A good deal of time and energy goes into figuring out who we are and where we fit in within the gainer/encourager world.
Am I a gainer? An encourager? Or some kind of bi-curious mix?
And yet it seems like that choice is false. It’s as if someone once said that there were two opposing and complementary identities—gainer and encourager—and that word became gospel.
At first glance it makes sense. In the mainstream gay world, most people fall under top or bottom, with a marginal grey area for those who are truly versatile. The vast majority of the chub-chaser community identifies as one or the other, while only a small margin proclaim the overlapping identity, chub4chub.
Every top wants to find his bottom. And every chaser yearns for his chub.
But does that dual-identity paradigm really hold up for our community? Or are these distinct and diametrically-opposed sides just an artificial way to divide the community?
Or to put it another way:
IS THERE REALLY A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GAINERS AND ENCOURAGERS?
Ever the fan of having data to back up my hypotheses, I did a (rather non-scientific) poll on the bellybuilders messageboard. The results were pretty clear: 2 out of 3 guys who responded said they liked the idea both of gaining weight on themselves and encouraging someone else. About 20 percent claimed to be strictly into encouraging and only 9 percent said they liked gaining themselves and not encouraging others.
So what does all that mean?
Well this data would hardly hold up against Gallup, but it’s a sliver of insight into a question that somewhat affects the very foundation of our community. It shows that the entire gainer/encourager paradigm—in which each role could be seen as a separate but complementary identity, with only marginal overlap—doesn’t hold up.
As someone on the messageboard put it: If our community were a venn diagram, the guys who are both gainers and encouragers would be like a big belly in the middle, with small love handles on the sides, representing those who only like one.
This differs a lot from the community to which we are most often compared: that of chubs and chasers.
In the chub-chaser community there are two distinct identities that directly reflect a person’s physical state and preference. They are in many ways opposing and complementary.
I used biggercity profiles as a reasonable barometer and found that more than 90 percent of all guys on that site chose to identify as either chub or chaser. Less than 10 percent identify as the overlapping identity, chub4chub.
Unlike chubs and chasers, the vast majority of guys into gaining/encouraging actually like both sides of the coin. We may not act on both at any given time for various reasons, but the idea, the urge, the fantasy is there. And that’s pretty unique.
This isn’t to say that liking either gaining or encouraging exclusively is wrong, it’s just to say that defaulting to this single-identity system as we’ve done in the past may be a mistake. If two thirds of the guys in this scene are both gainers AND encouragers at heart, then those people are not marginal—they are, in fact, the status quo.
So if we’re not a community with diametrically opposed “sides,” then what are we?
WE ARE A COMMUNITY OF IDEAS
It probably won’t come as any surprise to readers of this blog what I propose. It’s an idea I explored in my earlier post “When is a Gainer not a Gainer,” but it’s a topic so ripe that it demands further exploration.
At its core, gaining and encouraging is really an idea.
Those of us with this interest like an attitude that’s into growth and a mentality that revels in gluttony and the manliness of unabashed consumption. This idea can take many forms, embody many shapes and physical features and occur in myriad fantasies. But it doesn’t need to prescribe to any one “role.”
And I think that gets to the root of the “pick a side” conundrum detailed above. That is to say, we shouldn’t feel the need to pick a side.
For me, it’s enough to know that I’m into the idea of gaining/encouraging and leave it at that. In a lot of ways, that reflects the prevailing attitude toward being gay.
Being gay doesn’t imply any action. You can sit on your couch and be gay. You can work on your car and be gay. You can do anything you damn well please, and still safely consider yourself gay. You don’t stop being gay whenever you aren’t having sex with a man.
You can be a top or a bottom or into bellies and be gay. There is no right role in being gay, there is just being.
At the end of the day, shouldn’t being a gainer/encourager be more like that? Shouldn’t we have an identity that simply says “I’m into this,” full stop?
Gaining and encouraging are temporal experiences. We are not only gainers when we gain weight and we’re not just encouragers when we are encouraging someone else. Many of us wear both hats at different points and time, so why should we have to choose?
Maybe it’s time to create new labels that more effectively convey that nuance. If it is, I for one have no idea where we’d start. Perhaps it’s enough to keep the labels we have and simply be more aware of their evolving meanings and clear overlaps.
Regardless of whether we change the terms, it’s important to remember that there’s no dire need to pick a side. Some guys are simply more comfortable identifying as encouragers. A select few only want to hold the gainer moniker. But for the vast majority of us, that grey area in the middle is home. It’s ambiguous and can be fluid throughout our lives, but that’s not a bad thing.
It’s good to know that gainers and encouragers are not from different planets. In the end, we are more alike than we are different. And that’s pretty cool.
Am I a gainer? An encourager? Or some kind of bi-curious mix?
And yet it seems like that choice is false. It’s as if someone once said that there were two opposing and complementary identities—gainer and encourager—and that word became gospel.
At first glance it makes sense. In the mainstream gay world, most people fall under top or bottom, with a marginal grey area for those who are truly versatile. The vast majority of the chub-chaser community identifies as one or the other, while only a small margin proclaim the overlapping identity, chub4chub.
Every top wants to find his bottom. And every chaser yearns for his chub.
But does that dual-identity paradigm really hold up for our community? Or are these distinct and diametrically-opposed sides just an artificial way to divide the community?
Or to put it another way:
IS THERE REALLY A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GAINERS AND ENCOURAGERS?
Ever the fan of having data to back up my hypotheses, I did a (rather non-scientific) poll on the bellybuilders messageboard. The results were pretty clear: 2 out of 3 guys who responded said they liked the idea both of gaining weight on themselves and encouraging someone else. About 20 percent claimed to be strictly into encouraging and only 9 percent said they liked gaining themselves and not encouraging others.
So what does all that mean?
Well this data would hardly hold up against Gallup, but it’s a sliver of insight into a question that somewhat affects the very foundation of our community. It shows that the entire gainer/encourager paradigm—in which each role could be seen as a separate but complementary identity, with only marginal overlap—doesn’t hold up.
As someone on the messageboard put it: If our community were a venn diagram, the guys who are both gainers and encouragers would be like a big belly in the middle, with small love handles on the sides, representing those who only like one.
This differs a lot from the community to which we are most often compared: that of chubs and chasers.
In the chub-chaser community there are two distinct identities that directly reflect a person’s physical state and preference. They are in many ways opposing and complementary.
I used biggercity profiles as a reasonable barometer and found that more than 90 percent of all guys on that site chose to identify as either chub or chaser. Less than 10 percent identify as the overlapping identity, chub4chub.
Unlike chubs and chasers, the vast majority of guys into gaining/encouraging actually like both sides of the coin. We may not act on both at any given time for various reasons, but the idea, the urge, the fantasy is there. And that’s pretty unique.
This isn’t to say that liking either gaining or encouraging exclusively is wrong, it’s just to say that defaulting to this single-identity system as we’ve done in the past may be a mistake. If two thirds of the guys in this scene are both gainers AND encouragers at heart, then those people are not marginal—they are, in fact, the status quo.
So if we’re not a community with diametrically opposed “sides,” then what are we?
WE ARE A COMMUNITY OF IDEAS
It probably won’t come as any surprise to readers of this blog what I propose. It’s an idea I explored in my earlier post “When is a Gainer not a Gainer,” but it’s a topic so ripe that it demands further exploration.
At its core, gaining and encouraging is really an idea.
Those of us with this interest like an attitude that’s into growth and a mentality that revels in gluttony and the manliness of unabashed consumption. This idea can take many forms, embody many shapes and physical features and occur in myriad fantasies. But it doesn’t need to prescribe to any one “role.”
And I think that gets to the root of the “pick a side” conundrum detailed above. That is to say, we shouldn’t feel the need to pick a side.
For me, it’s enough to know that I’m into the idea of gaining/encouraging and leave it at that. In a lot of ways, that reflects the prevailing attitude toward being gay.
Being gay doesn’t imply any action. You can sit on your couch and be gay. You can work on your car and be gay. You can do anything you damn well please, and still safely consider yourself gay. You don’t stop being gay whenever you aren’t having sex with a man.
You can be a top or a bottom or into bellies and be gay. There is no right role in being gay, there is just being.
At the end of the day, shouldn’t being a gainer/encourager be more like that? Shouldn’t we have an identity that simply says “I’m into this,” full stop?
Gaining and encouraging are temporal experiences. We are not only gainers when we gain weight and we’re not just encouragers when we are encouraging someone else. Many of us wear both hats at different points and time, so why should we have to choose?
Maybe it’s time to create new labels that more effectively convey that nuance. If it is, I for one have no idea where we’d start. Perhaps it’s enough to keep the labels we have and simply be more aware of their evolving meanings and clear overlaps.
Regardless of whether we change the terms, it’s important to remember that there’s no dire need to pick a side. Some guys are simply more comfortable identifying as encouragers. A select few only want to hold the gainer moniker. But for the vast majority of us, that grey area in the middle is home. It’s ambiguous and can be fluid throughout our lives, but that’s not a bad thing.
It’s good to know that gainers and encouragers are not from different planets. In the end, we are more alike than we are different. And that’s pretty cool.
That was very well put together. At the same time it was easy to read. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI can so relate to this article here. I am a gainer as well as encourager here so I enjoy being fattened up and fattening up others but not everyone is like that which makes it hard to connect most times cause of that. That is not to say it is impossible though to find someone into you regardless of being just a gainer, an encourager or both. It is just something in the long line of choices in relationship that makes it just that more interesting to see who is out there to truly connect to you on a level that may end up being more than friendship.
ReplyDeleteGood to know that we are all from earth.
ReplyDeleteThe poll on bellybuilders that you mentioned was only about which ideas people were into. (gaining, encouraging, or both) Has there ever been a similar poll about which activities people actually engage in? I know that I find both the ideas of encouraging and gaining exciting, but for personal reasons, I choose not to gain. I wonder how common disparities like that are?
I agree with o-digga above: We could definitely add a layer by comparing interests (fantasy) with activities (reality).
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, it's tempting to introduce yet another "Kinsey scale" type of thing, showing the range of interest in gaining and encouraging. The difference here being that on the gainer/encourager scale, there's much more fluidity, with people drifting further to one side of the scale or another at different points in their lives.
I just thought I'd tell you that: You. Are. Brilliant. In my own unscientific study, I find that conversations in the gainer community run hot and cold and rarely in between when it comes to cerebral vs. all-sex-all-the-time. It's kind of like the difference between aroused by drawn-out (fleshed out!) well-written gainer-fiction and the sloppy, quick and cheap ones. The same is true with other media. Thank you for posting these elaborate, yet easily digested thoughts!
ReplyDeleteBTW, all you other people out there know what I'm talking about: intelligent post brings out intelligent reactions in the comment section.
I truly enjoy your posts - they are top-notch.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to raise one question: Did you take the guys who classify themselves as bears into consideration when you were doing your search on biggercity?
I have found that many of the guys who identify themselves as bears tend to have a fluid sexuality in regards to the body-types they find most attractive.
Again, thanksf or the articles. They are all very thought-provoking.
Well, I really appreciate these thoughts, SFBayDude. For a long time I tried to label myself...first I was a bear, then a chub, always a gainer, but with encouraging tendancies...chub for chub...chub for chaser...chub for encourager...finally realized a few years ago I don't fit in any box...and that is in fact part of the reality isn't it? The gluttony part of my personality always seems to want more, so fitting in anything just doesn't work. Finally realized that just "being" was better than trying to "be any one thing"...You're a wise man...to be able to articulate these thoughts at this point in your journey. Sometime we'll have to belly up to a buffet and talk about them together!
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting everyone!
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the fantasy vs. reality thing, I wanted to keep this post simply about desire and innate urge, to expose the idea that most of us COULD be either gainers and encouragers, whether or not we actually end up gaining or encouraging. I think I'll have to do another post about that second part--where does the fantasy meet the reality--at a later date. Thanks for bringing that up!
And to answer the other Anonymous poster: I actually didn't take the bears into account, specifically because it was so damn hard to characterize what they were! But they in fact make up a VERY small percentage of Biggercity (most guys fall under chub, chaser or chub4chub)... not sure about the fluidity thing you mention, but it's true that guys who identify as bears on biggercity could be attracted to either chasers or chubs or other bears.
And to ilbigbear: Thanks for commenting. I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment about "being". It's important to soul search and understand oneself, but at the end of the day, we do just have to "be."