Scarleteen

Hi! I’m a 20 year old girl, and I’m aromantic asexual.

I hope this is allowed because I’m not sure I have a super specific question, more so just looking for general advice/input.

So, I’ve known I was on the asexuality spectrum since I was pretty young, maybe about 11. However for just about as long as I can remember, I’ve also had some sort of kink/fetish. I’m not sure if it would qualify as a fetish because while it is the only thing that arouses me, it’s not an object exactly.

My thing is overeating/“stuffing” accompanied by some degree of interest in weight gain. My earliest memories about this are from probably about 6. I have 2 memories where I encountered overeating storylines in fiction where I remember feeling deeply uncomfortable with it, and then one where I remember feeling aroused (although I didn’t recognize what it was at the time I remember it enough to know that’s what it was). I also remember fantasizing with fictional characters about this. At some point in my early teens, I started exploring content based on this. It aroused me, but I didn’t do anything with that arousal. Slowly over 5 or so years this evolved into masturbating to this content. It is the only thing that has ever aroused me outside of brute forcing arousal thru physical stimulation.

I still however consider myself asexual instead of allosexual with a specific requirement or something. It’s sexual in the sense it arouses me, but I do not want sex involved in any other way. If sex or arousal is involved in the content I’m consuming related to this I’m uninterested. It can’t even have a face or voice involved. It’s also purely fantasy, I have no interest in engaging with myself or others, and any discussion of overeating outside of this context just makes me uncomfortable and ashamed.

And I’m just ashamed that it’s such a controversial/controversial kink adjacent thing. Most of the content I consume is feedism adjacent, it’s so closely related to what I’m interested so there’s a ton of overlap between that and content that caters to my interest. In my experience feedism is viewed very negatively by the general public, which makes me even more embarrassed. I don’t necessarily share this same negative view of feedism, it’s more nuanced imo. It’s a multifaceted complex subject, in a way that feels more so than a lot of other kinks. Additionally, what specifically interests me is the negative effects of overeating (pain,shame, etc) and the potential for weight gain (which is baseline neutral not negative imo but still obviously stigmatized). Basically, if what I fantasize about was real, it would probably count as binge eating disorder. I don’t want to sexualize an eating disorder!

I guess I just don’t know what to do with this going forward. I don’t necessarily want to get rid of it because it’s the only thing that arouses me, and arousal feels good so I don’t want it gone lol. I could probably just keep it a secret the rest of my life. However, while I’m not interested in a traditional romantic/sexual partnership, I still might end up with some other sort of life partner, and I don’t know if I want to keep that big of a secret from someone that hypothetically important to me. But I think I would die of shame if I ever told anyone. I feel like if it was anything else I’d be able to share, but since it’s related to something as sensitive as weight and as controversial as feedism I can’t imagine not being judged.

I feel like it may be worth mentioning that while I am currently more midsized, I used to be plus size/fat and I also have an interest in fat activism/liberation/acceptance/etc (never been able to quite figure out the difference between terms!). I don’t feel like my own body size has any relation to my interests, but who knows. I’m interested to learn more about how these communities view these types of kinks. I remember in Aubrey Gordon’s book “What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat” she off handedly mentions feedism in a neutral to positive light, however I’ve also seen people complain about being fetishized before. This is a bit of a tangent, but oh well.

I recognize that this probably doesn’t make me a bad person (i don’t think…) and that developing some seemingly random fetish (or whatever the correct term is) in childhood is definitely not unheard of. However I can’t help but feeling like I have this big shameful secret I’ll have to take to my grave.

Apologies this got so long. As you can probably guess, I’ve never confessed this in any way before, but I’ve spent years thinking and analyzing this so I have plenty of thoughts on it. Thanks for reading!

Hi there, Rosesandviolets-- welcome to the boards!

No worries, we can absolutely have a general discussion about your feelings here. I'm glad you felt that you could share your concerns with us, given that you've been thinking about them on your own for so long. I do have some thoughts to start -- I hope they'll help you feel better about this.

If it helps at all, nothing about your post seemed controversial to me as I was reading it, and I think the staff and other volunteers here would share this assessment. You are not a bad person for being interested in feedism and overeating, and you don't have to feel ashamed. I don't even see a contradiction between being aroace and having interests like yours. This just seems like one of the many perfectly acceptable ways in which people can engage with their sexuality.

Now, I understand why you might feel wary of sharing this interest with others, especially if you've known people to react badly. (I'm sorry to hear that has happened!) I hope you'll remember that these kinds of reactions are only a reflection of their lack of knowledge about the ways in which sex and sexuality work. People who are fat and sex positive, as we are here, wouldn't react negatively to this information because they would know better.

That is to say, you don't have to keep your interest in feedism secret -- you only have to be selective about who you talk to about it, based on whether they've shown that they can be trusted. Does this make it easier to imagine not being judged?