Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Life in the Male Fat Lane

Life in the Male Fat Lane

It’s been a very long time since I made a post on my blog and I have on a number of occasions bristled at the urgency to write something against the sense that I don’t have the time or attention to do it right. Many of those who comment either on the blog or to me directly have suggested that I should bite off smaller pieces and that will make it easier. However, being as much of a gourmand as a gourmet, and a believer in the line from the Grateful Dead’s song, “I Need a Miracle”, … too much of everything is just enough… I have resisted this mightily.

Perhaps my problem is blogger's block or perhaps it is an absence of inner vitriol needing to get out. Perhaps its just laziness. But, I suspect that the reality is that real life in all its icky heaviness has blanketed me with new and improved weights of work and work related stress which have sapped my occipital capital. Working 10, 12 and 14 hour days at a desk saps both one’s physical energy and mental energy. Sometimes, when an idea strikes me as ripe for blogging, I am excited and intend to work on it later in the day when I have a small window of opportunity. Often, that window of opportunity doesn’t occur until after midnight and my pillow and mindless TV exert their siren song on my head and brain. By the next day the inspiration appears insipid and so yesterday.

I know there are several of you that truly enjoy and enjoyed the things I’ve said and in many ways that increases the pressure on me to live up to my internal standards for a posting. Along the way I’ve started a number of different entries which have died on the vine, incomplete conceptions which never got far enough to interest me in finishing them. Rather than returning to those dead ends I opted to start fresh.

Somehow, all of this seems to me to be temporizing as I await inspiration, like a lightning bolt hitting me and sending me off on my way. Alas, no inspiration has arrived.

I now have been left with a dilemma, should I pick up one of the topics that I’ve tried to deal with before, proceed with something new, or, perhaps, pick a topic that has been suggested by one of my readers. Not being satisfied with one of the above, I think I will do all three.

Starting with the last one first, I ask you, my reader(s) to suggest a topic or topics that you’d like to hear me opine on, or noodle on, or just outright babble about. I don’t promise that I will pick your suggestion or all your suggestions, but I promise to write at least one blog entry from an idea suggested in a comment.

The old topics, there are several, but I promise to write one or more posts on one of these topics in the next two weeks. I tend to work better with a deadline, even if it is self imposed. Not sure which of the several I’ll pick, but I’m leaning toward sleep apnea.

So, onto the new topic. Life in the Male Fat Lane.

The new topic I want to deal with quickly is one that’s sort of struck me a bit unexpectedly, and that’s how a fat man who’s an FA can all of a sudden become the object of a fat woman’s physical adoration.

As most of you who’ve read this blog know, I’m neither skinny, slender, svelte nor shrimpy. I’m a fullbodied fat man closer to 50 than 40 who weighs about 350 pounds on a 5’11” frame. I have a big belly, ample ass and powerful legs and arms and chest. My face is not considered particularly ugly and my hair is less generously distributed on the top of my head than it used to be, though more generously distributed on other parts of my body than on some others.

Because I’m a BHM (though not pushing the handsome part too much) I’ve gone through life generally finding that women have generally fallen into two categories, relationship wise. Either they are attracted to me for my personality and are at best neutral about the size and shape of my body, or their negative feelings about my physical being cause any relationship to top out at “friendship” at the best. Since I have very specific feelings about physical reactions to women(as in what I find attractive physically and what doesn’t turn me on, or perhaps even turns me off), I’ve never been too troubled about this attitude in general(even if I have been disappointed in specific cases when a woman I lusted for had no interest in a romantic relationship even if we got along well and enjoyed each other’s company).

Interestingly, the dichotomy between those who are BHM neutral and those who are BHM negative(or at least negative about me-maybe they like other men with bigger bellies, butts, manboobs, legs, or different proportions), has never been related to the size of the women. Some more slender women seem totally neutral about a man’s size and some much larger women are negative about a man’s size(despite or perhaps because of their views about their own size, or perhaps just because their feelings of physical preference are independent of their size). And, of course the reverse is also true. Over the years, as I came out as a FA my focus has always been on fat women, and not on fat men. I’ve certainly noticed fat men and their shapes and sizes, but I’ve also noted that many of the bigger men seem to be with women of all sizes from tiny on up to enormously large. But, it never really occurred to me that there was a female fat admiring population of any real number. These mythical creatures, along with the unicorn, phoenix and Loch Ness Monster have been viewed in print or even online a few times, but usually only in the context of female feeders of men who have grown their men to 750 or 800 pound immobilized mountains. Also, from what I’ve seen of most of them, they seem to be smallish, skinny women in general, interested in growing huge men, but with no interest in themselves growing in size.

I have been and continue to be a FA who likes fat women further out along the SSBBW portion of the spectrum and have up to now found that those I find attractive have been more attracted to my mind and personality then any physical charms I might have. Many of the women, particularly those who are larger SSBBWs in size express a sharp preference for smaller sized men, generally going for thin. In some cases this has been expressed quite mechanically as a nuts and bolts sort of preference based on a perception or reality that small men and fatter women bond and engage more successfully than fatter women with fat or fatter men. This has been explained as … a big belly on a man makes it tougher for the male sprocket engaging with the female grommet with sufficient depth of engagement to provide a pleasurable coupling for the woman attached to the female grommet. While I believe this is possibly true in some cases for extraordinarily large women with particular shapes, it is my view and that of many of fellow FA’s and SSBBW’s that where there is a will there is a way and where there is a will, lust and a willingness and enjoyment in experimentation, just about anything is possible. But, this point of view exists significantly among many of the bigger women, and also among some of the smaller SSBBW’s and BBW’s. The preference may, in many cases be just that, a preference, and the reason provided is merely a way to cover for what is the woman’s preference about which she has some discomfort in expressing openly as it is based on looks and not other factors, something many fat women eschew in men and are embarrassed to discover in themselves.

In any event, I’ve seen this preference expressed quite often and understand that we all have preferences, whether based on size, shape, hair and eye color, skin color, religion, politics, natural body odor, amount of body hair, penis size, or any other visible or discoverable characteristic. If someone likes tall skinny blonde men with no body hair and long and slender penis, there is no arguing about it, that’s their preference.

However, many women I’ve chatted and spoken with profess not to have any definite preferences, or if they do, they are broad based ones. Thin men, Sturdy hairy men, men with beards, etc. However, I’ve always noted that there are women who identify themselves as the elusive FFAs, female fat admirers. In examining this group I’ve always found them to fairly uniformly be slender women and in some cases also to be in the nature of feeders or weight gain encouragers

As I also became quite comfortable in my own skin and whatever size it would take, for me its between about 250 and 400 as an adult, I ceased to be concerned about what society as a whole thought about my size and shape, and more concerned about my health, fitness and how I felt. So, I never bothered to look for women who were scoping me out because of my size, even as I as an ardent FA was always on the lookout for attractive fat women.

However, in recent times I’ve actually chatted with several women who have, in addition to an appreciation for my “personality” have expressed an appreciation for my beefcake. Initially I figured this was some sort of a game or scam or effort to be nice to the cute fat fella. But, when the expressions of positive paeans of pulchritude(okay, they weren’t that gaga, but it was definitely positive and an important factor in the attraction), piled up I was forced to reconsider.

I flipped the situation around and imagined myself in the female role as a fat woman used to going about life being the fat friend who is a friend to many men but girlfriend to none, only to discover a man who finds her ample body: not unattractive; more attractive then her more slender friends; and actually turned on by all of those rolls and bulges and huge curves that she’s been trying to hide in black clothing for so many years. The first stage is denial. No, it’s not happening, if I ignore it he’ll stop. Second, its familiarity, but limited irritation, okay, I got the point, but I know its not true, so I wish he’d stop. Third, dawning awareness that her body isn’t actually ugly at all, and it does have a curvy shape that is rather neat. Fourth, an awakening that there are lots of other fat women who look damn good, and so does she. Fifth, an acceptance of her own beauty and worth and a readiness to receive the outpourings of adoration in a positive way.

So, denial went away relatively quickly because the women were persistent and consistent enough with their views that I accepted that they were for real(and also SSBBWs who were accepting of their size and comfortable in their skins). The second stage didn’t really happen and the third stage was skipped since I’d already come to accept my body as attractive(at least to me). I was already aware that there were many fat men who look damned good as fat men(though of course there some who just look awful because they aren’t comfortable in their skins or for other reasons, like they don’t take care of themselves, pursue good grooming, dress in a fashion which is appropriate to their size and station, etc.). And, eventually, parroting Stuart Smalley, looking at himself in the mirror on SNL, I said, I’m good enough and handsome enough and darn gosh people like me and find me physically attractive.

So, having reached that point I have to ask myself the question. Now that I know there are women out there who like me AND find me physically attractive, can I be satisfied in a relationship where a woman likes me but is only okay with my physical charms(and not attracted to me or them for that reason). In a sense this is analogous to the fat women’s question… can I go out with a man who’s not an FA?

The answer… I don’t know. Stay tuned as I try to figure it out.

As always, I’d love to hear what you the reader(s) have to say.

I’ll welcome you all back, to the extent you return to read this. If this is your first reading of the blog I’d suggest you use the archives and read the blog in the order in which it was written(assuming you have any interest in reading more of my purple prose). The blog started in December of 2005.