The Joy of Feedism and Fat Liberation by Hester Banks

It’s June or July, 2021. The heat from the summer’s day is drifting away in the evening. We’re drunk. We’ve spent the afternoon sunbathing in Victoria Park, a picnic spread out over the dry grass as we swap stories about who we’re dating – or not dating, as the case may be. 

As we stumble along Brick Lane, searching for bagels, my best friend lists kinks. She starts with the classics: feet, leather, BDSM? Before graduating to a more creative selection. I keep shaking my head. No, nope, nuh-uh. The list is petering out.

All of this in response to my bemoaning how I’ll never have a fulfilling relationship. The problem is, I gravely disclose, I’ve got this kink. I can’t bring myself to say it aloud, but I let her guess. 

I want to say it. My throat closes up every time.

Finally, she tries, fat? And I can’t say no. I make a noise that’s almost a yes. 

It takes a few months to fully open up. I drop confessions like breadcrumbs for her to follow. She’s incredibly sex and kink-positive, and in the warm cocoon of our East London flat, I learn how to temper shame into honesty. 

I’ve always wanted to be fat. 

As a young child, I stuff pillows under my clothes to mimic bulk, volunteer to play fat characters when re-enacting our favourite stories, and have recurring dreams where I feast in a magical body.

At the same time, growing up chubby means receiving anti-fat messages from all sides. My eating is monitored, my weight is scrutinised. Rest is seen as laziness, despite being an active kid. I’m acutely aware that the other girls are skinnier than me. I attempt my first diet when I’m seven years old. 

It becomes clear to me that being fat is wrong. Wanting to be fat is something worse.

But my desire to be fat is innate. As I grow older, I begin to reframe this desire in terms of my sexuality. The first time I type those frustrated, shameful words into an incognito search bar (Why do I want to be fat?), I’m met with an answer. Feedism. 

I finally have a template for understanding myself.

Put simply, feedism is an interest in eating, weight gain or fat bodies. This can be directed at yourself and/or other people. Recently, the community has moved away from the more established label ‘feederism’ to decentre and redistribute power from the feeder role.

My relationship with feedism evolves over time.

It’s the 2010s and the body positivity movement has not yet penetrated my rural, homogeneous town.

I want to gain weight. As a teen, I toy with the idea – buying a pack of custard creams one day and appetite suppressants the next. I create accounts on feedist websites which I delete within the week. 

By the time I reach sixth form, I’m writing angsty poetry and reblogging heroin chic on Tumblr, all the while developing destructive exercise habits. 

Having never been kissed or asked out, I’m desperate for love and validation. For the first time ever, I become thin. For the first time ever, I get a girlfriend. My suspicions are confirmed: I can only ever be loved if I’m skinny. 

This conditional haunts me. 

It's autumn, 2022. I’ve spent a year deconstructing my shame. 

After getting chubby again at uni, I still want to be thin sometimes – to be afforded that easy privilege. To never have my body questioned. But thanks to feminism, fat liberation and Risk Aware Consensual Kink, I realise bodily autonomy extends to decisions about diet and weight gain.

I’ve told other friends – often at parties, spilling secrets and drinks in the gentle morning hours. Twice, with two separate people, I’ve come out, only to later find out they were too black-out to remember. So I try it sober with my first (now ex) girlfriend. We’re friends again after all this time. 

That’s really cool, she reassures me. Did you feel that way when we were together? 

Almost a decade later and double the weight I was then. 

Yeah, I say. For as long as I can remember. 

Wow, she says. But you were so skinny then.

I was never fat enough for me, never thin enough for them.

I run through a similar conversation with the therapist I’m seeing specifically to discuss my sexuality. I’ve been through therapy before, but it always felt fragmentary. I could never be honest about my issues with my body, my self-esteem, my mental health. Every conversation was tentative, every word terrified of revealing too much. Now, I’m determined to talk it out. 

I decided to gain weight. I tell them over Zoom. I’m really good at it.

It’s true. My body is more than happy to be relieved of constant restriction and punishment, so it grows fatter with pleasure.

How’s that going? They ask. 

I like it. I like a lot of things about it. For so long, it existed as a fantasy in my head, so sometimes my expectations don’t align with reality. There are downsides. It’s expensive upsizing my wardrobe. My knees hurt. My mum comments. I sometimes don’t recognise myself in the mirror. That can feel disconcerting. But I also feel really content.

Sexually? They ask.

I turn the volume down on my laptop, in case anyone is listening in.

Yeah, it’s hot. I like the anticipation of over-eating. The thrill of knowing I’m doing something people would disapprove of. I like the idea of being teased.

I’m still trying to reconcile how I can enjoy the rhetoric of feedism as a fat liberationist. While a large contingent of the kink community prefers ‘soft feedism’ (which often manifests as caretaking: nutritious meals coupled with body worship), I must admit, I find it exciting to play with fat shaming and anti-fat stereotypes.

The internet connection drops and my therapist freezes, mid-sentence. While I’m waiting for the Wi-Fi, this is what I consider:

It can be empowering and healing to reject diet culture so absolutely. Or it can be fun to challenge such intense social taboos.

With ongoing conversations around ethical feedism, I hope most feedists understand that whatever happens in kink spaces with consenting adults does not translate to or condone anti-fatness in real life. 

Kink in safe and appropriate spaces does not cause harm, even among marginalised groups. There is no thought police. What you do in private is your own business.

Back in the moment, I can’t verbalise those thoughts just yet. My therapist unfreezes with a garbled sound as all their sentences are transmitted at once.

Would you ever like to try out sexual scenes with a partner? They ask, every third word cutting out.

Maybe, I say. There are specific things I’d like to do that I’d consider sexual, but I don’t want sex. 

I’m starting to realise my sexuality exists only within the context of this kink. The classic asexuality slogan that ‘cake is better than sex’ has never been more applicable.

It's 2023, and I’m deep in fat liberation. The movement is life-saving. Without it, I would never have been able to make peace with feedism. 

I love how soft and decadent my body is, how it's undoubtedly a sanctuary I have built for myself.  

I love experiencing all the simple pleasures of delicious food, without guilt or shame. I love how food connects me to my sensuality and sexuality in such a tangible and otherwise unreachable way.

I love how I’m honouring my ancestors by revelling in abundance and not taking for granted the things denied to them. 

I love the aesthetics. The mirror reflects back joy. I love the physical manifestation of me growing as a person, changing and getting older, and defining myself for myself. 

I love the peace.

Now it’s summer 2024. I’m balancing my laptop against my belly as I happy-end this essay. 

Three years later and I’m moving out of that East London flat. That place was transformational in so many ways.

I’m still learning, but I know now: feedism is a gift.

When I was younger, I viewed this kink as a curse. It was a cause of daily conflict as I struggled to shape a body that satisfied both myself and society. But even when my days were consumed with conforming, a small, starved part of me didn’t really mind being a little fat. 

Now, I realise how lucky I am that feedism was a shortcut to loving my fat body — a cheat code. I see fellow fat people struggling. There’s a difference between knowing it’s okay to be fat and believing that for yourself. Fat liberation set the course, but feedism helped me navigate it. 

They’re both beautiful spaces for radical self-love and freedom. I can have fat liberation and I can have feedism. I can have my cake and eat it.

Recommended reading

Feedists for Fat Liberation website

https://saltyworld.net/why-i-stand-by-the-fat-fetish-community/ 

Wood’s Weird Wellness podcast on Spotify – a series exploring feedism, fat liberation and sex work with those in the community

‘Being fat is a choice. If fat people don’t like how they’re treated, they should just lose weight’ chapter in “You Just Need to Lose Weight” (2023) by Aubrey Gordon

‘No one is attracted to fat people. Anyone who is has a ‘fat fetish’’ chapter in “You Just Need to Lose Weight” (2023) by Aubrey Gordon

‘Dropping Fictions and Gaining Visibility’ by Bruce Owens Grimm in Fat and Queer (2021) edited by Bruce Owens Grimm, Miguel M. Morales, and Tiff Joshua TJ Ferentini

‘Large and in Charge’ by Fletcher Cullinane in Fat and Queer (2021) edited by Bruce Owens Grimm, Miguel M. Morales, and Tiff Joshua TJ Ferentini

Words by Hester Banks

Illustration by Parani Natalia | IG @paranipani