rambling: fear of attraction
In this rambling, we’re talking about horny shit. Sex. The cock and the ball. Finally putting the mature warning on my page to use besides that one time I talked about goring myself in my dreams. If porn doesn’t comfort you, this is probably a rambling to skip.
In my rambling on my experiences being a fat person (and one who happens to be an artist), I spoke a bit about how, for a time, I admitted to drawing fat fetish art because I was convinced that was just the natural progression of things. I went a little more in depth about my feelings about it - the conflict between wanting to draw things that I enjoy and the connotations that those things carry that need to be recognized. I’ve thought on it on/off and felt my cap-off with that post felt a little stilted in regards to my coming to terms with my sexuality. I wanted to explore and interrogate the topic a bit more in its own post.
To set the mood - I’ve been mulling over a post on Tumblr a lot recently:
“I feel like people don't understand what fetishization really means & it has a lot of well intentioned lefty types like afraid of being attracted to people”
And I felt this apply to other people - namely, during my time on Tumblr I’ve interacted with and had my art shared by prominent fat positivity blogs (which, while well-meaning, I felt got into too many petty fights with artists drawing fat characters a little too skinny to bother following myself - I’m more interested in uplifting than putting down). In these blogs, despite having so much rhetoric concerning the well-being and liberties of fat people, and encouraged fat positivity, also simultaneously argued against the idea of fat sexuality - more specifically, they defaulted anyone that saw fat people as sexually attractive (especially those who aren’t fat themselves) as fetishists. It is understandable - in my aforementioned blog post I lamented how, though it was liberating, it simultaneously felt extremely uncomfortable. It’s not hard to see why. But I feel it horseshoes back around to this idea of “you shouldn’t find fat people attractive in the sexy way because it is morally wrong” - rather instead of some sweaty freshman college student who doesn’t believe women should have rights saying it, it’s a self-proclaimed leftist fat activist.
I do think, however, the topic of “one person’s oppression is another’s form of self-liberation” is an interesting one to explore in other regards - namely in queerness (ie the reclaiming of slurs by queer people), and in disability (ie the various symbols used to represent autism). While arguing for adoption or abandonment is moot - people will use whatever language or symbols they want, at the end of the day - I think it is important to recognize that both sides are not necessarily in the wrong at all, and have their own deeply personal reasons for it. Some fat people find fat sexuality - and even fetishism, as backwards as it may sound - as empowering because it is the conduit that enables them to see themselves as attractive or desirable in a world where they are seen otherwise. Others may find it horrifically offensive, and taking advantage of already vulnerable people to perpetuate oppression. These beliefs are often formed through experiences, through cultural beliefs - a wholly personal process. The pro-sex people aren’t fatphobic for encouraging the exploration of sexual desires, and recognizing that sexual desires can be used as a means of empowerment - think the gay magazines of yore, for all their problems they may have. Likewise, the anti-sex people aren’t fatphobic for voicing their discomfort in fat sexuality from their own personal experiences. However, one does not nullify the other. They are not in the wrong to be uncomfortable - rather, it is through their othering of pro-sex people, treating their empowerment through sex as comically backwards, as fundamentally incompatible with fat positivity, that I feel it brings into question what they think fat positivity is at all. Not all fat people need to be empowered through their sexuality, but are the ones that want to be wrong for doing so?
But simmering on it more, it made me realize just how much it applied to me. That for as much as I harp on about “seeing both sides on it”, I do think the fear of fetishization has gotten me rather timid to the point it makes me “afraid of being attracted to people”. Like, this shit was what made me believe I was potentially asexual, for a time - I’m almost exclusively attracted to larger people. But because I have difficulties in accepting that attraction, I was led to believe that I may just not be attracted to anything at all. In that Tumblr post I linked, there were multiple people in the notes that believed similarly.
In truth, I do have sexual desires, though unconventional. But despite being able to recognize that, I still have this disgust and anxiety towards myself over that attraction. My girlfriend has teased me in the past for being extremely meek when it comes to looking up porn, to the point where I have to ask her to look things up on my behalf (“bee, your mom is 2,000+ miles away, she’s not going to walk in on you seeing porn”) - but no matter how much she insists it’s okay, I feel as though I have to have the door closed and locked, and the lights off, VPN on and Incognito tab open to even think about looking at fat people in the nude, let alone straight up porn. It’s almost this irrational fear of the intimacy, especially when compared to my girlfriend who does not hesitate to lounge around in the nude when June rolls around (in her defense, it does get to 115F).
It is ironic, then, that I’ve been increasingly interested in getting into the NSFW space again - though it will likely not be through Fatgrrlz, as I’ll get into later - and at the same time I can’t help but feel a large degree of hesitation. This climaxed (lol) over the weekend when, for the first time in years, I somehow convinced myself to draw porn. And it was some kinda kinky shit too! And I feel horribly, cardinal sin level self-conscious about it. Like, as an artist online, I feel obligated to share what I draw. The porn is obviously no exception. But because porn is porn, restrictions need to be put in place to warn people that it’s porn and hide it from those who shouldn’t see it (ie, minors).
I’m not quite sure yet on what I will do with it in regards to my site - my intent with the site is to have a place for all of the stuff I’ve done and created. However, what with it being predominantly SFW content as-is, I’m afraid that it risks exposing minors to porn, and a site overhaul that locks it down as NSFW would probably cause issues for those who enjoy it for its SFW elements. Although porn does appear to be allowed on Neocities, it comes with the caveat that the site will be marked as NSFW. And although I do have a boilerplate warning that I discuss mature topics on my site, most of the content on the site is fairly SFW. As such, I don’t think I want NSFW content on the site. Some webmasters handle this issue by having separate sections of the site for their NSFW content, or paying to be a supporter to have a separate NSFW domain. Likewise, many artists have “after dark” accounts on Twitter and the like where they specifically post NSFW content on.
There is, also, this anxiety with creating and sharing both SFW and NSFW content, especially when your sexual interests go beyond missionary with the lights off. It goes without saying that being into weird shit is gonna bring in people you may not want, whether it’s people that are vehemently against it or being too into it. And even if they are separated, it’s like - there’s a degree of taboo almost with so much as alluding to being into weird shit. Not to mention how there’s also this sort of “tier list” where some kinks may be seen as more morally reprehensible than others, even within people within kink spaces, ie “you wouldn’t want to associate with Artist A, they draw fat porn,” says the teratophiliac. And in the case of having SFW/NSFW separated, there’s this fear I have of being “found out” - having someone that knows of my SFW art and finds my NSFW art and puts together a bad faith impression that I’m a disgusting fetishist that should be ran off the Internet and decide to make it a problem. And it’s like, yes, it’s more telling of their character than mine, but do I really want to deal with all that? It’s easier to just not bother at all. But it’s not going to stop me from having the desire to create - and to share.
All this to say that I’m still unsure of what to do. I’m currently test piloting Pillowfort, though I have no plans of posting NSFW on there. I may end up keeping it to close circles and leaving it at that, as much as the artist in me wants to share all the things. Not everything needs posted on the Internet.
I think more than anything, it’s just putting my thoughts into words on the topic. I think drawing porn is really fun! It gets me thinking about all kinds of artistic concepts - anatomy, perspective, how to execute portraying certain materials. But even now I still feel so goddamn weird about it, and I think it's high time that I examine those feelings.