I was reading over your professor fatology blog
I thought this may be a point of discussion on your blog-
I've found weight gain on a male partner to be very erotic. Or just very chubby guys who aren't gaining.. While I've never been in a relationship as a feeder or encourager, I currently date a very sexy 375 pound guy and I love to take him out to eat. I find his eating to be very sexy and love to treat him to anything he desires .. In fact I feel I would put a lot of effort into it if he was unable to get enough to eat and he wanted more.. What I'm wondering if there is some rhyme or reason to this as a survival tactic before food was plentiful? Primarily heterosexual couples where the man would ravish food on his mate and get pleasure in seeing her fill out? The sexual component could help the man work a bit harder to bring home food. In times of shortages he would hate to see his mate lose weight and would work hard to feed her well. This could be just one more little way for them to get ahead in the scope of their environment.
Food has not been reliably plentiful for nearly all the populations of the world currently and historically. Our genetics are based on this.
I'm inclined to think things are the way they are for a reason. I think gay people also exist for an evolutionary reasons but I don't know at this time the extent of them.
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Well, this is fun--I get to move from a question from someone who needed to look at 50 years or so of his personal history to looking at hundreds of generations of fattening folks. Hey--no problem.
First, let me just mention evolutionary biologists (who coined the term "selfish gene") have looked at the concept--"in what way does behavior "x" further the intent of evolution?" The intent of evolution by the way-- is the idea that the business of life is life. Evolution functions on the effectiveness of life continuing. Just so, behavior "x" makes an organism more successful in surviving. At first glance, this means figuring out how a specific behavior/gene results in the most surviving offspring, who then "pass on" the behavior/gene to other generations, so success is based on reproduction. The fact same-sex activity is something we see across the animal kingdom (so in other words, it's not a "learned" behavior, where such a behavior is taught), the conclusion is--same-sex behavior must have some sort of evolutionary advantage, or it would have been extinguished long ago. If you look at the idea of the genes themselves, if you have a brother or sister, and you don't reproduce, but your sibling does--then a share of your genes gets passed on. Tah-dah! Evolutionary success. Because humans are essentially social "animals," if you as a gay man are a simply terrific uncle--where you not only provide for your nieces and nephews, but also help raise them so they survive into an age where they can reproduce--then you're being gay can be a wonderful advantage in terms of your "lineage" surviving. Even if the kid's mother or father is killed or dies (a frequent experience for early humanity) you're still around to make sure they survive. And you're not distracted by having to deal with your own children. So--if you back off a bit, it makes sense a "gay" gene gives an evolutionary advantage for the extended family, even if there's no one-to-one advantage in terms of your personal reproduction. Just so, you share about 50% of your genetic make up with your sibling, unless you're identical twins, in which case the genetic percentage is about 100%. So--even if you don't biologically father children, your sibling's children are carrying at least 25% of your genetic heritage, so in the long run, homosexuality is an advantage, in evolutionary terms.
And you are indeed correct, that in the "big picture" humanity, particularly in early times (or currently in parts of the world) has often gone hungry. Yesterday I was attending a Native American Health Conference, and one of the presenters shared her research. She talked about a Native community where most of the members are overweight. She said when she first interviewed tribal members they told her "We've always been a big people. We have chubby babies." Upon further interviews, the locals explained they had gone through a traumatic event 3 generations ago--when they were forced onto their reservation by the federal government. They were not permitted to hunt or fish (this was part of American federal policy--to force compliance of Native people by starvation--withholding food until they did what the government told them to do. If you're American, this is probably not part of the history you were "officially" taught. Let's just say the history of America in terms of its treatment of American Indians is a terrible stain on anything resembling integrity). When the researcher asked what the people did to respond to the starvation, they explained, "We gave the food we had to our babies--even if we went hungry. It's because the plumpest babies survived." In other words, fattening children was a survival strategy. And generations later, even when there was no longer starvation, the coping strategy continues.
Jumping even further back in time, some of the most interesting artifacts of history are the extremely ancient pieces (over 20,000 years old) like the "Venus of Willendorf"--the most famous one of its type was discovered in Austria, and the small work of art shows in great detail a very fat female. In fact, her individual features are not emphasized, but her voluptuous body and huge breasts are.
Long and long ago, I was on the Board of Directors for S.I.E.C.U.S. -the Sexuality Information Council for the United States--it provides most of the sex education curriculum for this country. We had an anthropology professor do a presentation on her research. With contemporary hunting and gathering societies, life is a challenge. Food isn't always available. As a result, community members have a low body fat percentage. In humans, the lower the body fat percentage, the longer puberty is delayed. The higher the body fat percentage, the sooner puberty arrives. In the traditional hunting and gathering societies, a female with a single percentage of body fat (in the U.S., females have on the average, 20-22% body fat, so more than twice that of the females she studied) will not tend to experience puberty until her late teens, and may not be capable of reproducing until her early 20s. Indeed, looking at contemporary female endurance athletes--for example, long distant runners--the ones with single digit body fat percentage will often have their menstrual cycles interrupted. If a woman's body fat percentage is too low, she is simply unable to reproduce.
Just so, looking at the United States, where we have some of the fattest children in the world, it's not unusual for an American female to have her puberty kick in at the age of 10.
Stepping away from the implications of evolution, as a therapist, I would also suggest there are issues of power and dominance involved. Men, in particular, are socialized around the idea that they are supposed to be the "providers." Indeed, in many cultures, there's the expectation after a young couple gets married, the husband will "bring home the bacon," and the wife will cook it up. Then early on, both put on weight. A fattening wife means her husband is successful (and it should be obvious this is a very sexist and historical model, rather than the reality of "first world nations" in the 21st century). A fattening husband not only signals the wife is a "good cook," but that the couple is happy and compatible. And as we know from the biology--potential parents who have more than single body fat percentages are more likely to reproduce.
But when you look at a same-sex relationship--a gay male has been socialized precisely the way his straight brother has. Males are supposed to be the providers. I had an interesting experience when I was dating a transman. When we went out for dinner, there was an issue of which one of us was presented by the waitperson with the bill. Rightly or wrongly, my date felt "less masculine" when I was handed the bill. Stepping out of the gender inequity, a waitperson would tend to hand the bill to the older individual, or with a male/female couple, would tend to give it to the male. Indeed, sometimes it's considered a "rite of passage" for a young male (or these days, young female) to take the family out to dinner and pay for the event.
Just so, for some encouragers, there may be an element of dominance of basically "topping the top," where a male responding to another male in the subordinate (female) role makes him feel "hypermasculine." I should emphasize here what we're socialized in this culture to conceptualize as "male/female" behavior has nothing at all to do with gender--it has to do with "power." When you realize this, it becomes obvious what we've been taught to label as "masculine" behavior is really "dominant" behavior, and what we've been taught to think of as "feminine" behavior is really "subordinate" behavior.
Reaching back to the Venus of Wollendorf type figures, being able to keep a partner fat means not only evolutionary success, but also a display of wealth. Does a true encourager feel a sense of pride to be with a partner who is obviously well fed? Reversing this, does a person with an emaciated partner feel guilty he apparently can't provide enough nourishment and support? We're currently in a very crazy historical period, where individuals have a mixed message of "be thin to be healthy" in the context of a society where the majority of people are "overweight." How much of the ever-increasing waistlines reflect the evolutionary stress on well nourished individuals, and how much is the reflection of "inappropriate diet." Since you were one who started off with the evolutionary emphasis--evolution doesn't need you to be a happy and healthy old person. Evolution just needs to have your genes passed on. This is usually done at a fairly early age. If you die of diabetes or high blood pressure associated with an extremely high body fat percentage, that's really irrelevant in terms of reproduction. Does that make sense? You start off with a high body fat percentage, which triggers early puberty and fertility. You pop out kids, and if you die at the age of 40, hey--you've done your job. Kids are old enough to be independent and to pop out kids of their own. The evolution ledger is in balance.
One of the other ideas some have had that you haven't mentioned--some encouragers may have an association of their chubby and growing partner with pregnancy. If you look at any number of gainer related sites, you'll frequently encounter captions of "Josh is 6 months pregnant"--"Who knocked Kevin up?"--"David is preggers!" This might be understood metaphorically--obviously the male partner is not pregnant, but everything plays out accordingly. The encourager helps the gainer grow...the results is similar to pregnancy from a visual perspective. There are often even stretchmarks. This is not unique to gay guys--you can also encounter straight men who associate fattening women to keeping them permanently pregnant. Psychologically, for a male to keep another male "pregnant" means he's in a "hyper masculine" role.
As a therapist, I'm unsure of how much of this is directly connected to evolutionary biology, and how much is psychological (and of course, the psychology may simply be the way the evolution manifests itself). Just so, feeding a gainer may be an aspect of nurturing. In many cultures if not all, there is a comforting aspect of food and eating. There is an old advertising jingle of "Nothing says lovin' like something from the oven..." and of course, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach." Feeding someone you love (and watching the result) may simply be an expression of love. But as mentioned before, for some encouragers, the feeding is definitely an expression of power. For some gainers, there can be a fantasy role play where all responsibility for enormous consumption of food and the resulting gains are turned over to the encourager. Indeed, some personal ads are requesting a dominant feeder who will "force" the gainer into unlimited size. "I want my feeder to decide how fat he wants me."
Mutual gaining, from this model, can then be understood from a number of perspectives. In this culture, gaining can be understood as a type of rebellion against cultural norms. To do it together can be "us against the world." In classic "transactional analysis, mutual gaining can be seen as "child/child" bonding coupled with extreme enjoyment of pleasure--eating as much as one wants whenever one wants. Mutual gaining can also be seen as full acceptance of one's partner--"I love you unconditionally--thin or otherwise--it doesn't matter. More cake?"
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