-the as always brilliant Marianne Kirby, in “That Sexy Fat Pink Elephant in the Room; Discussing Fat, Fetishism, and Feederism” (via riotsnotdiets)

I’ve always heard the phrase as Your Kink Is OK, It’s Just Not My Kink, but I don’t even know why I’m nitpicking that.

I’ve had a hard time dealing with fetishism and feederism, and for a long time it’s squicked me, but I’ve had to force myself to come to terms because it’s just not okay to discriminate. I think people shy away from feederism for the same reasons they get super into HAES: because if we can prove that we’re just fat naturally, without eating a lot or eating the wrong things, or whatever, then, THEN fat will be okay and accepted. Being a feeder (at whatever level) flies in the face of “eating healthy” and “being this way naturally” and it’s so socially rebellious in that way. I don’t even think it’s about conservative values about SEX, because feederism isn’t always sexual as much as a lifestyle, the way not every BDSM action takes place in the bedroom.

When really, for one thing, fat is so directly linked to a standard of beauty and by default a lifestyle, that it’s not necessarily true that justification will make people more accepting or less derogatory. And more importantly, people’s bodies and what they choose to do with them should be OKAY: whether they want to eat no red meat or gluten or milk or whatever, or whether they eat whole cakes or whether they want tattoos or hate them, or whether they like eating for their partner or whether they like being ponies or whether they choose to have children or not.

You think it’s not related but it is!

The difference is, things that are emotionally harmful are not okay. And a lot of people assume that feederism is emotionally abusive because one person is submissive, but D/s relationships are not by default abusive and that’s an issue. It’s all mixed in: if you’re making someone do something that is perceived as unhealthy you’re seen as being abusive. No, someone could do this AND be abusive — anyone in a dominant (or submissive!) role could be abusive, anyone in ANY relationship could be abusive, and that would be WRONG. But they aren’t necessarily, just like losing weight is not necessarily unhealthy but doing it because you hate yourself is.

I admit I have issues with EXTREMELY FAST weight gain or weight loss, because that causes stress to the body no matter who you are, but that’s different and again, it’s not my business if it is emotionally consensual. It’s not my kink to hand over all power to someone else either but there are people into that too.

And fetishism I think people have an issue with because we’re told so much that “no one will ever like you” so then when people do we think there must be something wrong with them, or that they ONLY like us because we’re fat. Even if I thought people with  …whatever! let’s say scars since that’s a physical trait that might make some people uncomfortable, were unimaginably hot and I could not date anyone else, I wouldn’t date one I didn’t like: that seems obvious. (I also think people are okay maybe with “preferences” but if someone owns up to it as a fetish, that creeps people out. Sexual deviance, oh my!)

So yeah. YKIOK, IJNMK.