Help Me Get Fat! Feederism as Communal Deviance on the Internet

Feederism involves the sexual attraction to weight gain. The behavior has received negative attention from scholars, but has yet to be analyzed empirically using a sexual deviance framework. In this article, I analyze websites that discuss feederism in order to categorize the behavior into a sexual deviance typology. Results reveal that feederism is a communal behavior, but it does not fit perfectly into either the normal or pathological deviance category. Inaccurate assumptions made about this group are based on societal norms about fat, beauty, and sexuality.