The Ebb and Flow of Desire...

Does anyone else have this experience?  Of going “in and out” of the whole gaining fetish thing?  Sometimes it feels like a major focus of my life and sometimes it doesn’t.

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I’ve mentioned John Money’s Love Map before, a theory about your “erotic landscape” that Money proposes is formed at an early age—usually before the age of 8. Your Love Map is basically what floats your boat, so to speak.

Let me introduce another term—Limerence, coined by Tennov because there was no real word for the concept in English—the closest term would be infatuation, but that’s not accurate enough. Think of it more about your “availability” on a emotional/social/sexual level.

You’re single, satisfied with life, healthy, and suddenly someone walks (or in the case of many site members here—waddles) by who is a 90% match to your Love Map. You do the cartoon thing of your eyes popping out, your tongue hitting your knees and steam coming out of your ears.

Ok—now—a different scene. You’re in a happy relationship with someone. Things are going well in your life and tah-dah—you’re in the grocery store and someone walks by who is an 80% match to your Love Map and you think, “Hmm….that’s nice.” And then you plop your milk carton and cheesecake in front of the cashier and smile as you pay your bill.
And—final scene. You’ve had a major fight with your spouse/partner/significant other, and you’re laughing at greeting cards you see that state “I miss my ex…but my aim is improving..” Someone walks by who is a 35% match to your Love Map, and you think, “Hot Damn! Woo Hoo!” (btw, this always works better with the addition of alcohol, lol. (This also leads us to the condition we technically call “Coyote Ugly.” For those of you not in North America, who are Coyote deficient, let me explain. Coyote Ugly refers to going into a bar and picking someone up while you’re drunk and taking the person home with you. You wake up the next morning and the person is so unattractive that when you realize he/she has fallen asleep on your arm, you decide to chew your own arm off rather than wake the other person…)

So—What’s the difference in these 3 examples? Exactly—Limerence.

In the first example, your Limerence state is such that it complements your Love Map, so you get the full impact of the experience.

In the second example, because you Limerence is at a high state (satisfaction with your SigO/Partner), a high “reading” of your Love Map doesn’t make that much of an impact on you.

In the third example, your Limerence is at a “low” (dissatisfaction with your SigO/Partner), so a “low reading” of your Love Map will still impact you.

I would suggest this is what is happening with you. You report “going in and out” of the erotic charge of a specific aspect of gaining/fat/fa/etc. I think that what you’re reporting is a vague awareness of how Limerence functions. As your “Limerence Level” goes up and down, just so, your experience with gaining will also go up and down in intensity and interest.

I think this is a natural cycle. If you leave the same "image" on your computer screen, historically it would "burn" itself into the monitor, which led to fun "screen savers" of flying toasters, bubbles, fish, etc., swarming across the screen when you weren't using it. I suspect if you had the same level of intensity over gaining (or other erotically charged experiences) it might have a similar impact on your inner self. It's probably a healthy thing in the long run that your Limerence doesn't stay set at its highest level; just as most of us are relieved it doesn't stay at the lowest level either. You get a "cooling off" period, so when your Limerence "spikes" later on down the road, you get a drug-like rush of excitement and pleasure.