lengthwise into narrow sections above the fish. The potato sections are drizzled with two narrow parallel zigzags in bright contrasting colors. Once the plate is firmly situated in front of you, the server gently pours a happy smile of the Chorizo Albariño emulsion at the bottom of the plate facing you. The chorizo is the spanish or Portuguese sausage and Albariño is a grape used in a dry Spanish wine. The orange/red sauce is relatively thin, but coherent presenting a lovely support to balance the monkfish and potatoes above it. Finally, with the smile of the sauce, the confit peppers, sitting above the sauce and below the monkfish appear like a bright red soul patch. Preliminary review finds the potatoes to be small but prior experience counsels cutting the potatoes into smaller pieces for eating to enjoy them more fully. The two zigzagged sauces have different but complementary flavors with a bit of spice. As a chili head and a disciple of the capsaicin cult I didn’t find the sauces to be fiery. For those who don’t like spicy foods fiery might be only a slight stretch. In any event they were piquant and tasty. The monkfish as recalled was ethereally delicious, with a mild flavor and a rich mouthfeel even before dipping in the emulsion. I tend to be no fan of overly complicated names for things, and in this case I think the name for the emulsion is a bit wordy, but…. It was amazingly good. I’m a big lover of chorizo the Iberian sausage so frequently used in Spanish and Portuguese cooking and I was dubious of getting the big bold flavors of the chorizo into a relatively thin sauce. But, surprisingly, the bright sauce held both the flavor and rich aroma of the chorizo without the bulk or even flecks of the sausage. The wine flavor was mostly overcome by the bigger sausage flavor. Somehow, I realized I was having another dish with a pork contribution.. very odd at Le Bernardin. I hadn’t thought of that when I’d ordered the Monkfish but its impact was felt on each dipped bite of the monkfish adding another dimension of heartiness to the delicious fish beyond the flavor and texture.

When I’d eaten the entrée into a mere memory and only the emulsion remained on my plate, in the interest of not lowering my tongue to the plate or lifting it to my mouth to get the last drops of that liquid gold I used the remaining bread to sop it up. In some way I was a bit embarrased that my plate looked so clean that it could almost be used for the next diner without cleansing, but in another I was so pleased with the deep glow that was growing across my face as my lips fought mightily against a permanent grin spreading across my mouth. And, the anticipation that I would be presented with a new menu with the series of mouthwatering desserts detailed.

The remnants of the main course were removed and the linen returned to its pristine purity with a quick sweep and twist of the crumb removal tool. Again, the drinks were refreshed and after we’d had a few moments to continue our conversation and begin to compose paeans to the first courses, we were each presented with the dessert menu. Each of the desserts is a special combination of elements inducing pleasure through the vitality of flavors and variations in taste, temperature and textures.

Invariably this is the toughest part of the meal at Le Bernardin, the selection of only a single dessert from among the wide variety of choices. And, as if that weren’t hard enough, they throw in the possibility of having a selection of cheeses in lieu of the dessert. I will confess that being a gourmet cheesehead(no On Wisconsin in this guy) that I’ve succumbed on occasion to this option, particularly if I’m with others who share what they’ve picked so I can tickle my sweet sensors. Their selections of cheeses are not only so deliciously decadent and delightful, but presented at room temperature so the full flavor of the curds are released, the runny cheeses are in full sprint and the aromatic elements are arrestingly aroused. But, alas, that day we weren’t sharing and I couldn’t imagine not having some succulently sweet specialty to trigger unstimulated parts of my brain.

So, the look at the choices began. Like a whirling dervish entering his music and movement enhanced trance, I began to commune with the dessert menu. The lovely room, the hushed conversation at other tables, the constant sussuration of passing waitstaff and even conversation at our table passed into the background as I focused my attentions on the important selection. Even though I knew that there would be no bad choices, I was expecting a transcendent experience and would be brutally disappointed with a merely very good choice. I quickly eliminated the simple dishes, like a dish of ice cream(though I’m a huge fan of a simple dish of chocolate ice cream sans whipped cream-even the real stuff and not the “shaving cream” from the can or Cool Whip), and focused on the specialties.

As a confirmed chocoholic I always first look to the chocolate themed desserts. My eyes immediately focused in on the Chocolate-Peanut dessert, described as Dark Chocolate, Peanut and Caramel Tart, Meyer Lemon Purée, Peanut Powder, Praline-Citrus Sorbet. I could already sense the rich deep dark chocolate paired with two textures of peanuts and then a variety of palate cleansing acidic citrus ingredients… but, I refuse to choose so quickly.

I quickly scan the titles of the main desserts that follow: Chocolate-Corn; Honey; Sweet Potato; Pear; Passion Fruit; Apple and Yuzu-Green Tea. The ice creams and sorbets that follow are all delicious, but I sense that I would be missing out on something fabulous by going for these more mundane choices. At the end is a kicker, that cheese course in lieu of the dessert. Savory instead of sweet. For me this is always a tough choice as I truly love cheese and they tend to put together a very nice plate with four or five selections and some small fruit pieces, crackers and delectable breads.

The ice cream choices are Vanilla and Malted Rum Milk Chocolate. The sorbets: apple-lychee; raspberry-ginger; coconut; and Mandarin.

I have to reduce the fifteen possibilities: eight main desserts, two ice creams, four sorbets and one cheese plate to a single choice. With my clients who aren’t sharing people(and there’s nothing better than going with a bigger group and getting to try all the choices) I know that if I don’t order it the closest I’ll get to it will be to see it up close and watch the reaction of its owner as he eats it. So, I operate by the process of elimination, throwing out those things which don’t make the cut. First to go are the four sorbets. They are somewhat interesting, but with all those other choices, not in the running. Next is the Vanilla Ice Cream. I’m sure the vanilla ice cream is heavenly, and made from fresh vanilla beans and the perfect temperature, etc. etc. etc… but, hey, it’s only Vanilla Ice Cream and I’m a chocolate fiend, so it’s gone. Ordinarily all the ice creams would go but the thought of Malted Rum Milk Chocolate flavor has my tastebuds circling to know more. So, I put that on the list, but hanging on precariously. The cheese plate I put aside, knowing that the ultimate choice will be between the selected dessert and the cheese plate.

So, I’m now down to 9 choices for the dessert. And I focus on the eight main dessert choices and see that there’s another chocolate option. I give myself a moment to breathe and pass some fresh air over my palate as my brain cogitates on the Chocolate-Corn selection, described as Soft Chocolate Ganache and Sweet Corn in Three Textures: Crunchy Corn and Hazelnut Base, Corn Sorbet, and Corn Tuile. I can taste in my mind the soft chocolate ganache, its richness and smoothness egging me on but the sweet corn in three textures causes me to consider this oddly. I’m imagining that this will be a single dish with all the ingredients assembled in a logical fashion. So, I figure that the CrunchyCorn and Hazelnut Base will be on the bottom, forming the base with the soft chocolate ganache pooled on top, capped by the Corn Tuile(presumably a thin, curved cookie) making a tasty roof and with an orb of the corn sorbet on the side to liven the whole group. Sounds interesting, even good, but Corn? Not even with the chocolate. I just can’t rally to the cause of Corn as a dessert item. So, much as I hate to kill off a chocolate dish so early in the process.. it’s gone.

The next dish, the Honey is described as Citrus-Strawberry Salad, Honey Parfait, and Charentais Melon Purée. Interesting, even unusual, and I have no idea what a Charentais Melon is, but… somehow, it just won’t beat out a chocolate dish with dark chocolate and a sidecar of a sorbet. It’s gone.

Later research shows that a Charentais Melon is actually a true European cantaloupe. That was a good call at the table by me.

I must confess that when I scanned the menu the first time I was looking to find a souffle, having had two before here and enjoying them completely. One was a fruit flavored souffle, I believe a lemon with a chocolate cream cloud mixed in. The other a chocolate sorbet of such divine complexity that there are still times that my taste buds go through withdrawal from that amazing experience. But, alas, no souffle. Perhaps those times were dinners, but I don’t really recall, it was some time ago.

So, onto the next main dessert, Sweet Potato. This one is close to being eliminated early in the process… Sweet potato just isn’t what you think of as a dessert food, but I read on and decide to keep it in the first pass. The dessert is described as Spiced Sweet Potato Tart, Red Wine Caramel, Maple Whipped Cream, Pistachio, Vanilla Salt. Again, I try to recreate what this will look like and I imagine it as low tart filled with a cinnamon and clove flavored sweet potato with veins of red wine caramel topped by the richest of whipped creams, larded with rich meaty pistachio meats topped by vanilla flavored large crystal sea salt. Okay, I’m getting excited as I read this now, so you can only imagine how it felt then.

I recall at this point looking up and making some conversation to break the internal mood and asking what the others were looking at. They hadn’t decided and while the Boss was carefully reviewing the options the other fellow was considering going without dessert. His boss and I talked him out of this. Heathen, philistine(even Phyllis Stein), idiot… thoughts that went through my mind at the thought he wouldn’t have dessert, until it occurred to me that if he didn’t want to order a dessert I might order a second one “for him” so I could taste it since the fixed price includes a dessert. But, this thought came a millisecond too late as he said he would have some dessert and began to look.

Next on my hit list was the Pear: Warm Pear "Charlotte", Ginger Caramel, Pineapple Buttermilk-Sorbet, Lauria Alpine Cream Liqueur. Now, I happen to really enjoy pears and the thought of a delicious cooked pear charlotte with ginger caramel and a dollop of pineapple buttermilk-sorbet doused in some Lauria Alpine Cream Liquer sounded pretty darn good. No way this was getting cut on the first pass. I was starting to lean toward something that had a main portion and a secondary frozen confection like sorbet on the side.
On with the show, the next choice was Passion Fruit. Now, I’m usually not a huge fan of passion fruit, finding it usually too sweet and missing in complexity of flavor, but I read on. It’s described as Passion Fruit Cream Enrobed in White Chocolate, Ginger Caramel, Mandarin Sorbet. Mmmm enrobed in white chocolate. Now that’s an expression I can wrap my tongue around. More of the Ginger caramel, something which doesn’t really excite me, but, with the Mandarin sorbet. It meets the two part standard so, despite the passion fruit its still in the running.

The next choice is Apple. Described as Slow-Baked Apple Confit, Poached Dates, Yogurt Sorbet, Quince and Ras el Hanout Coulis. Very interesting sounding, including dates which are a favorite, and it has the yogurt sorbet(interesting concept) and a coulis(not a huge fan of sweet thin jams). Somehow this one just doesn’t make the grade of the others, and its gone. Thank goodness I’ve eliminated something.

One more, Yuzu-Green Tea. A Japanese inflected dessert. Interesting, though yuzu is not my idea of a dessert as its so bitter, generally. It’s described as:Yuzu Cream, Caramelized Rice, Grapefruit, Green Tea Ice Cream, Crisp Meringue. While interesting, somehow I’ve never found green tea ice cream to be flavored in a way that is sufficiently interesting to my palate. I enjoy drinking green tea, hot and even cold, but as ice cream it isn’t bold enough to stand up to the ice cream challenge. Whew, another one whittled away.
That’s the end of round one. So, what do I still have left for the second pass to go up against the cheese plate in the finals? The Malted Rum Milk Chocolate Ice Cream, Chocolate-Peanut, Sweet Potato, Pear and Passion Fruit. Five choices, each a interesting one. At this point the ice cream melts under the pressure and is quickly gone and I’m down to the four main desserts. Then, the other two diners are heard from. The Boss has decided that he’s going with the Passion Fruit because he’s taken by the “enrobed in white chocolate” language. He confirms that he’s a white chocolate addict. I smile solicitiously and feel sorry for him that he doesn’t enjoy the full richness of high cacao percentage dark chocolate. His junior immediately agrees that he will have the same. Just because I’m feeling ornery I drop the Passion Fruit from my list, down to three choices.
On reviewing the Chocolate-Peanut my lips commence smacking in anticipation, always a good sign, if a bit gauche. My predisposition against sweet potato shines through and I ditch this choice wistfully. Down to the last two, the Chocolate against the Pear. This is a really tough choice and I sense that I’ll need to decide quickly since the other two have reached their choice. The chocolate wins out, if only because it’s a dark chocolate and hell, I love chocolate, and can’t imagine how a ginger caramel will taste anyhow.
Whew, done it selected the dessert. But wait.. what about the cheese plate. So, I temporize and signal the Captain over and ask him what’s on the cheese plate. He says that the cheeses haven’t yet reached the right temperature and the chef has indicated that he would prefer not to serve them. Saved by the bell. I thank him and order the Chocolate-Peanut dessert.

As the Captain retreats with our orders I hope that the dessert will live up to all that touch choosing.
The conversation continues and the ambience in the dining room is one of excitement, civility and a bit of celebration, with a larger round table near ours with about 8 people drinking from 4 different bottles of wine. At this point my hunger has been sated, but I’m not so full that I’m not still aching for more to eat and not looking forward to a toothsome delight for dessert.

Three servers arrive like a well drilled marching band carefully setting down the dessert plates from the left and then quickly retreating without pause. I look at the plate in front of me and sense that my choice was a good one. That sense will soon be confirmed. I glance at the passion fruit desserts in front of my colleagues, comparing it to my own and see that the enrobing is sufficiently ample to be satisfying, but otherwise I’m confident that my own choice will be wonderful and was a much better choice for me.
Sitting in the middle of a wide, but narrow plate is a small round tart filled with a bottom layer of caramel and an abundantly dark but soft chocolate and peanut mixture. Heavier than a mousse, thicker than a ganache, but not solid, it fills the tart with a domed shape. Drizzled on this and trailing off the side is the Meyer Lemon Purée which is exquisitely citrus in intensity. Sitting on the left is a small patch of the peanut powder, peanuts ground to a very fine, almost pastry dough ingredient size, on the dry plate. On the right is a perfect sphere of the Praline-Citrus Sorbet, barely touching the end tendril of the drizzled purée.
Eating this will be a self conducted tour of the components. My first bite is of the tart itself with a bit of the purée on top. The mouthfeel and depth of flavor of the dark chocolate, contrasted with the peanuty flavor, the crunchiness of the tart’s pastry dough and the citrine acidity of the purée is breathakingly delicious. Now, I taste a bite of the praline-Citrus Sorbet which is just glistening as it is softened but still cold enough to not melt. Wow, the burst of flavor, not sure whether it’s a grapefruit, lemon or some other citrus fruit is clear and fresh, but with the rich crunchiness of the pralines.

Next, I take a small amount of the sorbet and dip it in the peanut powder which sticks to the ice cream and it adds a peanuty crunchiness to the sorbet. Very nice. Then, another forkful of the tart, dipped chocolate first into the peanut dust, adding a real crunchiness to the bite and enhancing the peanut flavor along with the chocolate and caramel. Reese’s cups include similar elements, but it’s like comparing the drive of a Yugo to a Maserati or Ferrari. It moves, but oh what moves the Ferrari has the Yugo can’t imagine. The differences here are the same. Then, another bite of the sorbet to clean the palate for another dose of dark chocolate richness. Finally a combination of the tart with the ice cream and the peanut dust to get all the flavors working at once. The next few minutes are a whirlwind of overwhelming richness and clarity and smoothness and crunchiness until the only way I could have more would be to lift the plate to my face and lick what remains. Don’t think I didn’t consider it.

Unusually, for me, I ordered a cup of coffee. It’s so good I have another, enjoying the flavor and comforting glow that it puts on my dessert and meal. After that, I deal with the bill and walk my clients back to their office, having visited the Temple of Fish and having received an epic and memorable dining experience of religious proportions.

Le Bernardin Beckons, Part I

2006-12-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

Le Bernardin Beckons, Part I

It comes that time of year when I take some of my best clients out to a very nice lunch to thank for them for their patronage during the year and of course to frequent some of the nicer places I enjoy eating. This past Thursday was such a day and I took the big boss at an important client and one of the next tier bosses for a nice meal at one of my all time favorite places Le Bernardin, a temple to the holiness of fish, and a dining experience second to none, even for BHMs, BBWs and SSBBWs.

While the restaurant is one of the few in the city requiring a jacket for the gentlemen, it is one of the most beautiful rooms, you can see it on their website (http://www.le-bernardin.com/) , and, well, I tend to wear a suit and tie to work anyhow, so it’s no big deal for me. As a BHM myself, I would find their wooden armchairs, though sufficiently sturdy, to be a bit tight on my legs and hips. However, each time I’ve come, without asking, between the time I am greeted by the maitre’d or other guardian of the podium near the door and the time we are sent to our table some signal or appraisal is silently and without fanfare, so that I have been sent to one of the tables with chairs without arms(which look the same apart from the arms) or a table with at least two of the four chairs having no arms.

As soon as you are comfortably seated a low level server puts a beautifully curved white serving porcelain bowl on the table filled with a salmon spread and a plate with ultra crisp toasted bread sufficiently thinly sliced so that it is more like a cracker in texture, though not taste. The portion of salmon spread is so ample as to allow you to pile heaps of the ambrosial mixture onto the bread, the plate holding two slices of bread for each guest. Of course, the serving bowl includes a fish spreading knife suitable to the task.

While this delicious amuse bouche is warming your palate to the piscine task and delights ahead, the waiter asks what you would like to drink. Unfortunately my guests are not wine drinkers at lunch(sadly rarely am I either), so we got a large bottle of sparkling water and I also got iced tea. With the graceful service so rarely encountered, the water was carefully poured into a large curved glass and the remainder placed on a silver serving caddy on the table out of the reach of the three of us, but which was carefully tended by a serving staff member as soon as the level in one of the glasses dipped beneath some magical invisible line on the glasses.

The iced tea was a wonderful riff on the usual service protocol. The iced tea came out in a tall curved glass with a healthy dollop of ice on a small doilied plate with a tiny spoon and a separate plate with a broad selection of sugars and artificial sweetners. As is my habit I emptied one sweet ‘n low into the glass and used the small spoon provided to stir it. As soon as it was apparent that I was satisfied with the sweetening process a skilled server slipped in moving the glass to the white linen tablecloth, removing the doilied plate, the spoon, the empty sweet n’ low packet and the sweeteners plate. When I got refills of the iced tea they appeared again on a doilied plate with a spoon, though with only a single sweet ‘n low. What amazing attention to detail.

One of my clients ordered a regular coke without ice. The captain(the highest ranking of the servers), brought his glass, which seemed to be chilled and then carefully and skillfully poured the entire bottle of coke into his glass without causing it to foam up. He then retired with the bottle in a graceful fashion.

We were then offered a selection of breads from a wide silver tray. As a regular customer I know that many of the usually 4 or 5 options will be of interest so I always select at least two. In this case there were thin olive studded saltsticks which were as good as I had hoped and a fruit nut bread which they gave me three very slender slices in one maneuver. Both were amazingly delicious and were used to sop up some of the remaining sauces . The other choices were different types of rolls, both crispy and soft. Butter was served on a silver dish with a class insert on which were precut and overlapped pats of rich butter.

At this point we were provided the menus, which are substantial solid covers with the paper menus inside on facing pages providing the choices which must be made. Both for lunch and dinner the meals are prix fixe(a/k/a fixed price) and include an appetizer an entrée and a dessert. On the appetizer side of the menu, on the left page are the “simply raw” choices on the top and the “lightly cooked” choices on the bottom. The entrees are not separated and include a wide variety of choices describing both the fish which forms the main part of the entrée along with the preparation and the accoutrements and sauces. For those who simply need more time to consider the choices than is allowed in the restaurant you can check out the menu online in advance. For a dedicated foodie who’s enjoyed the simply magnificent preparations and swooned on numerous occasions in this incredible restaurant I know there are no bad choices, but regret colors any decision because of all the other options foregone. Like a man met by St. Peter at the gates to Heaven and told there is not one heaven but twenty and only a few minutes to decide which one he will spend eternity in, the choices are wrought with heavy implications.

The three of us poured over the twenty choices for the appetizers and the twelve for the main course(not including the three non-fish choices offered at the bottom of the menu as “on request”). Among the 240 possible combinations we each picked three. I will describe my choices in greater detail as I actually tasted them. The portions aren’t huge, well, they’re not even really big, but the flavor more than makes up for it. However, if you cannot be satisfied without a substantial volume of food or need to eat very quickly this restaurant will be sorely disappointing. While I usually cross-taste with my restaurant companions, this wasn’t on the agenda with this group. However I did get their impressions and the big boss and I have dined together many times over the last 5 years and he has an appreciative palate and enjoyes Le Bernardin as much as I.

My choice for an appetizer. It's called Pork Belly-Calamari on the menu and is described as Crisp Braised Pork Belly and Baby Calamari Basquaise. The basquaise sauce was a very dark looking sauce like squid ink, but redolent with flavor and aroma and not the single note of squid ink(or even it’s flavor, merely sharing it’s color). It had garlic and onion and pepper and butter, very rich. The dish came out in a smallish flat bottomed soup type round dish with a flared rim. The bottom layer was pieces of baby squid each of which was not enough for a full mouthful, so that you needed two or three on your fork for appropriate mouth feel. Camped on top of this was a perfectly shaped cube of braised pork belly which was about one and a half inches on the edge. As is the case for pork belly it is a study in contrasts, with the upper level a perfectly crispy skin layer, with two layers of fragrant and juicy fat underneath it, a crepey upper section connecting the crunchy skin to the more solid layer of pungently piquant fat underneath it and at the bottom a supremely braised layer of fall off the bone tender meat(though no bone, of course). The dish was presented dry and then as it lay in front of me on the starched linen tablecloth, with a small porcelain creamer type container the server carefully poured the Basquaise sauce on the calamari, around the pork belly but not touching it; the porcine pillar sitting on top, dominating the plate like the black monolith in Kubrick’s 2001.

Examining the dish and knowing that the top crispy skin layer would be incredible I started with that and found it to be a perfect exemplar of all that is holy about crispy skins, the crunch, the mouthfeel of the unctuous crackling and eruption of flavor. The two distinct layers of fat underneath it presented both a contrast between the skin’s rigidity and the fat’s softly accomodating texture and a prelude to the exquisitely tasteful braised meat underneath it all. The arpeggio of flavors triggered sparks of excitement in my tongue, nose and brain. And, my brain was struggling to register that here in the temple of fish I was enjoying a meat dish so far from fish and hadn’t found my way yet to the wee calamari or Basquaise sauce so liberally dispersed in the dish. Pressing on I speared a pair of pieces of the calamari, dragging them gently through the dark sauce before gently dipping it in my mouth. The contrast in flavors from the abundantly rich pork belly to the freshly briny squid and pungent sauce was simply delicious and I paused for a moment to soak in the aromas and burn the flavors into my memory banks for later pleasure. Clearing my palate as well as possible with the iced tea I began to play with the different layers of the pork belly and the abundantly tender calamari and its aromatic sauce. Unlike some who like to finish their food in series, first one item and only then another, I revel in the ability to sample each of the flavors on my plate and attempt to spread out the eating so that the ending will be one last bite of each of the things I’ve been eating. Of course, trying desperately to maintain my status as the host of this repast I maintained the conversation and inquired if the others were enjoying their appetizers as much as I was enjoying mine. I wasn’t terribly surprised to discover that they were.

The big boss was having a dish I’d been eyeballing on the menu and had been considering seriously as I’d had a similar dish there some time ago with a different fish. He had ordered the fluke. It was described as a progressive tasting of marinated fluke: four different ceviches; from simple to complex combination. The fluke was served on a long and narrow plate with four small glass dishes spaced from left to right. The waiter said, “the chef suggests that you eat the dish from left to right”. We each looked at the four dishes which seemed to hold similar amounts of small slices of the fish, but which seemed to be sitting in a nearly colorless first liquid in the leftmost dish with increasing color, add-ins and viscosity as the dishes moved to the right. The rightmost dish seemed alive with flecks of red and green and white and yellow colors and a creamy texture. He started as suggested from the left and as I happened to look up periodically from own private right of passage through my appetizer saw him experiencing a similar sense of bewildered overwhelming pleasure. He tried to explain how the first ceviche was a simple, vinegary flavor that highlighted the fish’s relatively simple taste and the second added an oil based flavoring which mellowed the vinegar. The third added a complexity of additional flavorings and the fourth added in a deeper sense of richness from a creaminess. With each of the flavors the pristine flavor of the fish came through undulled by the flavors of the ceviche. I’ve had a similar dish with a different fish before and know the feeling that is amazing, like additional layers of flavor being added as one moves from one tasting to the next. Simply magnificent.

The third fellow, who is more of a meat and potatoes type eater had ordered the “crab cakes” as the menu called them. The menu calls it Crab: Warm Peekytoe-Maryland Lump “Crab Cake”, shaved Cauliflower; Dijon Mustard Emulsion. His description of the food was, good, very good. Not very helpful, but of course he was shocked by what he saw as there was no breading in the dish as a traditional crab cake has, and no browning of the surface of the cake. He had a nearly white dish which seemed to include a layering of the lump crab meat and shaved cauliflower gently baked and then finished with a loving application of the mustardy sauce.

Several minutes passed after the appetizers had been cleared to allow us to relish the appetizers, have several drinks of our beverages and talk before the main courses appeared. This allowed us to do our “business” and to talk about various things until the main course appeared. Also, the servers made sure that we each had fresh beverages before the next course.

The big boss had ordered the Cod selection, as he’d talked about how growing up he’d loved Codfish and was looking forward to a particularly good version of it. The other fellow ordered the same thing that I had selected. When the main courses appeared all conversation seemed to die away as we looked at our main courses.

The codfish is described as baked codfish in salt crust; stuffed baby artichokes with romesco; red wine-olive and preserved tomato stew. This was a small, but nice piece of the white codfish with a skin on top of salt crust with two baby artichokes with a garlicky, romesco sauce filling it and extending out of it like with an overstuffed mushroom or pepper. The red wine-olive and preserved tomato stew was between the two and had a stewlike quality even though the dice on the olives and tomato seemed to be tiny. The only commentary I got out of the big boss between the start and finish of his main course was “very very good” as he finished it without much commentary, obviously enjoying himself.

I ordered the monkfish. I happen to love monkfish and have had the same dish before and enjoyed it so much that I ordered it over the other choices which seemed so good. The other fellow also ordered the Monkfish.

But, I think since this entry is long enough for now I’ll end Part I and save my main course and the desserts for Part II is there is interest.

New Directions

2006-12-20T11:50:00.000-08:00

As I've thought about ways to take the blog in new directions now that I've gotten out the things that had to get out, I've been doing a variety of things. One, I convinced myself that I could satisfy myself with shorter pieces without affecting the esthetic of the blog. One of my friends said something which rang true. It's your blog and you have to be happy with it. While I aim to please and am pleased to make others happy, I try to make it pleasurable for me too. So, I've got a couple of new things coming up in the short term.

First, one of my joys is eating and attempting to recreate the intense and fabulous pleasure of eating in a textual fashion. By now, anyone who's read a few of the posts knows that my prose tends to avoid Hemingway like spareness or simplicity for the rubenesque abundance of poshly padded parlance. In simpler terms, I like to babble in multi-syllabic, multi-phrase sentences. Some have gone so far as to suggest that some of my food related writing might be called food porn since it is so sensorily oriented. If it is, so be it.

On occasion I've posted a few of these pieces on the Dimchat Foodie Board, and recently have done so with a long form piece that I split into two sections. Typed in Word these two pieces are each about 6 pages long. But, with the power of the blog I have considered putting it together as a single piece. But, I think it would be too much in one session to read and have decided to put it in here as two separate pieces, like on the Boards to allow you a chance to read the first part, get all hot and sweaty and hungry and then cool yourself off a bit before moving on the climax of the story. So, that will follow, with the captions Le Bernardin Beckons I and II.

For those of you not from NY or dedicated foodies, Le Bernardin http://www.le-bernardin.com/ has been a four star New York Times rated restaurant since its opening more than a decade ago. In the most recent Zagat's it has the highest overall rating of any restaurant in New York City, a pretty lofty perch. It also happens to be one of my favorite restaurants both because of the food and the service and the way in which fat people are treated to comfortable seating in a discreet and inviting way.

Second, I've been formulating a post that will be related to some of the other X-Fat folks that I've conversed with over the years, without providing too much information which might identify them, since there seems to be a general fascination with people who are so much larger than the "average" person and several times bigger than even the larger ssbbws and bhm's. Of the various areas that the commenting readers have pointed to this is clearly the most popular one. I've asked our contributing X-Fat friend to join in but she's been kinda slow in responding with something bloggable due to a move of her abode and the resultant activity. However, I can report that she's doing fine and even appears to have gained more weight.

So, in the next day or so, to allow some of you to read this first, I'll post the two Le Bernardin pieces and then, hopefully shortly the X-Fat Chronicles.

Sleep Apnea

2006-11-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

Sleep Apnea

One of the topics that a lot of fat folks are or should be interested in is sleep apnea. More properly known as obstructive sleep apnea(to distinguish it from central sleep apnea), this condition is one which afflicts a surprisingly large number of folks in all sizes and shapes who share a shocking characteristic. They don’t know they have it.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a condition which develops when the body is sleeping in which the airway is blocked, generally in the soft tissues around the back of the throat. As the body falls asleep there are a number of physiological changes which take place, including the usual stuff with different levels of sleep and relaxation of the non-autonomic muscles(anything other than the muscles which keep the heart pumping and the lungs breathing in the diaphragm, for example). So, your arms, legs, gluteus maximus and, more relevantly, the muscles around your face and neck tend to relax(again, in technical terms, lose tone). With the muscles of your arms and legs the relaxation tends to have no real impact on your breathing, but, as the muscles surrounding your upper airway relax, the soft tissues inside your throat lose tone and tend to sag. As you get older, aging through the 30s and 40s etc. your muscles generally lose tone and sag even more. For people with sleep apnea, at some point, the tissues in the airway sag together and meet, blocking the airway so that air/oxygen neither enter the lungs nor leave the lungs as the diaphragm does its breathing thing. The muscles of the diaphragm move to expand the lungs so that air is generally sucked into them and move again to reduce the lungs expelling the oxygen depleted air out of the lungs so it can be replaced with fresh oxygenated air. However, when the soft tissues block the airway the diaphragm does its thing, but no air passes the blockage. As expected, this isn’t a good thing.

Since the diaphragm has no idea whether air is coming in or going out it just blithely does its job without fail until a sensor in the brain detects that the oxygen content in the blood in the brain has dropped below some level and activates the fight/flight reflex by pumping adrenalin into the blood(as it figures some serious shit is going down and it better give the body the power to deal with it tout suite). When the adrenalin hits the blood stream(which just takes a few seconds), this jolts the system and the body wakes up. When the body wakes up this tones the muscles which come to attention, and magically, the muscles in the airway tone, the blockage disappears and fresh air can come into the lungs. However, as soon as the body then senses that the oxygen level in the brain has returned to a safer level, it shuts off the adrenalin jolt, and the body slides back to sleep. Unfortunately, as the body returns to sleep, the airway blockage reestablishes itself as the soft tissues kiss each other again as the tone in the muscles of the airway fades with the return to sleep. And, when the oxygen level drops below some point the cycle repeats itself, with the body rousing itself in a shock. Now, if this were to happen to you fresh off a good night’s sleep you would sense you were rudely awoken and take some time to fall back asleep. But, sleep apnea is a more insidious thief stealing your rest slowly and surely so that by the time it has really taken hold you rarely get more than a minute or a few at most between these intervals. Over a period of days, months and even years of this sort of activity, which tends to get worse with time, rather than better(if untreated), your body gets run down and you enter a state of permanent sleep deprivation. In this state, when the body wakes up to get some precious oxygen into the blood and brain, the brain is so tired that it falls right back asleep without bothering to register that its been awoken. To give you a sense of the magnitude of this scenario, when I was first diagnosed with sleep apnea, in an 8 hour night of “sleep” they counted 480 apnea events, or, for you mathematically challenged readers… an average of one every minute for the full 8 hours. No wonder that at the time I was always tired, and would doze off whenever I’d sit down somewhere, whether in front of the TV or reading a book or even during a meeting.

But, that’s getting ahead of the story a bit. Because sleep apnea is something which only happens when you’re sleeping, its extraordinarily difficult for people to observe or diagnose by themselves. One way of diagnosing it is to determine if you snore a lot. Not everyone who snores has sleep apnea, but everyone who has sleep apnea snores. Again, most people deny they snore. But, if you sleep with someone or in their vicinity, or if when you’ve dozed off on the train or in a public place people tell you that you have been sawing logs, snoring loud enough to wake the dead, closing your mouth or pinching your nose or putting pillows over your face to kill the sound, you have the first sign that you might have sleep apnea. Of course, when you’re awake your airway is open, so that you don’t exhibit the symptoms(though there are people who’ve gotten so fat that because of their need for supplemental oxygen and a sort of narcolepsy where they tend to doze off a lot that they have a need for a cpap treatment round the clock, but again getting ahead of myself). Another sign that you might have sleep apnea is if you’re constantly tired, particularly even when you wake up in the morning. Of course, it might just be that you didn’t get enough sleep, but generally, if you don’t recall the last time that you woke up from a sleep really refreshed and ready to go(even if you slept in and got more sleep than usual), it’s pretty likely that sleep apnea is the culprit.

Now, our bodies and minds are pretty adaptable to all sorts of difficulties, and dealing with sleep apnea is another thing we seem to deal with. Because our bodies tend to doze off all the time when we are totally sleep deprived, our body will try any trick to get some sleep and recover. But, we’re smarter yet, and discover that if we eat food, that tends to keep us awake. Why, I’m not really that sure about the chemistry or biology of it, but suffice it to say, it works. Again, generalizing, many sleap apneacs, like me, tended to eat a lot at night, and particularly, later at night to keep ourselves awake. While in the short term this tends to keep you up, it has the not unexpected effect of making us fatter, since we’re eating to keep us awake and not to meet some hunger or other nutritional need. And, the fatter we are, the more likely that some of that new weight will find its way into the tissues of the throat and airway and make the apnea more severe and thus harder for our bodies to get some decent rest. For me, I discovered my apnea by the time my body was well over 350 pounds, probably having gained almost a 100 pounds over a ten year period as the apnea kicked in at some point and got progressively worse.

What are some of the other hallmarks of undiagnosed sleep apnea? Falling asleep at inappropriate times. As my sleep doctor said to me at one visit when I mentioned that I would occasionally doze off at a boring meeting, people with sleep apnea fall asleep at boring meetings, well rested folks without untreated sleep apnea stay awake and are bored at boring meetings. Now this sounds kind of simplistic, but it is absolutely true. Unfortunately, as bored as I get I’m consigned to staying awake during boring meetings(perhaps Dante’s 4th circle of hell?).Another, more serious complication of having sleep apnea and dozing off when sitting is if you drive a car. No matter how hard you fight to stay awake your body will often fight you and try and grab a few seconds or minutes of sleep whenever it can. A 5 second nap at a boring office meeting is embarrassing. A 5 second nap while you’re travelling 60 miles an hour is 500 feet of travel you slept through while controlling a two ton missile. Enuf said. Many folks who drive at night with sleep apnea dose up with lots of caffeine or other stimulants to keep them awake and ready to respond, but even that doesn’t generally do the trick. Driving with sleep apnea is dangerous to you, those who you love and care for riding with you and anyone else who might have the misfortune to be on the road at the same time as you. Okay, you’ve got the point and further jumping up and down and screaming won’t make the point any further.

Sleep apnea has other negative effects on us as you’d imagine. For example, how good for our heart and lungs and other organs do you think it is to have adrenaline pumped into the system once a minute when we’re trying to rest and sleep. Not good at all. In fact, sleep apnea, if untreated, can lead to heart problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma and a variety of other conditions and diseases resulting from your body being stressed and tired and essentially running on empty. If you’ve ever pulled an all nighter or two in college or at some other time to get some projects done, you know that your body tolerates it moderately well at first, but at some point your body kicks back and you feel totally crappy, short of temper, physically lousy and very poorly able to deal with the world or complex problems.

So, you say, this sounds pretty lousy and not something I want to deal with. Fine, but life doesn’t give some of us that option. If you got dealt an airway that isn’t hugely wide and some tissues in your airway which make the opening a bit slender you’re likely to have to deal with this issue at some point in your life. If you’re fatter, you tend to enhance your chance to have the problem sooner. If you get older(with the alternative clearly inferior), you tend to enhance your chance to have the problem. If you sleep on your back you tend to enhance the likelihood that the problem will manifest itself. Of course, if you start to have the problem and get fatter and/or older it merely exacerbates the problem.

So, what to do. Well, surprisingly, sleep apnea is not a condition which can be cured. That’s the bad news. There’s no magic pill, surgery or device which cures you. But, there is good news. With a CPAP or BiPAP machine you can completely treat the condition so that it doesn’t trouble you. What’s the difference between a cure and a treatment? Well, with a cure you are done and the problem has gone away. With a treatment, you need to continue to pursue the treatment to keep the symptoms of the condition from occurring. So, if with the use of a CPAP machine you get a wonderful, restful, uninterrupted night of sleep, if you go a night without the machine, you’ll still get a lousy night of sleep. Of course, worse than just having a lousy night of sleep, your body won’t be so exhausted from months of no rest that it won’t know how lousy a night of sleep it’s getting. You’ll wake up the next morning bemoaning how you were up all last night(which in fact will be essentially true because your body won’t fall right back to sleep).

So, what’s the treatment regime for most people? A CPAP machine, which means a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine. This is a fancy way of saying that the machine blows air into your lungs at a constant pressure to keep your airway open so that when your diaphragm tries to suck air in to the lungs the airway allows the air to go in and then to come back out. The best analogy I’ve heard for the way in which sleep apnea and CPAP machines work is with a little round rubber balloon of the type we’ve all played with as kids and blown up as adults(or made into water balloons). When the balloon is uninflated it just sits there, with the big bulb not so big and the narrow walls of the neck of the balloon collapsed on each other so that there is no pathway through the neck of the balloon for air. However, if you apply a puff of air to the open end of the balloon, this can be enough to open the neck of the balloon and expand the balloon to its full, uninflated size. If you keep gently puffing on the balloon, not so much as to make it expand, but enough to keep that little neck region open, that’s what a CPAP machine does. The Continuous Positive Airway Pressure is the machine puffing air into your airway sufficient to keep the airway open so that when your diaphragm moves to suck air down into your lungs or force air out of the lungs, the airway is clear and air moves in the intended direction. The purpose of the CPAP is not to push air into you or prevent air from coming out, though many people are concerned that this will be the case. Generally, after a brief period of adjustment one gets used to the constant pressure and it doesn’t affect your ability to breathe in or out with the machine on. For people who require very substantial pressures which make breathing out hard(or who can’t get used to the pressure of exhaling), a BiPAP machine is prescribed. This machine has a lower pressure when you’re exhaling then when you’re inhaling(and more complicated approaches to sensing when this is happening).

The hardware that one uses is a xPAP machine(generic name for CPAP, BiPAP and AutoPAP(more later) machines), a mask or nasal pillows to cover at least the nostrils of the user when they’re sleeping, a hose connecting the machine to the mask and perhaps a humidifier. Some people also get supplemental oxygen along with the air, though that’s not generally an apnea problem, but as a result of other breathing needs. There are a wide variety of masks and nasal pillows that can be used and this is clearly a YMMV situation. The masks are generally nose masks which cover the nose and are held in place by a headgear which includes straps which go around the back of the head(top and bottom), although a full face mask is available for people who can’t help breathing through their mouths when asleep. They come in a wide variety of configurations and materials(though most have a soft, pliable plastic interface with your face so there is a good comfortable seal) and sizes. Some are designed for people who move around at night, others for those who sleep on their sizes. There have even been some developed recently for people who insist on sleeping on their stomachs. The nasal pillows are essentially two projections that rest up against the insides of your nostrils and are held in place by similar headgear. The nasal pillows are generally smaller and don’t cover as much of your face, though they do rest against your nostrils. Some prefer each of the styles and some hate them all. I use an Activa mask from Resmed which is supposed to provide a better fit if you move from your back to your sides, which I do, when sleeping.

I’ve been using a CPAP machine for more than 11 years and can honestly say that its given me back my life. Prior to getting the machine I always found my brain somewhat fuzzy and unable to exercise the higher level creative thinking that my job requires. However as soon as I started using the CPAP, the clarity of thinking returned almost immediately.

Over the years I’ve had a number of machines. The last two have been what are called APAP machines or Auto PAP machines because you set a range of pressures and the machine senses when there is a problem(through sound sensing) which requires increased pressure to keep the airway open. Generally, when in light sleep you require some pressure, but when you go to a deeper sleep or REM sleep your body is more deeply relaxed and additional pressure may be indicated. This sort of machine lets you set your base pressure lower and allow the machine to compensate for the problem by increasing your pressure during the night. I find that more than 90% of the time my machine operates at its minimum pressure setting with only occasional needs for more pressure. Most people just have their machines set to a level and tolerate a very limited number of apnea events without a problem. I’m too picky for this. Also, I acquired the software that lets me download the data my machine keeps about how long I’ve used the machine each night, the pressures that I had and even info about potential apnea events(though in some cases it is really just a matter of a mask leak which simulates for the machine what it thinks is apnea).

Well, I think that’s enough for now, and I hope that those of you who’ve labored through this find it somewhat useful. If you would like to know more or want some links to more detailed info, let me know.

Life in the Male Fat Lane

2006-10-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

Life in the Male Fat Lane

It’s been a very long time since I made a post on my blog and I have on a number of occasions bristled at the urgency to write something against the sense that I don’t have the time or attention to do it right. Many of those who comment either on the blog or to me directly have suggested that I should bite off smaller pieces and that will make it easier. However, being as much of a gourmand as a gourmet, and a believer in the line from the Grateful Dead’s song, “I Need a Miracle”, … too much of everything is just enough… I have resisted this mightily.

Perhaps my problem is blogger's block or perhaps it is an absence of inner vitriol needing to get out. Perhaps its just laziness. But, I suspect that the reality is that real life in all its icky heaviness has blanketed me with new and improved weights of work and work related stress which have sapped my occipital capital. Working 10, 12 and 14 hour days at a desk saps both one’s physical energy and mental energy. Sometimes, when an idea strikes me as ripe for blogging, I am excited and intend to work on it later in the day when I have a small window of opportunity. Often, that window of opportunity doesn’t occur until after midnight and my pillow and mindless TV exert their siren song on my head and brain. By the next day the inspiration appears insipid and so yesterday.

I know there are several of you that truly enjoy and enjoyed the things I’ve said and in many ways that increases the pressure on me to live up to my internal standards for a posting. Along the way I’ve started a number of different entries which have died on the vine, incomplete conceptions which never got far enough to interest me in finishing them. Rather than returning to those dead ends I opted to start fresh.

Somehow, all of this seems to me to be temporizing as I await inspiration, like a lightning bolt hitting me and sending me off on my way. Alas, no inspiration has arrived.

I now have been left with a dilemma, should I pick up one of the topics that I’ve tried to deal with before, proceed with something new, or, perhaps, pick a topic that has been suggested by one of my readers. Not being satisfied with one of the above, I think I will do all three.

Starting with the last one first, I ask you, my reader(s) to suggest a topic or topics that you’d like to hear me opine on, or noodle on, or just outright babble about. I don’t promise that I will pick your suggestion or all your suggestions, but I promise to write at least one blog entry from an idea suggested in a comment.

The old topics, there are several, but I promise to write one or more posts on one of these topics in the next two weeks. I tend to work better with a deadline, even if it is self imposed. Not sure which of the several I’ll pick, but I’m leaning toward sleep apnea.

So, onto the new topic. Life in the Male Fat Lane.

The new topic I want to deal with quickly is one that’s sort of struck me a bit unexpectedly, and that’s how a fat man who’s an FA can all of a sudden become the object of a fat woman’s physical adoration.

As most of you who’ve read this blog know, I’m neither skinny, slender, svelte nor shrimpy. I’m a fullbodied fat man closer to 50 than 40 who weighs about 350 pounds on a 5’11” frame. I have a big belly, ample ass and powerful legs and arms and chest. My face is not considered particularly ugly and my hair is less generously distributed on the top of my head than it used to be, though more generously distributed on other parts of my body than on some others.

Because I’m a BHM (though not pushing the handsome part too much) I’ve gone through life generally finding that women have generally fallen into two categories, relationship wise. Either they are attracted to me for my personality and are at best neutral about the size and shape of my body, or their negative feelings about my physical being cause any relationship to top out at “friendship” at the best. Since I have very specific feelings about physical reactions to women(as in what I find attractive physically and what doesn’t turn me on, or perhaps even turns me off), I’ve never been too troubled about this attitude in general(even if I have been disappointed in specific cases when a woman I lusted for had no interest in a romantic relationship even if we got along well and enjoyed each other’s company).

Interestingly, the dichotomy between those who are BHM neutral and those who are BHM negative(or at least negative about me-maybe they like other men with bigger bellies, butts, manboobs, legs, or different proportions), has never been related to the size of the women. Some more slender women seem totally neutral about a man’s size and some much larger women are negative about a man’s size(despite or perhaps because of their views about their own size, or perhaps just because their feelings of physical preference are independent of their size). And, of course the reverse is also true. Over the years, as I came out as a FA my focus has always been on fat women, and not on fat men. I’ve certainly noticed fat men and their shapes and sizes, but I’ve also noted that many of the bigger men seem to be with women of all sizes from tiny on up to enormously large. But, it never really occurred to me that there was a female fat admiring population of any real number. These mythical creatures, along with the unicorn, phoenix and Loch Ness Monster have been viewed in print or even online a few times, but usually only in the context of female feeders of men who have grown their men to 750 or 800 pound immobilized mountains. Also, from what I’ve seen of most of them, they seem to be smallish, skinny women in general, interested in growing huge men, but with no interest in themselves growing in size.

I have been and continue to be a FA who likes fat women further out along the SSBBW portion of the spectrum and have up to now found that those I find attractive have been more attracted to my mind and personality then any physical charms I might have. Many of the women, particularly those who are larger SSBBWs in size express a sharp preference for smaller sized men, generally going for thin. In some cases this has been expressed quite mechanically as a nuts and bolts sort of preference based on a perception or reality that small men and fatter women bond and engage more successfully than fatter women with fat or fatter men. This has been explained as … a big belly on a man makes it tougher for the male sprocket engaging with the female grommet with sufficient depth of engagement to provide a pleasurable coupling for the woman attached to the female grommet. While I believe this is possibly true in some cases for extraordinarily large women with particular shapes, it is my view and that of many of fellow FA’s and SSBBW’s that where there is a will there is a way and where there is a will, lust and a willingness and enjoyment in experimentation, just about anything is possible. But, this point of view exists significantly among many of the bigger women, and also among some of the smaller SSBBW’s and BBW’s. The preference may, in many cases be just that, a preference, and the reason provided is merely a way to cover for what is the woman’s preference about which she has some discomfort in expressing openly as it is based on looks and not other factors, something many fat women eschew in men and are embarrassed to discover in themselves.

In any event, I’ve seen this preference expressed quite often and understand that we all have preferences, whether based on size, shape, hair and eye color, skin color, religion, politics, natural body odor, amount of body hair, penis size, or any other visible or discoverable characteristic. If someone likes tall skinny blonde men with no body hair and long and slender penis, there is no arguing about it, that’s their preference.

However, many women I’ve chatted and spoken with profess not to have any definite preferences, or if they do, they are broad based ones. Thin men, Sturdy hairy men, men with beards, etc. However, I’ve always noted that there are women who identify themselves as the elusive FFAs, female fat admirers. In examining this group I’ve always found them to fairly uniformly be slender women and in some cases also to be in the nature of feeders or weight gain encouragers

As I also became quite comfortable in my own skin and whatever size it would take, for me its between about 250 and 400 as an adult, I ceased to be concerned about what society as a whole thought about my size and shape, and more concerned about my health, fitness and how I felt. So, I never bothered to look for women who were scoping me out because of my size, even as I as an ardent FA was always on the lookout for attractive fat women.

However, in recent times I’ve actually chatted with several women who have, in addition to an appreciation for my “personality” have expressed an appreciation for my beefcake. Initially I figured this was some sort of a game or scam or effort to be nice to the cute fat fella. But, when the expressions of positive paeans of pulchritude(okay, they weren’t that gaga, but it was definitely positive and an important factor in the attraction), piled up I was forced to reconsider.

I flipped the situation around and imagined myself in the female role as a fat woman used to going about life being the fat friend who is a friend to many men but girlfriend to none, only to discover a man who finds her ample body: not unattractive; more attractive then her more slender friends; and actually turned on by all of those rolls and bulges and huge curves that she’s been trying to hide in black clothing for so many years. The first stage is denial. No, it’s not happening, if I ignore it he’ll stop. Second, its familiarity, but limited irritation, okay, I got the point, but I know its not true, so I wish he’d stop. Third, dawning awareness that her body isn’t actually ugly at all, and it does have a curvy shape that is rather neat. Fourth, an awakening that there are lots of other fat women who look damn good, and so does she. Fifth, an acceptance of her own beauty and worth and a readiness to receive the outpourings of adoration in a positive way.

So, denial went away relatively quickly because the women were persistent and consistent enough with their views that I accepted that they were for real(and also SSBBWs who were accepting of their size and comfortable in their skins). The second stage didn’t really happen and the third stage was skipped since I’d already come to accept my body as attractive(at least to me). I was already aware that there were many fat men who look damned good as fat men(though of course there some who just look awful because they aren’t comfortable in their skins or for other reasons, like they don’t take care of themselves, pursue good grooming, dress in a fashion which is appropriate to their size and station, etc.). And, eventually, parroting Stuart Smalley, looking at himself in the mirror on SNL, I said, I’m good enough and handsome enough and darn gosh people like me and find me physically attractive.

So, having reached that point I have to ask myself the question. Now that I know there are women out there who like me AND find me physically attractive, can I be satisfied in a relationship where a woman likes me but is only okay with my physical charms(and not attracted to me or them for that reason). In a sense this is analogous to the fat women’s question… can I go out with a man who’s not an FA?

The answer… I don’t know. Stay tuned as I try to figure it out.

As always, I’d love to hear what you the reader(s) have to say.

I’ll welcome you all back, to the extent you return to read this. If this is your first reading of the blog I’d suggest you use the archives and read the blog in the order in which it was written(assuming you have any interest in reading more of my purple prose). The blog started in December of 2005.

How Did You Get SO FAT?

2006-08-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

How did you get so fat?

When people see people who tend to the bigger side of fat this question is often asked, but almost certainly more often pondered silently then asked. So, it’s pretty apparent that there isn’t any single answer. But are there some basic categories of ways in which people become exceptionally fat, or is there a separate story for each very fat person? The simple answer, I don’t know. But, that’s never stopped me before from exercising conjecture and massaging the little grey cells in an effort to tease some answer out.

The obvious answer is.. you eat a lot and you get fat. You eat more than just a lot and you get really really fat. Those who are strict mathematicians say that every pound of fat is 3500 calories and if you eat 3500 calories more than you burn you will have gained one pound. Of course this is total balderash as there is no such direct relationship between consumption and weight gain.

Why? Several reasons. First, when we eat the traditional way.. that is through the mouth, the food is processed by our bodies starting in the mouth with chewing and saliva until the food wends its way through the long tube continuing through our stomach, small intestines and large intestines and out the distaff end. As we’re all aware that our bodies don’t use all of the things that go into our mouth… ergo the reason that we sit and ponder the mysteries of the universe and read magazines and books in private rooms, some of the things we eat aren’t absorbed by our bodies and pass right through us. One example that most of us are aware of us is cellulose(plant fiber) which our bodies can’t digest because we don’t have 3 or 4 stomachs like cows. However, there are many things which our bodies can’t absorb so well because they are lipophilic and hydrophobic(fat loving and water hating), which means that they will dissolve in fat, but not in water, and our human guts are a water based system. Our bodies have gall bladders which generate bile which tends to emulsify these lipophilic materials and bind it to water based chemicals in our bodies so that some of it can be absorbed across the intestinal walls, but we tend not to absorb very much of these materials. In fact, many nutritional supplements which are not well absorbed are so poorly absorbed (Coenzyme Q10 is one), that unless they are manufactured or treated in a way to enhance absorption they are porcelain bullets. This lovely expression is a term for something that is ingested through the mouth and speeds through the body only to exit into the porcelain bowl essentially unchanged and unabsorbed.

So, there are many things which we eat which have calories, but aren’t really absorbed very well, so those calories, or many of them never cross the barrier between the insides of the intestines and insides of our body through the blood vessels and will never turn up on our hips, bellies, butts or thighs.

Well, this is an interesting thing.. we eat something and it doesn’t stick. One of the reasons that many people eat fiber(which is not digestible) is as a human Roto Rooter, cleansing the insides of our intestines like a pipe brush.

But, there are additional factors.. all of us folks are not the same inside, just as we all look differently on the outside. Some people’s innards are more efficient at extracting more of what we eat and pumping that into our blood streams and cells. These folks, who were selected by natural selection when frequent famines and uneven food supplies were the norm, have more efficient bodies for extracting nutrients from the food they eat. In our current world where there is plenty of food if you have the money to buy it, these people are predisposed to being fat.

On the other hand, we all know people who eat incredibly huge amounts of food all the time and weigh almost nothing. Human garbage disposals with their internal engines set to high who burn or excrete most of what they eat. Five meals a day, nothing but sweets and carbs, but they can’t add even 5 pounds. I had a grandfather like this who ate a 5 pound bag of sugar every week of his life(lived to 95) and never weighed more than 135 pounds. In times of famine folks like these would die off. But in times of plenty they can eat and never get fat.

So, different people start with different systems. Some people can eat what are normal meals and gain weight. Others can eat enormous amounts and keep their weight constant or lose weight. Not fair, but that’s a fact. While there’s no evidence I know of on this point it wouldn’t surprise me if the efficiency of the digestive systems of people are distributed along a normal curve just like all the other physical and mental characteristics of people. Again, for a review of those who haven’t taken statistics(a/k/a sadistics for those of us forced to take this at a highly mathematical level in college), the bell shaped curve that you’ve seen many times in connection with IQ, height, weight, grading systems and the like has most of the people in the center, around the mean or median or mode(the highest point of the curve) and fewer people as you get further from the middle(more standard deviations outwardly). So, you’ll have most of the people with similar efficiencies of digestion with some variation, but some people at either extreme who are either incredibly inefficient or incredibly efficient in their digestive systems and extracting calories from food eaten.

Okay.. so this is something we can understand, knowing that a certain percentage of people will be somewhat fatter than average(with a similar number slightly skinnier than average), and a smaller number extremely fatter than average(with a similar number extremely skinnier than average).

But this doesn’t begin to explain what we see.. with so many people relatively speaking much fatter than average and.. a growing number of us.

So, is it the theory which is bad? Or maybe the math?

I don’t think so.. I think the problem is that our system is too simple.. fatness is not a factor of only one thing because the simple, eat more than one burns up, theory isn’t robust enough. So, what else.

Well, our bodies are not simple systems without controls, but tightly regulated feedback control systems. If we do something that throws our bodies out of whack, the body fights back to get back to a comfort zone.

An easy example… you study for a big exam and pull an all nighter. You rob your body of a night’s sleep to cram, you make your body fight through the exhaustion, take your test and go out to celebrate… so what happens? Well, your body doesn’t just take it.. it does everything in its power to get you to recapture that sleep you sacrificed. How does it do that… it dozes off if you sit down, determinedly tries to sleep more when you try to get it up with that irritating alarm(ten snooze hits till you finally turn the sucker off and sleep for a few more hours). It may not get all the sleep you deprived it of, but your body will not let you off the hook without trying its darnedest to get its sleep requirements met.

Our bodies do something similar when it comes to eating, and dieting is a part of this. Using the basic rule.. eat less than you burn and you’ll lose weight. Well, this often works initially, often for a few weeks or even months, as you rob your body of the nutrition it expects and needs. But does it just take this? No way. It slows your metabolism. It can’t possibly believe you would be so stupid as to intentionally starve yourself so it assumes that there must another of those irritating famines underway. So, to save itself and survive until the food arrives again, it slows the motor down, slowing your metabolism so that you burn fewer calories and thus are able to survive on less. To keep losing weight you have to rob your body of even more nutrients. But, your body knows this is not a good thing, so, as soon as it senses that there’s more food available (a/k/a going off the diet), it stores the nutrients away like a squirrel with acorns, in the form of fat. This way, the next time there’s a famine(or you diet), it has built a storehouse of nutrients to help you through the tough times. Also, it generally doesn’t speed up the metabolism so quickly or to its original pace, and if you eat the same as you did before the diet, your body will tend to gain weight because you’re eating the same amount and your body is burning less.

So, is that it?

Nope, there are other factors. One, is setpoint. Like a well regulated cruise control on a car, most bodies seem to be set for a particular weight. If there is a hill, the system works harder to keep up the weight, if there is a downhill, the system works harder to shed the weight to get back to the setpoint. Most people who don’t diet and haven’t ever done that have pretty good setpoints. Whatever they do within reason will result in their bodies staying around their setpoint. Of course, a major problem is that we’re not necessarily happy with the setpoint that our body has. It’s not something we have any say in and just because society values a particular size doesn’t mean we can dial our setpoints to the sweet spot we want. If our setpoint is 155 and we want to weigh 125 we have to work increasingly harder to keep our bodies well below our setpoint. But, unlike the cruise control system, our bodies are not so permanently regulated. If we play with our weights by dieting and then regaining the weight(the usual arrangement over more than a few month period), our bodies tend to regain more than they lost, overshooting the original setpoint and resetting it at a higher weight.

Interestingly, most people who are fat(and many who aren’t) have dieted. And, it is a very rare person who has only dieted once. We’re a society of serial dieters. What’s the effect? Yoyo dieting in which we lose 25 pounds and regain 35. Then we lose 20 more and regain 30. This tends to reset the set point higher and higher and the bigger the swings in weight loss and regain the more our setpoints tend to get out of control. For many serial dieters they actually diet themselves to a point that their bodies have lost the ability to have a setpoint and just continue to gain weight because the bodies continue to act like they’re in a severe famine (diet) even if they aren’t, and the weight just pours on.

Well, that’s not a good thing. And, it makes figuring out or controlling what we weigh more difficult. Also, as the body goes into a setpoint free mode, the advice we’re used to about eating less just doesn’t work anymore. I know a significant number of women (they seem to diet more than men), who really don’t eat that much at all, but can’t lose weight from the 400 or 500 pound range, no matter how much they exercise and how little they eat.

Really a very frustrating situation, how will we ever answer the question, how do people get fat?

Getting back to the traditional theories for a second there are a few ways in which people can gain weight. Overeating is one. We can all agree on that, right?

Gee, what does overeating mean? You’re eating more than what? Is there some fixed amount that is correct eating for everyone? No. So, if the amount that is correct for you to eat is more than what others eat, are you overeating? Depends, doesn’t it on definitions. If you’re eating more than average, or average for your weight is that overeating? Not so easy, is it. About all we can say is that if you eat more than your body needs to maintain its current weight and you’re overeating. But that’s a pretty useless statement because its divorced from eating to maintain good health which would seem to be much more important.

But wait, you say, I’ve seen that fat guy eating plate after plate of food at the King Buffet. That’s why he’s fat. To that I say maybe. Or, perhaps, probably, but not definitely. There are people who starve themselves for periods of time who go off on binges. Perhaps the fat guy has been dieting for several months, lost 100 pounds and just went out of control once. So, that isn’t what made him fat and it won’t be what keeps him fat if he gets back on the wagon, perhaps.

But then you see a woman ambling slowly through Walmart or riding a scooter, who is well over 500 pounds, and you’re convinced that she must eat like a horse or a pig(gee, why do we always associate negative behavior with animals). But you don’t know and I don’t know what she eats or why she’s so fat. As I say, I know a fair number of folks who weigh over 400 or 500 pounds and while some of them do have prodigious appetites, its actually only a small fraction of the people that fat.

Wait, you say… I know there are feedees out there who eat to gain weight and they grow to such incredible weights that its mind bending. Yes, I suppose that’s true, and I’ve chatted with folks who have weighed upwards of 1000 pounds and they’re usually gluttons or food addicts on a grand scale. But, there are many others who have tales of woe that have led to them weighing 350, 450, 550 or more pounds without intending to gain weight and without eating significantly more than their much thinner friends.

So, how did they get there. Well, there seem to be a variety of stories, but many seem to fall into a small number of general categories.

1. The slow metabolism folks. Their bodies are incredibly efficient and whatever they eat turns to fat. In most cases these folks if they haven’t been serial dieters were active fat folks until their weights reached a point or their health had a bump in the road where they couldn’t keep up their active physical conditioning and the usual eating combined with the reduced burning caused them to gain weight which repeated the cycle by lowering the activity level they maintained which caused them to gain more weight, etc.

2. The dieting to gain folks. Their setpoints have been screwed up royally by their dieting and regaining so that each time they’ve gone on a diet they end up at the end of the cycle being fatter than when they started, and their setpoint resets upward. Most of the over 500 pound folks have gone through series of diets, usually starting when they were young kids, many with drugs prescribed by their friendly pediatrician and given to them by loving parents.

3. The sexually or parentally abused folks. It never ceases to amaze me how many children have been abused by their parents, relatives, and “friends” in a way which scars these fragile young children. Many respond by turning to food as a way to insulate themselves from the abuse. Eating to take away the pain. Eating to find a safe place. Eating to make themselves unattractive to the adults sexually abusing them. While some find their way to mental, emotional, sexual health, many are unable to shed the pounds that were added in this way.

4. The feedees who eat because they love to eat to gain or those who eat because they get intense pleasure from eating and those who eat until they achieve the pain of being too full because that is their desired pleasure. I’m sure that all of these three groups exist and I’ve chatted with members of each, and with many more who have some tinge of one or more of these approaches. However, I suspect that these three groups together are by far the smallest(numerically) of the four groups I’ve identified.

I think this entry has grown beyond the point where folks will want to read more for now, so I’ll end it by asking those of you who read this and are fat to try and describe as best you can why you believe that you are as fat as you are.

I suppose I’ll go first.

For me it started with a healthy appetite (gee, why does that sound so good, but in actuality be something that society considers bad), caring parents who turned me on to Weight Watchers…. Twice, … the first time at age 12. And being a success both times, lost and then eventually regained the weight I’d lost. Then I lost weight as my schooling ended by increasing my activity level, which then came back with additional friends as my career started and I became necessarily more sedentary. Finally, when I grew to a certain size my sleep apnea became more severe and that resulted in me eating much more in an effort to keep awake. When the sleep apnea was diagnosed and treated, my eating habits improved and being awake enough to exercise more, my weight went down significantly. Over time my exercising became less intense and the eating more intense and the weight peaked at about 400 pounds. And then I was diagnosed with diabetes and began to focus more on what I was eating. Not on dieting in a traditional sense, but more in a what types of things I eat and at what times during the day(not so much late at night, and no snacks on the way home to dinner). Combined with an enhanced exercise program(back to what I’d been doing), my weight has come back down below 350 where I feel much more active and vigorous. Where I go from here… I don’t know, but that’s my story.

Slut

2006-06-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

Slut

This post follows from a very interesting comment, following up the thread about hogging. The comment moved beyond the "hogging", to focus more on the nature of relationships and where sex fits into the relationships.

As a practical matter, my view is that sex in a relationship belongs at the point at which both partners want it. In some cases that might take years(groaning at the thought of that), in others it will happen on the first date. I don't see this as a value laden result. Some people want to have sex sooner with new partners than others. Some folks are only looking for a sexual relationship and not an emotional, friendship based or long term relationship. If that's what they want, either because they love sex or feel the need urgently for sex, or some other motivation, and their partner is on the same page that's fine.

I find the term slut to be socially degrading term which is very loaded with gender based differentiation. It is a highly charged word, much like cunt, bitch and similar male dominant terms intended to demean and disparage women.

As many have pointed out before me, if a woman sleeps with a succession of different men she is a slut. If a man sleeps with a succession of different women he is a stud, player, bon vivant and idol to many men. Is there any value judgment difference between the serial sexual encounters by a man and a woman? I don't think so. I've met many people who've expressed that their sexual engines require sex at very different frequencies. Some folks are more than satisfied with sex on a monthly or bi-weekly basis. Others require it on an almost daily basis, and still others are totally dissatisfied without several sexual encounters each day. I don't know whether those at either end are suffering from some condition which can or should be remedied, though I really don't care as long as they are satisfied with their situations and have partners who are similarly satisfied.

I've met a number of people who are wonderful people but for whom sex has no part in their lives, and they seem not to miss it. For me this would be an exceptionally painful and empty existence, but they seem to fill their lives with other things which they say replace any interest they have in sex. Whether these folks are lying to me or to themselves I don't know. But, I suspect there are many, many people for whom sex is a much less central part of their beings than it is for me. For others, the urges to have sex grow with abstinence to the point where they crave a sexual event to obtain some sense of release. In many of these folks when the urge reaches a certain level they shift their orientation about relationships somewhat to enhance the possibilities of having sex. Not sure if this would be called compromising values, changing standards or going out with the intention of getting laid. But, this is clearly a common experience, at least it was from the guy side(when I was in college... and as far as I've been able to tell for guys well beyond college). My experience from the girl side is considerably less extensive and much more anecdotal. However, having spoken with enough friends who are women, who have opened up to me about their sexual urges and activities, I know that this intense need for sex is physically imprinted on many women too. I have no way of quantifying this urge or the resultant behavior, but would assume that it probably doesn't vary that much from what I know in a more personal way from the guy side.

So, if we assume that men and women both have their sexual needs distributed on a normal curve, like so many other characteristics, like height, weight, head size, shoe size, etc... then there will be people spread out along the spectrum of sexual needs(which tend to get stronger by celibacy.. particularly unintended celibacy), with differing needs to "get laid".

Into this breach our Judeo-Christian, Islamic, and other modern religious heritages have projected a required marital bonding as a precondition to sexual intercourse. The rationales behind these religious requirements are understandable if not rational or appropriate. One need only look at a married couple in which the partners have no real feelings for each other in a sexual sense and are then locked to only each other, effectively killing both of their sexual exploits apart from intercourse required for intended procreation.

Built up on top of these religious restrictions are a series of moral values and heavily laden terms which seek to restrict people to the religiously restricted sexual activities and to ostracize, humiliate and demean those whose activities are inconsistent with the religious rules. Slut is just such a term. It's dictionary definition means a promiscuous person or one whose personal appearance is untidy. The definition is gender neutral, but I have never seen the term applied to men except in the rarest of cases.

In practice a slut is a woman who sleeps around with many men, a woman of questionable morals relating to sex, a woman who dresses in a fashion that suggests that she either sleeps with many men or is of questionable moral character. I find this term completely offensive, since the guy version of someone who sleeps with many women would include a Don Juan, Casanova or Stud which are terms of admiration rather than opprobrium. A guy who dresses in a fashion intended to display his sexuality and body in a fashion which would be attractive to women is considered very positively by most. On the other hand, a woman who dresses provocatively is often called a slut, presuming that the suggestive dress corresponds with a looseness of morals and sexual control.

I wonder if the current climate with AIDS and other STDs has affected the positive connotations of the guy-slut and leveled the playing field. For some reason I wouldn't feel quite as negatively about the term if it was applied to both men and women equally. I would still find it offensive, just not as awful.

Perhaps the thing about the term slut that I find most offensive is the way it is applied by people who generally don't know whether the woman in question is actually promiscuous or not. Guys have a way of telling their friends things in a way which makes them seem more important and studly then may be the fact. This is even more true when sexual performance and partners are involved. In my experience the guys who talk about their conquests are likely lying about much or all of what they claim to have done. Those guys who have a full, rich, sexually charged relationship built on trust and strong emotional content don't need the positive reinforcement of their male friends that what they're enjoying sexually is a good thing. They know it in every fiber of their being and want to do whatever possible to maintain, sustain and grow that relationship. Telling a bunch of horny guy friends about the wonderful sex you had on the bed, kitchen table, couch, floor, in the pool and hot tub, in the car or wherever it took place is a sure fire way to make your partner the subject of snide comments, bad labels(like, but not limited to slut) and other guys hitting on them in an effort to get the same amazing sex you've described to them. Those guys I've known who've had a good thing going will go to any lengths to not talk about their sex lives apart from occasional amusing incidents at their own expense.

In my own distant past I was exposed to a woman with a very high level of sexual need, and she was probably as close to the classic nymphomaniac as I'll ever come. Thankfully, my body was at the peak of its physical sexual powers(though not skills) and allowed me to keep up with her for some time, until eventually I began to resent the need to perform every morning, noon and night. Looking back on that period through the filter of stretches of no sex I wonder how I could ever have felt that way. But, I know that I was constantly tired, and when I absolutely needed some rest(sleeping in my bed or hers was only restful after an hour or more of sex) I would head up to the library, find a carrel deep in the bowels of the stacks and sleep there. While this gal was my ideal partner prior to meeting her, after a few months the fantasy was replaced by a physical reality that very different. To be fair, that semester was one I made Dean's List and had my highest GPA by far. After we broke up I lost touch with her, but I never have referred to her as a slut and couldn't imagine ever doing so. During the time we were together we were committed to each other deeply(not that I had much energy to find or woo anyone else even if I had wanted to). During that time about the most I shared with my roommates was that I was extraordinarily tired and occasionally to lie for me when I was going to sleep to tell her if she called that I was at the library or some school event. They were able to draw their own conclusions from the sounds coming through the walls, but they were my close friends and didn't talk out of school to others.

Why did I give this elliptical story which probably doesn't put me in a very good light? Good question. Not really sure, but it seemed important to show that just having a lot of sex does not make one a "slut". That having a LOT of sex may not be the most desirable thing. That a man and a woman who have a lot of sex with each other are not slutty. That people who are getting intense sexual satisfaction are unlikely to brag about it or tell others how wonderful they have it. Why talk about something that you know you have which might disappear if you talk about it to others because it hurts your partner and your relationship.

Nah.. its probably me just bragging... after the fact.

But, an important point if you go back and reread my description is that there was no description of anyone else talking about my partner as a bad woman, a sex maniac, a slut or any other such derogatory term. She was my girlfriend and we did a variety of things in public in addition to the private activities. As a part of a caring full relationship, the sexual gymnastics were only one element of the relationship, albeit a very important and time and energy consuming one. To this day none of my friends who knew this woman through me have ever made a negative comment about her.

Perhaps the answer is that because I did not treat her or consider her a slut I did not allow, abet or enable anyone who knew me from treating, considering or calling her a slut.

In the comment that set me off on this elliptical orbit there was a statement that some guy had told the commenter that a girl having a one night stand isn't a slut, but a girl having ten guys in one night is a slut. Of course this definition was provided by a guy looking for a one night stand... and thus not a reliable source of a definition. In my experience women and men who are truly acting in a "slutty" manner are not defined by the number and frequency of their sexual activities with different partners. Rather, it is the way in which they treat others or allow themselves to be treated by others.

In college I knew a girl who enjoyed having sex with many guys in one night. I never had sex with her and we weren't sexually attracted, though we were good friends in a group of guys and girls who would hang out, go drinking, dancing, etc. on a regular basis. Much of the time this girl would have a single boyfriend and there was nothing weird about it to my knowledge. On occasions, however, she would entertain a visiting hockey team or baseball team, to my knowledge(second hand though fairly reliable) and have either oral sex or intercourse with as many as a dozen guys. While it was known generally in the campus about a girl like this, I don't think that more than a few actually knew who this girl was. To my knowledge no one ever called her a slut, and none of the multiple partners, who were all from colleges that were pretty far away, ever bragged about it on campus. Of course, the knowledge that she would have prodigious serial sex on occasion did have a profoundly odd impact on me. One, it suggested that she must be incredible sexually(though on getting older and wise I suspect that not necessarily to be the case). Two, I didn't want to be just one more notch on her bedpost, and compared with some of the most impressive physical specimens at various universities. Three, I didn't want to screw up our very friendly relationship with the weirdness that a sexual relationship would wreak on it.

Again, not clear what this has to do with the main thrust of this post. I suspect that I included it to give my bona fides as to the extremes of sexual conduct and the way in which actual sexual promiscuity may not be directly related to whether a woman is called a slut.

I also knew women who wouldn't put out, both because they wouldn't do so for me and for other guys I knew, or because I became their non-sexual friends and they would confide to me, who were known as sluts. Most of them really despised the reputations they'd gotten, though I suspect that most earned it for being cock-teases(women who would attract a man with attention and the suggestions that they would get sex and then leave them unsatisfied). I imagine the guys opted to call the woman a slut to get even for the teasing. One gal in particular was known as Hoover for the ferocity and suction of her oral sex. I never witnessed her skills directly, and a friend who went out with her for some time said that the nickname was ill conceived and inappropriate, but she liked the concept of being known for giving amazing oral sex, even if it wasn't true. So, people's relationships with names that most would consider demeaning and very negative is not always rational.

Well, I've talked around Slut now for some time and I think I only have a few conclusions. The term is as a rational matter a negative, hurtful one which is inappropriate in almost every case. The term is even more reprehensible because it is applied unevenly to women and men, with men glorified for the same conduct that causes the women to be vilified. The term is generally applied in a hateful way by people who don't have any first hand knowledge of the woman, or if they do, in an effort to get even with them for some actual or perceived slight. And, the term should be shelved as being too emotionally charged with hate and disrespect to have any true meaning.

Hogging

2006-06-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

Hogging

I was referred to a blog post about hogging and I read the blog post and was neither shocked, informed nor moved to raise my arms and scream foul. However, I was motivated to take up keyboard in hand(just not as poetic as taking up pen in hand), and chime in on the subject in general.

As an introduction to the subject for those of you who’ve never heard of it, hogging is a “game” played by guys, generally drinking or otherwise inebriated, in which the winner of the “game” is the guy who bags the fattest woman(i.e. the biggest hog) and can have sex with her that night and then dump her as quickly as possible. Needless to say, there is nothing socially redeeming or otherwise positive to say about this practice and I won’t add my own volcanic outflow deriding and this abhorrent behavior. If you don’t understand why this is a bad thing then you are in the wrong place when you’re reading this blog.

In thinking about this subject I, however, wonder about a number of issues. One, why it is focused on fat women. Two, why do fat women agree to participate in this activity(though I suppose they don’t know in most cases that they’re merely a prize, if only a booby prize, rather than the source of any affection or attraction). Three, whether there is any reason to be righteously indignant about this stupid and demeaning behavior.

The first point, why is it focused on fat women, is perhaps the easiest question to wrap one’s arms around. Fat people are the last safe group that can be picked on without any repercussions. We have no constituency and thus no political or social protection. The courts provide substantially zero protection under equal protection claims since we’re neither a racially suspect classification nor an identifiable minority or other historically discriminated against group or class. You might be saying that fat people have always been discriminated against.. and you’d be right. But, fat people have never banded together as a group, and thus we don’t have the protections granted to groups which are discriminated against, such as homosexuals, gypsies, Jews, etc. However, it’s unlikely that drunken menchildren will contemplate the nuances of the Constitutional Law associated with Equal Protection and Due Process under the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution while working on their buzz.

A second reason why the targeting is focused on fat women, rather than tall women, short women, skinny women, dark women, light women, flat chested women, etc. is that fat women are generally looked down upon by many of the non-fat folks.. and even some other fat folks because they feel they can look down at the social status of the fat women in an effort to make themselves feel more important and powerful. Dumb, I know... but I suspect this is an important element of the discrimination and bad treatment that fat people in general and fat women specifically suffer through. Fat men tend not to be as negatively affected because fat men are often perceived as powerful despite or perhaps because of the weight they carry around. On the other hand, most fat women are seen as being somewhat more helpless and weak than their thinner sisters.

A third reason why the targeting is focused on fat women is that they are perceived as being easy and/or desperate for sex and thus an easy target for a one night conquest. As I understand the hogging approach, this is not a get laid at any cost or time approach. This is an effort to get laid within the buzz of the inebriation of the evening and to get out before morning. I know that this perception of fat women as easy and/or desperate is not true of many women, but it is true of enough that this sort of activity is enabled. My personal experience, over the years has taught me that there are many aggressively sexually forward fat women who are either desperate for sex or so highly sexed that they want to find a partner as soon as possible. I’ve encountered and turned down a number of such women over the years, even though I have known that with any encouragement at all I would have had sex with them. I wasn’t then, and am not now looking for a purely sexual relationship without a solid emotional and psychological attachment to the woman. The same can’t be said for me at other times in my life(much earlier) and some other men.

A fourth reason is, I believe the fact that there are many repressed FAs who in fact are really attracted to fat women, but refuse to allow themselves to accept that and will do anything to avoid others believing that they are attracted to fat women. These men get the best of both worlds for them… they have the sex with the women they’re wired to be aroused by, and they avoid the social pariah status of loving fat women that is feared by them by abandoning and ridiculing the women.

Each of these reasons and an overarching desire by men to get laid as often as possible, however and with whoever, drives many men and motivates this behavior.

So now we have a sense of why the guys do it. But it takes two to tango. How and why do the women get sucked in. I’m sure the answers are as many as all the women who participate knowingly or unknowingly(either subjectively or objectively). But, I think there are some themes and concepts that are applicable to a significant number of the women who succumb to the advances of the one night lotharios. One is a sense of low self esteem in the women which makes them accept any man who shows any positive interest in them and their bodies. A second is a sense that the women hope to attract the men who are wooing them, and believe that by offering him their bodies they will cause him to stay with them. A third is an enjoyment of being “popular” and doing whatever necessary to maintain this status. A fourth is a misguided sense that when drunken men profess their adoration and love for them that they’re being sincere. A fifth is a sense that the guy is “above their station” in some sense and thus a great catch who they need to do whatever possible to hold onto.

Whatever the reasons that the women participate in the hogging “game”, it is my understanding that in almost all cases the sex is fully consensual, even if the men are operating under false pretenses. To the extent that it is forced or obtained by getting the woman drunk, that’s rape and rape is not an acceptable form of behavior. But, if its truly consensual, why is it so bad?

The answer to that is that the women, in going with a guy on a one night stand are operating with very little information about the guy before they agree to have sex with him. In many cases the guys have been misleading about their intentions, their true feelings about the fat gal, and what they are looking for in the “relationship”. What makes the “hogging” so obnoxious and offensive is not the fact that they have consensual sex. Between consenting adults, sex is not a bad thing. What does make it a bad thing is when the guy then abandons the bed as quickly as possible to tell his friends about his Nantucket Sleigh Ride. It’s the opening to ridicule and humiliation and public scorn that is so worthy of opprobrium.

So, we come to the final question; is there is any reason to be righteously indignant about this stupid and demeaning behavior. The answer is yes, but not because the act of picking a fat woman to have sex with is bad. In fact I can’t think of something more attractive and wonderful, so long as it’s paired with a relationship from which the sexual activities flows. Also, to the extent that the sexual acts are consensual(and we could debate whether the sex is consensual if the woman doesn’t actually know what’s going on but should have been able to deduce it), neither partner and certainly not the woman, has the right to be upset with the other for going forward with the sexual act. But, clearly, the guys who go into this one night stand mode with no intention of having any continuing relationship are sleazeballs… but I don’t believe they are necessarily evil, since the woman willingly went into the sexual encounter. That the woman was lied to or allowed herself to believe a set of facts which weren’t the true facts about the man’s intentions, is sad, but not a reason for righteous indignation.

The only aspect of this hogging process that really upsets me is the way in which the sexual act is translated from a dance between two sweating bodies into a public test of virility and grossness intended for the general consumption of the man’s friends or colleagues as a source of humor at someone’s expense. The men who perform the sex act with the intention of making fun of what they’ve just done to their friends and abruptly leaving the woman as a part of the intentional infliction of humiliating treatment are to be considered scum of the earth. Having said that, we are surrounded by many folks with morals so low that they need to be lifted to prevent them from being soaked when one crosses a wet street. To the extent that fat people ever truly band together as brothers and sisters this sort of behavior will be quickly stamped out. To the extent that fat women enhance their sense of self esteem and worth they will never allow this sort of sexual predator to prey on them.

All one need do is tell the man that one doesn’t have sex on the first date, no matter what. If the guy is still around for the next date he may be for real. If he disappears when he realizes he’s not getting any sex that evening, good riddance and a good result is obtained.

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s not a matter of assigning fault that’s important, but restricting and terminating the boys behaving badly. The way to do this is within the control of the fat women. All they need to do is say no the first night and they’ll see if the guy was for real or merely a hogger. If the woman and man have a nascent relationship which is growing, the desire of the woman to wait before engaging in sex not only stops the hogger in his stride, but it also shows whether the man has a sensitivity to the woman’s feelings. Not every relationship blossoms, but certainly women can tilt the odds in their favor and avoid the the morally repugnant hogging practice if they want.

A Day in the Life… of an FA

2006-06-09T22:58:00.000-07:00

A Day in the Life… of a FA

Today was another day in the life of an FA. Coming in on the train in the morning, waking up slowly getting a comfortable seat on the train, picking the aisle seat of a two seater so I could spread out with my bag next to me, no one likely to ask to sit between me and the window, watching the few regular BBWs who ride the train wander by on their way to their seats.

Getting off the train at Grand Central Station, and watching the passing humanity rushing off the train, the stream of hurrying humans on the platform merging into the terminal traffic.. the speedy folks, the leisurely group and the slow of gait either as a result of age, injury or size. My eye out for the ssbbw with the very busty figure who hurries so that she is at the pace of the less leisurely commuters, the sexy pear gal who always wears the skirts that show off her shifty shelf which sweeps up and down on each stride, the very bellyicious older woman who moves more slowly as each step jiggles her substantial belly apron.

In the main area of the Terminal, with people coming from at least 16 directions, the flow of people as I cross the double football field sized space is legion, often including large tour groups. It is a rare day indeed when that 45 second trip across the great open space doesn’t bring me in view of many bbws and ssbbws. Even though I often cross that space at almost precisely the same time each day it is indeed rare that I see the same people more than once.

As I make my way through the corridors of the terminal to the street, I pass hundreds more people walking either along with me, toward me or at an angle. Again there are more bbws and ssbbws of all sizes and shapes. With the weather warm, no one is wearing a coat and the sightings are easy.

For some reason I have finally started to notice an increase in fatter folks this year. Over the last few years there were still so many incredibly skinny people in Manhattan it was disconcerting. While there are still many, there seem to be ever more women who are sporting at least a few extra pounds. Fewer women with the dreaded non-touching legs, the spider legged misses who could walk over a two foot tall metal pipe in the sidewalk without touching it as their stick-like legs walk on either side of it.

On the sidewalks and crossing the streets to my office another stream of pedestrians passes before the FAs vigilant perusal of the moving masses. Without conscious effort the FA brain processes the flow of fatness, filtering out the anorexic, skinny and near skinny, registering the chubby, examining the bbws, closely focusing on the ssbbws and stopping dumbfounded at the truly unique and special fat women. It is pretty common to see more than a dozen ssbbws and many tens of bbws on my way from the train to my office. However, maybe once a week an amazing woman of such size and shape that the sighting is burned in my memory banks comes into view. Like a wild life photographer laying low in the brush when a pride of lions happens by, all the cameras are turned on and the resolution is increased to maximum.

At lunch time the process continues.. walking from the office to the lunch spot and back. Not surprisingly, many of the bigger woman seem to lunch at the deluxe high end lunch shop I frequent.

Finally, at the end of the day, the trek back to Grand Central completes the cycle. Interestingly, to me, in the morning people move more slowly than they do at night. I used to think this was odd as they were fresher in the morning and more tired at night. However, I believe the answer lies in their desire to head home after work and less motivation to come in and spend the day working in the morning.

I wonder if other FAs do the same. I know that my non FA male friends describe a similar sort of auto-pilot girl watching pattern, though of course they are filtering for a different target type. I wonder if women do the same thing, or at least those women who are turned on by some body or face types of men.

It strikes me as odd that I do this so proficiently and regularly, because it seems to really serve no useful purpose except my own pleasure. In fact I can be thinking about a work problem or sports situation or even romantic situation when the radar cuts in with a ssbbw warning and the eyes already directed at and focused in on some cute fat woman. Is this a creepy voyeurism or a normal pattern of male activity. Let me know what you think.

Today was a day with one of those really special sightings. One that will probably linger in the memory banks for quite some time. As I was rushing for a train, sort of a redundancy since I’m always rushing for a train, I noticed a tall black woman walking ahead of me in the same direction. Some subconscious filtering software in the FA brain focused my eyes on her. Her head, which was all I saw initially, was high, indicating she was about 5’9” or 5’10”, and she was moving relatively rapidly.

As I gained on her (as I said, I was rushing), I noticed that she had a very broad set of shoulders and quite thick arms. But then, a man who was walking behind her and shielding her from view moved out of blocking position and I almost came to a stop from surprise.

This woman had the largest, roundest butt I can recall seeing in a long time. It was extremely wide, but more than that it was also quite high and even deeper in depth extending back beyond the back of her rather huge legs a good foot or more. Surprisingly she didn’t have a shelf, but a well rounded butt that seemed to start about six inches above the spot I would think it would start.

As I pulled even with her, and stopped for a light to change at a corner, I noticed she was with two other black women.. one a ssbbw who probably weighed about 350 pounds but looked like a small child next to this enormous woman. The third woman was merely chubby, but looked like Twiggy next to the other two girls. The three women were chatting volubly and as I looked more closely at the enormous gal, noticed that she was wearing a stretchy pair of pants which highlighted the size and shape of her gargantuan derriere and the sequoia-like thighs and legs. It also outlined her belly which was moderately large and projected out about 6 inches, but relative to the rear end was very small.

Surprisingly, she and the other girls moved at close to the speed I was traveling and without any apparent problems. I’d estimate the women were about 20-25 years old. Looking critically at the big woman, as compared to her 350 pound friend I concluded that she must easily weigh well over 550 pounds and perhaps 600 pounds. Her thighs were surprisingly firm (though easily in the 45 or 50 inch circumference range), as was the derriere, no shaking and shimmying as she walked. I’d estimate that she was close to three feet from the tip of her butt to the front of her belly. For those of you who ask about the top end… not flat chested but clearly relatively petite bosom in comparison to her lower end. Her face, attractive, but not done up in a glamorous fashion.

And then, I crossed the street to head for Grand Central and they continued and soon disappeared from view, but not from memory.

Today I was on a different line of trains than usual and as I found a suitable car in the train I looked for a place to sit. Since there were already a number of people on the train an unoccupied two seater wasn’t an option, so I looked for the aisle seat on a three seater with a single person sitting by the window. I usually look for a big person, either tall or fat to share such a seat with, since my own bulk combined with that of the person on the window is likely to assure no one trying to squeeze between us. After traversing half the car and not finding anything suitable I saw a seat, though the person on the window was a skinny minny. As I moved toward that seat I noticed about 5 rows further a very blond and curly haired woman with a very round, chubby face. So… I moved on and plopped down next to her.. with her bag on the seat between us.

As I settled myself I noticed that she was a ssbbw with a delightfully round belly. She was sitting with her left foot(window side) up on the radiator running along the wall below the window(about ten inches off the floor) and this merely made more room for her substantial rounded belly to hang in front of her. I noticed that she was, apart from the very cathedral-like expanse of her rounded belly dome, a fairly midsized bbw. Her legs were thick but not particularly shapely, her arms mrerely chubby and her bosom present but accounted for with only moderate distinction. Her face was very chubby and cute and she had the very pale skin of a true blonde, with loads of Shirley Temple like curls.

While I guesstimate that she weighed about 325-350, the guess being even less reliable than most since I only saw her sitting in this fashion, what made her so interesting was not the size so much as the position she was sitting in. The position, with the one leg up, allowed her belly to hang freely from her front, particularly as she slithered back a bit, while still keeping up the left foot. For those of you who’ve ridden the commuter rails you know the ride is quite nice, but occasionally a bit bumpy in spots. Well, this was a particularly bumpy ride, and on each bump this lady's belly shaked and shimmied and moved disproportionately with the rest of her body. For the 35 minutes of my ride I chatted with her about the magazine she was reading and the cell phone rudeness surrounding us, and watched that magnificent belly exhibit the mystical pleasures of simple harmonic motion. High School Physics memories of the Teacher humming SHooMMMMMMM flooded back as I watched this living embodiment of the physics concept. I even wondered what her natural resonant frequency is which would cause that belly to vibrate violently and gain in intensity(think the Tacoma Narrows Bridge you ex-Physics students—I believe every Physics student has seen that short film of the bridge twisting and falling down, though not before the guy runs out on the twisting bridge to rescue his dog from the bridge’s fate in the waters.).

And then I left the train and as an FA it was an A+ sighting day.

When I started the blog I had in mind not to “lower myself” to just writing about sightings and see that in recent times I’ve done it on a few occasions. Each time there was something that I thought was significant about it which merited something beyond the ordinary, run of the mill sighting thing. This entry is, however, more about the process than the result, though I have lavished my usual attention on the details of the sightings.

I’ve gotten, when the guys have commented, a strong sense that they can’t get enough of the sightings. From the women I note more of a prevailing sense of creepiness. The sense that they’re pieces of meat on display for some oaf’s prurient single-handed pleasure. However, I believe with confirmation that most guys are the same in their purely visual evaluation of the local “talent”, but focusing on those women that they find physically attractive. One of my female colleagues once related a saying that her grandmother used all the time… “every pot has its cover”. By this she meant that for everyone, no matter what they look like, there is someone who finds them attractive.

I’m confident that guys looking at girls is not a bad thing. It is a bad thing if you’re a stalker or creep someone out by the way in which you look at them. If so many guys do it there must be some deep seated survival of the species reason for this.

I’d love to hear from both the women and the men about their thoughts on the process and how they feel about looking at girls(or men), how regularly they do it, and how they feel about being the person being ogled.

The Nooner

2006-06-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Nooner

Lunch today was a quickly grabbed sandwich at a local shop which offers a wide variety of good stuff, both hot and cold, salads and pizzas. As I went in it seemed much more crowded than usual, but my FA eyes still did their unconscious scan for sign of BBW life.

Today was a surprise, since I so regularly frequent the place that I assumed I knew all the regulars. There, waiting for a sandwich were two gals worthy of a second or third look. The first was a gal with a piercing or two, including one in the eyebrow, which has always caused me to grimace. She was a fairly big girl, probably a ssbbw by most people’s standards, but without any definition or shape that attracted me, which caused my eyes to wander to the other gal.

The other gal had, on my first view from the rear, an enormous derriere shoe-horned into some extremely suffering jeans held up by a thick(probably 2 inch) leather belt with the word love formed at the back. This gal was clearly in the ssbbw category by almost anyone’s standards. It was apparent that as big as the jeans were the gal was bigger yet. A portion of her anatomy not easily divined, was it upper buttock or lower back, swelled tsunami like over that thick belt and the jeans’ top edge in an aggressive roll of blubber encased in a snug, but stretchy top tucked deep into the jeans(otherwise it would have clearly pulled out from the stress of supporting that roll).

Interested in observing more of her curvaceous charms I shifted my position slightly and was rewarded as she also turned slightly to talk with a third girl in her group(a very short and petite gal). As she turned into profile I was shocked to see the prodigal pulchritude of her portly paunch. Within those tortured jeans was a lower belly roll that stretched the jeans out a good six inches afore of her gargantuan thighs which on closer inspection had already begun to stretch the seam along the side of the pants leg encasing her voluminous thighs.

I can only imagine that this woman had owned those jeans from a time when they fit more traditionally and had, over time grown to stretch them to their current shape. The lower belly roll was amazingly wide, ending in a rounded bottom surface which literally stood out over the fronts of her capacious thighs. While this was awesome evidence of the strength of the denim fabric to hold together under the seemingly incredible forces on it to explode outward, the belly above the belt was even more amazing.

Remembering that her soft stretchy top was clearly tucked in to the back of the jeans, it was also tucked in at the front. As the lower belly projected out like a round prow of a proud vessel a good six inches beyond the thighs, the above the belt belly projected outward a good six inches beyond the belt. Unconstrained by the tight, strong denim of the pants the upper belly not only hung outward but also hung down onto the pant encased in the stretchy softness of her blouse as a supersized roll, which can only again be called most positively, blubbery. The upper roll’s thickness was easily a foot from its bottom to its top, with almost a foot of outwardly oriented projection. It spread across the vast width of her front, seemingly maintaining its shape and size all the away from one side to the other.

I always wonder why women of this size, or actually any size would squeeze their bodies into clothing so undermanned in its effort to adequately contain their curves. The wondering usually stops when the lower head kicks in and suggests the upper head get with it. Clearly this woman could easily have filled a pair of pants which had a waistline more than a foot larger than the ones she had on.

For the sake of completeness, the woman’s breasts were ample but not nearly as large proportionately as her lower end. Her face was that of a youngish, early 20’s Latina, attractive, but not gorgeous. I’d estimate that she weighed slightly less than 400 pounds on a 5’7” frame.

As I finally worked my way to the head of the line to pay for my lunch I noticed that she had headed for a pair of bar stools where one can eat by the window looking at the street. So, as I left the shop I had another view of her sitting on the bar stool, her pants screaming in agony at the tension on the seams, her rolls of back fat ringing her back. And, finally, as I turned right on exiting the door, a glance to my right found her attentively eating her lunch while her belly made the distance between plate and mouth a long and precipitious one. When sitting the belly and other rounded parts seemingly stretched the denim’s fabric into even more fantastic shapes and increased volume. Without a further glance I headed back to my office… invigorated by the wonderful five minute interlude in the middle of my day.

The Last Word?

2006-06-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

The Last Word?

Well, the last blog post really triggered a firestorm of comments. I love it, even if the emotions were raw and on the surface and caused great pain to others and me. I have a few responses to the many interesting comments now that the pace has slowed. Rather than hide them in a 12th comment I decided to make it a new blog entry which I would call the last word. This of course is an attempt at humor because I hope that it will trigger further comments and discussions. And, it will mean that to really understand this blog entry you will need to delve into the comments to the last one. Also, be reassured that I'm not ending the blog and will blog on.

First, Charlotte, it has been too long, but it’s great to have you back. Your defense of the American system of government is flawless... except for the final clause of your comment.... the need for civility. One of the aspects of our government that has undermined my confidence in it is the death of civility in public life. A sense of whimsy entered my mind as I thought about the comments made responding to my despair about the US Government and way of life. It was that the strong voices supporting the American governing model and way of life came from Canadians, not those who reside in the States. How odd and interesting that there is a need for perspective to gauge the significance of the activities in the US from across the border. In many ways this is true in general that we need to achieve a separateness from the thing being studied to see its truer values and meaning..

Second, Emily, to the extent that I was condescending or presumptuous, two deficiencies I've been not falsely accused of exhibiting, I apologize. There's no excuse and any explanation provided would not change the absence of an excuse so I won't tender an explanation for my ad hominem attacks on a friend. Mea culpa. You are a thinker on many issues and I understand that you don’t espouse your thoughts carelessly.

Third, anonymous, my goodness you are a feisty advocate. My initial reaction on reading your first comment was to respond along the lines of "I don't need anyone else to fight my battles for me". But then I thought about that and realized that such a response was wrong for a number of reasons.

1. There were no battles involved, but discussions between friends.

2. Everyone needs others even if we don't think so. To suggest that you will go things alone is not a sign of strength but of weakness. We are always stronger in numbers and with a broader base(how appropriate) the resistance to pressure is enhanced and the staunchness of righteous advocacy is advanced.

3. There was no fight, but instead a clash of ideas which seeks to hone all participants skills of advocacy without demeaning or diminishing any of the participants or their ideas.

4. Anonymous, as a woman arguing with a woman you bring a different perspective on the issues than I as a man talking to a woman could do. Its odd how gender is so often the elephant in the room that no one talks about. But so many of the interpersonal issues are supremely distinguished by which side of the gender divide one exists on. So some of the arguments that you made effectively as a woman, if I had made the same arguments as a man, would have been either less effective or rejected based on the gender of the source.

5. Finally, the quality of your presentation was a pleasure to read, whether I agreed with your messages or not.

Fourth, Bob, your comment brought a lightness and pleasure to my heart that was wonderful. I suppose that the thought that I touched another lonely FA alone in his own self in a way which caused him to spread his thoughts is truly special. I can only hope that like Nuclear Fission it will be a chain reaction that will liberate many more FAs to write about their experiences and feelings and share the thoughts with others.

Unlike you, I have sat with other FAs and talked with them about issues that are special to FAs without any women present. This was a special meeting for FAs in the context of a Naafa convention and was a magical moment. While many of the desires and preferences of each FA are unique and different, there is such a commonality of feeling and experience that it was wonderful to finally get a sense of belonging. Like the ugly duckling realizing that he was a swan, a member of a different species than the ducks, and being a part of a group of which he was a "normal" member.

So much of growing up as a FA is about finding yourself first and then gathering the strength and resolve to share your unpopular inner being with others. Much like gay folks who have to find the strength to acknowledge their inner desires first and then to share that sense of who they are with outside world by coming out of the closet, so FAs have to come out of the closet.

Sixth, I sensed a great loss in the sturm and drang of the advocacy of the comments relating to the last blog. I hope that there will be a healing and strengthening of friendship’s ties rather than a drifting apart.

Seventh, I sense a small community of readers and participants in this blog has developed which is maturing the blog along with me. For that I thank you all profoundly.

Alas....

2006-05-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Alas it’s been too long since I made an entry in my blog. In some sense it relates to being to busy earning my daily bread, but that wouldn’t be true. In some sense it relates to being to busy chatting and emailing with friends, but that isn’t really true either. But in a larger sense it relates to the absence of “big topics” to attack and a chauvinism that I didn’t want to descend to the level where I was bound by a calendar to make entries on an assembly line documenting my existence.

I wish I could lay claim to the concept that my muse has not granted me the boon of her gift of words, but that would be both obnoxious and silly. In fact, I think the primary reason is that I had a serious stretch of work related stress that obviated the ability to opine and doodle in the blog for about two weeks, and I got out of the habit.

Shame on me, and to the extent that anyone cares beyond the handful who’ve urged me to write more (though I care enough about that handful that their request is more than adequate to get me off my literary ass), I will try to get back on a more regular schedule.

It’s interesting to me when I chat with folks and share the link to the blog to get some feedback. Also, it appears to me that the blog makes a whole lot more sense when read in the order that it is written, if picking it up in midstream. So, I’ve made two requests to just about everyone to whom I’ve given the link to the blog. One that they read it from the beginning to end rather than the way it appears on line with the most recent posting first. Two, that they please post comments if any part of the blog tickles their ire, causes them to laugh, disagree, roll their eyes or any other emotional response.

Sadly, in recent times each of these folks has reported that they enjoyed the blog, found it very interesting AND agreed with it completely. While I suppose this should make me happy, slapped on the back, patted on the head and any other positive reinforcement metaphor I can trot out, it actually saddens me. Most of my thoughts expressed in the blog are ones I’ve considered and actually dwelt on for some time. But some are also rather cutesy, irrational, extreme or irreverent. I can’t believe that anyone actually agrees with everything I’ve said or isn’t ticked off by something enough to say that’s a load of bunk or something more colorful.

My sadness comes from the guesstimate that this reaction has been prepared by our government which no longer invites and encourages free thinking by our citizens, but is happier with a bunch of right thinking sheep. And, so many of us have happily given up the uncertainty and work of actually thinking critically about all the things we’re constantly bombarded with. No explanations or support for positions are provided by the governing group yet the populace generally either nods approval or disapproval based on the groups to which they belong and the group to which the speaker belongs. If he’s one of “your guys” you nod approvingly. If he’s from the opposition, whether Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Liberal, Libertarian, Neo-Con, Communist, Socialist, Hedonist or Uptightist, you nod disapprovingly and discount whatever is said, without seriously considering the merits of the statement or the credibility of the “facts” upon which it is based. In many ways it feels to me like we’ve outsourced our thinking to those we respect or follow.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs that this is awful, horrible, reprehensible, un-American, the victory of the forces of 1984, the old Soviet Union and Iron Curtain countries and the death of individual rights and liberties. Old Tom Jefferson, George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and FDR are rolling over in their graves that we are throwing away the freedoms that the Founders of this great country gave their lives for and men great and small fought for during the ensuing two centuries. We’re not even losing it to some outside force, but meekly letting our government steal it from us without even a peep despite their obvious incompetence, greed and narrowmindedness.

We’ve moved from a rational, thinking, scientific society which also had faith to a faith based society in which all decisions are made based on someone’s faith that things are as they believe rather than based on an analysis of what one sees or exists. It is an elevation of seeing what we want to see over figuring out what is actually happening. The rise of science and observation as a basis for explaining our universe which started the Renaissance seems to be dying and bodes a return to another Dark Age. I see this sort of blind faith throughout our world and sense that it is sapping us of our strengths. A democracy or even a Republic, which is what our form of democratic government is, depends on an interested, involved, thinking, questioning electorate. Unfortunately we have a splintered faith based electorate that votes with its heart and faith(and based on what others tell them about candidates rather than what they have seen, heard and questioned themselves), or based on simplistic, jingoistic labels such as liberal, conservative, tax and spend, pro-choice, pro-life…. The basic civility of our government has essentially disappeared and the concept of bipartisanship is gone.

If you sense that my bitterness with people agreeing with my blog views may be a bit of an overreaction I’m sure that I would agree with you. I suppose the worst thing that could result is that the comments if any to this rant will be, yup, you’re right again.

Sigh.

As I started my blog six months ago with things to say, a hidden motive, not known to me when I started it, was my thirst for intelligent, witty, perceptive competing thoughts about the subjects I was tackling. At first I was so pleased just to have a bully pulpit to export my confused thoughts on subjects that I had silently and privately wrestled with for so long that just having the opportunity to pour my ideas onto a computer screen and roughly organize them in view of my eyes was completely satisfactory. As the flood of pent up words filled page after page of the blog, the gushing ceased and I would reread my own words, testing them for accuracy and whether they rang true.

On the whole I am pretty satisfied by what I said when I said it. But, I am not a static individual and my mind continues to come in contact with new people and experiences, all of which shape me and my views. In recent times I’ve been very touched by a particularly interesting, aware, engaging and sexy fat woman. Apart from the usual hormonal reactions, I have learned new things about me and my world through the lens of her perceptions and thoughts. Had I written some of my blog entries now they might have had a different twist. Should I write them again in the future, after I’ve gone further down this path we call life I’m sure it would change again. That experience and realization is a part of what makes it so frustrating to me that the reaction that I always seem to get is so blandly positive. I know there are things in my blog that I would comment on and take issue with(though I suspect that some would claim that my post-graduate training was in devil’s advocacy).

On a positive note, I have found that there are other thoughtful observers of the fat world. They are struggling, either as fat men and women or as fat admirers or fat supporters to understand what drives them, make themselves comfortable with their bodies and their desires and those who find them attractive.

My recently acquired friend is a marvelous example of a fat woman who is well beyond the normal bounds of fitting into the traditional Barbie shape and size so highly valued by the media and fashionistas. She is delightfully ample of bosom, even more abundant of belly and with curves galore to amaze and delight. Her smile illuminates and chases dark clouds away with ease. But, the most cherished contribution to my happiness is her wonderful comfort in herself and who she is. Life’s troubles and society’s disapproval of her size usually roll right off her majestically rounded shoulders, secure in the knowledge that she is beautiful, a good person and needs no outside confirmation of her own value. Her approach to life and good humor and cheer in the face of life’s foibles and speed bumps serve as an inspiration for me to stop whining so much and enjoy life’s marvels, wonders and magnificent richness with each breath. I give her these words as a birthday present, meager and threadbare though they may be. May she continue to bring a smile to my face, a rise when I think of her and joy to my soul.

Of course, I never know when to stop… so I blog on..

I never cease to be amazed by the incredible beauty and sensitivity of supersized big beautiful women who for unknown reasons have not found their prince charming. So many have settled for the first man who expressed positive feelings toward them, gave them some attention even if it was sometimes negative, or would have them. I know that given the time and opportunity I could make a happy life for me and many of these women(only one at a time, lol). As Nathan Hale said oh so many years ago.. I regret that I have but one wife to give for my country(though of course with the Big Love show on HBO maybe three would be a better number-and if your recollection as to what Old Nate said is slightly different perhaps its because the skinny historian got it wrong). I wonder where the other mature, loving, respectful FAs are.

The positive effect of attention and listening to what any other person actually says with an interested ear cannot be believed. As a young lad looking to get between the sheets with any sorts of women I thought the key was to demonstrate some prowess of a physical or mental nature to impress a young maiden. As I’ve matured I’ve discovered that there is nothing more sexy to a woman than the obvious, interested, engaged social intercourse known as conversation. Conversation is a two part harmony in which the participants are as interested in what the other person has said as they are in saying what comes into their heads. Much conversation these days is merely dueling monologues, with both parties spouting and espousing their views without engaging the other in the least. Like Billy Joel said in the Piano Man,

“Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness
But its better than drinkin alone”

In fact this is what most conversation is these days. But, given an involved, motivated partner in true social intercourse women of all sizes, but especially bbws and ssbbws who seem to have a harder time attracting as many men’s attention, the flowering of interest and friendship grows like a sunflower.

In my view there is nothing quite as sweet as watching the beautiful inner goddess emerge from the chrysalis of her lonely ssbbw wilderness to the warmth of affection and friendship. I am, in many ways hooked, like a drug addict, on this warmth and opening lonely folks eyes to the wonders and pleasures of fully duplexed communication.

As a generally observing type of the goings on around me I see on a regular basis interactions between spouses and significant others that have no elements of intercourse, but merely shades of transactional discussion and conversations which can be considered two ships passing in the night(or the more vogue interplanetary gender genesis literary title suggestion). One can hear on a train ride some obnoxious lout espousing at high decibel levels his or her conversations with others(either on a cell phone or to a captive audience), in such a way that it is clear that they view the person they are speaking to as a mere receiver of their wisdom and experience because they leave inadequate time for the other person to get a word in edgewise except when they are finally forced to breathe in. Of course the subjects of these screeds are usually inane, stupid and often totally misinformed. And no, I’m not trying to listen in, but not having my ipod at hand and plugged in to the cosmos, I have no choice but to be subjected to each syllable.

Other times in conversations with those who are acquaintances I will recognize that the other person isn’t registering what I’m saying and just blithely advancing their side of the “conversation”. Often, if I’m feeling sassy and self-amused, I’ll start throwing in nonsense words into the flow of the conversation, still receiving the same “oh yes, but……” or “I’ve found….”, or… “anyhow…..” In one case the person was so wrapped up in what they were saying that I actually tried speaking gibberish syllables that sounded like the right number of words for a response. It took about 3 or 4 of these until the person said.. “what, what did you say?”. And, being a chicken, said, gee I don’t remember, at which point they went back to their diatribe about the school board, their bosses’ peccadilloes or the lawn service or whatever they were railing about at that point.

True conversation is both hard work and amazingly satisfying. For someone who is compulsively and congenitally curious as I am, it is also a wonderful way to satisfy my fix for new knowledge, insight and stuff. I tend to ask tons of questions when I find something interesting because I just want to know as much about it as possible, not because there is an agenda, but because it interests me. However, I enjoy a geometric increase in pleasure when the other person or people in the conversation are similarly curious about me or the things we’re talking about. Most people who are looking for members of the other sex(or same sex as the case may be) to form a relationship focus on the physical or the spiritual. This isn’t so terrible, because that’s important, but once you know someone the physical fades into the landscape for most of the time and the spiritual is nice as a support, and what sustains a relationship is the spark of interest in the other persons life, interests, dislikes, etc. Without that, the physical attraction is a waste except as a short term thrill and the spiritual attraction fades under the stresses of here and now.

Some Thoughts on Your Post

2006-04-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

Well, boys and girls, I’m incredibly pleased to be able to share the thoughts and story of a real world X Fat person with whom I’ve chatted over a significant period of time and who I’ve always found to be perceptive, self-aware, extraordinarily smart and needless to say very sexy. The story and the points that follow are her words, only slightly polished by me, but hers, and not mine. Nothing here has been published until she’s had a chance to review it and approve it. I wanted this post to be her story and her views, and not just my views. Naturally, her name has been changed and some of the details of her life/story have been adapted if they would too closely identify her. As noted, her privacy is very important to her, and being respectful of that, to me as well. She has expressed an interest in establishing more contact with men and women like her. So, if someone would like to be in contact with her they may send an email to me at hugehugefan@gmail.com and I will forward it to her. No hate mail or anything of that sort will be forwarded. However, in my travels through cyberspace I’ve become aware that the number of isolated X Fat folks out there is much greater than most would imagine. To the extent that this blog will help them contact each other and enlarge the networks that each have, that is one of the things that my friend was hoping would result.

I will call my friend, who happens to be an X Fat woman(she’s first my friend and only secondarily an X Fat woman, not the other way around, though of course my initial interest in chatting with her was based on her size), Jane. I’ve picked this name because to date I’ve never met an X Fat woman with that name. And, without further ado, Jane’s words.

Some Thoughts on your blog spot

This is really hard for me. I just don’t usually dwell on these things. I liked most of what I read, and I do think you treated the subject with respect. One of the things I agree with is that SSBBW’s tend to be very private. I am, and a couple of others I know in real life are VERY private. The outgoing ones you meet online are the exceptions.

Just a few words about me. I’m a married ssbbw, mother of 2 adopted children. I was divorced once. I don’t know what my weight is currently, but I am heavier than I have ever been before, probably over 800 pounds. I do weigh myself on a monthly basis, but my husband reads the scale and I’m usually not interested in knowing what the scale reads. I know that my weight went over 800 pounds some months ago. I don’t usually mention that the children are adopted, but I think it’s important to note here. It is possible for extremely heavy women to have normal family lives, but it is often difficult to get pregnant due to changes in hormones and irregular periods. I did get pregnant when I weighed about 475, after our first adoption, but it turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy.

My weight has been an issue since age 13. I worked very hard to control it. I was very active, and have been though dozens of diets. The only thing I lost permanently through a diet was my gall bladder. After my first marriage ended, I went on a diet called Optifast, and went from 360 pounds, to 240 pounds in a miraculously short period of time – about 6 months! I wasn’t any happier, but I was much more comfortable getting out and meeting new people. I met my second (forever!) husband when I was 28 years old and I weighed about 260. We met at a piano class – he was moonlighting as a piano teacher. My weight began to climb, but it didn’t seem to make much difference to either of us. Two years later I was back up to 360.

My husband made it very clear he liked the additional weight, and I was fine with it too. We did want to have children, and for two more years I struggled just to maintain my weight, while we went through all the usual treatments, including in-vitro. When the opportunity to adopt came up, we took it. What a gift from God!

After the adoption I made no effort to control my weight, and a year later I was up to 475. This was when the opportunity to adopt our second child came up, and again, we jumped at it. Without any real effort, my weight sort of stabilized again, and for the next 2 years it stayed pretty much the same. A lot of people ask if my weight was a factor for the adoptions. The fact is, it was no real problem, except for the social worker’s concern about my rapid gain after the initial placement of our first child.

A lot of people also ask about being an extra large ssbbw mom. I think it is more of a problem for me, emotionally, than for the kids. I am not the kind of mom I wanted to be. I can’t go to school functions now. I know they are reluctant to bring friends home, with only a few exceptions. They are happy and healthy, and the time we have together is wonderful. Now some of their friends have driver’s licenses, and they are anxious to get away, while I am pretty much home-bound. This is very hard for me. About 8 years ago my weight started climbing again, and very suddenly, I found I had serious mobility problems. This was at about 580. I was horrified, and went on another crash diet, and lost about 90 pounds. But a year later, I was gaining again. I knew what was going to happen, but it seemed so natural…there is no explanation. The reduction in mobility seemed more gradual, and very easy to adjust to. In a way, I think this is a trap. I fear immobility so much, but you adjust to it too easily. I can’t get out and visit or shop, but the truth is, I mostly don’t miss that.

I told you I thought some things were missing from your blog, about what life is like for someone like me. Here are at least some of them, in no particular order.

1. FEAR. I am very healthy for someone my age and weight – which is to say, my health is poor. I am diabetic, and have high blood pressure, as well as sleep apnea. These are all pretty recent – within the last 4 years. My heart pounds so hard sometimes I am afraid it will just burst. The health problems associated with weight are real, and inevitable. It is just a question of time.

2. JOY. I love to eat, and pretty much eat what I want, as much as I want. I don’t stuff myself, but I am very sedentary, so even low intake seems to lead to additional weight gain. Sex has been a factor in my weight gain. I won’t try to hide that. Our sex life always seemed to improve as I gained weight. Even now, we have a very active sex life, which I am sure many skinny girls would envy!

3. LOVE. I require total care. I need help going to the bathroom, and cleaning up afterward, as well as all other personal care. My husband provides most of this, and it has lead to a very deep relationship that I think few can really understand. It is hard to over emphasize this. We have a total commitment to each other. I know some see this as sick in a way, but for us it has developed beautifully and naturally.

So, this is Jane’s story.

I was going to put a closing gloss on what she has said, but have decided not to do so. I am interested, however in any comments you have. Again, I will note that the comments can be done anonymously, though of course even if you use the anonymous feature, it would be great if you can identify yourself at the end of the post in some way.

If you have questions for or about Jane, let me know.

Being a BHM

2006-04-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

Being a BHM

So far I’ve pointed my blog’s microscope at BBW’s and SSBBW’s and my views related to them. But, in many ways, a big part of my existence and orientation is related to my own size. While I’ve always been fat, over the years my weight has varied rather considerably and my reaction to my size has also evolved. To some extent, my trip through my own size acceptance obstacle course has colored what I want and look for in women. Just so it’s clear, and some have asked this, my orientation is a generally near vanilla heterosexual one, with any interest in guys merely as friends, compatriots and fellow travelers in the FA ranks. No romantic or sexual attraction is piqued by guys, though I must note an occasional sense of wonder and amazement upon seeing or hearing about guys with profoundly enormous bellies, though I suspect that’s more a reflection on the relative smallness of my own belly compared to theirs(an analog or parallel to penis envy? or some such nonsense). Not really sure, but that’s about the size of it. So, in a sense here is an autobiographical entry, though lacking certain personal details to maintain a degree of privacy.

I’ve been fat as far back as I can remember, and started my first diet, with Weight Watchers when I was 12, I believe. I think I lost something like 80 pounds down to the low 100s and achieved their Life Membership status. Naturally, over a period of years, as I grew taller and went through puberty, etc. all that weight and more came back. The next time I dieted, again with Weight Watchers was prior to going to college. I don’t remember how much I lost, but by sophomore year all that weight and more had returned and by the time I graduated and went on to graduate school I was probably as heavy as I’d ever been. The summer I graduated from grad school I spent two months studying for my professional licensing exam and would run 5 or 6 miles a day and otherwise worked out so that I lost a considerable amount of weight. I kept most of the weight off for a few years until the pressures of work and the absence of time to work out or even to eat in a normal fashion(lots of late nights with major Jewish deli delivered dinners at my desk… you know those enormous deli sandwiches and huge portions of all sorts of stuff) caused the weight to come back on.

I became aware of the fat acceptance movement and NAAFA during grad school, which was in the early 80s and was able to link up my nascent FA’ness with a structure which embodied, supported and validated my preference for fat women. It was first at those Naafa events that I came in contact with SSBBWs.

I recall meeting a woman who was much older than I and relatively well known in Naafa circles in those days who was known for her incredibly enormous legs, hips and butt. One of those Naafa events was a pool party at a hotel near an airport and this aging goddess(gawd, she must have been in her early 50s though I suspect I thought her nearly as old as Methuseleh) was wandering around in a bathing suit with a wrap around her waist and covering down to just above her knees. She and I were talking, and I suspect she was trying to set me up with one of the younger girls(she herself was happily married, though her husband didn’t come to the Naafa events, though she loved to flirt with all the men of whatever age), when some young men whistled and laughed from some window in the hotel overlooking the pool area. They were obviously making fun of her in some way… so she asked me to give her a big hug and play along… which I happily did… After we broke the hug she started to play that the hug had made her so hot… so she said she HAD to cool off.. so she took off her wrap in a fashion that an ecdysiast of Gypsy Rose Lee’s class would have admired, ending with her running her hands over her butt and legs in a fashion that every FA eye around the pool was absolutely mesmerized. Somehow I ended up with her wrap over my shoulder, but I was merely a stage prop. She was playing to the boys in the window, who had grown silent during her show.. so she turned slowly, pointed her finger at them, and in her booming voice said.. boys, I think you need to come down here and help me cool off… well, wouldn’t you know it, the three guys came down, were talked to by this lady and soon paired up with three of her younger friends talking.

I remember this lady very fondly, though a few years later she passed along, the victim, I believe of the cigarettes she’d smoked.

But, having gone off on a tangent without any real purpose apart from it being a pleasant, though bittersweet memory, my point was that I’d become exposed not to the slightly chubby or marginally fat girls of my college years, but real significantly fat women, many of whom were over 400 pounds, which in those days was relatively bigger than a 500 pound woman is today. What I mean is that there were so few really fat women that a woman of 400 pounds then seemed fatter in comparison then 500 pound women seem today. But, surprisingly, there were probably only a very few fat men in the mix, and most of them were married to fat women. I recall one happy couple with the man easily over 400 pounds and his wife his equal or more in size. Apart from their very generous size, what I remember is the adoration each had for the other and their easy happiness and acceptance of their size.

By that time I’d also learned that diets weren’t a good way to lose weight and that most bodies had a setpoint which was negatively affected by dieting. Negatively affected in the sense that the setpoint after the diet would be higher than it was before. The mechanism for this may not be clear, but the effect was obvious. Talking to many of the fat folks who came to the Naafa outings it became clear that the bigger and biggest of the women, (even then I was fascinated and interested in the biggest of the ladies), had all reached their current sizes through screwing up their setpoints by diets of various types. Each described the series of diets that so-called well meaning family members and medical hacks had urged or imposed on them. Everything from uppers to diuretics to speed to radical diets, to even the early attempts at weight loss surgery(WLS). And every time the story was the same. I lost X and quickly gained back X plus Y. And no one had been on just one diet, it was A and B and C and D and whatever fad diet had come out or someone had recommended. Initially I figured that these fat folks were just failures at the diets, but eventually I thought of my “successes”, and realized that I too had followed a similar path. After doing a fair amount of reading and talking to the survivors of the diet wars, my own views about dieting began to gel.

I vowed that I would never again diet in the ways I’d done it before, in an effort to lose pounds. I might change the way I was eating to eat more healthily and perhaps in a more moderate way, but that my key would be to increase my fitness level and link that with a more rational eating style. Over the years I’ve found that this sort of an approach has worked reasonably well for me, so that I’ve maintained a very good level of fitness despite weighing much more than any of my fellow sports participants.

But I found that the women who were fat lived a life far different than the one that I as a fat man lived it. Perhaps a part of it was that I am and have always been a strong willed, bright and physically powerful man who doesn’t suffer fools or take shit from anyone. My size has in many ways been an advantage, rather than a disadvantage, and until my weight went over 300 and then 350, there were no real restrictions on where I could go and what I would fit in. I don’t apologize about any of the things that I am, though I suppose some will consider my calling myself “bright” is blowing my own horn. No one who has ever met me in person has considered that characterization inappropriate, though many would have other things about me they don’t like. Gee, maybe I’m being too sensitive about this. In any event, my point was I’ve never really been overtly discriminated against due to my size. This is something which is significantly different from the many Naafa women I met at that time and the fat women I’ve known and met since then.

There is no question in my mind that fat women are very significantly discriminated against in many ways. Of course, some of that is due to passivity in accepting treatment that is less than they are entitled to and allowing others to act reprehensibly toward them. On the other hand there is a limit to how much butting of one’s head against ignoranamuses and idiots can be reasonably managed. So, my comment is intended to note that there is more discrimination against fat women than against fat men, though clearly fat men are discriminated against too. Of course, women are discriminated against vis a vis men as a rule too, so it becomes more difficult to tease out the specific cause of any discrimination, whether gender, weight, height, skin color, ethnicity, political beliefs, religion, etc.

Only when I encountered fat men in my professional sphere who were so fat as to have taken on more feminine shaped and textured bodies did I see the same sort of discrimination as has been rained down on the fat women. When I saw these men I was struck by two partially inconsistent thoughts. First, that they should get off their asses and stand up for themselves because they were allowing themselves to be treated like third class people. Second, that they were a victim of discrimination which was not brought on by themselves and was mean spirited and without rational basis.

Anyway, back to the timeline… during my professional life my weight ebbed and flowed, but by the time I was in my mid to late 30s I’d topped 350, though not clear by how much as I never weighed myself and refused to allow the doctor to do so(well, more accurately, demurred when he asked me to step on the scale.. and he stopped asking me to do so). See, another situation where my strong will and somewhat overbearing manner tends to prevent others from doing something that I don’t approve of relative to me.

At some point I realized that I was dozing off inappropriately during the day and eventually, just about any time I would sit down for more than a minute or two. As a person who’s work is done sitting down primarily, this wasn’t a good thing. So, eventually I figured out that there was this thing called sleep apnea and found a doctor who specialized in sleep disorders. I was lucky, I suppose because the doctor I found was one who had been involved in this area for many years and is/was one of the leading sleep doctors who’s organized and regulated the area in connection with certification of doctors and centers who deal with sleep apnea and the related sleep disorders. So, he and I began a trip together, and through the diagnosis of my sleep apnea. I’d be happy to do a post on it if anyone is interested. I got a CPAP machine and got my life back again. Within a matter of a few days I had energy that I hadn’t had in at least several years. The few years before I was diagnosed are somewhat fuzzy, which is pretty awful looking back.

But the effect of the CPAP was that while the sleep apnea isn’t cured(there really isn’t any cure for most folks), I had more energy and resumed my athletic endeavors and wasn’t eating so much in the evening to keep myself awake, and my weight went all the way down to about 250 pounds. As my weight went down I had the guys at my health club do one of their analyses of lean body mass, and they determined(when I was about 300 pounds) that my lean body mass was about 240 pounds. They claimed never to have met anyone except the steroidal body builders with a lean body mass that high. Big bones, lots of heavy muscles in my legs and torso. So when I got down to 255, which was as low as I’d been as a working world adult I was actually probably quite thin for my body. But, I suspect my body wasn’t very happy at that weight, since it was well below my setpoint. So, steadily, my weight crept back up to around 300 and then 325.

Finally, at about 350 my body was still allowing me to be athletic and play fairly heavy exertion sports, such as racquetball, swimming and golf, though ones which did not tend to abuse my knees and ankles. Basketball was discarded as a sport years before because of the beating that jumping put on my knees. Unfortunately, a small knee injury, which was really only a sprain, took me off my athletic regime for a while and it took me over a year and a half to get back to it.

By that point I’d noticed that I was more out of breath doing even usual walking and stairs tended to wind me more and more. So, I decided I needed to get back to the gym and rebuild my fitness. Since the last time I’d been to the gym they had replaced the old style balance beam scale in the center of the men’s locker room with a digital scale with a 440lb(200kg) capacity. So, on my first visit, checking that no one was looking(they’ve got it in a more private spot so that no one can see the numbers unless they have x-ray eyes and can look through you, and also because its literally in a corner.), I weighed myself and found I was over 390 pounds. It took me almost a month more to start coming back to the club again and I didn’t weigh myself again until after I’d been working out for more than a month. I have to believe that at some point my weight crested over the 400 pound threshold but have never seen those numbers while on a scale. At the point I did weigh myself my weight had dropped some and over the course of the next several months my weight has slowly but steadily dropped close to 350 pounds, where I find I have a significantly augmented my fitness level.

The steps at my local train station, one flight of 9 followed by two flights of 19 each up and then two flights of 19 each back down to the platform, which have aggressively high risers are no longer a problem and I find that the slight out of breath and heart pumping that I get racing up and down the stairs to catch a train quickly abates. For those of you who are math challenged, that’s 47 steps up and 38 down, or a total of 85 steps. I can fairly easily walk 3 miles on a treadmill at about 3.5 mph, swim some laps in the pool and do a few of the nautilus machines in a workout over a period of an hour and a half without so exhausting myself that I am useless or need to sleep afterwards.

My golf game, which is my love and addiction, will improve this year due to the higher level of fitness. I can already see that my drives are traveling significantly further and I’m getting additional distance out of each of my clubs which is indicative of my body more efficiently and repeatably generating rotational energy. Also, I’ve noted that at the end of the round of golf I’m still fresh and ready to play more, as compared to the way I felt at the end of the last golf season, where the last few holes I felt tired and my swings were somewhat labored.

So, that’s where I am now, slightly over 350 pounds, at about 5’11 and still a guy with a substantial appetite, though one that I tend to moderate much of the time. I generally don’t prevent myself from enjoying anything food related, and if the food is wonderful I will eat my fill which can be substantial. However, in many ways I pick my spots. Rather than just eating big meals all the time and eating something particularly scrumptious all the time, I will hold back if I’m pretty sure that the quality of what I’ll be getting at some restaurant will be subpar and save my pleasure for a restaurant that will have really delicious food. The joy of gluttony has been reduced to an extent by becoming a more selective eater, i.e more of a gourmet.

In chatting online I am often asked by women why I’m interested in knowing their numbers. I’ve dealt with that in an earlier post and won’t burden you with a repetition of it here. What has surprised me more than anything is what a great percentage of women seem to have no real interest in what my numbers might be, apart from height, weight and age. Of course, there are some who are almost belligerent about their numbers… saying why should I share my numbers with you if you won’t share yours with me. In each such case I’ve said… I have no problem sharing my numbers with you… what are you interested in knowing. So, for this group of vocally interested, and the bigger group that probably has an interest but is too polite, shy or unwilling to ask, here you go. At my biggest I was bursting out of my 58 inch waist slacks and wearing a 60 Portly Long suit, with the biggest girth, which isn’t exactly at the waist, being about 63 inches. Now, my 56 inch slacks are a bit loose, though not loose enough to consider 54 inch slacks. My suits are really loose and the only reason the pants don’t fall down is that I wear suspenders, though I can slide my hands in the waistband without a problem. I’ll need to have them altered so they don’t look so much like circus clown pants(well, its not that bad, but you get the idea). I estimate the suit jackets are about 2 inches too big and the pants are about 4 inches too big now. I don’t really have measurements of any of the other dimensions, but my 4X shirts are now looser, and some 3X shirts actually fit.

So, where am I at about my size, weight being a BHM and gaining or losing weight. Well, I like my size, in the sense that I appreciate that I’m a big person, I’m happy and comfortable in my skin, regardless of my weight. I’ve enjoyed the times my body has grown and I’ve gotten fatter, watching and feeling the changes in my body’s shape, the growth of my belly and the way in which it’s affected my balance and gait. I have too much of an investment in my athletic endeavors to sacrifice those without a significant fight and will strive to maintain myself as an active, athletic fat man. I don’t want to get my body down to a size that will fit comfortably into “normal” range clothing because my body isn’t comfortable at that level. Whether my setpoint has been raised to the point it is now through dieting, aging or some other factors, it seems to me that I must and will deal with it as it is now and not as I’d either like it to be or it was at some time in the past. Given the choice I’d prefer that my body stabilize under 350 pounds, because I think I have the most strength and stamina at that point.

I’ve always found it interesting that the classic FA stereotype is a nerdy, skinny guy who likes fat women, an analog to the Jack Sprat and Mrs. Sprat with the skinny man and immensely fat woman. I’ve never fit into that mold, though at various times my size and muscularity has made me seem not so fat as just big. In many cases I’ve been surprised (though on looking back it should have been no surprise), that fat women are as specific in their physical preferences as everyone else, and often are only looking for very skinny, or very short or very tall or very muscular men. In fact, there is a common view among the ssbbws that they’d prefer a thinner man because of the ergonomics of sex between a very fat woman and a man. One belly or one set of thick thighs or big butt can be accommodated more easily than two big bellies, etc. From my experience and that of the few other BHM’s who are also FAs of SSBBWs I’ve encountered over the years, two big people in bed certainly creates additional difficulties, but never has the additional effort failed to result in significant pleasure and satisfaction. Amusingly, like everybody else, even the fat women are generally less interested in fat partners then more slender ones even though they, themselves are fat and are looking for men who find them attractive as fat women.

So, like in the Wizard of Oz, you’ve now had an opportunity to look behind the curtain of this BHM’s existence and get a sense of where the words in this blog are coming from.

... on a Northbound train....

2006-03-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

Sitting on a northbound train, sharing a two seat opposite two seat grouping with a very substantial gal who must easily weigh at least 450 pounds, perhaps more. Her face has the someone mottled and flushed coloration that some fat folks have, her nose, in a thinner person would be a very substantial aquiline nose, but here it is a straight line surrounded by many curves. When I came, late for the train, most of the two person seats were occupied. And all of the three person seats,.. which are nice for a fat person to sit in with only one other person, because the middle of the three seats is rarely attempted unless the train is REALLY crowded (and I’m not suitable for a middle seat unless I can be fairly certain that the two people on the window and the aisle are together and will likely slide in from the aisle to sit together, giving me the prime aisle spot), were fully occupied by two people. By the doors on this older equipment are two pairs of two person seats facing each other, which is generally less comfortable than the single rows which face the back of the row in front of them.

But this gal was sitting regally in the aisle seat of the pair facing forward and the door, the two seats opposite her untaken. This wasn’t so odd since with her very substantial belly, her trunklike legs were splayed so that they occupied almost ¾ of the width of the seats facing her, her width on her seat even with her arm sticking out beyond the end of the seat on the aisle side extended across better than a third of the adjacent seat without counting her arm. Since the seats have no internal dividers she sat comfortably, occupying seats intended for four when there were virtually no seats available on the train.

Being a big fella myself I had figured out that my choices were limited, either squeeze into a middle seat of a three seater or park myself caddy corner across from her. As I eyeballed my choices, it became clear that the seat with the fat lady was the winner, even if my legs would be squashed and perhaps she would be slightly discomfited by having to try and squeeze her legs closer together.

As there is no rack for bags or coats above the end seats I had to put my case and coat down next to me as I squeezed in.My legs which are also fairly substantial and belly which is rather protuberant, were a bit tight. But the view was well worth the price. Sitting here in the corner, with the side wall biting into my right leg, I see her sitting there, trying to keep herself as snug and compact as possible. A man who must be her husband sits across the aisle from her, comfortably seated. She’s sitting there with her right hand gripping the fingertips of her left hand which is flattened against the top of her broad and deep belly. Her chin is buried in a large band of flesh which continues straight down from her face without any narrowing on the sides and forms a second chin under the main chin. But its not a chin in the sense that it hangs, but rather like her neck has swelled up to fill the space between her shoulders where it starts and her ears where it ends, and the chin has somehow gotten in the way. Whenever she turns her head or looks down the chin digs into the neck band, causing it to spread out and around the chin.

She’s wearing a sleeveless dress of imperial purple over a long sleeved knit shirt of a lighter purple shade. Around her neck is a necklace formed of cubical green and orange stones, perhaps jade and some semiprecious stones. The dress has a rounded front to show perhaps a hint of cleavage, but the long sleeved shirt, which has a turtleneck collar prevents that. The collar is big enough to comfortably contain the massive neck. Her upper arms are large but not particularly so relative to her overall size and her lower arms and hands are relatively small in comparison. Her breasts are quite modest in size and sit on either side of her chest closer to her armpits, pushed there by the top of her belly.

Ah, the belly, it was the first thing my eyes espied when I came down the aisle and it is a thing of beauty and supersized scale. It appears from the view I have to be a single belly without a horizontal break running vertically from the bottoms of her breasts down below her solid thighs in the middle, and squeezed into a roll of substance on either side atop the upper thighs. Across her belly is probably at least six inches wider than her shoulders and her hips are lost below the belly. Now as I take stock she’s shifted her hand and has now moved the left hand over the right hand, which is pointed down and reaches almost her belly button, visible as a small indentation in the taught belly covering fabric. As the train shifts as it rolls on down the tracks I can see the belly shaking and shimmying more than the rest of her.. as the very soft and heavy belly reacts to the shaking of the train. Despite the way in which her belly is tightly encased in the dress like a sausage, the belly will not be stilled. As the train has moved on I have noticed that her legs periodically slide outward and then when she notices it slides herself back against the seat and tries to slide them together. With a small glance I see that her back is also extraordinarily fat, the back of the dress with very huge opening for the arm under the shoulders is pressed out with a mountain of flesh . The back is filled out keeping her shoulders a good six or eight inches from the seat back.

As the train rumbles to the first stop, where I will be getting off, I ask for the train gods to make my stop hers. And, prayers answered, several minutes before we arrive she slowly elevates herself to her feet, her belly shifting and finding its place under the tentlike dress she wears. I notice that she has fat feet, no huge surprise and very large ankles, but the dress comes all the way down blocking any view of her legs above the ankle region. As she stands there and reaches over for her coat, sitting next to her on the seat, I see she is quite tall, perhaps 5’8” or 5’9” and her belly sticks out a good foot or more and is majestically wide and low seated, and I adjust my weight estimate upward to at least 500 and perhaps 550 pounds. After she’s put on and buttoned her coat, she daintily picks up a small bag which seems to have something with almost no weight. The bag is so dwarfed by her size that its almost bizarre. Her husband across the aisle has readied himself and as she shuffles out to the aisle and toward the door he tries to be the gentleman and carry the light bag. She shoos him away and as the train comes to a roaring stop, her belly, even through the dress and coat sways precipitously. But she doesn’t lose her footing or balance and she slowly waddles off the train.

So ends the tale as she turns right toward the elevator and I turn left to the nearest staircase.

The Deep End of the Gene Pool

2006-03-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

The deep end of the gene pool

So far in discussing fat people, and primarily women, I’ve discussed those who weigh between about 200 and 550 pounds. These are the people you’d meet on the street or in a restaurant or perhaps in a store. For the most part they are just like everyone else, but fatter. Though, as you approach the over 400 or over 500 pound group, there are significant differences in the ability to move, increasing restrictions which might be called mobility issues.

Mobility issues tend to appear at different weights and ages depending on lots of factors, including genetics, activity level, mental approach, personality, environment, weight gain patterns, weight distribution on the body, etc. However, as weight starts to creep beyond about 550 pounds, except in unusual or exceptional situations, or where people are quite tall, all have significantly reduced mobility. Long walks are a thing of the past, stairs are a hazard and obstacle to be avoided unless absolutely critical, and driving a car becomes either difficult, dangerous or impossible.

However, to move well beyond this weight, to 700, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 or more pounds, and mobility is measured in different terms. No mobility outside of the house is the first thing to go, then limited mobility between bed and bathroom and perhaps couch/wheelchair/walker. Finally, the body is trapped in a bed except for the intervention of heroic efforts, usually requiring large numbers of people, specialized equipment, significant physical effort on the part of the movers and movee(but not requiring the television cameras of a daytime talk show host to report or show the activity). Soon mobility is defined by the ability to move around within the bed and then by the ability to move parts of the body, such as forearms and hands and feet, even if the lower arms and legs are not movable by the fat person without assistance.

In the past I’ve chatted with folks at all sizes of large on up to more than the weight of Carol Yeager, reputed by Guinness to be the heaviest person ever at about 1600 pounds. Many will say that folks who claim to be so big are lying and frauds. Some are, some aren’t. Over time I’ve developed a sense of what rings true and what has the odor of fish and is likely not true. The clearest evidence that a person is as big as they claim is to see the person with your own eyes. But, in the real world, visiting such a person would be extraordinarily unusual. Anyone who’s grown to a weight so large that it’s shockingly large, say over 700 or 800 pounds, and those who care for them(more about that later) are highly protective of their privacy. There is a significant concern that the “authorities” would step in and take control of the fat person in an effort to bring their weight down to more “normal” levels. In most cases there are either no photographs or a few photographs shared very cautiously, because of the way in which such photographs always seem to appear and spread on the internet, in Yahoo Groups, and other sites, private and commercial, regardless of the absence of permission to share those pictures.

In those chats I’ve learned many things which seem to exist in essentially all of the extraordinarily fat(“X Fat”). First, is that none of them are light eaters. While some are clearly food addicts, others just love to grow fatter, and others are in submissive relationships with one or more people who seek to make the X Fat person keep growing. However, all of them eat significantly more than even a big eater that you would see around eats.

Second, none of these people have reached their X Fat sizes without the assistance of others. No such person can manage their lives to take care of even the food procurement side of their lives, not to mention the obtaining and maintaining of housing, heating, cooling, clothing(to the extent they wear any), bathing, bathrooming, etc. As folks grow into X Fat sizes, they develop a need to be supported in all of their activities, often even the eating. This support can be needed in stages and over time, or it can be needed all of a sudden in the event of an injury or illness.

Third, not everyone can grow to X Fat size, no matter how much they eat. Genetics clearly play a significant role in how fat any person is or can become. Many fat people tend not to eat as much or much more than “normal weight” people, but are somewhat or much heavier than their skinnier brethren. In some ways their genes have made their bodies more efficient in extracting all the chemical energy(calories) from the food they eat and in retaining that energy, stored in natures favorite energy storehouse, fat.

Fourth, none of the X Fat folks went to sleep one night weighing 200 or 250 pounds and awoke the next morning weighing 750 or 1000 pounds. Contrary to the weight gain fiction which posits a magical formula or spells which make the weight pour on impossibly quickly and without limit, this doesn’t work in the real world. Their bodies have to grow to adopt the new fat and size, by expanding the area of the skin, growing new blood vessels to support the newly added fat, and additional muscle to move the new weight around while they’re moving. Unlike an ice sculpture which melts in perfect proportion, retaining the exact same shape as the ice melts, people gaining weight don’t just scale up in size, retaining the same proportionate shape. Similarly, when they lose weight it’s not in the same order as its gained. In addition, when questioning how a person could get so fat that they weigh 1200 pounds, the answer is by weighing 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000 and 1100 pounds, and all the pounds between these numbers first. Which sort of leads to the question that most folks really mean to ask.. which is I can understand how you got really really fat… but how did you get to 1200, didn’t you know at 500, 800, 1000 pounds that you had to stop and lose weight?

Fifth, X Fat size people are generally not either mentally retarded, incoherent or uneducated. While this may seem gratuitiously sensational, I’ve put it in because many folks talking about such people assume they must be stupid, doing something which they have no idea of the consequences of, or are misinformed about what they’re doing because they haven’t read any thousand of stories and reports of the dangers of obesity. While the X Fat size people I’ve spoken with have varying levels of formal and informal education, sophistication of mental approach and spelling skills, I’ve never chatted for very long with any X Fat size person, who I’ve believed is actually that fat, who isn’t well informed, mentally active and part philosopher. They know what they’ve become, have seen it happening to them and generally, have either encouraged the development or been sanguine and comfortable with the process and result.

Sixth, sexual relations with and by X Fat size people are possible and the X Fat size people and those close to them in a sexual sense always seem to find a way to satisfy themselves.

The level of support required by the X Fat person is extraordinary both in terms of cost, time and physical activity. The support team, and generally it isn’t just a single person, has to acquire, prepare and deliver food in sufficient quantity and with sufficient regularity to try to satisfy the needs/desires/wants of the X Fat person(and the support team which often seeks to continually ramp up the quantities of food being eaten). They need to take care of the bathroom needs and bathing of the X Fat person, which are, well, beyond the scope of this post. As many SSBBW’s know the skin is a very finicky organ which requires constant monitoring and special care to avoid problems resulting from skin on skin areas, like under the pannus, breasts, in fat folds, etc. Such needs and cares are multiplied in the X Fat person because of their even bigger size and plethora of folds. This exceptionally large size results in their skin becoming even more fragile because it has to cover a much larger surface area (its not unusual for a person over 1000 pounds to have dimensions well into the triple digits, with waist/hip measurements approaching or exceeding 200 inches and thighs approaching 100 inches around).

Medical needs of such folks are an entirely different issue. Many require constant oxygen to get sufficient amounts for breathing, and apnea requiring BiPap machines because the pressure required to allow breathing are too great for them to breathe out against. And, ironically, it often requires a serious health emergency before outside medical assistance is called for. Surprisingly, many of the X Fat are surprisingly healthy in conventional terms. Their blood pressures are in the normal range, their sugar levels normal and many are rarely or ever sick. Of course this isn’t always the case and many times a simple illness can be life threatening in an X Fat person and diseases like cellulites and lymphedema are not uncommon. When the X Fat person has a condition, disease, or problem it is generally attempted to be treated in situ by the support team. The two main reasons for this are that it is so difficult to move the X Fat person that it is safer to treat them where they are if possible. The other reason is the fear that the X Fat person and the support team have about making the outside world aware of the size of the X Fat person. There is a tremendous fear that once the outside world gets its hands on the X Fat person they won’t let go unless and until very substantial weight loss is undertaken. Treatment by medical professionals often requires transportation to a hospital facility, and the ability of an ambulance corps to transport X Fat people is spotty and generally totally inadequate. Even 700 pound folks who are marginally able to move with assistance are regularly dropped or injured in being moved. The trauma and injury from the moving is often the cause of more serious problems in the X Fat person beyond the original reason for medical attention. Those who are unable to move themselves at all are even tougher to move without the proper equipment, vehicles and practiced teams of X Fat People Movers. The effect of this is that the X Fat and those around them enabling the growth to X Fat size tend to resist being moved for treatment until their situations are often critical and there is no time for proper planning and securing a safe transport. Not a pretty picture.

But, like the Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster, the X Fat people are figures of such privacy and public rarity(not really sure how common such folks are, but everyone I’ve spoken to on this subject, primarily FA’s attracted to the biggest of the big, assumes that there are many more than most people would guess, and they’re getting bigger and bigger), that for FA’s there is a special surge of interest in such folks even if there is no realistic interest in forming a physical relationship with them. Like the big game hunter in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s in deepest darkest Africa, there is a certain cachet in FA circles associated with knowing folks who are bigger and fatter than anyone else has ever seen. People who are often twice as big as the biggest fat ladies in the circus.

For me, my dealings with the X Fat people has always been about trust, not sharing any aspect, picture, story about a friend who is an X Fat person with anyone else unless and until the X Fat person has told me its okay to share. I always assume, unless hearing otherwise, that what I’ve shared withan X Fat person, or SSBBW or BBW or any other friend, or they've shared with me, is private and not to be repeated and shared without their permission. The X Fat people are exceptionally careful about who they interact with and what they share about themselves, apart from their real concerns about the "authorities", since there are some FA’s who are absolutely fanatical in their efforts to actually meet the X Fat women of their dreams. I’ve heard a number of stories of police becoming involved due to stalking type activity. While this has always sounded rather bizarre to me, I’ve heard it enough to sense that it’s likely true.

So, I’m curious if any of the readers of the blog are interested in hearing more about X Fat folks, are attracted to them, repulsed by them, both attracted and repulsed by them, have stories they'd like to share, or just bored by the discussion. I also wonder if any of the X Fat are readers of this blog.

The Fat Woman on the Sopranos

2006-03-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

The Fat Woman on the Sopranos

Ginny Sack, Johnny Sack’s wife, a very supersized woman with very big hair was a welcome addition to the cast of the Soprano’s last season(which was two years ago in real life). She was picked after an open casting call(amusingly called a cattle call), and had a very small role. Except, everyone seemed to really enjoy her acting and the interplay between the very fat woman and the fastidiously skinny Johnny Sack, and so they added additional scenes for her, including one in which her “dieting” which was very unsuccessful was found out by her husband. Rather than just screaming at her about why she was so fat, his response was along the lines that he loved her, and she didn’t have to lose weight for him. The first real SSBBW FA on mainstream, if cable, television?

Tonight, the first episode of the next season, Ginny Sack is back, though it was a bit tough on the first watching to see if she’s gained weight, stayed the same or lost weight, though it's clear that she’s still a SSBBW. She had two scenes and it looks like she will be involved in a number of the story lines with several of the characters, including her husband who’s in jail and Carmela Soprano(Tony’s wife).

Curious if any of you BBW’s, SSBBWs or FA’s have any thoughts on Ginny Sack.

Spring Has Sprung!!!

2006-03-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

Spring has Sprung!!!

Today the weather in the city reached into the low 70s and an entire city emerged from the Chrysalis of Winter. Coats, jackets, heavy sweaters were shed and bare blouses, shirts and dresses were on display.

As an FA, the first day of warmth as winter wanes is like my Birthday, Christmas, New Year, Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day all rolled into one, with nothing but gifts and grins all over the place. All those mysteriously large women bundled into shapeless outerwear have emerged. And each year I am convinced that many of the women have gained a substantial amount of weight over the winter because much of the clothing is deliciously snug and curve hugging.

Hips, Thighs, butts, boobs, bellies are all on display. Too short shirts fail to meet the overly burdened pants with the resulting bellies and love handles curvaceously presented like pristine plump oysters on the half shell.

I had the good fortune to have a luncheon across town, a walk of about half a mile each way. Leaving an extra few minutes so I wouldn’t work up too much of a sweat, since I am a fat man, I paraded to the luncheon like the proverbial kid in a candy shop with a roll of nickels(old proverb… new proverb, with his mother’s Platinum Amex card). I saw such sights that it was almost more than I could handle to continue walking diligently along my path and not slowing and stopping and turning … too much… as I saw wave after wave after wave of abundantly amusing eye candy. Women all sizes of large, from those with slender bodies but some serious booty, or average sized women with newly formed rolls of belly cascading over her pants’ waistline, to borderline ssbbws with thunderous thighs and boulder sized butts, to amazingly ample apples, pears and hourglass shaped ssbbws provocatively sashaying down the street, confidently proclaiming their power of positive self-adoration, to a few women of such size that the majestic stateliness of their liner-like passages made my knees weaken and my own gait stumble to match their regal strides.

After a rather delicious lunch… a prodigious prime rib, cooked to perfection on the edge between rare and medium rare, side orders of mushrooms, hash brown potatoes and creamed spinach, which followed a decadent caesar salad, and preceded a delightful selection of berries clinging defiantly to the whipped cream, I truly needed and enjoyed the ability to walk back to my desk. The prime rib was cooked to my liking and in addition to the succulence of the main chop portion of the prime rib, had substantial amounts of particularly tender and juicy meat hugging the foot long bone, the meat and fat along the bone crisped to a peak of flavor. The amazing selection of rolls, including an ethereal saltstick roll(a long torpedo shaped roll with a crisp exterior studded with salt and some other seeds like caraway along it carapace), rounded out the food. A bottomless supply of delicious iced tea and a double espresso with dessert made the entire experience complete.

On the walk back the internal warmth and satisfaction was matched and complemented by the passing kaleidoscope of humanity, including tourists, office workers and others. All manner of women in sizes were on display from anorexic on up to SSBBW like the diverse mass of life descending from Noah’s ark after the great flood receded. After three solid months of cold it really reinforced the miracle of rebirth which is exhibited each year as the Earth comes back to life after an extended period of apparent slumber. My eyes and brain were unable to separately catalog all the beauty on display, merely taking it all in…(reminds me of a line from Jungleland, a Bruce Springsteen song…

…Between flesh and what’s fantasy and the poets down here
Don’t write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be…

Bruce had it in a negative sense… but for me it was an overwhelming input of a positive type…

[Today]…. in …..Jung…le…..land…..(bring up the sax and guitar….)..

Breasts

2006-03-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

Breasts

Known as breasts, tits, boobs, titties, chest meat, casabas, jugs, bosoms, bazooms, boobies, the girls, the boys, udders, flopdoodles, gazongas, hooters, headlights and thousands more(found at http://www.ariannaonline.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-14567.html), the female breasts have been and continue to be the source of more depressed IQ’s in guys than any other body part.

Also, apparently the source of a woman’s intelligence, since us guys tend to speak directly to the breasts, with our attention and bulging eyeballs anchored there as well. Never have I felt so stupid as when I have met an attractive woman with 4 sigma breasts and my usually lucid, crackling wit abandons me, my mouth suddenly feels like its been in the Sahara for a few weeks and my nimble tongue suddenly turns to lead.(4 sigma refers to the concept of standard deviation, which sigma is used to represent and 4 sigma refers to a woman who is four standard deviations larger than the mean. Okay, we’re talking a woman with some serious hooters who is bigger than all but maybe 5 gals in 10,000).

As obsessed as many men, and I include myself in this group, are with women’s breasts, I often think that women are as obsessed with their own breasts and those of other women as the men are. Of course they don’t react like the boys, with the blood leaving the big head on top and making a beeline for the smaller head on the bottom, but they clearly do react. In my experience I’ve never met a woman who is satisfied with her breasts. And this experience encompasses women from relatively small and flat chested on up through the alphabet of B, C, D, DD, G, K, MM and bigger. This includes women who are traditionally busty, super busty, bbw’s with average/proportional breasts and very large breasts and ssbbws from relatively tiny on up to mountainous breasts. The litany of complaints from the women runs the gamut of size(too small, too big), firmness(too firm, too wobbly, too soft, spongy), hang(too droopy, hangs to the center, hangs to the sides), shape(too long, too wide, too thin, too fat, too uneven), the size, shape and location of the areolae and nipples, and the difficulty of getting a good fitting bra.

I must confess that I’ve never met a breast I didn’t really enjoy. If given my preference I would opt for a woman with enormous breasts that require two hands to properly handle even one of the breasts, and in my experiences with such exceptional breasts I have truly considered myself blessed to be in the presence of such pulchritude. The memories cause my hands to twitch, replaying the rapturous events in the theater of the mind.

But, I have been enchanted and completely satisfied, with all breast neurons stimulated with women with more modest sized breasts, from very soft B’s through C’s, D’s, DD’s on up. And on a ssbbw, even a relatively flat chested gal still has lots of breast to fill one’s fingers and hands and mouth with joy.

I’ve heard so many people talk about the ideal breast, but I find this sort of a discussion of little interest to me. First, because I revel in so many different types of sizes, shapes, etc. Second, and more importantly, if taken as part of a real relationship(as composed to copping a feel in a public place… not something recommended), we’re talking about something which may be eye candy to attract one into the relationship, and when one gets to the point of actually enjoying a sexual event, only part of the mix. Third and most important.. we’re talking about breasts which are a part of a woman’s body, not some detachable item that one can discuss and grapple with apart from the bearer of the breasts. When talking in general about breasts this third point is generally ignored.. but in the real world it is the most important point … the breasts are one (or perhaps two) components of a full package. And, if one’s focus is only getting one’s hands and mouth all over just the breasts and ignoring the rest of the package, that’s okay for fantasy and discussion, but not okay when one attempts to convert the fantasy to reality.

To further muddle the picture… no discussion of breasts could be complete without discussing the nipples and the areolae which surround the nipples. Nipples are so often like a hotline to the Oval Office, with a flick or lick the ship of state is geared for action. The diversity in size, shape, textural feel and responsiveness and growth when stimulated of nipples is truly astounding. And, wiling away the time watching the rings of the areolae stiffen and rise as ones fingers orbit the nipple is both arousing for the lady and for the man watching the boob biology in action. Those fingers are twitching yet again, remembering past pleasures.

So, I lift my cup(cups?) and say a toast to one of the great creations in this world… two hearty cheers for breasts.

Bellies

2006-03-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

Oh to revel in the glory of a bountifully buxom belly. A tremendously tumescent tummy. A mountainously magnificent midsection. A gloriously gigantic gut. A supernaturally significant stomach. A prodigiously pronounced paunch. A galaxially ginormous girth. A world-class wonderful waist. An alp-sized amazing apron. Okay... you get the alliterative and assonant sense that I enjoy a big belly.

But bellies more so than most body parts can vary in size, shape and type more so than most body parts. The small little pot belly of a girl who is otherwise relatively slender, peeking out from above the waistband of her pants, perhaps only when she sits and it pooches out over her pants. The prodigious great single hanging belly apron proclaiming its presence up and down the front from under the breasts to the knees or beyond, and wider than the back at points so that from the rear its rounded sides can be seen extending wider than the back or even hips and legs. The double belly, having a horizontal crease at some spot, defining an upper belly projecting outwardly and the lower belly hanging out and down. The split lower belly, seemingly struck by lightning and divided vertically below the belly button into two monumental sections. The multi-rolled belly creating a sea of rolls of varying size and thickness. The super six pack, that upper belly, starting right at the lower portion of the breasts, seemingly growing ontop of the belly itself because there is more of her body that wants in on being belly. The belly apron, taking on a variety of shapes and sizes, often growing downwardly more on one side than the other.

What is it about a belly that’s so attractive? I have no idea, but I’ve found that my pleasure centers are wired to focus on a belly and the outwardly curving belly seems to trigger pleasure neurons and/or hard-ons with seemingly effortless ease.

I’ve found that my pleasure in the viewing is substantial regardless the size of the belly or the way in which it is presented.

Sometimes, a belly which is outlined with clarity by the tight fitting nature of the shirt or pants or dress can bring tears of joy to my eyes and similar emotions to the smaller head down below. Other times, the way in which a belly of some size is artfully camouflaged by its bearer in loose fitting pants with a long shirt can be equally exciting.

In the hidden case I can see through my intense concentration and application of my fertile imagination(as well as deep reserves of memory banks of other bellies of all sizes and shapes), the belly’s essence, though teased out by seeing only a scattering of points of reference. Often, the belly can only be seen in full stride, as the extension of the legs causes the belly to reach the limits of the pants’ size and its shape is briefly highlighted by the fabric. Often, it can be the way in which the woman walks, suggesting a very large, heavy and voluminous belly hanging downward though unseen.

In some ways I see myself as an explorer of inner space… finding hidden bellies of size and merit in much the same way that astronomers find black holes and new planets by the effects they exert on objects around them. When I find such new, hidden wonders I often am of several states of mind: happy that I’ve discovered a new belly worthy and wonderful to view; curious if I’m the only one who’s espied this hidden beauty; curiosity why its owner has gone to such lengths to hide her abundant charms; and sadness that she’s felt it necessary to hide that which I find so attractive.

Now, apart from the relatively small bellies which can be hidden with an overhanging shirt, in most cases no one is really fooled that the possessor doesn’t have a substantial belly, the only thing that is really hidden from view to the casual observer is the actual shape and positioning of the belly.

As is almost certainly true of many FA’s(I’d like to say all or almost all, but I just don’t know enough FA’s to go that far… suffice it to say I’ve never met a male FA and also never met any female FA’s who didn’t have a similar fascination with sightings), the catalog of sightings is one of the most wonderful things about being a FA in the wild (yet another reason to avoid immobility and confine oneself’s ability to see new people). Every time you venture out there is an opportunity that you will see an example of beauty. A new belly, an amazingly broad, round and enormous derriere, breasts of such size and shape and heft that they will linger in one’s memory banks for years, or, will keep for only a few hours or days.

As improbable as it may seem, I have a recollection of a belly sighting dating to the mid sixties when I was less than ten years old, of a woman who appeared at the time and in my memory as being impossibly huge bellied. In Colonial Williamsburg I recall seeing her first on the grounds where her belly was so big that it hung below her knees and I recall being mesmerized by the way it swayed as she walked. I saw her again the next morning at a restaurant where she was with her family, and my recollection was that she had three or four children and a husband and each of them passed any remaining food on their plates to her where she finished it off. When she got up from the banquette I recalled that they moved the table so she could get up and she waddled out with that belly again swaying as she moved. At the time my reaction clearly wasn’t sexual, but presaged my later interest in SSBBW’s. At this time, more than 35 years later my only recollection of the woman is her belly and a full multi-chinned face with blonde hair, but the impression made on me at that tender age was indeed quite significant.

Without much effort I can summon a variety of monumental sightings, though some are of much more recent vintage and are more completely filled in with details. I wonder if any of our readers can summon the biggest belly sighting any of them have had, and comment about it in as much detail as they can muster.

The Thighs Have It

2006-03-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

The Thighs have it

I love women with fat thighs. Everything from thighs which are slightly plump in a way that when the gal walks away I can watch a small portion of her upper thighs in pants rubbing as she walks on up to a magnificently fat thighed woman who needs to walk with a wide waddle, her thighs all the way down to her knees, and perhaps beyond in permanent contact and apparently violating the law of physics which prohibits two bodies from occupying the same space at the same time.

Walking in the city, as a part of my daily commute and at lunch time I often see women of all sizes and shapes on the street and in the train station. And, unless its the dead of winter and they're wearing an ankle length fur coat or parka style jacket below the knees, walking behind a woman going my way is often like heaven on earth.

The sexy woman with very full hips and thighs, wearing those lovely blue jeans, the inner portions worn white from the rubbing on each step, the full inner thighs, like twin crescent moons, caressing each other and sliding on by. A hypnotic, mesmerizing show in two part harmony. Often, as I cruise on by this wonderful sight or some other I will see a woman who's face and body, apart from the view from behind, is pedestrian and not worth a second look... but oh that amazing thigh dance.

The enormously huge woman, wearing the stretch leggings, her thighs a serious multidimensional explosion waiting to happen, each thigh 50 inches or more around, with a collection of hugely enlarged bulges, like a treasure sack filled with nothing but enormous golden eggs, each thigh bigger around than a strong man's chest. Her pace slowed to accommodate the substantial effort each stride requires can be a moment of Eden in the land of Cain. Of course a woman with thighs this large is generally also the possessor of other ssbbw delights. However, its not unusual for a woman to be much much bigger in her thighs and legs than in the rest of her body. Of course, a woman of this shape often also includes hips and butt which jut out and move in a fashion which can mesmerize an FA on its own. There have been days when I've seen such a vision of loveliness ambling along either alone or with a friend or significant other and try to imagine myself alongside her, slowing my walk to match her deliberate pace, perhaps a hand resting lightly on her shelf or around her waist(unless her size and pace require such significant side to side movement that contact would interfere with her gait). There have been days when I've walked with women of this size and shape and those days are burned deeply into my memory banks, always available for idle replay in the theater of the mind. Those replays never cease to bring back the sense of wonder, joy and arousal that the original event created.

However, a woman's thighs need not be that large, objectively, to make the attraction sizzle. One of my earliest FA memories after seeing a collection of proud fat women together at a Naafa event, some of whom were wearing pantyhose in sizes made for their ample legs, was a fellow FA confiding in me that the slight buzzing sound we heard as several passed was known as "hose hum", a sound which is anything but ho-hum to me. Now, whenever I hear this sound, of the layers of pantyhose from each leg rubbing against the other, I smile back to that time and wish I had someone to share that happy thought with. Now I do!!!

The saddest sight for me, in recent times was seeing a woman walking along and recognizing that her two legs never touched at any point, all the way to their point of connection with the hips. A woman who was not by any means anorexic or concentration camp thin, this woman had toothpicks rather than legs. I grieved for her at the emptiness of her shape.

This touches on another point.. probably not directly related to thighs, but it struck me now. There are many women, primarily very slender women, who in my eyes almost certainly look much better in clothing than out of it. This experience has been acquired several times over the years either when I have been subjected to viewing such a woman as she removed her clothing(usually when a male friend felt the need to show me pictures of some female acquaintance of his in a bathing suit or nude pics--you might ask why a man would share naked pics of someone he cares about with another.. and I agree with you.. its pretty repulsive, but in the cases where it happened it snuck up on me before I realized that the pictures were actually nudes and not just bikini type pics) or when I try to imagine what a particularly skinny woman would look like without clothing. The first times it was really shocking to me how model type women who actually looked pretty okay in clothing looked uncomfortably gaunt, skeletal and bony without clothing.

The shocking thing for me is how I've never found this to be the case with fat women. Many fat women look incredible in clothing, particularly if the clothing emphasizes or highlights some attractive feature of their bodies. I've never seen a picture of a fat woman sans clothing look repulsive or uncomfortable. I might not be particularly attracted to the woman, but the body is attractive nevertheless. The presence of sagging flesh, stretch marks or odd folds and creases represent real life and while perhaps not something that someone would want to share with the general public, it in no way diminishes or takes away from a fat woman's physical beauty.

I wonder if any other FAs have found the same sort of repugnance in skinny women, who look palatable in clothing, but offensively unattractive without clothing. I also wonder if this sort of reaction is what many fat women experience when dating non-FAs who are able to tolerate their bodies when appropriately attired, but not when they are undressed. Hmmmm this sounds like something requiring further thought.

Enuf for now.

Where to?

2006-02-28T19:23:00.000-08:00

The first posts that went up were like pent up venom(or pus in a pimple) that was ready to shoot out as soon as it was tapped. The later posts, which explored my preferences, were subjects which had been pondered over the last few decades. The last posts relating to feeders and my own thoughts, feelings and urges in that regard are hot button issues which had been under consideration over a long time and which were somewhat painful and self-intrusive to share.

And then, I took a deep breath.

First, I was shocked at the lack of anger, righteous indignation, bizarre misunderstood reactions to my apparent approval of some of the behavior that fits within the feeder umbrella. I still don't get it. Some have privately suggested that my posts were so long and too damned reasonable to really do much more than just nod uh huh or okay. But I don't buy this, because I've seen over the years the unreasonable and knee-jerk responses that otherwise rational FAs and BBWs have to the "Feeder" word... the F word? So, I've decided that apart from perhaps a dozen or fewer regular readers, nobody else has really bothered to wade their way through the piles of elliptically crafted words. After a bit of pouting I've decided that I can live with that since those whose views I care about are on board and do comment and share their thoughts on these issues.

Second, having decided that I'd said what I wanted to say and hadn't faced a shitstorm of responses painting me all sorts of shades of terrible I was put off my game.

Third, life came up and called me to task, limiting my free time to commune with the blog. Okay, in English... lots of work and then a small mini-vacation took me away from the computer.

Fourth, no single topic appeared to capture me and trip the light fantastic.

So, I pondered and waited. Did I have writer's block(or is it blogger's block). Has my blog run its course and become broken? Is there nothing more to say?

No, I think its just a matter of writing from the heart and the brain not being something which can be pumped out like links of a sausage. Also, I was sensing that the next posts would be relatively slender esssays and not the magnum opuses that had preceded them. So, expect a few posts in the next week on little issues, some which express wonder with SSBBWs, some that deal with my way of addressing the world, and some that will shine a bit of light on nuggets of beauty.

And no, I haven't abandoned the blog, so far its been too much fun.

Feeder, reprised

2006-02-13T07:44:00.000-08:00

Feeder, reprised

Well, I set up the scaffolding to try and take on the term Feeder and perhaps the concept of what a Feeding relationship can mean and ultimately(for purposes of the blog) where I come out on the whole thing.

I think the best way for me to try this out is to put a few scenarios together (some of which are admittedly a bit hypothetical) and give my reaction to each of them and then after trying that out a few times, see if I can express what my views are on the whole mix and see if I can perhaps generalize.

I’m surprised that there have been so few comments on the first post. Perhaps no one is reading the blog, or perhaps readers are a bit in shock, or, hopefully, the readers are waiting for my value judgments before they jump into the fray. In any event... on I go.

Gee, why does this feel so much like walking the plank.

Okay.. the first situation is a male Feeder who is feeding a female Feedee who is also a Foodee. The woman is already well over 500 pounds and has been gaining weight rapidly, say more than 50 pounds a year, for a period of time, whether with this Feeder or another or on her own. The woman at this point has an almost insatiable appetite resulting from eating huge quantities of food to keep gaining weight for some time, but recognizes that her body is reaching the point where walking, caring for her self and working are becoming increasingly difficult. She senses that with another 50 or less pounds she will be forced to quit her job and will find leaving the house on her own difficult and will be dependent on the Feeder for financial support, provision and preparation of her food, assistance in bathing and toilette and access to medical care. She also expects that shortly after this, additional weight gain will leave her essentially immobile and a prisoner in her bed.

There are really two scenarios here, in one the woman is upset/unhappy/scared about these consequences and in the other she welcomes and looks forward to these consequences. For me, it makes no difference, because in both of these cases I couldn’t in good conscience force, encourage or even enable a woman in this condition to continue with her gaining. In the situation where the woman doesn’t want these consequences to happen, and assuming I cared for and about her I would work with her to find a way to help her at the least stop gaining so that she could maintain her independence and mobility. My focus would not be to punish the woman or impose some diet or exercise regime on her based on my views of what would be best for her, but to help her to make choices that she considers best for her. However, if she continues to make bad choices for herself and insists on behaviors which would necessarily lead her to immobility I would feel obligated to disengage from that sort of a relationship. From what I’ve seen there are many cases where men have relationships with women who are Feedees or Foodees who love the women dearly and allow their love for the women to force them to enable the women they love to grow beyond a point where there bodies are mobile or healthy. These men take the view, in the moment, that to deny their women the food that the women crave, demand and in some cases seem to become ill without, is worse than giving them what they want. In my view, as painful as it would be, if the woman fails to act in her own behalf after coming to grips with the immobility end game of her Feedee or Foodee desires, the painful step of severing the relationship while she is still mobile, is less negative than continuing to enable the increasing fattening which will inevitably result in immobility and total dependence.

As a caveat I will note that I don’t generally find the concept of a woman who is immobile particularly sexy or arousing. Very fat women I do find very attractive, but only if they are mentally active, physically mobile(though aerial gymnastic ability is definitely not required) and strongly protective of their desire to maintain the highest degree of independence possible.

As a further note.. it doesn’t make a difference to me whether the woman wants to be fattened, is neutral to being fattened or is opposed to it but allows it to continue without a fight(whether due to her unwillingness to change the behavior that is causing her to head toward immobility or her unwillingness to resist the forcing, urging or enabling behavior of her Feeder). In all such cases I would consider the Feeder’s activities to be unacceptable, irresponsible and potentially criminal(though perhaps not in a strict legal sense at least morally criminal).

Okay.. situation two..

A woman of about 300 pounds loves to eat and wants to spend a year eating to her heart’s delight, after a long period of dieting and straining to maintain her weight at 300 pounds. She anticipates that she will gain weight, but she already exercises to maintain herself in good physical condition at her size and would expect to continue her conditioning as she gains weight. She has previously weighed as much as 450 pounds and knows from the past experience that she felt comfortable in her body until she weighed 400 pounds, but much beyond that she was uncomfortable and began to have more mobility and reach issues than she was comfortable with. The question, if I had a loving relationship with this woman would I enable her or encourage her to pursue her goal of spending a year heating to her heart’s content, while making sure that her weight didn’t exceed 400 and that she continued to maintain her fitness as she gained weight.

Again, let me note that in no situation.. at any weight would I ever consider a relationship in which I would force anyone to do anything(and that would of course include forcing someone to eat more than they want or any amount or anything they don’t want), even if the impetus for the forcing came from the woman(who might urge me to force her to get fat or to eat more than she’d ever eaten, etc.). I would find that kind of behavior, which in some ways is similar to the mind games of D/s(Domination and submission) repugnant to me. This doesn’t mean in the least that I don’t enjoy mind games or exploring boundaries, but to take this sort of mental exercise into the real world by forcing another person to eat or do anything is just not consistent with my internal makeup.

Anyhow… in the second situation, if the woman was a Foodee, but not a Foodie, I’d probably not be at all interested in participating in that sort of activity. Perhaps that’s a function of my interest in food, and in particular my enjoyment of great food in ample quantities, but no enjoyment of ample quantities of mediocre or tasteless food. Encouraging or abetting someone to eat large quantities of whatever food is convenient, or cheap or fattening would seem to be nothing more than fattening a steer or hog for market. And, I don’t find that at all interesting, arousing or exciting to me in any way.

However, if the woman is primarily a Foodie, but also secondarily a Foodee, I suspect with proper planning and monitoring and an exit strategy I might involve myself in such a project as a part of a loving relationship. The mechanics of how this would work out might be part of the relationship, both partners establishing parameters, planning activities, monitoring the weight gain to make sure that the experience is not so rapid as to be inherently unhealthy(putting aside the question of whether gaining any weight is unhealthy—and assuming from the setup that the woman knows that at 400 pounds she is healthy and sufficiently mobile for her needs), involving myself in the exercise component of the plan to assure that fitness goes hand in hand with the increased fatness, and modifying the behavior prior to reaching the “goal” so that her weight doesn’t overshoot the maximum set weight. I could definitely enjoy getting into the selection of food, preparation of gourmet meals, dining out at appropriate restaurants and generally sharing the joy of the eating within these well thought out and planned limits.

Having said that, I suspect that I would get less pleasure out of this sort of a relationship in the real world than one where the woman was at her target weight, and had adjusted her eating and exercise to an equilibrium state which could be sustained indefinitely. While the thought of a woman gaining weight is in some way arousing, I would find the woman at her larger size, healthy and fit much more sexy and arousing.

Not surprisingly, to me this is proving much more difficult than I thought.

A third situation.

A woman who weighs 150 pounds decides that she wants to get fat and wants me to help her grow to 300, 400 or 500 pounds, my choice. She wants me to help her do this as fast as possible because she’s always wanted to be fat and can’t wait.

My response… run like hell. In my view this a person who is a Feedee and not a Foodee or a Foodie. This is a person for whom the only currency is weight and she wants as much of it as she can get and doesn’t care how she gets it. While I know that many of the “Feeders” on the Internet would consider such a person the ideal for them, this person is of no interest to me.

So why? Several reasons. One, this type of behavior is inherently unhealthy. Gaining as rapidly as possible to achieve a number on a scale is totally arbitrary. Tying it back to a FA’s interest in numbers and the BBW’s suspicion that the FA is more interested in the BBW’s numbers than her, here, the woman isn’t interested in how her body will look, feel or behave, but in the single number(weight) that is her goal. I consider this sort of fixation on a number to be as repulsive as the FA’s focus on a woman’s numbers apart from a way to comprehend and appreciate the woman’s body and shape more completely. Two, for me so much of the pleasure about eating is tied into the quality and enjoyment of the eating. For me the weight is an effect of the eating of delicious, succulent, mouth-watering food(the cause). For such a woman the weight is the effect of her desire to gain weight. This seems to me to be an inadequate reason. Others will certainly have their views, but this certainly doesn’t float my boat. Three, the thought that this woman wants to cede control over the way her body will be changing and the size it will become to me or anyone else but her suggests real psychological problems. I don’t want to be the one playing God with anyone else’s body. And, I certainly don’t want to find out what other personal decisions and goals this person wants to dump on me. I suppose I could think of other reasons… but suffice it to say that reason four is it feels really icky.

Okay, on rereading this prior to publishing I thought of a few more. Reason five is that I probably wouldn’t find the woman attractive at 150 pounds(in a physical sense) and the thought that I would be gambling that a woman’s physical charms would only be interesting to me if she doubles or triples her weight sounds awfully stupid. What leads me to believe that she can or will gain the weight she says. Why focus on a woman who is far skinnier than I would normally find attractive when there are so many women of size already out there. What leads me to believe that I will find this woman attractive as she grows fatter. In any event it just seems apart from all the other reasons awfully stupid to gamble that a woman will gain weight and become more physically beautiful in my eyes when I can select a woman who is already a version of beauty and personality I enjoy right now. Almost like being given the choice between a thousand dollar in chips or a million dollar in chips at a casino when your goal is to leave with a million dollars. With the million dollars of chips (the existing SSBBW of my dreams) I have a sure thing. With the thousand dollar in chips (the skinny girl) I have to gamble that a whole series of bets will have to go my way in a row to reach the same result that is a sure thing with the million dollar in chips. The only reason that you would want to do the thousand dollars in chips is if you’re really more interested in the process(the feeding and fattening process), than in the result, and you’re a gambler who gets off on the risk of failure.

Fourth situation.

A SSBBW with whom I have a loving relationship enjoys having feeding weekends in which she wishes to be pampered and fed as part of a sensual, sexual and food oriented experience, including being fed to the point where she absolutely can’t eat a bite more. These weekends are special events and between them, any weight gained during these special interludes is lost, and fitness is maintained.

This sort of situation would turn me on greatly. It would satisfy any fantasy weight gain and feeding desires without bringing the countervailing distaste for anything which would harm someone I care for. It would allow a real world gaining experience with a woman I already find incredibly beautiful and abundant. And, this situation could be repeated over and over again, enjoying the moments without the additional baggage that immobility or uncomfortable weight gain would bring.

Someone commented to me that she found my tripartite grouping of Feedee, Foodee and Foodie to be variable within her at different times. Perhaps, like adjusting the three colors on a TV picture to vary the picture, the proportions of each of the three F****E’s varies depending on mood and time. I think that may be so, though I’m not convinced that’s necessarily true. But I had a different thought, and that was that my interest in a fat woman may be related to the proportion of these three F****E quantities within a fat woman. I can’t begin to imagine that I have a single ideal, because of course my feelings for a woman are so much more involved and complicated, and these aspects are merely a small component of what would attract me to a woman. Having said that I would imagine that the Foodie component would need to be a very strong component, the Foodee component would need to be more than zero and along a range, but not so great that it would be not subject to control if other issues, such as health and mobility required it. The Feedee component would not be zero, but quite small, like a spice, which could add a sense of sizzle or play or excitement to a relationship, but not so significant that it would overwhelm the greater enjoyment of the quality of the food or the eating experience.

So, what have I discovered. Let’s call them my guidelines of Feeding for me.

1. No forcing. This means no forcing physically, psychologically or any other means of imposing my will or desires onto another, whether they want to be forced or not.

2. No behavior which would encourage or even enable immobility.

3. The woman must have some components of being a Foodie, Foodee and Feedee, with the components as listed in decreasing order, and the Foodie component by far the biggest and the Feedee component being by far the smallest.

4. I enjoy food as a component in a sexually stimulating situation, though I don't believe that it would be the key or only element in a loving, caring relationship. It would be one component of the relationship which would need to bring mutual satisfaction.

4. Weight gain, while an interesting and potentially arousing event is more interesting in fantasy or limited real world situations than in an uncontrolled or uncontrollable long term situation. While I understand the attraction to weight gain and in a perfect controllable world would be interested in pursuing it under appropriate circumstances, I just don’t have much confidence in the ability to control it and find the fear of imminent immobility removes much of the real world attraction. I understand there are those who are less risk averse who are willing to come closer to a line of no return than I, but have to be consistent with my own comfort levels.

5. SSBBW’s who are comfortable at their current weights and are cognizant of signals that their bodies are sending them about their mobility, comfort and health are much sexier and attractive to me than women of any size who are more interested in growing their bodies than in enjoying the bodies they currently have in as healthful and exuberant way possible.

So, the final question. Am I a Feeder? What do you think?

Feeder

2006-02-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

Feeder

This simple six letter word is more highly charged than any other in the FA/BBW world. Its meaning, its implications, its very existence are awash in strong emotional responses and laden with heavy baggage. I wanted to deal with this word and issue early on in this blog’s development, but didn’t feel confident enough of my voice or grounded enough to attempt it. Some have asked me whether I’m a feeder, whether I’m in favor of feeding, against it, would consider imposing the death penalty for feeders and a variety of other questions along the spectrum. But, as is my wont, I will initially punt(or tease out the suspense, depending on your perspective), by not attempting to answer questions about me or my predilections or views on others until I’ve developed a construct within which to talk about feeding and the related terms…. Feeder, Feedee, Foodee, Foodie etc. Perhaps more words will suggest themselves as these terms are rather monolithic and in my view are currently used rather inexactly with a broad brush to cover a range of different behaviors, actors and philosophies.

Well then, having told you what I’m not going to talk about, let’s get down to brass tacks.

What is a Feeder. The simplest answer would be the ones in the dictionary. It can be someone who provides food, the person or creature eating food, a mechanism for providing food, a portion of a river or stream leading into another river or stream or several other definitions including sources of electrical power, etc. However, in the FA/BBW world its meaning is much narrower. It refers to a person who engages in behavior which results in another person, or perhaps themselves, eating food, generally, but not necessarily in large quantity.

The classic Feeder in most people’s view is a man who encourages, forces or merely abets a woman in eating increasingly large amounts of food until she becomes so fat that she is immobilized, unable to move around, move out of a bed and is completely helpless and in the total control of the feeder who is the source of her ever increasing food requirements and any life functions normally handled by the person themselves, but which are no longer possible at the fattened person’s size. Of course the reversed gender approach is the same, with the woman being the feeder and the man being the fattened one. Not to be limiting, the two same sex relationships are also encompassed by the feeder and fattened pairing. In some cases, more of a Queen Bee situation could exist where a cadre of worker Feeders fatten a single individual. So, even trying to stretch the term to cover the different actors in the "classic" situation stretches the term pretty thinly.

But, even the classic case is much more complex than it seems and includes a number of conceptually different elements in the mix. To start, the question of the relationship between the Feeder and the fattened person can be looked at from a few ways. Is the Feeder in feeding the person being fattened doing something that the fattened person would do on their own in the absence of a Feeder? Is the Feeder taking the lead in the activity or passively following the instructions of the person being fattened? Is there a mutuality of being fattened between the two or more partners. In other words are each of two people both being a Feeder for the other person and the person being fattened by the other person. Is the Feeder’s activity a component of a loving relationship, the sole purpose of the relationship, an adjunct to improve the sexual relations in a loving relationship, a tool to allow one or the other or both of the partners to be stimulated. Is the Feeder’s activity a way to assert control over the person who is being fattened and unrelated to any sexual component or attraction. Is force involved? Is there a dominant and submissive member to the pair(usually it seems that the person being fattened is the submissive person, but again, not necessarily) or an egalitarian approach with a joint mission to fatten one or both of the people. Is there a goal involved in the fattening process, which could be defined either by a weight, a body dimension, degree of immobility or quantity of food which could be consumed. Is the fattening activity a continuous one or a cycling one in which the same number of pounds are gained and then lost so they can be gained again without exceeding some notional maximum weight? Is it an occasional event which takes the pleasure only in the process, but not the result, with no significant long term gain taking place, but the Feeder and fattened roles being donned for the evening or weekend and then put aside without any real change in the fattened person’s size, shape or mobility. Is the purpose of the fattening only to achieve a blissful state associated with eating more than the fattened person believes they can eat so that the fullness or overfullness serves a sexual purpose.

Whew!!! I bet there are more permutations and combinations, but for a ten minute brainstorming session resulting in a explosion of words that seems to do the job of showing that there are a very broad variety of types of feeding relationships there can be, without claiming any completeness or comprehensiveness. So Feeder is at best an umbrella term covering each of the above situations, and more. Many of these relationships make many people understandably very upset, nervous and fearful of dealing with someone who would be identified or identify themselves as a Feeder.

To add a further twist to this mix there are real world Feeders and those who are only fantasy Feeders, not really interested or able to deal with the person being fattened in the real world… and only interested in their fantasy of what the fattened person will be like and how they will act. Many of these fantasy Feeders are found on the internet, often talking knowledgeably(or at least apparently so) about feeding, experiences they’ve had in the past, plans for the future and plans for current targets of interest. Some folks who have a genuine interest in entering a Feeder relationship have expressed the regret that many of the people that they meet on the Internet appear sincere and legitimate in their interest in participating as a Feeder in a real world situation but then bail out or disappear when its time to convert the Internet relationship to a real world one. Perhaps it’s just a subset of the general reluctance of many people to take Internet romances into the real world, but it seems that there is a higher percentage of evaporating Internet feeders than general evaporating Internet romancers.

So, how do I go on. Well, I need to create a reliable objective non-emotional nomenclature for some of the major approaches and participants under the feeder umbrella. Without the words to distinguish among the different types of activity and relationships, broad positive or negative views on feeders and the related folks are essentially useless.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve referred not to a Feedee or Foodie or Feedie when talking about who does the eating… but the person being fattened(I thought of using the acronym PBF but that just reminded me of a peanut butter and fluff sandwich.. so I won’t use it). These other words are as sodden with baggage as the Feeder term is, so I’ve tried to not use any of them yet. But lets look at Feedee first. I distinguish this from Foodee and Foodie. I will use Feedee as a person who has elected to eat for reasons other than sustenance or enjoyment of the food or enjoyment of the act of eating. This would encompass people who want to be forced to eat, people who want to be encouraged to eat, people who eat because they want to gain weight, people who eat because they enjoy in some fashion the fact that they are eating more than they need to eat to maintain themselves(whether a predilection, preference or fetish), and people who like to don the eating more mode of action at specified times(like on a particular night, or weekend or vacation week). A Foodee is what I will call someone who eats food beyond what is necessary for sustenance because they love the act of eating or, the act of eating more than necessary is enjoyable, arousing or essential to satisfy some internal need. A Foodie for me is someone who has an interest in the quality of the food they eat. Some might call the Foodie a gourmet and the Foodee the gourmand who is more interested in the quantity of the food.

What makes these terms so interesting is that they are not mutually exclusive. A Feedee may also be a Foodee and a Foodie. But, its not necessary that a person have more than one of the titles. All the eight possible permutations of (Feedee/Not-Feedee, Foodee/Not-Foodee, Foodie/Not-Foodie) exist and are clearly represented in the FA/BBW community. The most interesting combination is the fat person who is not a Feedee, Foodee, nor Foodie. These people through either a weird dice roll of the genetic factor, a screwed up set point due to dieting or some other factor have gotten fat, but don’t seem to be interested in eating much, don’t really care about the act of eating and don’t get excited by the food they eat. I suspect they find the FA/BBW community rather odd and intrusive. And of course, most don’t believe them when they say that they really don’t eat much.

I suspect that this wonderful tripartite approach to eating is not perfect because many folks don’t really fit into these categories exactly and tend to change in and out of these categories. But, I think it at least allows us to pause and consider our relationship with food. Naturally, there are people with what society calls eating disorders who work to resist their body’s call and then overreact in ways which are dangerous to themselves either by bulimia, anorexia or nonstop gluttony. But we’ll put the first two away from discussion completely, and the third we’ll approach as we go through the types of relationships.

As a simple exercise, its now clearer that a Feeder’s relationship with a Feedee(whether a foodee or foodie too or not) would be different than a Feeder’s relationship with someone not a Feedee. The end results might look the same, but the nature of the relationship and the motivations and dynamic within the relationship would be quite different. However, a Feeder looking for a relationship in which the essential element is that the other person gain weight could likely select someone who is either a Feedee or Foodee or both and achieve a similar result. However, the Feedee would require different motivation and interaction from the Feeder than a Foodee where it is the love of food that drives the Foodee and perhaps not the weight gain(although that would likely follow).

Well, I think I want to stop here and catch my breath. As I reread what I’ve typed I see that I haven’t covered much ground and haven’t expressed any of my views in connection with Feeders, Feedees, Foodees or Foodies or the relationships they have or the ones that are attractive and interesting to me. I've tried not to attach emotional tags to any of the words as of yet. Please don't think I am cold and impassionate, but I find this area so wrought with the strongest of emotions, that I need to approach it with care, consideration and serious efforts at rational analysis.

But, I think I’ll leave it at that for now having left now at least a vocabulary to talk about these concepts and highlighting how many different behaviors and relationships can come within the umbrella concept of Feeder.

I definitely am interested in any readers comments about their thoughts about my definitions and their thoughts on the subject. Have no fear that I will express my thoughts, about which I’ve pondered long and hard(no that wasn’t intended as a bad pun), and which I think I may be able to express with some effort.

A Sighting, Revisited

2006-02-07T06:50:00.000-08:00

A different type of a sighting.

Riding my commuter rail home last Friday afternoon, unusually early for me, as I was nearing my station, which was the first one on an express train. As I swung around to get my coat off the overhead rack, I noticed what seemed to be a very round face wedged into a slightly smaller row of seats by the door; one row behind and across the aisle from where I was now standing. But what struck my eye was the cover of the softcover trade size book she was reading, it looked like... perhaps... but I couldn’t be sure, so I asked the woman sitting on the aisle of my row to let me out of the seat early... and get a better look... and yes... it was... FATSO!, Marilyn Wann’s wonderful fat liberation and affirmation book.

So, as I got closer I said in a relatively loud(so it was clear I was speaking to her… since most strangers don’t talk to other strangers on the train.. its some sort of cultural imperative I suppose), but non-threatening voice… “Wow, that’s a really great book”. She looked up, looked back at her book and then at me when I said… “Oh, Marilyn Wann is wonderful. Wacky, but wonderful. And, so right about many of the things she writes about. And I know her and she’s also a wonderful person, wild and able to attract attention by carefully calculated outrageous acts, but so grounded.”

While I took a breath and the young lady tried to take this all in, my eyes did their FA best to gather all the relevant cute fat girl data. This was a young woman, probably in her early 20s, well groomed with a mass of dark unruly hair, a bosom hidden by the book that she was eyeing now with unnatural attention(since it had somehow caused this big older fellow to talk to her on the train in a fashion about this book regarding fat people in a loud clear voice that everyone around could hear), and a magnificently large and round belly in a pair of black jeans which displayed, for those interested in looking, a very broad curved belly filling her lap and the area between her and the back of the seat in front of her quite fully. My look didn’t get below the belly to the hips or legs.

She recovered to say that her aunt had bought her a Lara Frater book and she’d just gone from there to one book and another. Clearly Marilyn’s book, which if you haven’t read it you must, was more of an eye opener than the earlier stuff. She looked a bit flushed and flustered. At that point the train slowed to a stop at my station and the doors opened.

With one more turn of the head I said, “Have a great time with the book, and keep your eyes out for the guys who think you are beautiful, we’re out there.” .. and off the train onto the platform I moved, without looking back. The odds are I’ll never see her again, or if I do it will be quite some time till then, as I don’t ever recall having taken that early train before, and can’t see it happening in the near future. But, I wonder if my sighting will have a positive effect.

On the Horns of a Dilemma

2006-02-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

On the Horns of a Dilemma

I was gearing up to write a brief comment responding to a very nice FA’s comment responding to my The Sighting post. And, as can often happen to me, my responsive Comment took on a life of its own. So now I was looking at it and trying to figure out if I should post it as a comment or, perhaps as a separate, new spanking Blog entry. I don’t feel obligated to post on any schedule, so it wasn’t as if I needed a Wednesday post. So I reread the comment and thought… hmmm it seems to be partially in response to the comment and partially a generalized collection of thoughts. What to do?

Well, I punted and went back to work, hoping that the next time I looked at it all would be clear. So, several hours later I looked at it again and… you knew it… still the same problem, though I fiddled with it a bit more and now there was more stuff not directly commenting on the comment. Since Plan B was a flop I went to Plan C, which was to ask a chat buddy what they suggested. That lovely response was.. could go either way, why not flip a coin. At which point I realized that this brilliant reply was the answer to my problem. Of course my chat buddy had no idea what I was talking about until I explained it, but it was her idea.

The answer-- to try and deal with the question of the difference between a post and a comment on the blog and then provide the post/comment and ask the readers of the blog which they would have preferred. As I said… the solution was pure genius, because now the hybrid post/comment when appended to the discussion about whether to be a post or a comment had clearly become only suitable as a post. I wish I had thought of it myself, but since I’m not one of those folks who rejects an idea because it wasn’t invented here, I happily stole the idea and used it. What good is an idea if it’s not put to use. And anyway, for you ethical purists, I got permission to use the idea.

So, what’s the difference between a blog entry and a comment? I looked at it from two perspectives, the blogger and bloggee(nah.. too stupid sounding.. I’ll call y’all readers). From the blogger’s perspective it really makes no difference. I know where it is and if I want to reread it I can easily find it. From the reader side I had to think more deeply, and since I had already stolen one idea, consulted with the comment/post sage for her thoughts on how she goes about reading blogs. When I read someone else’s Blog I generally read the posts, but only occasionally go in and read the comments. If it’s a blog I really enjoy and post comments on, I always follow the backwater discussions which go on between the commenters and the blogger in the comments. Another element is the timeliness of the comment. If the comment is directed to the current post I’m more likely to read the comment than if the comment is added after there are one or more other blog entries more recent than the one being commented on. Finally, if I post a comment I follow up to see if there’s been a response. So a post is read by the widest group of readers, a current comment by a smaller group and a comment related to an older post the smallest group and likely just the blogger if he/she/it are moderating comments and the commenter.

So, the way I thunk it was that if my response was solely to a commenter and more of the same thing included in the original post, definitely a comment. If you check you’ll notice that I have often commented on people’s comments. But, if something that the commenter triggered, either because of their incisiveness or because of some knee jerk response by me, sounds like it would be of general interest(boy what a huge assumption that would be.. but it won’t stop me you can be sure), I’ll deal with it as a new blog entry.

I think that a number of you who read the blog have your own, I know of at least three. I assume that most of you read at least one other blog. I’m curious what your take on the distinction should be.

Just so you know I even thought at one point the distinction should be if it met the lofty standards established for the blog in composition, exposition, grammar, style and finesse. Of course even I realized that was total BS and ditched that one tout-suite.

Having put it off for long enough… on with what was the post/comment and is now part 2 of this blog entry.

Dear Anonymous 3, Hooray, you're the first male commenter on The Sighting post. I call you Anonymous 3 because there were two previous Anonymous commenters. I enabled the Anonymous feature because some folks told me that they didn’t want to signup to get a name, officially, and thus couldn’t comment. And, I can live with that since I really do want to get as many thoughtful comments as possible. But, I would ask that you sign your comment if you feel able to do so with some identifying term so when I respond I can personalize the response. Such as FADude or VoluptuousBBW, or Throatwarbler Mangrove(pronounced Luxury Yacht).

I assumed, but we all know how assuming is a mistake, that The Sighting post would strike a chord in any male readers since every FA I've ever met, and I've met a bunch at Naafa events and other size acceptance venues has either confessed or proudly shared some sighting or ten. Like fisherman sitting around the fire telling about the whoppers that they caught and the even bigger ones that got away, no group of self respecting FA's can be together for very long without reminiscing about sightings of particular distinction or type. Like a joke telling session where everyone tells a “why did the chicken cross the road” joke, or a bar joke(a horse walked into a bar and the bartender asked.. why do you have such a long face)or a pope joke, FA’s always seem to like to share some sighting or another.

Some of those sessions relate to sharing sightings based on size, significant body parts, types of clothing or to amusing or exciting events related to a sighting, like a belly or breast shaking free of its restraining clothing. While I wasn’t actually looking to get a salacious collection of old sighting chestnuts (not that I don’t enjoy hearing others’ sightings and yours were quite pleasant), I find your collection interesting for various reasons beyond the actual sightings(though I could retell sightings I have on a subway, at a school at a young age or at fast food restaurants).

So, I was beginning to wonder if all the readers (gee no idea how many that would be beyond the few folks who’ve commented), were BBW’s and SSBBW’s and no men or even fellow BHM’s. Yes, I am a BHM.

In any event.. back to my response to Anonymous 3(or A3 as I might call him in casual conversation).

First, your earliest sighting of the three (and not the other 999.5 pages of them), dates back to the sixth grade when you were probably about 12 and thus in the first full blush of hormonal activity. I wonder how long it took you to understand your FA’ness and if and when you finally came out of the closet to those around you and surmounted the peer pressure that kept you away from that BBGirl. In the full fairness of disclosure. I recall two fat girls in my grade as we went through elementary school and being effected by their appearance back probably to the third or fourth grade. I wouldn’t say that I was attracted to them at the time, no boy was, but in some way their presence and size was strangely fascinating and unsettling.

The other two sightings you shared (of the at least affianced BBW on the subway and the DQ girls), suggests that women of that size, between 220 and 280 pounds, are of interest to you or at least to your nonverbal being. If I were to pick three to share I’m sure that at least one of them would be of a woman who was much, much heavier, probably over 400 or 500 pounds. So I thought to myself, “Self”(Shameless theft from Emeril) we should ask this fella some questions. Not to put you on the spot, but more as an open question to the bigger group… Are you currently with a SO or dating, and if so, how big is that woman or those women. What is the smallest and the largest woman you’ve dated since becoming an adult, and how comfortable were you with the largest woman’s size in public and with your friends and family? Are you an OTC FA(out of the closet FA for those of you who didn’t read the earlier posts), or still hiding somewhat in the closet and not coming out to your family and friends?

And, since I’m on such a roll of questions to the nice chap who wandered in and shared this wonderful comment, what’s the one single sighting that was the most significantly sexually arousing for you, with as much detail as you can muster and is the woman or women in that sighting the type of women you want to be with in real life.

And then… that’s it for the new Post.

The Sighting

2006-01-30T17:36:00.000-08:00

A sighting. Something which is so characteristically FA. Walking to my public transportation this evening I was in the station and was walking along when it hit me. There was a shortish young woman.. estimated at about 5’3” or 4” and maybe early 20s. As I was nearing her on my way by I barely registered that she was on her cell phone and then she turned so she was in profile to me. At that point her bare belly bottom’s lusciously rotund hanging curve vaulted into sight. A relatively slender gal, not noticeably fat from the rear had a whopper of a belly, resting over her pants and belt and her too short shirt had slid up, the shirt hugging the front of her belly but exposing a perfectly rounded belly bottom which was surprisingly or almost shockingly ample. It was a smoothly round, triumphantly bulging little belly and the convex bottom came into view from a profile angle as she leaned back, shortening the back and lengthening the front, in mid cellphone conversation; and what came free from her pants and her upwardly mobile shirt was a solid four inch view of nascent belly, hanging out and down over her belt. She was either unaware or uncaring about or proudly displaying belly.

My eyes firing on all cylinders and brain locking the sighting in the memory banks fought to rapidly document any other info about this lass without staring or stopping. Blondish hair, shoulder length, medium build, no discernible bustiness.. the winter’s clothing hiding any more detailed view. As I turned to get on the transportation, I noticed out of the side of my field of vision sneakers and jeans, though she’d rotated away from me, and displayed not much of a butt.

Total time from seeing her to finish.. less than ten seconds. No discernible slowing of my tread, no significant craning of my neck as I passed by and no smile, grimace or other face contact. Not because I was avoiding her, but because she wasn’t looking at me and was too into her phone conversation to pay attention to the passing crowds.

But, it was a sighting and a nice one, not a “great one”. What a fortuitious event. Do I love her, want to meet her, etc. No. But still eye candy of the first order. She was not “my type” in the sense that it’s unlikely that she even weighs anywhere near 200 pounds. She’s probably half my age and we would almost assuredly have nothing in common. But, for a brief moment she passed into my orbit, like the moon creating an eclipse of the sun, and I noticed her, was rewarded by observing a thing of such heartbreaking beauty and sexual excitement that my humdrum commute was elevated. Was I driven to immediately find a way to release sexual tension, no, though it was a pleasant mental interlude.

The one thing that all FA’s seem to have in common is the concept of the sighting. Some, including me, still remember with vivid clarity sightings which took place decades ago. The big one that got away(poor fishing analogy) or the amazing wonders of creation and diversity. For some sightings and FA’s it is a woman of such size or shape or proportions. For other it’s the way a woman presents herself either by her dress, confidence, delight in being so sexy or beautiful. For others it’s a particular feature that drives the FA into fits of heavenly delight: a belly apron hanging to the woman’s knees, a bosom so full and heavy that it seems to occupy her entire front from chin to waist; hips so rounded, wide and ample as to take one’s breath away; or a pair of thunderous thighs, rubbing together to the knees or below and inducing a waddle so singularly hers. Yet others are enchanted by a woman’s eyes and smile set like diamonds and pearls among a face so preciously set in curves and surfaces of complementary harmony. For me, each of the above, at times fill my sightings catalogs.

The BBW’s and SSBBW’s are generally not very receptive to FA’s sharing the retelling of sighting, perhaps believing that the retelling is a way of comparing the woman to the sighting in some negative way. For me this has never been the case. The sighting is something that occurs reflexively and without prior thought by the FA, his non-verbal libidinal radar waking up and screaming “incoming”. In some sense I suppose it is a window on what turns his non-judgmental self on. But, if I am a test case, I find so much and so varied attraction that I seem to like much of what I see from relatively slender nymphs like tonight’s sighting on up to monumentally fat women in majestically elephantine movement. That doesn't define who I want to spend time with or form a relationship with, but it is a part of my being.

I call on FA’s to tell me what it is that causes you to trigger a sighting, if you know, and to share your sense of what your earliest sighting memory is. For me I can think back to some point before I was 7, though of course at the time I had no idea why my mind focused on a heroically fat woman and was amazed and dumbfounded, almost certainly staring at her for some time.

For the BBW’s and SSBBW’s please share your view of sightings by the FA’s and do you have something similar?

Why Bother?

2006-01-29T07:14:00.000-08:00

Why Bother?

As I have gotten past the first blush of posts I've begun to contemplate why I started to write the blog, what it means to me in the short term and what long term plans I have for it, or it has for me.

Initially, my thinking was that I needed a way to clear out the attics of my mind of things that I'd thought about, dwelled on, chewed over and then moved on from some time ago. It also seemed like a good place to organize my thoughts about things FA which I had no other mode of communication for. On the few occasions that I've been able to sit down and talk about FA stuff with another FA there's too much of the thank god there are more of us out there talk and not enough of the real gristly issues that we and the women we adore face. Another thought was that maybe my musings could be of use to other FA's as a way to avoid the long years I've had to think of these issues and short circuit their own paths to maturity of their own thoughts. Perhaps another was to offer a window into a FA's head for the beautiful ladies of size, so they could get a better sense of what was going on in FA's heads and perhaps a way to move those guys out of the closet, etc.

When I thought of it that way, there seemed to be too many important reasons for doing a blog, and I figured that was more responsibility than I wanted. But, being a curious person, I was interested in any reactions that others have had to my words. Anyone I gave the link to the blog was asked to please comment. Of course, apart from a slender selection of readers this hasn't happened. But, those of you who have made comments have really made my days on the occasions of the comments coming in. I am not a know it all(Gee, was that truly necessary.. it should be as obvious to everyone else, as it is to me that I'm not). And, I just love to climb into other people's minds and see what makes them tick and how they think.

But, since the level of comments has stayed quite low, I often wonder whether anyone is actually reading what I've written. Initially, that seemed to be a deadly blow to my confidence and feelings. But, it occurs to me that I write this as much for my own pleasure as for others. Also, having chatted with some folks who've read it and haven't posted comments, I know that there are some who've read it and enjoyed it or found it interesting who prefer for their own reasons not to enter a comment. So, there are probably a wide variety of reasons why I write what I do, but as long as I'm happy and having fun doing it, I'm sure I will continue.

Having read a variety of other blogs over the last few months, and a few going back more than a year, I've learned a lot about what I, as a reader, enjoy, and what makes me want to wail. Repetition kills me. When a blogger merely repeats the same formulaic thoughts over and over again, no matter how interesting they were initially, I feel cheated. Of course, that is a very egocentric concept since that's all about my enjoyment of someone else's blog. And, since I don't write my blog for someone else, but for me, why should they feel any differently about their blog. Being kinda new to this thing I posted a comment to someone else's blog, which I had found interesting. However, the past 5 or 6 posts I'd read looked like they were all redrafts of the same post. While the content was amusing and interesting, it seemed that there had to be something new to say or why bother. My comment was relatively neutral, describing how I enjoyed reading the blogger's work, but feeling that the recent posts were somewhat repetitive and hoping that new stuff would be forthcoming. Of course the blogger had a shit fit and pointed out, among the rants about my presumptuousness(which of course was right), that the blog belonged to the blogger and not me and all the posts could be absolutely identical if that was what made the blogger happy. While initially taken aback by the venom expressed, and still feeling that the reaction was an overreaction to an innocent comment, I have learned that the core point is valid. A blog must be writted both by and FOR the blogger and not for others. Yes, one hopes that others enjoy, learn, are stimulated, etc. by a blog entry, but ultimately, if the blogger is happy with the work, the rest is gravy. If others are angered, drawn to respond negatively or passionately, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But, I've decided, for me that I prefer not to revisit the same topics dealt with before unless I have something new or different to say about them.

So, in answer to the Why Bother? question,.... because its not a bother, and because I enjoy doing it and seeing the responses large and small.

It's only a Fantasy

2006-01-26T19:23:00.000-08:00

There are days when I think about: a woman I've known; met only in passing; is a familiar stranger that I pass regularly in my commute to my office; one I've only seen in passing once for a brief moment; chatted with textually with or without benefit of any picture; or women I've merely seen pictures of on the internet. I'm not sure if its the smell of madeleines or some chemical mixup or a wire frying in my brain, but my brain shifts gear from the real world to a nether region of its own, and my lower head lets out the reins so the dogs of war can emerge, sucking more than the usual share of blood from the system. I'm not really sure what causes these episodes, a FA's petit mal seizures of horniness when some image, smell, texture erupts unexpectedly but not unpleasantly(unless the situation is one where it can't be played out either mentally or physically or both), and makes me focus on some amazingly wonderful woman's charms. While the attraction may be everything from a smile, a pretty double chinned face, ample bosomry or other physical charms, a special belly proclaiming the SSBBW'ness of its possessor, is often the entry ticket to this private Shangri La of my mind.

It is not unusual that my fantastic voyage through the theater of my mind will wend its way from spectacular belly to belly, like a belly lover's Wheel of Fortune, until it slows and settles on one special woman and her equally special belly. And then, the fantasy will spring into action and play itself out in the private theater of my imagination, my hands and body feeling the sensations of that body on my hands and body like some amputees ghost itchiness from a missing limb. Often, the experience progresses essentially independently in my mind and my penis on different levels. As my brain processes the wonders of the belly in question and all the features, shapes, textures, heaviness and receptiveness to my touch into a full blown fantasy, the smaller head runs rampant, flashing mental images and scenarios onto the big screen in the back of my brain.

It is incredible to me how vivid these mental images and scenarios can be and how wonderful the private reflections and ministrations recreate an event which has never taken place and may never occur. However, as wonderful and satisfying as this is, it is only the palest of echoes of the real thing.

Eureka!!!

2006-01-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

I think I've got it.

When I started with the Numbers posting I was trying desperately to deal with the apparent conflict between FA's who are focused on fat women's dimensions as expressed in numbers and the BBW's and SSBBW's discomfort with the persistent asking about numbers and creepy sense that the guys are more interested in the numbers than them.

I struggled with the numbers post and the responses I got, almost exclusively from women, were really useful and interesting. While there were a spectrum of view on the need for numbers, the appropriateness of asking about numbers and the feelings they have in being asked for or providing numbers, I sensed there was a common ground, expressed in different ways, but still a common ground.

All of the women expressed that when a relationship was cruising along and seemingly developing well in cyberspace but without a real life meeting, the first meeting in the flesh had an instantaneous poof event. At that first meeting something non-verbal took place. Some call it chemistry, some call it unnameable, others refer to it as getting a sense of the physical, but what sets it apart, an in my view seems to define it, is that there's no conscious, rational component to this event. Something below the self-aware consciousness, whether subconscious, physical, chemical or some combination of all of these things snaps into action and computes a non-verbal test score. Either the guy passes this or doesn't. Some say, I really liked this guy when we talked every day for a month or two online and on the phone.. but when I first met him.. poof, it was all gone. There was nothing there between us and all the time we'd spent getting to know each other was irrelevant.

Guys go through the same thing, but they do it or try to do it up front. If the girl passes this non-verbal, non-rational test, the guy pursues the relationship to determine if there is more than a chemistry attraction between them. And, with the internet, this usual pattern of relationship forming is altered due to the absence of Smellvision/3D cyber connections. And numbers or the interest in getting a woman's numbers is a mediocre substitute for the real world poof event that guys and girls experience. But, it seems to be the closest a guy can get up front to try and engage that subconscious system.

So, in conclusion, because I think I'm done with this topic for a while, FA's requests for numbers are not irrational, demeaning or negative on their own. If the FA's focus, however, is on the numbers themselves and not the woman herself, than that's a problem. Used as a way to better appreciate the woman herself they can be a useful tool to bridge the time between the meeting through the Net and the meeting in person. From the woman's side it is important that she be comfortable enough with her own body and size to share her numbers with a potential wooer. She also has to be comfortable enough with the guy requesting her to share her numbers, believing that he has an interest in her, not just her numbers as a way to completely define her.

Yuck.. why do you want to know that

2006-01-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

In response to my initial try at the FA's focus on numbers I've gotten a few comments and rather than bury my response in another comment, I figured I'd add it as a new post. Still trying to get the hang of this medium which is so flexible and free form.

I find the immediate sense of queasiness that one of the commenters to my original post gets with the thought of a FA asking her about her weight and dimensions to be interesting. It was assumed that the FA is "obsessed" with the numbers. This is a part of what I was trying to get at in my original post. I believe that this "obsession" is related to the way in which people are trying to form relationships on the internet. Guys are trying to get a better sense of a gal's physical features, because that's the way they have always started their selection process. Gals are trying to divine the guy's personality from the words he uses and the phrases and responses he makes. Of course, the personality thing is largely word based so it is an easy fit with the internet. For the guys, however, there is no easy visual fix, unless webcams are in use and I appreciate how intrusive and intimate this can be so that it would be unlikely to be the first contact method of choice. So, numbers serve as the surrogate for the FA's inquiry, generally very very early in the first conversation, for the question one asks oneself as one looks at a woman... what does she look like?

In person different people's eyes fix on different things first. Some look at eyes(yes, I've heard this though I'm not sure that I've actually believed any guy who said this unless they were viewing women wearing the Muslim burkhas which cover everything up but the eyes themeselves), some at the shape of the face, smile, breasts, overall body shape, booty, belly, legs or some combination of these. But within the first few seconds a guy's initial scan of a woman sends back signals to both heads. In some cases the big head on top says Boing, what a babe. In others only the little head on the bottom springs into action and says.... hubba hubba. And in still others both heads or neither express interest or disinterest in the lady under review. All of this non-verbal response takes place before a single word has passed between the two and is largely subconscious. If the guy has a positive reaction on either of his ends he proceeds with the verbal communication. If not, he disengages or communicates in a fashion expressing no real interest. I don't defend this approach, merely note that its the way that guys have generally determined who they woo and pursue. This approach is particularly well suited to a bar or noisy environment where verbal communication is limited, but visual communication is wide open.

Alas, the internet changes all the rules. Now, guys can't use their usual approach. Their eyes, their noses and their penises are disengaged from the process, except as filtered through the typed words appearing on their screens. Viewed in this light, its not surprising that FA's want to get some OBJECTIVE indications of what a woman looks like. Cute face... gee that doesn't say much that would distinguish a woman from any number of others and cute is a subjective reaction that may not be shared by everyone. I look at a bony fashion model type without a single curve worth talking about and her face looks gaunt, haunted and unattractive, whereas othes would pine away about the beauty and cuteness there. Nice figure.. well you've got the idea.. nice by who's definition?

While a woman's height, weight and dimensions don't define a woman, they provide a first or second level approximation of what she looks like so a guy can in his mind evaluate whether she is potentially interesting to him. Some guys are only attracted to very busty gals with huge butts. If a woman's dimensions suggest she's a relatively non-busty apple shaped woman with a very ample belly but a relatively small butt, than he can determine that she's probably not "his type". That doesn't mean they can't start chatting and develop a relationship regardless of the initial physical screening. But, it at least gives a guy a chance to have a feel for what a girl will look like. Combined with a picture it gives the guy a sense of scale and shape and other things that are sensed in an in person meeting. I can't pass by the picture thing without noting that clothing can be worn to either show or hide features. I recall going out with a gal in college who was a good friend first and when she took off her big sweater top seeing an industrial scale H cup bra that was totally unexpected . Certainly her pictures would never have hinted how busty she was. You get the idea, I hope.

Should the gal get queasy when a guy asks her for her dimensions? That's up to her, but I don't believe that its intrusive as long as its not done in a malicious or disrespectful fashion. Does she have the right to say no, or not yet. Absolutely. Will that make it tougher for the FA, yes. But making relationships and then developing them is never about being easy.

Finally, it was suggested that how would guys feel about having to give back to a woman the same sorts of numerical information, including about the length and thickness of their penis. I find this very amusing for several reasons. First, because no woman has ever asked me for this. In fact I find it rare that women ask much in the way of personal physical information. Second, because I am more than willing to share this information about me when I am having a serious personal discussion with a woman and am not ashamed or embarrassed by either the request or in providing the response. Third, it only seems fair to me that if I am interested in physical information that will allow me to create a mental construct of what the woman looks like she should be able to do the same with me. In fact, the thought that a woman in her imagination is building a virtual image of me is a very tittilating and sexy thought for me.

Numbers, numbers, numbers

2006-01-23T21:04:00.000-08:00

Number, numbers, numbers

FA’s and numbers seem to be joined at birth and inseparable till death. BBW’s and SSBBW’s generally exhibit a range of reactions to this predilection for quantification from joy that someone shares such a close interest in their dimensions, to a genial playing along with the object of their interest, to an unpleasant edginess regarding the demands for numerical data about their bodies, to a violent distaste for any inquiry regarding their dimensions.

So, there are two points to discuss here, hopefully I reach both. One, what is it that drives FA’s to get the numbers of their fat women; and two, what do they do with those numbers(or what do those numbers do to them). Of course, it would be interesting to also know why women react so differently to the FA’s requests and what do the numbers mean to them. But I suspect that’s beyond my ability to blog in one session.

As a card carrying FA from way back I can remember my earliest interest in numbers related to fat women. How much did they weigh, how big were their breasts, bellies, butts, how wide were they standing, sitting, how far down did their belly aprons sag, on all fours how far from the bed were their breasts or bellies(as my interests in larger women progressed this became mooted with many of the women whose breasts and bellies were longer than their arms), etc. But for me, once I had tasted the delights of the actual flesh the seeking of numbers was only the appetizer to the main course of a real physical relationship and not the real thing itself.

But, I had no idea why these numbers so obsessed me. Of course, like most FA’s it was only much later after years in my own private FA wilderness, assuming I was the only member of my genus or species homo sapiens FA, that I discovered others and was able to slowly discuss some of these issues. With the advent of the internet and the rapid, curiously intimate discussions with fat women, the dance between the sexes has changed. In the real world the first thing a guy sees, generally even before a single word has passed between him and the girl of his attention, is the woman’s body, in all its three dimensional glory. Some women dress to show off their shape, others to camouflage it, but a sense of size, shape and proportion is taken in at the start. In guys who usually perform their first filtering of who they're interested in visually, the first sighting is often the first cut.

However, on the internet there may be a picture or two or ten, but these two dimensional pictures only hint at the size and scope of a woman’s body. The sense of scale is not present as it is in real life. A shorter woman who is more abundantly curved may appear in pictures to be bigger, fatter and more capacious than a taller woman who weighs substantially more, but whose curves seem more scaled to her height. And, on the internet, words, which are often the only means of describing what someone looks like, are slippery. Words which mean one thing to the speaker may well have a different meaning to another.

So, the FA tries to grasp for the ladies features and wants something that is more objective than the usual words.. really big, pear shaped, very large tummy, very busty, etc. So what does he use.. numbers. Really big… how about weight.. to one person 210 pounds is really big, to another 450 pounds is midsized. Pear shaped means smaller topped and a gently curving hip and buttock on the order of 38-33-44 to one person, 46-56-87 to another. Very large tummy can mean a waistline of 38 inches and hip/belly measurement of 44 inches to one person, a waistline of 71 inches and hip/belly of 97 inches to another. Very busty to one woman may mean she wears a 42D sized bra and very busty to another woman may mean that her 58M bra with a few extenders is still too small to contain her heaving bosom.

So the numbers are much more objective than the words by themselves. They give more meaning to what the words provide. But there are down sides to the numbers, and this is more so as a woman moves into the SSBBW range. Because, here the numbers mean much less than for a woman of smaller size. Why? Because a woman with a very large tummy can have it shaped in many different ways. It can protrude outwardly, appearing very large indeed. Or, it can be very wide, but not so thick. Or, it can be so big and heavy that it drapes majestically down the woman’s front, extending down past her pubis, down onto the upper thighs and perhaps approaching the mid thighs or below. Then, the numbers which are merely girth numbers don’t accurately reflect the sheer scale and volume of the woman’s tummy. Not sure why, but some women don’t like to talk about a stomach or belly, but instead only like tummy. Who knows why? That’s another story for another entry. Some very big women have a double belly, a standard issue upper belly which seems to grow modestly, and a low slung belly apron which can often continue to grow beyond all usual dimensions providing a wall of belly from the front and an overhang of amazing distance when viewed from the side.

So, the simple three dimensions, bust, waist and hip just don’t do the trick of describing a fat woman’s shape as she enters the range of the SSBBW. What’s a FA to do? Well, either meet the lady and let his eyes do all the work(assuming they don’t pop out of his head-or they jointly agree to allow his fingers, hands, lips and tongue to share the load) or ask for more numbers. New and more creative measurements such as bellydrop, upper arms, upper and lower legs, upper and lower belly girth, etc…

Well, that lays out some of the reasons for numbers.

But, from the female side there tends to be a sense that the problem is that the boys aren’t worshipping them, but worshipping only the numbers. In fact, many of us FA’s do seem to be rather obsessed with numbers, more and more numbers to the extent that it seems that all we are interested in is how heavy, how big, how long, how wide, how…. And.. not interested in the lady, but only her numbers. And, if that’s the way it seems or is, that’s not right. The numbers, in my view are merely something to bring a FA and his lady closer together and for him to know her and her body better as they fill out their relationship, deciding if they are compatible in all the many ways that a man and a woman have to be for a more than slam bam thank you maam relationship. They are not a replacement for a relationship with the real world woman and, apart from a feeder or dieter situation, are essentially a one shot situation and not something to be repeated on a regular basis for the guy to get his jollies(unless of course both partners get off on the measuring).

I have noticed that most of the women who seem most dissatisfied with the concept of measuring themselves at the request of their potential beaus are dissatisfied because they sense that the guys are interested in the numbers and not them. Generalizations are of limited value, but it seems that there must be at least a significant number of these FAs who either are singularly interested more in the numbers than the girls or are doing a poor job of communicating the role of seeking the gal’s numbers as a part of exploring the development of a relationship.

Again, I come back to the peculiarities of the budding internet romance and the odd way in which there is an immediate intimacy of discussion and expression which would be virtually unheard of in a traditional real world relationship. I would be shocked to hear that a guy who met a woman at a friend’s party or an office party or on a double date set up by friends would immediately ask her how much she weighs, what size bra she wears and how far down her belly apron hangs etc. Yet, this sort of discussion is not uncommon on the internet. In fact, I’ve had many women complain that this is the standard fare for them in internet chat rooms where FA’s looking for BBW’s size them up like chickens.. how big, how big breasts, how big thighs, etc.

Do I have a conclusion to this post? No. I want to know what others think and then maybe I’ll opine some more.

FA's in the Closet

2006-01-17T20:58:00.000-08:00

I think this is an important issue for both FA’s and BBW’s to deal with and to understand. Of course, I can only speak from the FA side, but having been educated over the years and quite recently about FA’s in the closet I thought it appropriate to express my views about this thorny subject with more complexity and depth.

I don’t have any doubt that FA’s need to come out of the closet and be open to those they care about and who care about them, including family, friends and coworkers that they do not merely tolerate their fat objects of admiration, but are attracted to them, find them beautiful and will not accept family, friends and coworkers making demeaning comments about the women they care for and about. Like everything about humans, few black and white lines exist and a spectrum of reactions to out of the closet FA’s (“OTC FA’s”) and the objects of their adoration result. Some crusty curmudgeons are essentially immovable despite repeated and pointed instruction, cajoling, threatening.. etc. Often the very oldest generation can be like this(though not always and not even most of the time, some of these oldies having actually gained maturity along with social security benefits). Another group are those who agree to act appropriately but often seem to “forget”. Repeated application of charm, arm twisting and even some scenes often cure these miscreants. Some just don’t get it. Despite the explanation they are like eight track cassettes…. A few minutes after the last reminder they revert to their base behavior, seemingly having no memory and just restarting again like the endless loops that eight tracks are (perhaps this dates me.. though I never actually owned an eight track… being a child of the cassette generation). And some, enlightened individuals get it. They understand that if they care about the FA they want him to be happy and.. if this person, whoever she is makes him happy, they make them happy as well by extension. I could go on.. but I’ve drifted from the point.

What is in the closet behavior? Going out to a restaurant where you would never meet anyone you know. Making plans to go out for a night on the town and showing up with a pizza and a few dvd’s…. so we don’t have to go out. Excluding you from any of his family events. The reasons, of course are legendary and never ending. Not inviting you to work social events that spouses and girlfriends of other workers attend. Going out without you to events.. because you wouldn’t enjoy it….

Well, I think that’s only the briefest of lists and a full scale list is only limited by the ingenuity and degenerateness of the closeted FA’s ("CFA’s'"). You get the point. In fact, many of you and me at some time have either been subjected to or subjected someone else to such behavior.

So, now the question, is it okay for a FA to remain in the closet. The answer, NO. Let me repeat that. It is not acceptable to treat another human being, any human being, no less one you purport to care about, in a fashion which shows that you are ashamed to know them, be associated with them and will allow others to treat them as less than you would want to be treated.

So, does this mean that any CFA is to be considered reprehensible pond scum? NO. In much the same way that BBWs who haven’t gained sufficient self esteem to overcome the societal pressures to conform with the view that thin is in and if they are fat they are a failure unless and until they lose weight isn’t to be berated and condemned, a CFA who hasn’t made the move to OTC FA isn’t to be berated and condemned. Pitied, perhaps, but not condemned initially. However, if a CFA begins a relationship with a BBW or SSBBW it is incumbent on the woman to put her foot down with the CFA. Make the man make the shift to OFC FA or say goodbye. This doesn't mean overnight, but making progress in that direction, situation by situation, family member by family member, friend by friend and work colleague by work colleague. If a woman continues a relationship after she recognizes that the fella is a CFA and isn’t coming out of the closet she is enabling his behavior. By doing so she is a party to the CFA’s behavior. Shame on her. As Dr. Ruth used to sing on the radio… You’ve got to wash that boy right out of your hair…

So, CFA’s are to be pitied, not vilified. However, blessed with a BBW or SSBBW of their own, they must make the move out of the closet to the heady liberation of OTC FA status.

What sayeth you folks, male and female?

On the road to FAdom

2006-01-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

As a young proto-FA of 12 or 13, struggling with my raging hormones and the reappearance of an entire half of the human population, i.e. the girls.. I was a massively uncontrollable boob freak. I lusted for big breasted women, lived to see them, dreamed about them, masturbated to my mental images of them and did everything possible with my limited social skills with the women I found attractive to lay my hands on the genuine article.

Looking back on this socially acceptable (well, at least within the society of other men) boob crazed period I was able to share my feelings about the women I found attractive with my fellows. As this evolved to loving fat women in whatever form they took I discovered that this camaraderie and cooperative support not only evaporated, but any expression of my amorous interest in a gal with any sort of curves apart from ample bosom was met with scorn and even ridicule. Being the normal fellow who prefers the positive feedback of my peers I went through a series of stages.

The first stage was refocusing my attention on big breasted women. At this stage I just assumed that I was probably a bit weird but this attraction to fat girls would pass along with the intermittent pimples that seemed to appear on a regular basis. The second stage was to shift my attention to big breasted gals who were much bigger on top and who might also have more than average size bodies in other parts. At this point I realized that this attraction was no longer socially acceptable in my circle of friends and acquaintances. But, I refused to give up my feelings, even though I was probably no older than 13 or 14. Any sense that actually like women because they were fat never occurred to me at that point.

At that time there was no internet, but, thankfully there were big breast magazines. Although you were supposed to be 18 to buy these holy texts, the local candy store operator would sell you these magazines, carefully slid into a thin brown paper bag for concealment purposes. Since I had no one to discuss my feelings with, I came to await the appearance each month of the new issues of Gent and BUF, and perhaps others, though these two remain in my mind as the source of much pleasure.

The next phase in my maturity and awareness was probably about age 15 or 16 when I became aware of some of my female classmates having matured beyond the nascent breast stage. Okay, some of these gals had sprouted and had enormous breasts. One in particular was a girl I had known for almost a decade and had shared many classes with. We used to talk all the time as she was "one of the guys" on many subjects. She had not only gone from a flat chested slightly chubby girl to a mammoth mammaried maiden, she sported heavily rounded hips and butt and a slightly rounded belly. In other words she was a WOMAN. To put it in context, she was probably a 38DD and maybe weighed about 180 pounds. Naturally, my efforts to talk with her met with an amazing inability to manipulate my tongue apart from lower animal grunting sounds and words tripping over each other. Of course, with her newly blossomed prow a wide variety of boys higher on the social pecking order had descended on her. Of course it didn't hurt her social elevation that she also continued to wear shirts that were purchased before her eruptions. As I began to convince myself that any success with this goddess of the High School hallways was beyond my abilities, I cast about for other possibilities.

Soon, I discovered a girl in my classes of similar age and academic interests, with a 40DD bra and a very full bodied form(no this isn't a guess). She was safe since she was dating another guy, who was nowhere as intelligent as she, and very friendly. That summer she and I went to summer program at a college and one thing leading to another we became good friends, and one evening, sitting on a dark campus lawn went a bit further. That would explain the knowledge of her bra size. On that evening I had my first real contact with ample bosom, tender lips and.. a soft body. Alas, she decided that she'd rather be my friend than my special friend.. and I was back in the wasteland of despair.

But this led me to another cathartic experience, as I contemplated and replayed over and over and over again in my mind and fantasies our briefest of interludes. I decided that the big breasts were fabulous, but couldn't imagine that I'd be attracted to them on a skinny body. As my awareness of what I was turned on by started to shift, I realized, as I looked back into my past how I'd always been unnaturally interested in fatter women, whether big busted or not. I recalled what FA's call sightings dating back to my first decade of life, women so fat and beyond the norm that more than 10 years later I still had strong recollections of the details of their amazingly enormous bellies, hips, thighs, butts or arms. This evolution took about 2-3 years, by which time I was in college and started to date women of varying sizes of bigger than the norm, up to about 200 or 220 pounds and with breasts above average in size.

At this point I knew that I liked women who were bigger than most of my college friends found attractive and struggled with my efforts to build the self confidence among my family and friends which would allow me to pursue and openly enjoy a relationship with a bigger woman. It was only a few years later, after becoming comfortable openly expressing my interest in bigger women(what I'd now call mid size bbws) that I came to grips with my family and friends, telling them that I found these women attractive and wasn't put off by their comments. I also told them that if I brought my girl friends to family or friends' events I expected them to make no comments which could be interpreted as negative reflections on their weight, including suggestions of good diets, etc. It was a good concept.. of course in practice it took much time till they finally stopped trying so hard to make me either find skinnier women or get them to lose weight..

And, after college, I experienced my first SSBBW, a woman I met in a bar near a friend's summer cottage. This woman was probably around 400 pounds and had a belly apron of some size. The sex, was for me liberating and wonderful. Of course, our relationship was only about sex and didn't survive the weekend. But the memory has lasted since then. Since then I've never looked back at skinny women, understanding that my body and mind was only attracted. Now, I am attracted to women in all sizes of large, but prefer women toward the larger end of the spectrum.

I'm interested in other guy's stories of how they came to grips with their FA'dom and other women's stories how they helped guys make this jump out of the FA closet.

The SSBBW

2006-01-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

I've been told that my lengthy rambling discourse on the SSBBW was a bit tough to read, with thoughts and ideas mixing together. Of course, that's because my mind operates in that way, starting out on a path and stopping at each branch to explore where it goes, never getting very far along the path but enjoying the trip nevertheless. But, I figured I'd try to flesh out the SSBBW toolbox, those features that seem to only exist on women as they move along the spectrum from skinnier to fatter in the transition region from BBW to SSBBW.

Of course, my first digression is how I define what's a SSBBW. And having finished that, see that I never make it in this blog entry beyond defining what a SSBBW is and if there is any importance to that distinction.

The SSBBW

In my view, the difference between the BBW, a/k/a the Big Beautiful Woman and the SSBBW, the Super Sized Big Beautiful Woman historically is related to the women's fashion market. In the old days.. 60's, 70's and 80's the normal sized world ended somewhere about size 14 and anyone above that was in the wilderness of fat woman polyester. As a few stores began to cater to the market beyond the edge of the Fashion World, the term BBW began to be applied to these sizes. They started at size 16 and moved up to size 24 or so. Women's sizes were also around, which started with higher numbers, which only had the effect of thoroughly confusing us guys to the extent we ever tried to buy something for a woman in our lives. Beyond the fringe BBW market was wasteland. Any women beyond the pale of the BBW market was essentially on her own. Muumuus and other shapeless garments owing their provenance to Omar the tentmaker were about all that existed for this forlorn and forgotten segment of humanity. In the diaspora of fat women some brave vendors(many of them fat women themselves), forged a new flame of clothing for women beyond the BBW world. These clothes came to be known as super sized bbw clothing. Now these initial clothes were limited runs, limited distribution, small potatoes operations. Many of the clothes were merely more of the same or scaled up versions of the bbw clothing, though new colors, patterns and styles designed for fatter women's bodies began to develop. But, at least it was a start. As the women who wore the BBW sized clothings came to be called BBWs, so the women who wore the Supersized BBW clothing came to be called SSBBW.

Hmmm, I feel like I'm telling the tale of the discovery of fire.. some gorgeous fat women, rubbing her supersized thighs together feels the warmth and wonders if she could do the same with sticks to make fire.. and has her FA life partner rub the hell out of some sticks till smoke and then fire appears..

Anyhow, this seemed to be a pretty easy point of demarcation. If you fit into the BBW sizes you were a BBW, if not, you were a SSBBW. Many of the more fashion forward SSBBWs came to Naafa conventions primarily to buy their wardrobes at the trunk sales there and escape the polyester prison of their existing clothing.

Of course, things never really stay the same and the BBW clothing manufacturers began to expand the range of clothing that they offered at the high end. Stores which catered to BBWs began to carry limited items in bigger sizes and stores catering to SSBBWs began to pop up, though usually also including some of the smaller BBW sized garments. Next, the internet arrived and clothing shopping would never be the same.

In recent years a number of different schools of thought have arisen as to where the line is between a BBW and a SSBBW. Some hold to the view that the original clothing size limits are the real line between BBW and SSBBW. Of course, as in all clothing, the actual size of a number has been moving slowly up, so that a size 24 fifteen years ago was much smaller than a size 24 is today(note--I don't wear women's clothing, but this is what I've read and many women have told me).

Another view is that there is some absolute weight limit that forms the line. Common boundary numbers are 350 or 300. Of course, a woman's height seems to effect the size garment that women of similar weight would wear and how fat they look. A 350 pound woman who is 5'2" would probably look much fatter(and have bigger girth dimensions) than a 350 pound woman who's 5'11". The taller woman would clearly look heavier than average, but not nearly as rounded and fat looking as her shorter fat sister.

Still another view is that there is some weight limit that forms the line adjusted based on height. This is more of a BMI based system. This seems to be the standard that a plurality of folks follow, but it is a very subjective standard because of a peculiar characteristic of fat women. Some women seem to be denser than others. This has nothing to do with their minds or intelligence, but what is known in science as specific gravity, measured in kilograms per cubic meter or pounds per cubic inch. Many fat women are particularly "fluffy" and seem to be much larger than their weights would suggest. Others appear quite "firm" and their bodies seem too small to weigh as much as they do.

I have another suggested approach, but before I suggest that I must confess that I think it really makes no difference. If a woman believes she is a SSBBW that's fine with me. If a woman doesn't like the SSBBW tag and would prefer to just be called a BBW that's also fine with me. Nowadays the tag is often used as a code word in interpersonal fencing/flirting/chatting to indicate how large a woman is. The term no longer has any real significance in the fashion area, with sizing being wedded to dimensions and size charts giving women a clearer sense of what size will fit them from any given manufacturer. Because the word doesn't have any real precision associated with it because different people use the same term to mean very different things, in a sense its lost its ability to function as an important term.

My approach, having now stated why its not at all important, is related to the way in which a woman's body grows as her weight increases. As a woman begins to take on the SSBBW toolkit, by developing a belly apron, derriere shelf, hanging upper arms or thighs, etc. in my view the woman has become a SSBBW. For some women this transition takes place at relatively lower weights, perhaps in the mid to high 200's. For others it doesn't begin until the 400's. And some rare women seem to continue to grow in perfect proportion to their skinnier shape and that of other smaller women. For these rare women I rely on my quasi scientific "Wow she's big" standard. Generally, in my view when a woman begins to take on at least one of the elements of the SSBBW toolkit she has moved into SSBBW terrain.

Enough for now...

Fat is Where its At, Part II

2006-01-09T22:55:00.000-08:00

Well, here comes part II of the last entry. It took more time than I had expected to get back to it, but now I’m ready to rumble. The first part brought us to the cusp of the difference between BBWs and SSBBWs in my eyes. When a woman reaches SSBBWdom something seems to happen to her body which liberates it from the general toolkit which is used for her smaller sisters. Like an extended edition of a software package which has additional features or functionality, a SSBBW has parts and curves not found on others.

A brief catalog would include the belly apron, fat rolls on her back, a section named by some as the change purse(formed by multiple rolls of fat which create a cavern in the central buttock somewhat like the type of coin purse which is formed of plastic and is opened by squeezing its sides to widen the gap in its center), the pulkees (perhaps a Yiddish term – representing the ultra soft bulging pillowy flesh residing above that additional crease in the extreme upper thigh of a heavy thighed woman), the uber-abs (my coined term, as far as I know it, for the smaller belly above the belly and under the breasts which almost looks like a super size version of the six pack abs of a body builder), the division of the lower belly below the belly button into two distinct sections, the growth of the pubic mound into a full grown underbelly, the hang of the upper arm over the elbow (creating the famed, in some circles, elbow dimple), the hang of the thighs over the knees(often only on one side, rarely all the way around the leg), and the chankles (a/k/a chubby ankles in which the lower leg of a lady is expanded about what is usually the ankle so that there is no narrowing and often a widening of the leg right ontop of the foot), "the shelf" (that overtly abundant extrusion of the upper buttock which climbs and extends backward in a way that allows one to rest one’s hands or even beverages on the lovely lasses buttock without fear of falling unless, of course, she starts to move in which case all bets are off). I could go on, because this merely touches on some of the more well known and observed special parts usually only found in SSBBWs.

Of course, as women grow beyond the 500s their bodies begin to develop in other ways, having so much additional material to work with. However, as my interest starts to wane beyond this point I will not focus on these truly unique women some with dimensions extending into triple digits on all three of the normal dimensions(bust, waist and hips) and occasionally even the thighs. While these women are truly amazing in their size and shape, mobility at this size is generally limited to movement of arms and perhaps legs in a bed setting, with anything more than that only possible with hoists, lifts or teams of hardy aides. Surprisingly, a non-trivial number of women and men seem to be able to continue to grow in size until they exceed 700, 800 or even a 1000 pounds. In many cases they are not seeking to grow to such sizes but have become overcome with their "love" of food to the extent that their every waking moments are occupied with eating. One doesn’t inquire about what happens on the other end of the human log factory. In any event.. perhaps more discussions about women at this Marianna Trench deep end of the gene pool will be left to another entry.

So, back to my SSBBWs. I have always been a connoisseur of women with distinctive shapes, whether abundantly bosomed, behemothically bellied, humongously hippy, profoundly pearshaped or ultra hourglass shaped. Often, a woman with relatively smaller parts and one magnificently large part can arouse lustful feelings more significant than a larger women with more balanced features. Like many FA’s I can still remember significant "sightings" of women going back to my earliest memories. When I have these memories it is almost always related to the relative proportions of a woman more than the sheer magnitude of her size.

It would probably a good time here for me to discuss the difference between me finding a woman strikingly attractive and beautiful. While fat women are known universally as BBWs or SSBBWs, the word beautiful is nested within both of these acronyms. Many of these women of size, as with their smaller compatriots are anything but beautiful. Beauty, in my eyes is something that is beyond physical size and shape, and related to many other things, including the frequency, comfort with, and wattage of smiles, personality, intelligence, interests, compatibility and a sense of humor. I, would, naturally be lying if I were to say that the physical appearance, of which size, shape, texture, hair color, eye color, shape of the belly button and hair style are merely a few of the markers, were unimportant. Beauty is too broad a concept to be generalized and too specific and different for each person to give guidance beyond one’s own sense of what beauty is for them. Like the definition of pornography set by Justice Potter of the Supreme Court, the definition of Beauty has no bright line tests but... we know it when we see it.

The discussion of my attraction to SSBBWs is thus focused on my strong physical preference for women of this size, but this preference must not be divorced from the larger urgency in finding a partner, whether for a short term free love (a/k/a casual sex) relationship or a long term committed one or something in the middle. In a sense the discussion is focused on one component of that which attracts men to women and vice versa. However, among us FA’s and the BBWs and SSBBWs that we are inexorably drawn to there is a special significance to this factor. For the women the significance is more obvious... they are fat at all times, unable to shed a fat suit and magically disappear into "normalcy" as a skinny gal. No one can be confused that they are anything but fat. Someone having a relationship with them will always be marked as going out with the fat chick. For the guys its easier in some ways and more difficult in others. Its easier in the obvious way.. If the guy isn’t fat himself, he can disappear into the normal world without appearing to be a FA He can blend in in a way that a fat woman never can. But in the other sense.. much like gay folk, the FA can lie to others but he can never lie to himself ultimately that it’s a fat woman that makes him whole and floats his boat. So, he can stay in the closet like the gay folk do, or he can come out in the sunshine and adore in public the women he finds so attractive. It took me some time to wrestle with my feelings through my college years until I was confident in what I was, a FA, and what I wanted, a beautiful fat woman.

I think this is more than enough musing for now. There are many more subjects which have suggested themselves in this orgy of words, but I will leave them for another session.

Again, your comments and thoughts and suggestions, criticisms and desires are earnestly solicited.

It's a Fat thing, Part 1

2005-12-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

This is a new experience for me, but why not on the cusp of the new year. I am a FA, a fat admirer. No, that doesn't mean that I like to admire fat itself, but women who are fat. But of course that isn't really accurate either. I like women who are fat who I find attractive. Not all fat women are attractive to me. Not all women who are not fat are unattractive to me. But, as a general rule I find fat women quite attractive, and as they are much fatter than the average woman I find them progressively more attractive.

How big is too big. That's always been a tough question. The answer is in two part harmony. First, there is no limit to too big based on weight or girth or any other dimensions. Second, in the real world I would not be attracted to a woman who is so large that she has become immobile. Of course immobility is a spectrum from the beginning hints of difficulties in moving, such as when a woman's thighs start to rub on the inside up to a size so big that the woman is trapped in her bed unable to even lift her arms because of their immense weight and requiring someone to do everything for the woman from feeding her to bathing her to cleaning her up in her "bathroom" activities. I definitely find the rubbing of a woman's thighs together sexy, the total immobility neither sexy, nor attractive and ultimately a bit gross. Those are easy points of reference.. its where in the middle my line of demarcation between turned on and turned off resides.

Over the years my range of interest has shifted higher on the weight spectrum. Whereas in my college years a gal in the high 100's and low 200's was very attractive, especially if she had huge breasts, in the years after college I began to focus on women in the high 200's and low 300s and my eye would wander to the supersized women beyond that point. As time has gone on my eye still favors the first two groups of interest, but my libido has been desensitized to these smaller fat women. Now I am only excited by women who fall near or over the line between BBW's and SSBBW's. It's probably a mistake to consider there to be a line between BBW's and SSBBW's. Like so many other things related to fat women there is no bright line test or standard which applies uniformly as to whether a woman should be called a BBW or SSBBW. Perhaps another entry will be my thoughts on that very thorny matter of dispute among FAs and fat women.. though quite frankly... who cares.

Anyhow, in recent years I have reveled the beauty of women in the high 300's, 400's and 500's. Surprisingly, to me, who has been a student of observing fat women for decades, a woman's fatness and her weight are not as closely correlated as one would believe. I have met women who weighed nearly 400 pounds and were barely more than 5 feet tall (the effect of height on fatness at given weights could also occupy volumes :) ), yet didn't look more than very plump, while significantly taller women weighing 50 pounds less look immensely fat in comparison. Am I dismayed by this... HELL NO. It merely causes me to redouble my efforts to establish the parameters of the transformation between dimensons and the visual effect of a fat woman(another topic requiring more detailed consideration... i.e. the inexplicable but clearly present intensity of desire on the part of many FA's for numbers which quantify their fat women's bodies).

As I've grown in my admiration and desire for the larger women among the army of fat women I've come to also become enthralled with the diversity of shape present only in the bigger women. To explain, for skinny women and those of insurance company chart "normal" weights the diversity of shapes is rather limited. Some women have larger breasts, others have larger butts or thighs or tummies(not really a belly), but all share the similarities of a standard skeleton's shape with a bit more or less padding added. I understand that many men find this attractive.. but in my view from the FA world.. "they all look the same". As women grow larger in the small BBW grouping they still maintain the sameness of the slimmer women, but with added curves. But here's the key... the added curves are in the same spots as with the smaller women.. except.. the belly. Here, the diversity begins to develop, with women having bellies that have different shapes and sizes and even some hang. But as a rule, these women are just bigger, better and more bountiful versions of their slimmer sisters. I can honestly say that in my experience that many of these women are/were sublime and beautiful. But, no longer, in the whole sufficient to tickle MY joy switch.

It is important for me to note that I'm just talking about the connection between my eyes and my libido, not whether I would actually be attracted to a woman for more than eye candy. So much more, a lot of it unrelated to a woman's looks or physical size/shape, enters the equation and in many cases is at least as important as the shape, size and other qualities of the package. But I stray...

As one gets into the larger bbws and the ssbbws new things start to happen. These women, often over 350, though sometimes less if they are quite short, begin to develop their own distinctive shapes. And here, there is a sense that a woman has broken the normal template available to all and created a new one special only to her.

Enough rambling for now.. let's say this is only Part 1

I'd love to hear anyone's comments and viewpoints.

Testing 1 2 3

2005-12-09T06:38:00.000-08:00

Here begins the saga.. it was a dark and stormy night...