Saguy has proposed that by objectifying women's weight, they are reinforcing the cultural importance of women's weight to their physical appearance, therefore also reinforcing gender inequality. Īccording to The Routledge Companion to Beauty Politics, 'the gendered, raced, and classed power dynamics of many of these subcultures often mirror, reinforce, and even exaggerate existing racial, gender, class, and sexual inequalities.' Sociologist Abigail C. Fat fetishism practices and subcultures include internet porn 'gaining' and 'feeding', which is involves eating to intentionally gain weight ' hogging', which is when men seek out fat women to sexually exploit and 'squashing' which is sexual attraction to the idea of being crushed by a fat person or people.
Fat fetishism includes both real-life and internet communities. įat fetishism as a community is predominantly heterosexual, focusing on fat women and thinner men.
The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) has worked as an advocacy organization for fat people, but was partly formed to help male fat fetishists and other fat admirers (FAs) find fat women to date and have sex with. The fat fetishism community has overlapped with body positivity and fat feminism movements.
