"Two-fer"--Two different Questions/Two Different Answers

What I anticipate doing is taking my responses posted on other sites, and if appropriate, sometimes modifying the pronouns to reflect the same-sex male focus on this site.  For example, here’s one I’ll share that was from a male asking for advice in convincing his girlfriend to gain.  I have both kept his identity private, and changed his partner to a male, because I would have given the same suggestions if it had been about his boyfriend.  

There are other responses that are more gender-specific, where I would not feel it appropriate to do a gender shift in the pronouns.  For example, a wife who had been rather thin discovered her husband’s “secret stash” of magazines that featured hefty women.  She deliberately gained weight and discovered how much more excited her husband was with her additional weight, and intends to continue gaining, at least to a certain point.  There was an issue of if the wife should tell her husband directly about her discovery of his erotic materials.  This would be where I would give a different answer to two females in a relationship, as opposed to a male/female relationship:

 Men (esp. Americans) are taught to be very ashamed about their sexuality...this of course, doesn't stop them from expressing their sexuality, but it makes them better at hiding it. This is particularly true of masturbating adolescents, who are trying to keep other family members from discovering their "secret." As a result, males tend to both greatly value their sexual privacy (except, of course for the other extreme--where their eroticism gets fused with exhibitionism) as well as feel an incredible sense of betrayal when the privacy is breached.

A lot of women are socialized that the way you become emotionally closer (with another female) is by sharing secrets. Males are socialized that if you share secrets (with another male) that person can often use the secret to either control you ("do as I say or I'll tell others you do this nasty thing" )or destroy your status ("Does everyone know what Danny is doing behind the barn!?" ). As a result, while it may be tempting to "open up" and let him know you discovered his stash, and that's why you're ok with exploring gaining, you may be better off letting him keep that little secret and simply focus on the current (very good) relationship between the two of you.

So:  Situation 1:

A 19 year old asked about “how to convince” his unwilling partner to gain weight.  He discussed how he has explained he finds heavier individuals very erotic to him, and that he would prefer his partner heavier.  He has also posted on an earlier thread how “fit” and slim he is himself, wanting to know if heavier partners find athletic built men desirable.  Here’s my response:

 

1) If your partner is about your age, and you anticipate being together a long time, the statistics are excellent that he'll be bigger by the time you're both 30, regardless of what you do or don't do.

 

2) As a psychotherapist, I teach "the meaning of your communication is the response you receive." This is critical when dealing with “compliments.”  If you tell someone you think they look “great” with an extra 30 pounds, and he or she has a negative body issue about weight, they will often tend to interpret what you intend as a compliment as manipulation, sarcasm, or as being insincere.  This is one of the reasons the simple, logical approach so often fails.  Surprise—telling someone you will like them better fat doesn’t then trigger an immediate weight gain. What do you think would happen if he told you he would like you better with a potbelly? Would you immediately start gaining as fast as you can?

3) Here’s another approach.  It could be helpful if you can “fuse” sensuality, eroticism, and feeding. Instead of having the focus on “I want you fat” you shift it to “let’s do something sexy together in a loving and supportive way."  I believe I’ve mentioned something called “sensual feeding” on another post.  This is an “exercise” between partners where one (i.e., you) ask him if he wants to engage in something fun and loving.  You have to do some prep work.  You gather a number of different types of food (ranging in textures, flavors, and temperatures).  Your partner is then blindfolded, and lies in your bed nude while you feed him bites and with his “visual input” restricted, he will be forced to pay more attention to his other senses—like taste and smell.  Couple this with having collected a variety of physical sensations…use a feather duster…fur…velvet…and brush those across his nude body as he concentrates on the tastes and smells of what you feed him.  Then you reverse and take YOUR turn while he does the same to you.  I would not, btw, suggest you do this the same day, but make it a “special” thing between the two of you that you do at least once a week.  If you do this well, you will both enjoy the experience (and one of the reasons I don’t recommend you both do it on the same day is that most couples tend to get very turned on by this, so a very erotic session will take place following the “sensual feeding.”  If you keep doing this—both of you will tend to gain weight.  If this is something you do jointly, then it will tend to lose the “control/forced” feeling that urging a partner to gain weight when he has no interest in it can lead to.

If the idea of you also putting on 10, 15, or 30 pounds freaks you out and you find the idea distasteful of losing your abs and softening up your jaw line---TERRIFIC!  Learn from that feeling…because it may be exactly how your boyfriend would feel about fattening up.  Use this as an educational opportunity.  As someone who identifies as an encourager/fat admirer, but who is not interested in gaining yourself—what would it take to convince you to pudge out?  If your answer is “nothing,” then you need to be able to accept you will encounter partners for whom “nothing” can be done to convince them to gain—and you then have to decide if this is a “deal breaker” in terms of maintaining a relationship.

I wish you both the best, and hope you will let us know how this goes.