I'm straight, but gay for bellies

I have been meaning to blog on this topic for some time now, but kept putting it off so I could organize my thoughts. Discussing people's sexual orientation is never an easy thing, particularly when an unusual kink like gaining/bellies confounds the issue. But I've given it some thought, done some research, and I believe I am prepare to give this topic a whirl. Let me know how well I do. :)

So any reader who has spent time on the gainer/beefy sites, which are basically gay sites, knows that some guys claim they are straight. Here we have sites that only show males, often scantily dressed with big bellies hanging out or thick muscles, and most of the chatter on the sites is sexual in nature, related to the gaining kink. Yet guys who claim to be straight are hanging out on these sites. Its a curious situation to be sure, and if indeed there are genuinely straight guys on the site looking for friendship, I'd like to know more about their intentions. Certainly our community is big enough (hehe) to welcome them, but perhaps we need to think more about why they find these sites desirable. 

So you may have already noticed that I said some guys "claim" to be straight. I have chatted with enough guys, many of them young guys, who report that they put "straight" on their profiles so that undesirable men don't hassle them. But they are as queer as a three-dollar bill. This discussion does not pertain to these "fakers", i.e., guys who know they are gay and are simply trying to deceive. Rather, I am talking here about the guys who truly believe they are straight. They report being attracted to women and desiring sex with women while eschewing the notion of sex with men. They may further report that male genitalia offers no sexual enticement or arousal. That is, except bellies. Bellies may turn them on, either a belly on another guy or a belly on themselves. So if a straight guy says he is straight, but finds male bellies erotic, then is he really straight?

I suppose another question I could ask is: Who cares? If a guy tells me he is straight and happily married, yet waxes philosophical on how much he likes my belly and wants to rub it, who am I to question his sexuality or faithfulness to his marriage? On the other hand, I am sexual human being, and frankly find it a bit confusing to know that a straight guy is into my belly but not the rest of me. The situation certainly makes me feel objectified. This must be what women with big breasts feel like when their men do nothing but drool over their breasts and ignore the rest.

Stated another way, I think we do care, and this is why there are many gay guys that I talk to who are irked about their experiences with certain straight guys on the site. They feel unappreciated and led on, and in some cases, they justly question the sexuality of their straight mates. Consider this experience. I was chatting with a younger guy who told me he was straight but really liked men's bellies. He had never fed a guy or rubbed his belly, and said he would like to do try that with me. We arranged to meet, and after a nice relaxing lunch, he told me he didn't want to rub my belly or feed me, and just wanted to go home. Okay, I said, no problem, and we parted ways. Later that day, he texted to tell me that he was glad to meet me because now he realizes he has no attraction to men or men's bellies, and he never wants to rub a man's belly. Ouch. So glad I could do my part to scare questioning men back to the straight side of life. lol.

Bruised ego notwithstanding, this whole situation got me thinking about our sexualities, and the myriad attractions we have, not only to a particular sex (or both sexes) but also to body parts, body types, and even ideas and themes like gaining, feeding, stuffing, etc. After doing some research, I discovered some terms that capture what many of us find attractive. Adipophilia is attraction to fat. Morphophilia is a term that describes strong sexual attraction to a body characteristic, while partialism is attraction to a specific body part (foot, breast, ass, or belly). Thus, if one is attracted solely to a belly form, ignoring the fattened pecs, ass or thighs, then his sexual attraction would be partialism. However, most folks on gainer sites seem to engage in morphophilia; that is, they receive intense sexual satisfaction in seeing other men grow -- all over. Their morphophilia could be self-directed (gainer) or other-directed (encourager), or both.

If the morphophilia is solely self-directed, such that the gainer only wants to see himself get fatter, and that image alone serves intense sexual gratification AND he visualizes women feeding him and enjoying his fattened girth (and never men), then I would believe that he was indeed straight and his participation in our community was to receive encouragement, gaining tips, and camaraderie in a world that is less-than-kind with gaining and obesity. And let's face it. We gay men have the market on gaining sites devoted to the worship and encouragement of the growing male form -- there is no straight male equivalent for our sites. So I am not surprised straight men into self-directed morphophilia would rightly be interested in participating in our sites.

But the situation gets murkier when we consider that some of these straight participants report that they get off to men's bellies, or write salacious comments on pictures or videos of fattened men. Clearly, then, male bellies do provide an erotic response for them, despite protests otherwise. I think it would hard for these men to deny that they have an erotic response when it comes to men's bellies, whether their own or on other men, and therefore there is at least a partial sexual attraction to men. In other words, they may be straight in most aspects of the word, but they are gay for bellies.

One thing we know about human sexuality is that it is rarely black or white and never simple. We are rarely 100% gay or 100% straight. Human attractions are complex and occur on multiple levels, including physical, emotional, and psychological. Consider the following passage from Linda Garnet at UCLA in her article, Sexual Orientations in Perspective (2002, p. 116.):

"The new paradigm conceptualizes sexual orientations as flexible, complex, and multifaceted. Sexual orientation reflects the diversity of sexual, affectional, and erotic attractions and love toward persons of the same gender, other gender, or both genders. In the new paradigm, attraction to females and attraction to males are conceptualized as two separate and independent dimensions. An individual’s sexual orientation reflects the combination of his or her location on each of these dimensions. The combinations of these independent dimensions, in turn, reflect a spectrum of distinct sexual orientations that differ in degree and intensity (Garnets & Kimmel, 1991; Rothblum, 2000). This model also makes it possible to view bisexuality as an identity.

Second, the old paradigm assumed that sexual behavior is the defining feature of a person’s sexual orientation. In contrast, research has found that sexual orientations encompass not only sexual behavior but also erotic–affectional behaviors and fantasies, emotional attachments, self-identification, and current relationship status. In fact, sexual behavior by itself is not always a good indicator of a person’s sexual orientation. For example, a woman may identify as lesbian or bisexual but not engage in same-gender sexual behavior. Or an individual may engage in sexual acts without self-identifying as a member of a particular sexual orientation. In fact, many more people engage in same-gender sexual behavior than identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual (Rothblum, 2000). Each individual has a distinctive combination of erotic and affectional feelings, fantasies, activities, and relationships that is as unique as one’s fingerprint or voiceprint. Money (1987) termed this template a lovemap. For example, some men view themselves as heterosexual but recognize strong attractions to other men. Many middle-aged lesbians had sexual relationships with men in their youth. Two people with similar personal histories may define their sexuality differently."

Thus, if you accept Garnet's premise that sexual orientation is comprised of not only sexual behaviors, but also erotic-affectional behaviors, emotional attachments, self-identification and relationship status, it is then possible to frame sexual orientation in a new light, one that includes one's affiliation with the gainer community. That is,  a self-identified straight man might report that his sexual behaviors and relationship status involve women, but his emotional attachments and erotic-affectional behaviors may include, to some degree, men. This attraction may further be defined as as partialism (strong attraction to a man's belly) or morphophilia (strong attraction to men gaining weight all over) or same-sex adipophilia (strong attraction to fat on men). He could therefore live a very contented sexual life with all facets of his sexual orientation in harmony. He is happily married, enjoys frequent intercourse with his wife, and finds camaraderie and additional sexual fulfillment on gainer sites. He may masturbate to images to men and their bellies, perhaps fantasizing about his own growth or their growth. He does not, however, have strong desire to be physically intimate with men.

On a theoretical level, I can fully appreciate Garnet's premise. I really do think we have multiple attractions, including physical (sexual) and emotional attractions, and these run the gamut of the gender spectrum. I acknowledge that I am attracted to many aspects of females, including their appearance, personality, sense of humor, and intelligence, although I am usually not thinking of having sex with them. And how many gay guys who are outrageously gay (some might say fabulously gay) will profess to having such strong crushes on Beyoncé or JLo or Gaga that they WANT to sleep with them? And I believe that they really would, although I don't believe for a minute they would identify as bisexual, either before or after the act.

However, on a practical level, as well as professional (psychological) perspective, I do see some difficulties with this conceptualization. First, most people tend to be pragmatists, and let's face it, we like our boxes. We like people to say whether they are straight, gay or bisexual. It comforts us to know which box they reside in. Can you imagine asking a guy his sexual orientation, and him replying,

"Well, my sexual orientation is queer. I self-identify as a non-gender conforming male, and my sexual behaviors include sex with non-gender conforming females and males, as well as dudes with bellies and women who play musical instruments. Emotionally, I like women who cook and play string instruments, and men who knit and sew. I see myself marrying a harpist when I get older. But I don't consider myself bisexual."

 -- You might have an urge to *facepalm* after an exchange like that. But that is, in essence, what Garnets is suggesting.

Second, psychologically speaking, coming to grips with one's sexual orientation when it includes anything outside the mainstream, heterosexual, one-to-one coupling is difficult for people. The revelation of deeply concealed sexual wishes, fantasy and history in psychotherapy is one of the most difficult processes for patients, yet at the same time, these sexual concerns are often what brought the patient into therapy in the first place. Simply put, most people are deeply ashamed of their sexual desires, express guilt about the repercussions of revealing these desires, and fear rejection, retribution, embarrassment, and isolation should they disclose their true sexual desires to significant others, friends and family. Despite months or years of therapy, many individuals never fully disclose their true sexual desires because of the intense taboo associated with them. This may include a strong attraction to men's bellies and gaining.

Consequently, in my conversations with men who identify as straight in the beefy communities, I am never fully certain if they are indeed straight, or perhaps deeply closeted about their attraction to beefy men and unable to come to grips with it. If they are younger, my guess is that they are still unpacking their sexual orientation and will probably need a few more years to accept that they are probably attracted to men, at least on some level. I know this because many tell me that they are only attracted to fat on men, not on women. This attraction will not go away, and its not an attraction they can easily divert toward their female partner. So to be true to themselves, they will need to admit, eventually, that an aspect of their sexual orientation includes a strong attraction to fat on men.

I speak from personal experience in this regard. I was strongly attracted to boy's bellies growing up, and later men's bellies as I got older. I really wasn't strongly attracted to the whole man though, including his face, penis, ass, hairiness, etc. Therefore, I was convinced I wasn't gay, since all I was attracted to was a fat belly. It took a long time for me to realize that no matter how many women I dated, the attraction to them was not nearly as powerful as it was for men. And while attraction to bellies has been and will always be my strongest sexual desire, I have learned to appreciate and be attracted to other aspects of the male form, including those listed above. And now I can confidently say that I am gay, but it took a long time to get here. 

On the other hand, I have been friends with a beefy guy for a few years now, and I am certain he is straight. He likes women with curves, has sexual relations with women, and is getting encouragement by women to gain weight. For him, the turn-on was seeing himself get bigger, and fantasizing about women enjoying his fat. His relationship with me is truly on a platonic friendship level. He seeks encouragement and asks tons of questions about my own gaining experience, such as how things changed for me, how family and friends reacted, the ups and downs of gaining, etc. He admired my photo updates and liked the way I physically gained, but in no way did it appear that this was a sexual turn-on for him. It was more like mates in the gym, admiring each other's muscle growth and providing tips and encouragement.

I think in an ideal world, our sexual orientation would be a series of multiple boxes that we would check, not just the dichotomous gay vs straight or trichotomous gay, straight and bisexual. We could check multiple boxes that reflect our multiple attractions, above and beyond what we would define as our sexual behavior. These boxes would include our sexual kinks as well, including gaining, bellies, encouraging, fat and so on. But for now, I guess we have to stick with the socially-prescribed boxes we've been given, and do our best to honestly explain our sexual orientation to those we meet.

Conclusion

I think I'll sum up this discussion with some take-away points. I would love to hear more about your experiences and thoughts on what I've said, so please take a moment to leave a comment.

1. Sexual orientation is much more than our sexual behaviors. It is multifaceted and may include attractions to others that we don't necessarily want to have sex with. Indeed, just because you are gay doesn't mean you want to have sex with any man alive. We can still have taste, right? :)

2. It is interesting that on sites like Grommr, you can list your sexual behaviors, in addition to sexual orientation. Some straight guys who list things like cuddling and rubbing bellies (while also commenting on pics of guy's bellies) are probably one of those whose sexual orientation does not precisely match his sexual behaviors. I wish more straight and questioning guys on these sites were okay with that distinction, because I think it would be psychologically freeing. While the rest of the world may not understand your kink, you can bet that the guys on these sites would understand where you're coming from.

3. If guys tell us they are straight, let's take them at their word. But also, its important to delve further into one's sexual orientation to find out how the belly kink fits in. He might want to grow his own belly and just wants encouragement. He might also be into other guys' bellies, in which case he may still identify as straight but clearly his sexual behaviors suggest openness to same-sex belly fun. The point is, let's not write someone off immediately because of how they've checked the sexual orientation box. Its a very limiting way to view someone, and often misses the deeper complexity of their sexuality.

4. Let's all participate in a greater exploration our sexualities and how belly worship and gaining fits into this. As Garnets suggests, sexual orientation is much more than sexual behavior, and includes emotional attachments, fantasies, and identities. (And who among us hasn't had an emotional experience with a pie? :) Our communities are complex and our interests and attractions are myriad. The more we learn about each other in an open, accepting environment, the more we will truly appreciate what brought us all to this common attraction.