Why Isn't This Gaining Fantasy Working Out?

Dear Professor Fatology,

 I realize you have a blog on gaining, which is why I'm contacting you. 

That said, my questions aren't really directed toward helping me gain, or becoming comfortable with the idea of gaining. My questions have to do with understanding why I'm attracted to the fantasy of gaining, but when I actually do it I don't seen to enjoy it: I don't seen to enjoy how I look, and I certainly don't enjoy how I feel. 

Yet I'm still strongly attracted to the idea ~ I guess the fantasy ~ of growing a huge gut.

I've been into bodybuilding as a fetish since I first saw a bodybuilding magazine and instantly got a hard on. Muscle growth has been my primary fetish and sexual focus pretty much since then, and recently I've really been making serious efforts to live a bodybuilding lifestyle and have seen some great results. I'm turning into a real bodybuilder, and I love it.

That said, when I was in my early 20s a guy, over the phone, whom I'd met in a muscle growth chat room on AOL, talked me through a fantasy of my growing a huge belly. I totally got off on it, LOVED it and began exploring the gaining scene (if you could call it that, back then).

A good seven or eight times now I have made serious efforts to pack on a big gut, for a week or more at a time. Recently, up to two months of concerted, er, "work". Sometimes I've gone overboard, stuffing myself silly with unhealthy food, and ~ given I was already eating rather unhealthily at the time ~ I would get sick.

Recent efforts have involved my using my regular foods ~ now very, very healthy ~ to stuff myself (while still horny, the hard gut does feel incredible). The process of stuffing can be erotic for me, but after I cum I actually find I feel awful, physically speaking... like I was sick. My body hates having to process all that food all at once. Even more recently I have learned to not quite stuff myself all the way, so I wouldn't feel so physically awful after I came, but rather just "very full" (not as satisfying for the hard gut, but much, much better in the post-cum phase). I've also spent a lot of time appreciating my body changes in the mirror, both trying to enjoy the growing love handles and gut, as well as ~ more recently ~ the growing muscle.

I have found that I enjoy the muscles ~ how they feel, how they look, an how my body feels all the time now ~ more than I have enjoyed my gaining efforts. 

When I actually succeeded in putting on a small gut (once, last year, after a serious nearly two-months-long gainer attempt to push past my "fears", my "inhibitions", my "resistance" to gaining, regardless of how I felt after I cum, how I felt when I looked in the mirror), and then really worked to enjoy my growing gut as I lived in life through the day... I actually found that, though I could get off on the belly while horny and with my eyes closed, I really did NOT enjoy at all the thick heavy feel of my legs as they softly brushed one another due to their thickness, nor the soft, cooler (compared to the warmth of muscles, typically) feel of the fat of my fairly decent starter-gut, when I was NOT feeling horny, or when I looked at it in the mirror (compared with how I looked when I would hold the gut in), day in and day out. As much as I tried to enjoy these things, they continued to become things I enjoyed less and less the bigger I got.

Yet I still am attracted to the fantasy of it at times. Not always. I tend to go in waves of this, focused more on my bodybuilding fetish (most of the time) with periods where I wax toward the bellybuilding fantasy. 

I don't exactly beat myself up for being into gaining. As I've said, I even really WANT to enjoy getting fatter. My eroticism would love that.

But I just don't seem to enjoy it, in the day-to-day process of living my life.

Some people, I know, can feel very, very conflicted about this stuff. I'm rather accepting of my kinks, and I understand how we can have paradoxical feelings about things (though I'm not an expert in understanding the WHY we have certain apparent paradoxes within us, hence my email to you). I don't feel miserable or awful about all of this, as some people might. Instead, I find I am mostly just highly curious, and sometimes confused, about it. About why I have a sexual turn-on toward gaining, that when I try and realize it, I find my body doesn't really want to do it, and that I don't actually get off on how I am growing bigger, either ~ in real life. When I close my eyes and fantasize about growing a huge gut, I love it. But when I looked in the mirror at the gut I was growing ~ even when horny and into the gaining fantasy ~ I found I didn't really like how I either looked, or how I physically felt.

Not the same with my bodybuilding. As a grow bigger muscles, I enjoy more and more how I look, more and more how I feel. I'm even more determined and dedicated to being and living as a "muscle beast."

If I had a wish about all of this, it would be to better understand why I have a strong sexual fantasy about gaining that apparently doesn't seem to want to become realized, and another, stronger one, about bodybuilding that absolutely seems to want to become realized, all in one body. They are both obviously about growing bigger. 

I'd like to either simply give up cleanly on the gaining fantasy, or else learn to feel more comfortable with just enjoying the fantasy and not, well, feeling a touch guilty about not ACTUALLY wanting to grow a gut, in real life ~ for it feels a bit, well, unfulfilling to have a fantasy about realizing a physical change without then actually making that change happen.

I used to feel that way about my bodybuilding. Now I'm living that and feel, well, a harmony of purpose. But the gaining just doesn't seem to want to integrate in that way, in me. In the last two attempts I've made to gain ~ using foods my body loves, even not stuffing myself to the point where I hate it, but still enough to gain weight ~ it just hasn't had me emerging into an love for gaining, at least not anywhere beyond the close-my-eyes and imagine it state.

I realize I'm not paying you, and that you may not wish to and/or have the time to address these issues for me, for whatever personal reasons of your own. I'm not feeling stuck, or unhappy, just highly curious, confused, and yes a touch guilty about it... and I recognize that we are highly curious and confusing and at times conflicted creatures, us humans. I'm ok with being curious and confused, and can deal with this conflict, even continue to learn about it on my own.

But if you do have the time and interest to address this, I'd very much appreciate it.

Thank you!

Please feel free to post any of this email (and/or edit for readability) to your blog, if you find it an interesting thing to post there.

Best,

MGB

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Long and long ago, I remember being out with an old friend who was what we call in the Pacific NW, an “Indipino.” This refers to people who are half Native American, and half Filipino (although in the 21^st century, those specific proportions-half and half—aren’t necessarily that exact). My friend’s father was Filipino and his mother was from a Coastal American Indian Nation. Members of Coastal Nations are not usually known for their height. Another Coastal man who married a woman from the Plains area (and they ARE known for being tall) joked that it was all about Coastal people being evolved for canoes. They should be small and relatively wide because it makes their center of gravity perfect for a canoe. A tall and thin person has the worst center of gravity for a canoe, and would always be tipping it over.

I was with my friend when he took his young son in for a doctor’s appointment. The little boy was asked by the doctor, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He responded by saying, “I wanna be a basketball player.”

The doctor looked at my friend and said, “You might want to consider being a jockey.”

There are some fantasies that can have a major “charge” for an individual, but there are also some things that are going to remain a fantasy, and should be enjoyed that way. A lot of men have a deeply rooted (that’s actually a pun) fantasy of having enormous genitals, but we simply don’t have the technology to make that happen in a very satisfactory and healthy way.

In my experience as a therapist, I have learned to always trust “the body” rather than “the mind” because for most people the “body” represents the unconscious mind, and the “mind” represents the conscious—what you normally think of as “you,” and what keeps making plans, such as having a big belly. The unconscious will almost always “win.” It may do so by “sabotaging” the conscious objectives. For example, if the conscious mind wants to land a new job, but the unconscious doesn’t want it to happen—because perhaps it would require relocating to a new city—the job applicant may end up oversleeping on the morning of the interview.

This “push/pull” interaction of the two primary parts of who “you” are often plays out the way you describe. For whatever reason, it would appear your unconscious is not thrilled with the idea of you being the fat guy you’ve imagined yourself becoming. When the conscious and unconscious unite for a common goal, amazing things can happen, and that seem to reflect your current success with formal bodybuilding.

In my experience—if you escalate your efforts to get fat, your unconscious will escalate resistance. I frankly have never really seen that guilt is a very useful response.  My feeling is that you gave being fat your best shot—more than once, and you need to accept the fact that just maybe, being obese is not the path for you. However, that doesn’t mean you have to abandon the fantasy, since it apparently holds an erotic charge for you. 

Here’s what I would suggest—keep doing what you report doing so well, and enjoy growing larger—as a bodybuilder.  But I would suggest you explore the options of inflation. This would allow you to achieve if not “instant gratification,” results that will be a lot faster than packing on the pounds to increase your waist size. For example, here’s the youtube of someone who calls himself Mr.TeenDestruction. MTD is a young bodybuilder who normally sports a ripped 6 pack and substantial muscles. But every now and then because of a request from his viewers, he will do a bloat.  Check him out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TeqEWNc18k

  There are a number of approaches to inflation or bloating. MTD does so by chugging water, which means after the bloat his body will soon return to “normal” and he gets his abs back. Some inflate with air, and others use an enema containing water. All of these approaches can let you temporarily enjoy a hard, round gut, but you will never have to worry about your thighs rubbing together after an inflation or bloat. From what you’ve shared, you’ve actually ended up with a food bloat when you were trying so hard to gain by stuffing yourself with food.  Why don’t you see if this adaptation will trigger an erotic response for you—and you should try recording your process and results on video or photos—even if you never share them with someone else.  If you experiment, you will find that certain angles or lighting will make you look a lot bigger than you actually are.  You can also find out what sort of inflation or bloating technique is the most satisfying for you. Again, that discovery may help achieve the erotic charge you seek. Another option would be various forms of padding. A friend of mine I had met in SF used to put on a wetsuit, the type used for diving, and would cinch a belt very tightly over his hips.  He would then insert a hose inside the suit and fill it with water.  With the "stretch" of the wetsuit's fabric, this would result in not only a type of inflation with a resulting "big belly," but had the added advantage of giving him a sense of increased weight/mass from the gallons of water within the suit.

You may also discover once you stop trying to fight your unconscious, that "other part of you" may relax and you'll find you might end up as a "muscle-chub" where you combine the best of both worlds.

 I wish you the best of success in becoming the big guy you want to be.