I love that we are finally having these fat-based degradation discussions! They are so important. Everything you’ve mentioned has been spot on in my opinion, except that I think two important distinctions should be made.
First, you keep referring to fat-based degradation as fatphobia-based degradation, something I personally don’t agree with. Fatphobia refers to a societal and often systemic discrimination towards individuals because of their weight. It is often exercised through comments like these, but these comments alone do not equal fatphobia. The intent behind them and the context they’re used in is very important and I think conflating them as inherently fatphobic overlooks much of the nuance of this situation, to the detriment of those trying to fully understand it.
Which brings me to my second distinction; consent. This all hinges on consent and how it must be applied correctly for these comments to be (in my opinion) morally sound. As long as the teaser and teasee have both consented, no matter how harsh the teasing, I see no issue. Many people are into a myriad of “harsher” kinks that may appear violent or abusive to an uninformed observer, but are actually quite intimate and loving when consent is applied correctly.
Your mention of couchqueenie is a good example of this I think, because while her posts often express fat-based degradation, they are always about her alone and they never implicate that the insults she hurls at herself should apply to all fat people. She degrades only herself, for herself (and her followers who consent by following the blog). Personally, I don’t see this as an issue at all. It may make some people feel uncomfortable due to past traumas with fat shaming, and that’s fair, but those people are not forced to consume her content when she posts! They can remove their consent at any time by simply unfollowing the blog, just like you did. This is consent being applied correctly.
The issue arises when consent is not applied correctly. Frustratingly, these cases are far too prevalent in our community specifically. I have been in many other kink spaces and concluded that feedists, unfortunately, are often the least educated on the best practices and unspoken rules of engaging with kink in general. This leads to many (usually cis male) feeders pushing their fantasies onto others without consent, or taking advantage of a certain level of given consent to go above and beyond with their fantasies, effectively breaking consent. The scariest part is most times they don’t even realize what they are doing.
Anyway, I said all of this to say that I believe our first step as a community must be to educate ourselves more deeply on kink, kink spaces, and consent. Only then can we hope for improvement!
Hi, thank you! I appreciate your comment, but I did want to clarify a few things. My original post wasn't exactly a deep dive into the sociology of degradation and fatphobia in kink spaces, just a vent/rant post about patterns I'd seen in the community, so it wasn't as nuanced as it could have been and I apologize.
I do agree with you that a major part of this issue hinges on consent. If a fat person says they enjoy being teased or shamed for their fatness, then that is their prerogative and I'm not trying to say they're wrong or bad for it, and certainly not fatphobic. As I said in my previous ask, my comment on couchqueenie wasn't meant to be a callout, just an example of the type of language I'm talking about from a blogger many people would be familiar with.
In regards to your distinction of fat-based degradation vs fatphobia, I feel like the violation of consent when using this language is itself a symptom of fatphobia. The need to comment on the "ugliness" of any random fat person's body or make generalizing posts about fat people at large is a consequence of the negative societal view of fat people, just placed under a horny kink lens. The air of "I'm disgusted but aroused", especially by cishet white men (though they are not the only perpetrators, just the most prevalent), is reminiscent of similar attitudes toward queer people, people of colour, or disabled people, especially women, and it'd be remiss to argue those cases are not the result of bigotry.
In my opinion, the distinction lies between "fat people are [x]" which is fatphobic, and "this fat person who has consented is [x]", which is not.
