Gainer Shame: Part II

*** The following is a continuation of a post on gainer shame. 

Please read Gainer Shame: Part I before continuing***

In the previous post, I talked about how guilt, shame and regret surface in our gaining and encouraging community, and presented demographic data from a survey demonstrating how often this occurs, and in what ways. The open-ended responses from survey participants provided a eye-opening and sad account of the ways guilt and shame about our sexual orientation and our fatness sexual kink affect our lives. In this blog, I want to present more data from the survey to more closely examine potential trends and patterns in how guilt and shame arise in our community. This will be followed by some ideas to find happiness and efficacy with our shared sexual identity.

Review of Definitions

Before continuing, let me review the definition of the terms guilt, shame, and regret, and how they apply to the gainer community. Shame, as defined by the OED, is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour. With regard to gaining, we easily see that shame could be associated with feeling humiliated over gaining weight on purpose, which is perceived as a foolish thing to do. Shame can also be associated with being attracted to someone who is fat. That is, an encourager or admirer might feel humiliated that he is attracted to fat men, which is perceived as a foolish or wrong thing to do, and therefore he might not want to openly date fat men or introduce them to important family or friends. To confront this shame, the admirer keeps his fat attractions only in the fantasy realm, refusing to meet with fat men in real life or refusing to integrate them into his social world.

Guilt is defined by OED as a feeling of having committed wrong or failed in an obligation. There are strong religious underpinnings with guilt, as religions require obligations of their followers, and transgressions from these obligations often leads to guilt. Similarly, we can see that guilt would arise in failing to follow society's expectation that we are obligated to stay fit and eat healthy, and should be attracted to fit and healthy people. Gainers feel that they are failing societal expectations to stay thin, and encouragers/admirers feel they are failing expectations to be attracted to thin, fit guys. Guilt is a very powerful emotion, and often has roots in one's family upbringing. There are often intense feelings of guilt and remorse over disappointing parents, or making them worry about one's health or one's decisions.

Regret, according to OED, is a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over an occurrence or something that one has done or failed to do. This is a natural consequence of guilty feelings. So a gainer feels guilty about packing on weight, because it led to his parents complaining about his weight, and therefore he regrets this decision. He feels sad and disappointed about failing to meet the expectations of important people in his life. Often regret leads to corrective actions, which in the gaining community means drastic weight loss, vanishing from the community, or attempting to suppress and deny all attractions to fatness. 

Psychologically, all of the above can be harmful to one's self of sense, including one's self-confidence, self-efficacy, and self-worth. These intense feelings often lead to sadness, depression and/or anxiety, and in some cases, eating disorders. They are also often associated with confusion; that is, the gainer, encourager or admirer might say to himself, how can I be so strongly attracted to fatness when everything about my life tells me I shouldn't be doing this? It's not surprising that so many gainers, encouragers and admirers struggle with these feelings and trying to reach a psychologically healthy sense of self and sexual identity. 

More Survey Findings

The survey provided a wealth of data with regard to how members of the gaining community rate themselves in their sexual attractions and guilt/shame over these attractions. The first demographic variable I wanted to examine was age, as the presumption is that as we get older, we get more comfortable with ourselves and our sexual attractions. However, was that the case? Here's what I found:

Age

• There was a significant relationship between age and sexual orientation. The older the respondent, the more likely he said that he was gay as opposed to bisexual, straight or unsure. The youngest respondents, unsurprisingly, were most likely to be unsure of their sexual orientation. 
• There was no significant relationship between age and family socio-political leanings, family religiosity, family emphasis on fitness, or amount of comments received about weight.
• There was no significant difference among age groups with regard to guilt or shame about being gay.
• However, there was a significant difference with regard to guilt or shame about coming out as a fat admirer. Respondents under 18 felt the most guilt and shame, followed by 28-34s, 18-22s, 35-45s, and 23-27s. Respondents older than 45 reported the least guilt and shame. It was interesting that this wasn't a clear linear relationship. Although getting older seems associated with less guilt and shame, clearly the 28 to 45-year-olds still struggle with this.
• There was an approximately linear relationship between age and importance of fat in one's attractions. The older the respondent, the more important it was that there be at least some fat on a guy or on oneself to be attractive.
• With regard to sex frequency, an interesting curvilinear relationship emerged. For both conventional and gainer sex, there was a gradual increase in desire of frequent sexual activity, peaking with the very horny 35 to 45-year-olds, and then trending downward thereafter. It is curious that the horniest guys were also those who reported more guilt and shame about coming out to significant people in their life as a fat admirer/gainer.
• There was no significant difference between age groups with regard to feelings of guilt or shame after a gainer/belly play sexual experience.

Sexual Orientation

• Few differences emerged between gay, straight, bisexual and unsure categories with regard to family religiosity, family fitness concern, or pressure from important people about weight/fitness. However, there was a significant difference on the socio-political views within the family, with gay respondents reporting more liberal families, while bisexual, unsure, and straight respondents indicated increasingly more conservative families, respectively.
• There were no significant differences between categories with regards to gainer shame or guilt. 
• There was, however, significant differences with regard to sexual appetites. Gay participants wanted sex much more frequently than the other participants, followed by bisexuals, straights, and unsure's. This was for both conventional sex as well as gainer/belly sex. I ran this model co-varying for age as well, just to make sure this wasn't due to age (and younger guys not having sex yet) but the results remained significant. This finding could be salient for straight members who complain about guys hitting on them; its important to realize that gay members have higher sex drives, so to some degree, it comes with the territory.

Socio-political Views and Religiosity of Families

• Not surprisingly, respondents from more conservative families also come from more religious families.
• Interestingly, more conservative and more religious families were also more likely to express greater concern over one's fitness and fatness. So gays who come from conservative and/or religious families face a double whammy, including coming-out acceptance as well as gaining/fat admiring acceptance. That's a heavy psychological burden.
• Also of interest, the more conservative and more religious a family is, the more the respondent expressed guilt about coming out as non-heterosexual. However, this was not the case for coming out as a gainer/admirer, which was not significant. 
• Respondents from conservative families were more likely to report wanting less frequent gainer/belly sex, but this was not the case for conventional sex. Also, this relationship was not upheld for respondents from religious families.

Other Findings

• Respondents who grew up in families concerned about fitness and fatness were more likely report that fat, bellies and gaining were important to attractiveness on themselves or others. There does seem to be some rebellion against the fitness-obsession they grew up with. 
• On the other hand, the chubbier the respondent was growing up, the less likely he was to report that fat, bellies and gaining were important to attractiveness on himself or others. 
• Respondents hailing from families who are more likely to comment on one's fitness or fatness were also more likely to report guilt and shame after having a gainer/belly hook-up. It seems these folks have internalized their parent's criticisms and chidings, and as a result feel badly about indulging these sexual desires.
• There was a strong correlation between participants who feel or felt guilt and shame about coming out as gay and feel guilt and shame about coming out as a fat admirer/gainer.
• There was a very high correlation (r = .86) between desired frequency of conventional sex and gainer sex. Clearly, we as a community don't distinguish between the two. 
• Participants who identify as gainers report less guilt and shame about their attraction to bellies than non-gainers, and also are more likely to report that fat/bellies increase attractiveness on self and others.They also want to have belly/gainer sex more frequently than non-gainers.
• Proportionally speaking, gay and bisexual participants were more likely to self-identify as encouragers, while straight and unsure participants were less likely. This may be because straight or straight-leaning participants are focused on their own gains, not the gains of other men.
• The younger the participant, the more likely he was to self-identify as an admirer, and the opposite was true as the participant's age increases (perhaps because gaining and encouraging become bigger (heh) aspects of identity as one gets older).
• Bloaters come from more religious families than non-bloaters. This may suggest that bloating/stuffing are covert ways to explore this kink without actually gaining (and thus having to face the moral consequences of that decision).
• Finally, and importantly, there was a significant relationship between ideally how much gainer/belly sex we want to have and the relative guilt we feel about it. The table below shows the relationship.

The highest guilt was reported by those who desire gainer sex infrequently; it's sad that these folks want this type of sexual experience so infrequently because of the guilt they feel about it. Also, wanting gainer sex daily or more was not associated with the lowest guilt ratings; the lowest guilt ratings were associated with wanting gainer sex once a week. Perhaps there is an optimal amount of gainer sexual experience in our lives that minimizes guilt and shame? Once a week seems just about right, but more often or more infrequently is associated with more guilt. Its important to note that this question asked about "ideal" amounts of gainer sex; the reality could be quite different.

Conclusions

The results of the survey show that we are a diverse group, a young(ish) group, a horny group (lol), and a group of men with vast differences in our self-acceptance and pride in our sexual orientation and fat attraction. We come from a broad range of socio-political environments, and tend to hail more from religious families than not. This becomes an important aspect of confronting shame and guilt, because it means we are dealing with multiple facets of our identity. Coming out as gay has important ramifications for one's identity in the family and in the family's religion. Coming out as fat or fat admiring within a conservative, critical environment is one more hurdle to jump over. Yet, 96% of us think that fat, bellies, and gaining are important to one's sexual attractions, so it is a hurdle that must be overcome, and hopefully with as little psychological distress as possible.

The results show that nothing is really clear-cut about how guilt and shame arise in our community. For example, increasing age certainly seems to inoculate oneself against feeling guilt and shame about our attractions, perhaps in part because we have separated from our parents, become independent, financially support ourselves, and surround ourselves with positive, caring relationships. However, this isn't direct relationship. The survey showed that 28 to 34-year-olds reported significant guilt and shame about this attraction, second only to teenagers. Why is that? My guess is that growing older in the gay community brings a whole set of challenges, one of which is body image. The late 20s and early 30s represent a time when many gay men realize they are losing the battle of the bulge and hit the gym with gusto. Many starve themselves or eat weeds to maintain their youthful 30" waistline. It reminds me of squirrels frantically gathering nuts in the fall, on the precipice of plunging into the dark, cold winter of obsolescence (i.e., gay old age). How these guys go about facing the reality that they are getting older, and the body changes that come with it, will play a significant role in how their self-perception matures. Gaining weight during this time frame only adds to the anxiety of many. On the other hand, those that do purposely gain weight are often very self-assured, self-confident, and happy to achieve the physique they've always wanted.
 
Moving Forward

I ran this survey because I wanted a sense of how much shame and guilt is faced by the gainer community, what is causing it, and what is done about it. My sense is that only some members are actively challenging the guilt and shame they are feeling. This type of introspection is very important for our overall psychological health, because those feelings of guilt, shame and regret can bear significant negative consequences, from unhappiness and worry to depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems.

In psychotherapy, I use a cognitive-behavioral approach to help my clients confront and challenge the assumptions and obligations they feel they must follow, should be doing, or ought to have done. The assumption in our society is that all people like thinness and fitness, and fatness should be abhorred. Going against these societal expectations to purposely gain weight, to encourage weight gain, or admire fatness can elicit all sorts of guilt that you are failing your obligation to worship skinny people, shame and humiliation over engaging in this foolish behavior, and disappointment and regret over failing this societal obligation and perceiving that you have pained others. If you feel your parents are worrying because of your weight gain, then likely you will feel guilty about gaining weight, and will regret having done so.

The important thing to consider is that all these perceived societal expectations and obligations are just that -- perceived. It is simply how you have been taught and what was reinforced in your home, but they are not truths. Just read the open-ended questions from the survey to realize that many respondents did not face these obligations because their upbringing was different. The truth is that being fat is no better or worse than being skinny, no matter what society tells us. We know, for instance, that the social value of fatness changes over time, and there are periods of time and particular cultures that celebrated fatness.

So why is fatness abhorred now? Is it just because we have learned more about health and preventing illness? Well, not exactly. Even the irrefutable facts of medical research can be refuted. Most people erroneously believe that obesity causes heart disease or diabetes because that's what so-called medical experts espouse. But the reality is that closer examination of the data reveals flaws in these facts. Most medical research is correlational, not causal. This means that two things are related to one another, but its much harder to say that something causes something else. And we know that obesity is correlated with an increased risk for heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes; but obesity does not cause these conditions (or hasn't been proven to). Obesity is a risk factor, but so is family history, genetics, lifestyle, smoking, eating habits, exercise and so on. It took over five decades of research to finally prove that smoking causes lung cancer, but notice even that isn't a direct causal effect (because not every smoker develops lung cancer or cancer at all). Yet despite the flaws in the research, we are led to believe that being fat is a death sentence. It just isn't. If you eat healthy, exercise regularly, don't smoke or do drugs, and maintain a low-stress lifestyle, having extra pounds may not impact your health status in the slightest.

So challenging these assumptions, expectations, and obligations is how we begin the journey of eliminating guilt and shame in our lives and replacing those emotions with happiness, self-efficacy, and pride. Arm yourself with the facts about gaining and fat so you can challenge those around you who purport to know best. And believe me, Dr. Oz does not know best. Instead, try reading J Eric Oliver's compelling arguments in Fat Politics. There is also work to be done in challenging those around us, despite their best intentions, that their criticisms with regard to our fat attraction/gaining are misguided at best and harmful at worst. If we stay silent, they will never learn. Speak up, and say who are you and what you are attracted to. Silence will only prolong your guilt and shame.

Furthermore, as a community we really need to rally around our members and provide support. Those who regularly read my blog know that this is a common soapbox. The gay community can be rife with judgment, superficiality, and elitism. At the core of this judgement and bias, however, is insecurity. Many gay men, because of their own internalized homophobia, feel insecure about their own self-image and gender expression, and so they knock down others by being catty and critical as a temporary panacea to lift their own sense of self. And unfortunately I've seen it often in the gainer community as well. We have enough to deal with being gay to also have to deal with criticism by our very small community of folks who share our sexual kink. And be mindful of the data in this survey; we clearly come from all walks of life. Don't assume others share your experiences.

One of the ways we can be supportive to each other and eschew traditional gay unpleasantness is to keep the communication lines open. Because of the unique nature of our kink and the fact that it is almost entirely online, we must be willing and open to communicate with others. If someone compliments you on a picture or post, say thank you. You are not committing to marry this person by doing so. You are simply reinforcing kindness. I can't tell you how many messages I've written to guys that are simply ignored. Really, you couldn't reply with a simple "thank you?" I am not looking to jump into someone's pants by saying their pics look good. I am simply saying their pics look good. But by ignoring someone, you are perpetuating the societal stereotypes that we are all confronting. I've seen some very popular gainers lament on their profiles, "sorry if I don't write back to you, I get so many messages, its nothing personal." Sorry, but that's bullshit. My videos have amassed over 4 million views, not to mention my blog and profile hits. I get a lot of messages as a result, but I will still reply to everyone who was polite enough to send one (as long as they don't stalk me lol). Don't contribute to the bias of homophobia and fat phobia by making members feel unworthy of a simple gesture of thanks.

Similarly, because we spend so much time getting to know one another online, our in-person meet-ups are hugely important AND symbolic. What I mean by symbolic is that they will serve to either reinforce (increase) or punish (decrease) the likelihood of that other person continuing in the community. If you both have a great time and the friendship/relationship thrives, you will both be more likely to continue in the community. If the meetup wasn't so great, or if one fails to continue communicate after the meetup (i.e., the blow-off), then the perception is that it was wrong. What was wrong? Well who knows, since there is no communication happening. So one is left to guess, and typically, beats up on himself for not being attractive enough, personable enough, or fat enough. While this may be the case on a superficial level, what I think is mostly happening is gainer guilt and shame. The guy who dropped off the face of the Earth after the meetup is feeling guilty about the event, ashamed of what he did, and regretting ever doing it. So he vanishes, and leaves the other guy wondering and worried. See how damaging this can be? Instead, be a good communicator. After the meetup, send a quick note to say it was good to meet up. Doing so does not oblige you to another meetup, but it does communicate that the other guy is a worthwhile individual who deserves to be treated as such. And believe me, I've had some strange meetups; but none were so strange as to not acknowledge and thank the other guy for meeting with me.

Gainer/fat admiring guilt and shame will only dissipate if we as a community become invincible and impervious to the outside forces of negativity. We have a long way to go, but I do see some progress. Certainly the advent of the Internet and gainer websites have really moved this along. But more work is needed.

Take a moment to think about how your interest in this kink has brought guilt or shame to your own life. Maybe you neglect to tell your friends what you really do on a date. Maybe you lie to your parents about your heavy boyfriend because you feel ashamed of the truth. Maybe a co-worker made a fat joke and you stayed quiet lest you out yourself as a fat supporter. Maybe you left the community because you couldn't handle the conflicted feelings you had. Maybe you gained and lost weight repeatedly because you were just too ashamed of the weight, or felt that having a muffin top in a bathing suit on Fire Island would be too embarrassing (that would be me). Battling these feelings of guilt and shame is the only way to truly feel centered, confident and proud as gainer, encourager or admirer. But it's a journey well-worth taking.

Best of luck on your journey, and be proud of who you are.