When Life Gives You Flakes...

I still remember the first time I was completely flaked on. I was 18, just finishing up my freshman year of college and visiting my family in San Francisco (and weighing in around 200 pounds). I had known this guy “Davey” online for a while and finally decided to meet him in person.

We agreed to meet in front of his apartment on Market St. and I arrived promptly, all bright eyed and bushy… err… bellied. I called his cell phone and he picked up. “I just ran down the street to get groceries,” he told me. “I’m walking back to my apartment right now. Oh is that you in front of my building? I see you now!”

Click.

I looked around, but didn’t see any sign of my portly liaison. So I waited. And waited. “Maybe he stopped somewhere else? Or I just missed him?” I reasoned. So I called, and his phone rang. And rang.

After about 20 minutes, I got the picture. I had just experienced my first (and admittedly most callous) flake. I later found out I was only one of many guys to have the same experience with Davey the Sociopath.

In the seven years since then, I’ve encountered my share of flakes here and there. None quite as malicious as Davey. Sometimes it’s the guy who continually sets up plans only to cancel the day before (or hour before) every time. Other times it’s the guy who just refuses to pick up his phone after making plans. And then there’s the guy who’s always too busy to commit to a time and place for meeting.

It’s easy to get caught up in the negative. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve lamented to friends about how flaky the gainer community can be. And yet my good experiences have vastly outweighed the bad ones—which is why I’m still here and still meeting new people.

But it all begs the question: are gainers/encouragers really more flaky than the average person? And if so, why?


WHAT MAKES A FLAKE A FLAKE

It’s important to first define what it is we’re talking about. Certainly there are different types of flakes: Just like we have Murder 1, Murder 2 and Manslaughter, so there are also degrees of flaking.

Picture a spectrum, on which all flaky guys exist. At one end of the spectrum we have malice (the actual desire to hurt or annoy) and at the other end we have apathy (generally not caring about the impact of one’s actions on others).

The most extreme end is embodied by people like Davey—guys who seem to get a perverse satisfaction at wasting your time and energy. Their crimes are pre-meditated and altogether sociopathic. Fortunately for all of us, the extreme, malicious flake is incredibly rare.

Around the middle of the spectrum (the Flake 2’s if you will) we have guys who display a sort of malicious negligence. They typically fall into one of two types: The first type is horny, and sees setting up plans as a way to keep you engaged online until they can get off—then once they’ve reached climax, have no more need for pesky commitments. The second is those who are not yet ready to meet up in person, but haven’t found a way to articulate that. So they make plans in a spontaneous an act of bravery, but eventually come to realize that they aren’t ready to meet in the flesh and cancel.

At the apathetic end of the spectrum (those guilty of Flake-slaughter or perhaps Man-flake?), there’s a bit of a mixed bag: Guys who are just now evolving from lurker status or for whom flakiness is an embedded personality trait—who are just as likely to forget about their plans to meet you as they are with their “real world” friends.

But outside that spectrum there’s another group, one that often get’s lumped into flaking, but really doesn’t belong. The he’s-just-not-that-into-you category.

The truth about our community is that, like any gay sub-community, people are generally interested in meeting guys they are at least somewhat attracted to. There’s always exceptions, but on the whole, it’s pretty reliable fact.

I’m way past my “first thirty pounds” and so I don’t really expect guys who are attracted to the first-thirty crowd to want to meet me. Some still might, but they are certainly an exception.

Sometimes that guy you think of as a flake, just isn’t all that into you and doesn’t know how (or care) to tell you that directly. So he waffles, he makes excuses and sometimes he just ignores you. Is it polite? No. Is it honest? Not really. But it’s a fact we have to face.

All of these people have one thing in common—they shouldn’t matter to you. When you realize a guy is turning out to be a flake (or just isn’t interested in you and doesn’t know how to say it), shut it down. Move on. It’s not worth it to waste one more second engaging or even chastising him. If he’s going to change, he’ll do it on his own terms.

Sometimes, we just need to call a spade a spade, and get on with things.

You deserve better than to be treated like that. And you will find better. There are countless other guys who will be into you and will actually want to set up plans to meet. Focus your time and energy on them.

So back to that question posed at the beginning:


ARE GAINERS/ENCOURAGERS INHERENTLY FLAKY?

The truth is, the world is a flaky place. Unless there’s serious emotional (e.g. family, close friends) or financial incentives, people can be quite unreliable—especially when dealing with relative strangers.

And yet I can’t help but think that gainers are flakier than your average person.

I’d argue that has much to do with our own inner gainer shame. I started exploring that idea in “This is Not a Man” in regards to the objectification of guys online. The more shame a person feels over his interest in gaining/encouraging, the more likely he’ll be to make stupid mistakes and treat other guys online as less than human.

I don’t think I need to say very much about gainer shame, because it’s certainly something every single one of us has gone through, or is still going through.

Ours is an interest that defies the mainstream. Let’s face it: it’s weird, it’s different and it’s a little bit freaky (in the “get your freak on” sense, not the “Freaky Friday” sense). So it can be hard to accept and not feel some residual shame over.

Add to that the fact that many of us are straddling multiple identities—how many gainer encouragers out there are also active in the mainstream gay community, or have civilian boyfriends?—and you’ve got a recipe for denial, self-loathing and all-around flakery.

And yet despite all the gainer shame out there, and the presence of persistent flakes, somehow our community thrives and expands. It’s hard not to be optimistic when you look at the trend of so many groups of gainer/encourager friends sprouting up all over the country; so many guys who are meeting and engaging with their local brethren.

Sure there are plenty of lurkers out there and the occasional guy who seems to be going out of his way to make it as difficult as possible to meet for a beer. But today’s lurkers become tomorrow’s out-and-proud gainers/encouragers. And the majority of guys with profiles online are actually interested in meeting.

Maybe they don’t want to meet right now and maybe not with you. And that’s OK. As the saying goes, “You can’t have everything all the time.” If this one guy doesn’t want to meet you, you’ll find someone else who will. And he’ll be awesome.

There’s an abundance of quality guys out there—men worth getting to know, befriending and maybe even dating. Don’t let a few lousy flakes keep you from meeting them.


HOLIDAY BREAK

I’m going to be taking a three-week break from this blog. Partly because it’s the holidays and I’ll be spending time with family and friends, but also because writing a column every week for the last few months, in addition to a full time job and other mentally-intensive things (watching episodes of Arrested Development on Hulu counts, right?) is a little exhausting and my brain needs some rest.

So I’ll be back in the new year with new posts, starting the second week of January. Until then, happy holidays everyone. And a prosperous, fattening and flake-free new years. And don't forget: When life gives you flakes, make a snowman.

Gainers are from Mars, Encouragers are from Venus

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.

Coming Out of the Pantry

I’ve often joked with friends that coming out as a gainer is like a second coming out. In a way, it really is.

And yet, it’s fundamentally different from coming out as gay. Whereas telling your friends and family you’re into guys is really about the traits of the people you love and will partner with, telling someone you’re into gaining is an intimate peek into what gets you off. In that way it’s more like disclosing that you’re a top or a bottom, or into rough play.

Not exactly subject matter for dear mom and dad.

And yet it feels like this kink is something we should be letting more people in on. If it’s a big enough part of our lives (and our potential partners' lives), it’s something we should share. But with who? And to what degree?

Most of us have come to terms with coming out of the closet as gay or bi, but is there a right way—and I use this phrase half-jokingly—to come out of the pantry?


TWO KINDS OF COMING OUT

There are really two ways to come out as a gainer/encourager. The first is a “hard” coming out—telling the whole kinky story—and the second is a sort of “soft” coming out—explaining it more in terms of the traits of your ideal partner (or ideal self).

When you’re ready to do the deed, there’s a pretty simple way to figure out who gets a soft explanation and who gets a hard one.

Who are the people you normally discuss your sex life with? Are they your straight friends? Just your gay friends? Only your best friend? Any friend with whom you’d normally disclose intimate sexual information is someone you should feel comfortable telling about your interest in all this. Of course it goes without saying that if you have a civilian partner, he should get the full story too.

For those you decide to tell, tell everything. Be open and honest. At best they’ll think it’s funny. At worst they’ll think it’s weird. Either way, you’ll find relief in not having to censor yourself around the friends (or boyfriend) with whom you normally discuss sex.

For anyone with whom you wouldn’t share intimate details about your sexuality, there’s the soft coming out.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that I’m a big advocate for honesty—being true to oneself is probably the underscoring theme of this blog. But certain subjects in life demand modesty as well. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s just life.

You’re not going to tell mom that you’re a bottom, or that you like giving head or that there’s a certain spot on your ear that when licked can make your leg twitch uncontrollably. At least I hope you wouldn’t tell your mom that.

But mom should probably know the basics—the issues of taste, as opposed to raw sex, that similarly define coming out as gay.


LETTING PEOPLE KNOW (WITHOUT LETTING THEM KNOW)

There are plenty of ways to let people in your life understand your general tastes in both men and your own body without disclosing your more prurient interests.

If you’re into big guys, let people know. There’s nothing weird about saying “I like bigger guys,” “I think guys with bellies are kinda cute,” or (in reference to a larger, sexy bloke) “he’s like an adorable teddy bear.” Be creative and have fun.

No one—except those who share this kink—will extrapolate those kinds of harmless comments about taste to reach the conclusion that, deep down, you want to watch men grow fatter or bury your face in a big belly. It may be a concern inside your own head, but I promise you, Nanna isn’t even reading the same book, let alone at risk of being on the same page as you.

They’re gonna meet your boyfriend(s) sooner or later and eventually they’ll put the pieces together that you are, in fact, attracted to bigger men. Get ahead of the story and liberate yourself in the process.

Now if you’re into growing yourself (or already are a big-bellied guy), then the soft coming out is all about signaling that you are very happy as a bigger man.

It’s important to acknowledge that for the vast majority of the planet, fatness is associated with being sad and lonely. When your friends or family see you getting fatter, they likely assume you’re having problems and when you stay fat, they assume you’re unhappy. This is not to be mean, it’s simply their mindset. If they were you, they’d be unhappy too.

So the onus is on you to completely and totally own your body. If you complain about diets not working or clothes not fitting to your non-gainer friends, stop it. If people comment about your weight, say things like, “I actually really like the way I look,” “I find I’m more confident as a bigger guy,” or even that classic standby: “I feel sexy.”

Again, nobody will automatically assume you must have some freaky gainer kink. They’ll simply begin to understand that you are happy and confident, and that’s all any friend wants for you (and if they don’t, you need new friends).

But it’s not just about your words. Owning your body is also about having a confident physical presence.

Stop wearing blousy shirts. Muumuu-esque outfits are for self-hating chubs, not confident gainers. Dressing in a tent sends a signal to the world that you’re ashamed of your body. Wear shirts that accentuate your curves. Find pants that do too.

Many guys have parts of them that they don’t like—you wish you had that rock-hard beergut but are stuck with pudgy love handles, or wish you were soft, flabby fat but stuck with a firm preggo belly. Do your best to ignore those. You need to own your entire body—even parts of it that you may not be 100 percent ecstatic about.

Perhaps the strongest signal you send to the world is through your posture.

Avoid the fatboy slouch. That’s when a bigger guy hunches forward so as to bring his head into alignment with the front of his belly/tits, creating the effect of slimness from his perspective (because when he looks down, he sees a straight line instead of a paunch). It fools no one. Instead, it just sends a message that you’re unconfident and uncomfortable with your body.

Straightening your spine while sitting and walking can completely change people’s perceptions of you. It says, “Don’t fuck with me, I’m confident and happy just as I am.” That’s a message that only good posture can convey.

At the end of the day, there is no “right” way to come out as a gainer/encourager/belly-lover. We each need to do it on our own terms.

But it’s helpful to remember that coming out of the pantry isn’t the same as coming out of the closet. You don’t need to tell everyone everything—and you shouldn’t have to. Even lifting just some of this off your shoulders can be immensely liberating.

The truth shall set us free. Or make us fat. Preferably both.

Friends Who "Get" All This

Thanksgiving is perhaps my most favorite holiday. There’s no presents, no decorations, just ridiculous amounts of food, lots of family and reflection on life’s blessings. Among the many things I am thankful for this year, one is particularly pertinent to this blog: I am grateful to have good friends who are gainer/encouragers.

I’ve dedicated two whole posts to the subject of romantic relationships, but I don’t want to lose sight of one of the most important relationships we can have—a simple friendship. Having good gainer/encourager friends is a big reason why I am the person I am today. Those relationships have helped me to accept what I like and what I want to be and see this whole kink as something that is a very real part of me.

It’s wonderful to be friends with people who “get” this side of you. Guys you can joke with about grandma’s feeder tendencies. Guys you can commiserate with about a bad meetup with an overzealous encourager. Guys you can talk freely with about… well… anything. And of course guys you can chow down with when the feeling’s right.

So in addition to the many things for which I must give thanks this year, I give thanks for the opportunity to befriend so many wonderful guys who share this interest in gaining, encouraging and all things belly.

In lieu of a post about the subject, I figured I’d try something different. I took the characters from perhaps one of the best known TV shows about a group of friends who openly talk about sex and sexuality, and re-tooled it a bit. If you haven’t seen the show, this may not make sense for you, but hopefully it’s fun regardless.

So without further ado, I give you a scene from HBO’s latest hit:


GAINER SEX AND THE CITY

Scene 1: CARY, MIRO, CHARLIE and SAM are sitting around a table at their favorite café, the Squat and Gobble.

CARY: So, Miro, how was your date last night?

MIRO: Awful. He was a watcher.

CHARLIE: A watcher?

MIRO: Yeah, you know, one of those guys who just watches you eat. He takes me to this hip new restaurant on the Lower East Side, called Fed, and then sits in silence for over an hour while I eat a ten course meal. I mean what is happening to the quality of encouragers in this city?

CHARLIE: Well maybe he was just shy? I get shy sometimes.

SAM: Shy or not, the man’s a watcher. You need a doer.

MIRO: Thank you! Hello! I want a guy who knows how to say the right things. Call me a romantic, but I want a guy who will lean in close, put his lips to my ear and whisper about how he’s gonna make every button on my shirt pop off. Is that so much to ask?

CARY: I don’t have a problem with a watcher, but what’s with this rash of overzealous encouragers? I mean, it’s a date, not a farm feed.

SAM: You shoulda seen New York in the early 80s. Now that was a farm feed!

CARY: It’s not like we’re in our twenties anymore and can just gorge on pizza every night and not wake up at 3 AM with stomach pains.

MIRO: Yes, I need a guy who’s attuned to my needs, and if he can’t handle that, he can just stuff it!

SAM: Or send him my way and I’ll stuff him.

CARY: Enough with the stuffing!

CHARLIE: And is it too much to ask for a gainer who can commit to putting on 100 pounds for me? Is that really so hard?

CARY: But you’ve got Trey! Sure he’s a civilian, but he loves you.

CHARLIE: What if love isn’t enough?

CARY: wait, are you thinking about leaving him? I mean, you managed to find a perfectly normal guy who’s willing to commit. That’s huge!

CHARLIE: Yeah, but he’s not. And that’s the problem! He eats like a hummingbird. I want a Hoover.

MIRO: Just make sure your Hoover can do hardwood floors too.

CARY: Well Charlie, maybe you should gain a little. It might help you attract the right guy.

CHARLIE: I’m a WASP, Cary. A WASP. WASPs don’t gain weight!

MIRO: Someone should tell the Clintons.

CARY: You know, in some cultures, skinny is considered handsome.

SAM: And you’re looking at me while you’re saying that?

CARY: Of course not, I just mean. Look, you’re not very big and you work it like no one else I know.

MIRO: Believe me, getting bigger isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. When you're a teenager, you see gainers in all the magazines and on TV and all you wanna do is grow up so you can grow a huge belly. Then you hit 350 and all you wanna do is be able to fit in an airplane seat.

SAM: Yeah and you can forget about joining the mile high club these days. There’s barely enough room for me in those bathrooms now, let alone a big gainer and a plate of food.

CHARLIE: They don’t even serve real food anymore!

SAM: Exactly. I mean what am I supposed to do, feed him Terra Blue potato chips? I’m getting too damn old for this stuff.

CARY: We all are. I thought I’d found “the one” and wouldn’t have to deal with all this anymore. But now Big is gone and it’s like I’m adrift.

SAM: Oh honey, forget about Big. We’re gonna get you back out there and you’re gonna find Big-ger.

MIRO: Or better yet, Big-est!

CHARLIE: They’re right. Someday you’ll meet your dream gainer and move in together and together you’ll grow bigger than either of you ever imagined.

CARY: Yeah, yeah, and live in a rent-controlled duplex on Central Park West just above a 24-hour buffet. Listen, I’ve heard this fairytale before. It worked for gainer/encourager princes in the middle ages, not regular New Yorkers in the 21st century.

SAM: Have you thought about switching up your method?

CARY: My method?

SAM: Yeah, you know, attract a different type of gainer. Funnel feeding is very popular right now.

CARY: And here I thought it was Gossip Girl.

CHARLIE: [worried] I think what Sam is trying to say is that you’ll meet your Prince Charming.

SAM: Screw Prince Charming, I’m trying to say she’s needs to switch it up if she wants to meet Prince Swelling.

CARY: Yeah and when I find him, is he gonna be ready to commit?

SAM: Commitment, shmommipment. You just need a funnel and a carton of Cozy Shack.

MIRO: I think I read that on a Hallmark card once.

CHARLIE: Sam!

SAM: What, are you scandalized?

CARY: Oh Charlie thinks force-feeding is taboo.

MIRO: The only thing that gets fed on Charlie’s dates is his insecurities.

SAM: Charlie, you don’t like to feed?

CHARLIE: It’s gross! I mean, I love guys who can eat, but I’m just not a feeder. It’s not in my blood. I’m from Connecticut!

SAM: They don’t have feeders in Connecticut? No wonder Lieberman went crazy.

CARY: [voiceover] In that moment, I was glad my friends were supporting me, but I realized this thing was deeper than just losing Big. I was in the throes of an existential crisis. One that not even the sight of this season's butter-rub turkey and stuffing could lift me out of.

[fade to commercial]

Looking for Love in the Gainer Community

After last week’s post about relationships with civilians, I wanted to address the logical follow-up question: “If gaining is really important to me, is my dating pool really limited to only gainer/encouragers?”

Of course that’s a question each guy needs to answer for himself, but if your answer is yes, that shouldn’t be cause for anxiety.

Of course, the numbers can be a little scary. After all, there really aren’t many of us who are into gaining, encouraging and bellies out there in the world. Let alone locally.

And when you think of all the flakes, freaks, crazy-crazies, guys who think “cam?” is the same as “hello,” married men and good-old-fashioned assholes out there, well the prospect of finding love in all of it can be daunting.

But at the same time, there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic.


THE NUMBERS ARE ACTUALLY ON YOUR SIDE

I’m reminded of a particularly funny scene at the end of Dumb and Dumber. In it, Lloyd is trying to find out if he has a shot with the woman he’s pursued for the length of the film, and she says his chances aren’t good:

Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?

Mary: I'd say more like one out of a million.

[pause]

Lloyd: So you're telling me there's a chance... *YEAH!*

I’m sure you’re wondering who in their right mind bases their worldview on a movie like Dumb and Dumber, but Lloyd had a point in his stupidity. Sure we can see the numbers as daunting. But they’re daunting for everyone. You can see one in a million as impossible, or you can see it as opportunity.

It might not always be conscious, but we’re constantly limiting the kinds of guys we date. If you want a guy who’s funny, you count out all the humorless men in the world. If you want a guy who’s considerate, you cut off the inconsiderate ones. If you want a guy who looks or acts like X you omit guys who look or act like Y. And so on.

Hell, being gay is probably the biggest limit we impose on ourselves (restricting our dating pool from about 45% of the human population to roughly 5% in one swoop) and yet few of us seriously say, “Gee, maybe I should be dating women to broaden my pool?”

The gainer/encourager community is small. It’s hard to estimate exact numbers, but there are about 7,000 users on beefyfrat and 7,000 on bellybuilders. Some of those are overlapping, but a good chunk aren’t. And probably 10-20% of beefyfrat got onto the site by accident. So at best estimate, I’d say there’s somewhere around 10,000 of us who are into gaining/encouraging, aware of it and online.

While being a gainer/encourager certainly limits our options, at the same time it creates an astounding opportunity. Through sites like beefyfrat and bellybuilders we have direct access to thousands of guys who have the same thing going on in their head (and around their mid-sections).

In marketing we call that micro-targeting, and it’s a good thing. You cut through the clutter and communicate directly with the sub-audience you’re interested in reaching. That’s the opportunity we have through online gainer sites that instantly puts those 10,000 dispersed guys at our fingertips. Suddenly a dating pool that could seem disparate and foreboding is right in front of us.

Not all of them are single. Not all of them are sane. Not all of them are guys you’d even get along with, let alone date. But you don’t need to like all of them. You don’t need to date all of them. And you don’t need to fall in love with all of them. You just need to find that one. One in 10,000. Those are some odds that Lloyd would be thrilled to have.

One of the reasons why it’s important to keep things in perspective is to keep from feeling desperate. We all deserve to wind up with someone we truly, madly, deeply love, not just the guy we settled for because our options were so few. That’s not fair to him and ultimately, it’s dishonest to ourselves.

By remembering that our options are not as limited as they may seem, we can relax more, breathe easier and remind our inner worrier, “Someday I will meet my soul mate—the guy who gives me an ‘ootz’ in my stomach every time he walks in the room—and he will be into gaining/encouraging.”


HOW TO MARRY A GAINER/ENCOURAGER WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

But there’s a catch.

You can’t marry a gainer/encourager without really trying. Part of our lot is that we need to be proactive in order to really find the guys we want.

Yes, there are thousands of guys out there into gaining and encouraging, but most of them are not local. If you live in a big city, then you probably have a few hundred single and active guys within reasonable travel distance. The love of your life could very well be one of them, but more likely than not, he’s somewhere out yonder.

And that means you need to travel.

I’m not talking weekend sexcapades, but if you click with a guy online (or better yet a few different guys in the same area), think about visiting him (or them) at some point. Travel doesn’t need to be expensive (for cheap airfare, see: www.kayak.com and for a cheap place to stay, see: www.couchsurfers.org) and the rewards can be big.

The internet is great, but there’s really no way to know if a guy is your “one” until you meet him face-to-face.

For some of us, travel is a natural thing (we get a buzz from seeing new places and exploring exciting destinations). For others, travel is more of a nuisance. Either way, you’ll want to make it work for you. Gotta travel for a conference? Hit up some local guys from the frat. Visiting a foreign country for vacation? Post on bellybuilders and see if anyone wants to meet up at a local bear bar.

Perhaps the best opportunity we’ve been given is Expansion (no I’m not on their payroll, I’m just a big believer). I give my sincerest thanks to Clayton and Serge for creating an event where guys into gaining, encouraging and all things belly can be themselves and meet others with the same interest. Last year we had over 80 guys show up and I’m certain next year will see us break 100.

If you’re serious about making friends or dating gainer/encouragers, then there’s no better opportunity for you than Expansion.
The main idea here is to be the master of your own fate. “There aren’t any decent guys around here,” just isn’t a good enough excuse. Our community is small enough that love won’t come and find you. But we’ve been given the tools to go out and find it.

So get your rapidly-fattening ass out there and see what the fuss is about. If you play your cards right, you just might find a guy who’ll invite you in for tea and strumpets. Lloyd would be proud.

An Ideal Husband

I’ve been wanting to write about this topic for some time, but it’s a difficult one to handle. The question: Is it possible to be into gaining/encouraging and have a relationship with a guy who isn’t?

I know this is a hot button topic for a lot of guys with our kink—most gainers/encouragers in relationships right now are partnered to guys who aren’t into gaining/encouraging (who we’ll call “civilians”). So I’ll tread carefully.

The answer to the aforementioned question is no. And yes. And maybe. Truth be told, the answer is different for every guy. It’s entirely dependent on what you want and what you’re willing to give up.


THE TROUBLE WITH DATING CIVILIANS

Expansion is wonderful for the camaraderie it breeds, but it’s also a nifty fishbowl. Through heart-to-heart conversations and casual observation, one can walk away with a lot of fresh insight about our community. A number of guys came this year with their civilian boyfriends and it was great to see so many fellas who just wanted to support their partners and learn more about their kink.

After the event, I was chatting with one a gainer friend who said the event helped his civilian partner understand his interest in all this much better.

One anecdote was particularly telling. The two of them had been to plenty of bear runs in the past and were accustomed to spending time in a pool with lots of big, hairy men. At the bear runs, his civilian partner recounted, guys would often float by and grab his dick. Expansion was much the same in terms of look—big, hairy men hanging out in the pool. And the guys certainly floated by and groped him. But not one guy grabbed his dick. They were all aiming a little further north: They wanted to rub his belly. It was then that his partner began to understand just how “different” their sexualities were.

That story somewhat illustrates the point I made in my first post “We Are Freaks/We Are Awesome”—the thing that makes us gainers and encouragers so different from other dudes is not the type of guys we want, but rather the kind of sex and intimacy we want with them. Gaining is really about what’s in our heads, and being in a relationship with a guy who doesn’t have the same thing going on in his head can be… well, complicated.

Some argue that sex shouldn’t be the most important thing in a relationship. That’s true. But let’s be honest, sex is still important.

There is a fundamental obstacle in any gainer-civilian relationship: your civilian partner will never be the center of your sexual universe. Yes there may be a very strong attraction and even some chemistry. But at the end of the day, you and he want rather different things between the sheets. It’s a problem that can be more easily overcome in the short-term, but tends to create tension and conflict in the long-term.

We discussed some of the short-term fixes during one of the seminars at Expansion. Some gainer/encouragers elect to keep their desires in their head, playing mental acrobatics in bed to make things work without freaking out their partners. Some civilian partners try “co-opting” gaining, meaning they play along, say the things their boyfriend wants to hear and maybe even put on some weight. And some guys choose to open up their relationships and meet their needs with other men.

All of these tactics help gainers and encouragers to cope. They work, to a degree, but none of them solves that fundamental problem: Your partner isn’t the center of your sexual universe. And shouldn’t he be all that—and more?

Now that conclusion is based on the assumption that gaining/encouraging is important to your sexuality. For some guys, like myself, it is. For others, it might not be. So it’s critical to be honest and evaluate just how important all this is before deciding your own answer.


ARE YOU A G1 OR A G6? IT MATTERS.

Just like the Kinsey scale for sexuality, there is a sort of gainer scale for us as well (no, not that kind of scale… get your mind out of the gutter people!) This kink isn’t the same for everyone—many of us have different interests and fantasies—and the degree to which it impacts our sexuality varies widely.

Can’t reach climax without some kind of physical or mental stimulation relating to gaining, bellies or some similar interest? You’re probably a Gainer 6.

Do you only think about these kinds of things every once in a while to get off, and otherwise have normative sexual desires or other paraphilia? You’re more of a Gainer 1.

Most of us probably fall in the spectrum somewhere between those two extremes.

Knowing where you are on that scale will help you to answer for yourself whether you should be in a relationship with a civilian. This is the time for total self-honesty. How much of your sexuality is gaining/encouraging? Do you think about it every time you masturbate? And no, it doesn’t “count” if you have normative sex with a guy, but are thinking about gainer/encourager fantasies the whole time.

If this is all just one small facet of your sexuality, then perhaps a civilian relationship could work for you provided your other sexual needs were met. If it’s a big part of who you are, you may want to think about the feasibility of making a civilian relationship work—and I mean really work—in the long term.


WHY SETTLE?

In the interest of full disclosure, I’d probably place myself as a Gainer 5. This kink is pretty well embedded into my sexuality. It’s a critical aspect of what I want in sex and even in a relationship. While I wouldn’t entirely rule out a relationship with someone who’s not into gaining/encouraging, I don’t think that scenario is very likely. I’d need to be convinced that he was not only OK with it all, but could also engage it on a certain level. And even then I’d still have reservations.

When all is said and done I want a partner who—in addition to being a great person—is the center of my sexual universe; and who places me at the center of his. I don’t want a partner who needs to think about someone else, or some other fantasy, to be intimate with me. And he deserves the same. I don’t want a relationship that requires us to sleep with other men to fulfill our deepest desires. I want one where we not only share our deepest desires with each other—we revel in them.

Am I asking too much?

Perhaps, but when it comes to “the one,” why should we settle? Shouldn’t we try for what we really want? I know a lot of guys can get caught up in the numbers (there aren’t that many gainer/encouragers in this world!) and feel trapped by those limits.

I remain optimistic, but that’s a topic for next week’s posting.

The Ethical Gainer

I know ethics is not exactly a popular topic in the gainerverse, but it’s something I think about from time to time. My interest has focused on a single underlying ethical question about gaining: Is my gaining, my unabashed gluttony, my hyper-consumption, somehow wrong in light of global poverty and hunger?

I’ve spent a good deal of my adult life working in the field of economic development and poverty-reduction and even lived in East Africa—where my robust figure made me the single-most eligible bachelor in the Great Rift Valley. During that time, I’ve studied issues like food security and malnourishment extensively, and I can safely say that my over-indulgence is not hurting the well-being of other people.

But then why do I still feel a little guilty?

Perhaps that’s society’s morality hanging over my head (we sure do love to demonize fat people) or maybe it’s just my nagging Jewish half, but even knowing that the hard facts are on my side, I still feel that twinge of guilt. I eat enough food to sustain an entire family in some parts of the world. And when those families are going to bed hungry, I should, at the very least, take a good look at the ethical foundation upon which I stand.

Is it unjust to grow fatter while others starve? Is there something we can do to ease our consciences? What does it take to be an ethical gainer?


GAINING IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS

To understand the ethical question, it’s critical to understand the relationship between the food we eat and the lack of food in poorer countries. The truth is that there is no direct connection between the two.

Food is not a zero sum game: Putting a cheeseburger in my stomach, doesn’t take it away from a poor child in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s entirely possible for every person on this planet to be well nourished and still have plenty of food left over for the fatties. Famines and malnourishment are not caused by Western over-consumption—but rather by political and economic conditions on the ground.

Yet even if my habits aren’t directly having a negative impact, do I not have an ethical obligation to do something for those who are not so lucky? I was raised to believe that “to whom much is given, much is expected.” I’ve been blessed to grow up in a place with an abundance of food, but how do I give back?

Even if we could give that hypothetical cheeseburger to an impoverished child abroad, it would actually do more harm than good. As we saw in Somalia in the 90s, when we dump our food aid on hapless third world nations, we undercut the local market prices and deepen the famine's we're trying to stop, forcing local producers out of business.

Think about it: If you're a local farmer selling potatoes for 50 cents a pound, and suddenly the USAID plane arrives and middlemen start selling high-quality, American-grown grains for half that price, how can you compete? You can't. So you either go out of business or switch to a cash crop, which means a return to famine next season once the food aid is gone. It's a vicious, unsustainable cycle.

So I can’t just donate that cake I was going to have for dessert, but I still want to do something positive. What if there was a way for me to have my cake, and let people in need eat it too? (OK, I need to stop mixing my metaphors).

There is. And it comes in the form of a small, unique, delightfully-named initiative:


THE FULL BELLY PROJECT

So aside from the killer name, this is a really wonderful organization that I have had first-hand experience working with. And I can assure you that they are making a real difference for food security—and doing it in a sustainable way.

The Full Belly Project’s primary mission is to help spread the use of cheap, simple and locally-produced agricultural technology that can disproportionately impact the food supply in poor rural areas. They’re not just teaching a man to fish—they’re teaching him how to maximize his yield.

Their pilot project focused on a basic nut shelling device, which may sound like no big woop, but is already helping people in extreme poverty to boost their productivity and get better profits from what they grow. That means more full bellies in places where that’s not always a choice.

So if you too feel like your over-indulgent ways put you in an ethical quandry, don’t put down that slice of pizza—keep eating. But while you’re doing it, check out The Full Belly Project online and give a little something. Because more full bellies is a cause all of us can get behind.

www.thefullbellyproject.org/