Obesity and sexuality

The number of people with obesity has greatly increased in recent decades.[1]

Childhood obesity is correlated to early puberty. Girls who go through puberty earlier are more likely to be sexually active than other girls of the same age and are more likely to become pregnant and contract STDs. In their teen years, increased weight can also lead to obstacles for romantic developments. A 2005 study showed that "a teenage girl’s odds for a romantic relationship… dropped 6 to 7 percent for every 1-point increase in her body mass index."[2] Gay, bisexual and transgender children are more likely to be obese, according to a 2020 study. The root cause for this is unknown.[3][4]

Being obese or overweight is stigmatized. In 2007, Substantia Jones started The Adipositivity Project, which is an annual nude photography series depicting fat couples in a positive way to reduce the stigma.[5][6]

For many, the stigma in dating remains even after having lost weight, also due to fear of gaining weight again. According to psychology professor David Sarwer, the prevailing belief is that people who have never been obese are better able to control their weight.[7][8] Sex educator Laura Delarato noted that there is fetishization of fat bodies.[9] Some dating sites exclusively for fat people have been made.[10] BMI is highly correlated between romantic partners.[11]

An increased body weight can lead to an increase in sex hormone-binding globulin, which causes testosterone to fail. That can cause the libido to decrease. It can also narrow down the blood vessels, which makes it harder to climax. Sex positions tend to be more limited.[12]

Many anthropologists believe the Venus of Willendorf may have been used to represent a fertility goddess

Fat fetishism (and "feederism") has been described as a sexual subculture,[13] sexual fetish and a lifestyle.[14]

Hanne Blank has written:

"Feederism is a red herring, it creates alarm and controversy that derails more meaningful discourse about fat sexuality. All of fat people’s sexuality gets lost in the shadow of the mainstream media’s voyeuristic fixation on what is portrayed as a freak show."[13]

Some people consider feederism to be a part of BDSM, because food is used as a means of control because the feeder decides what the feedee eats and how much their body changes.[13] Some fat people do happily engage in the fetishism and find fulfillment in it. Many have felt fetishism thrust on them without consent. Aubrey Gordon has rejected the notion that fat attraction is necessarily a fetish.[15] Feederism has been depicted in films like Feed and City Island, where the first was not consensual but the latter was.[16]

• Blank, Hanne (2011). Big Big Love, Revised: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them). Celestial Arts. ISBN 978-1587610851.
• Varney, Sarah (2014). XL Love: How the Obesity Crisis Is Complicating America's Love Life. Rodale Books. ISBN 978-1609614836.
• Gorlicky, Stacey (2016). Food, Sex, and You: Untangling Body Obsession in a Weight-Obsessed World. Dundurn Press. ISBN 978-1459734425.

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