Ruination: The Ugly Side of Feederism (Patreon)

Fat fetishes are varied and multi-faceted.  The most basic—and one I assume most of us share—is a genuine attraction to Big Beautiful Women.  When someone says, “She’s hot,” I usually think, “She’d be hotter with another 20-50 pounds.”  In truth, this isn't a fetish at all.  It’s a preference.  I love a pretty face as much as anyone but simply prefer when it’s accompanied by a big butt, big boobs, and a big belly.

The next links in the kink, enthusiasm for feeding and weight gain, are more complex and contentious.  It would be easy to chalk them up as natural extensions of the first (if you like junk in the trunk, why wouldn’t you want to help with the packing?), but if it were truly about the journey to “hot” from “not” there’d be a lot more weight-loss fetishists—people who get off watching their mates starve, or sneaking healthy snacks into pantries and refrigerators.  No, it’s the inherently taboo elements—hedonism, overindulgence, control (or a lack thereof)—that make feederism so fun and controversial.  The only thing sweeter than forbidden fruit is forbidden fudge!

Still, most people don’t care what adults find sensual as long as it’s consensual and nobody gets hurt.  But what if they do?  That’s the moral minefield where ruination lives.

Ironically, while ruination represents an extreme segment of feederism, the concept itself has broad appeal.  Plenty of folks enjoy rubbernecking wrecks on the road to ruin.  "Schadenfreude" (the pleasure or self-satisfaction that comes from witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another) is as timeless and universal as the centuries-old German word would suggest.  It doesn't matter who you are or where you live—it's fun when an arrogant aristocrat or snooty celebrity gets served their just deserts...especially when it looks like they've been served just desserts!  Open any tabloid from the past fifty years and you'll realize it's not just fat fetishists who get excited when a starlet plumps up.

It doesn't take a psychologist to diagnose why a Hollywood hottie losing their looks might appeal to the average housewife; however, it's a strange dichotomy for us.  Big is supposed to be beautiful, after all!  While it would be easy to attribute my teenage fascination with tabloid stories about gaining celebrities to the dearth of flesh to be found elsewhere, my fondness for them probably had more in common with the housewife than the fat admirer.  What I found titillating about the Yasmine Bleeth spread wasn't the blurry candid of her looking "big and beautiful," it was the snarky article's implication that she was eating her way out of a job.

My first real-life desire for ruinous weight gain was similarly petty and spiteful.  It was a revenge-filled fantasy starring my ex-girlfriend, Shanna, who dumped me right before senior prom.  While it wasn’t unusual for me to visualize her with a few extra pounds (she was a string-bean dancer at least fifty pounds short of my physical ideal) when she broke up with me my imagination took an ugly turn.  Literally.  Instead of pleasingly plump, she grew morbidly obese in my mind, with a drooping double-chin and cystic acne erupting across her peaches-and-cream complexion.  She was kicked off the dance team, relegated to kitchen duty at her fast food job (just like Susan in “The Lesson”), and, at eighteen, her life was basically over.  That’ll teach her!

With Shanna my feelings made sense—she had wronged me so a little ill-will seemed justified—but that didn't explain my fascination with the physical ruination of women I didn't even know.  During the aughts, I followed an online model named Dreamer who gained a tremendous amount of weight in a short period of time.  (I wrote “Dreamer Goes to the Doctor” in response to a request for fan fiction and was awarded free access to her pay site.  Yay!)  Her gain came so quickly that it wasn’t long before she outgrew my usual preference range; however, rather than experiencing the diminished interest I typically felt towards BBW who outgrew my personal threshold (Cherries comes to mind), my interest in Dreamer piqued as the pounds piled on.  This was because—unlike most online gainers who flirt with feederism for short-term fun or profit (hello Candii Kayn!)—Dreamer seemed hell-bent on self-destruction.

Over the course of her three-year journey (2003-2006), Dreamer went from an attractive lingerie model frolicking through fields in trendy attire to a fat and frumpy shut-in vacuuming her cluttered apartment in underwear several sizes too small.  She became unrecognizable.  And not just because she got fat.  Sure, if you gain 100+ pounds in a short period even family members may do double-takes, but Dreamer completely lost her looks...and much like the frequent photos of her fondling her newfound fat, she seemed to embrace it.  She stopped wearing makeup, fixing her hair, or dressing in anything sexier than an outgrown sports bra.  The photos that showcased her fattening were far from flattering, emphasizing her purple stretchmarks, pock-marked cellulite, and ghostly pallor.  Dreamer herself seemed resigned to her self-imposed nightmare.  Her moments of mirrored self-reflection seem to say, “What the fuck have I done?”

It was hot as hell.

According to Dreamer's webmaster and occasional photographer, the enigmatic "Andy from Germany"  (who, along with his gaining girlfriend "Sexy Mic," was everpresent on the scene back then) Dreamer wasn't a feedee:

"I can´t count how often it was mentioned 'I am not a feedee' on Curvy Dreamer or Sexy Mic. Both girls gained weight, but NOT on purpose.  I am not into feedees or any girls who get fat on purpose. It´s boring to me. I love it when it just happens and this is what I was able to show off with Dreamer in perfection...including some crying, red eyes from crying, and, of course, real stories from her life."*

While I respectfully disagree with Andy's assertion that Dreamer's gain "just happened" (If you stop exercising and start eating like a pig, it's hard to sell getting fat as an accident) it seems like the revulsion to her gain was real despite its predictability.  Of course, it wasn't enough for her to change her lifestyle.  Dreamer continued to gain until an illness forced her from the scene.

Ultimately, that's the conundrum all feeders and feedees have to face.  How far do you go?  Are you willing to sacrifice your looks and lifestyle in service of your libido (or your partner's)?  Most aren't, which is why ruinous gainers are rare and why stories like "The Wicked Stepfather" get written.  The original author of that story, which I adapted and expanded upon, is a slim and fit woman named Lisa who wrote it as a teenager as a therapeutic outlet for her emergent (and very intense) yearnings.  "The desire to explode in fat still causes me instant palpitations," the now forty-something mother of two recently informed me, "but it remains in the realm of fantasy."

The lust for self-ruination is a difficult concept for people outside the fetish to grasp, which is why most erroneously assume it occurs when a dominant "feeder" (i.e., predator) imparts their will on a submissive "feedee" (i.e., naive victim).  If there's one thing I've learned from experience (and in researching this musing), a feedee's desire to be ruined is usually greater than the feeder's desire to ruin them.  A topic on the appeal of ruination was posted on fantasyfeeder.com a few years back and, based on the responses, the psychological elements of ruination are as titillating to feedees as the physical.  Some of the ones mentioned include: Food addiction, binge/emotional eating, dependency, broken will, a feeling of uselessness, wasted potential that can never be regained, feeling too far gone, and knowing you're so fat that you're only attractive to the person who wants to assist in your slow suicide...

Wow.

Here are a couple of the more passionate responses:

"So hot.  I love the idea of wasted potential, the thought of ruining my young body to the point of no return."

--Chubpig97

"The idea that even if I wanted to lose weight I couldn't because I've lost the willpower is incredibly hot. Almost like I 'acted' like a glutton for so long, I became more gluttonous than I ever imagined."

--Grizz

The psychological component of ruination was also reflected in the testimony we received from two female fetishists Riptoryx reached out to on my behalf, including friend and Mavrip patron, Paige:

"I got into the weight gain thing BECAUSE of the ruination aspect, and have had a great time putting on over a hundred pounds with my feeder. I have a huge humiliation kink, so it goes hand in hand with the ruination stuff. I definitely appreciate it more as a fantasy or in private.  There’s basically a 100% chance I’ll cry if someone on the street commented on how I destroyed my body, but when my feeder says it it feels amazing."

Another female friend, who would prefer to remain nameless, spoke about the appeal of ruination from a more observational point of view :

"I love to see a wealthy, stereotypically attractive girl 'lose it' through overindulging. Their wealth and beauty - which helps them access the finest restaurants, exclusive bars and parties, etc. also being the cause of enabling their overindulgence at all said locations and events. They essentially eat and drink and laze their way out of their expected social milieu. I find that delicious. That and I love the gossip, the bitchy comments behind the back of the enlarging protagonist - I think mainly because that's the way I fell into this whole fetish in the first place."

Remind me to use "eating their way off the milieu" when I write my next rich bitch comeuppance story!

What are your thoughts on ruinous weight gain?  Have you dabbled in it?  Or is it something you prefer to leave to fantasy and fiction? 

Maverick

*Andy's quote was compiled from two separate posts on curvage.org.