...About Fetishizing Fatness?

Transcript available here.

We follow up previous discussions we've had about fetishizing racialized identities (see Season 2, Episode 11: Boba Liberalism) to talk specifically about the fetishizing of fat bodies, why its problematic, and how to deconstruct some of our biases around fatness and shame. 

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Do The Kids Know? is a biweekly series of discussions between community workers and educators, Prakash and Kristen, that unpack race, media, popular culture, and politics in KKKanada (That’s Canada spelled with three K’s) from an anti-colonial perspective.

Our goal is to bring nuance to sensationalist media as well as to uncover the ways in which white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism is shaping our movements and behaviours. 

Keep tuning in to be a part of the conversation… don’t be a kid who doesn’t know!

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Artwork by Daniela Silva (instagram.com/danielasilvatrujillo)
Music by Steve Travale (https://stevetravale.com)

DTKK is recorded on the traditional and unceded Indigenous lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation. We are committed to working with Indigenous communities and leaders locally and across Turtle Island to fight for Indigenous rights, resurgence, and sovereignty. 

Until next time. Stay in the know~!

Transcript

Kristen: 0:16

Hey kids, and welcome to Do the Kids Know? That is this show where we talk about race, media, pop culture and politics, and triple K Canada. I am one of your hosts, Kristen. And on my screen is Prakash.

Prakash: 0:32

Hello.

Kristen: 0:33

Today it is take two of an episode where we are going to talk about fetishization. Yay.

Prakash: 0:41

Yay. Take two because we recorded this like just now. For a good at least 20 minutes.

Kristen: 0:48

Yup.

Prakash: 0:48

And then my whole computer froze. And the recording was lost. And so now we're at it again.

Kristen: 0:57

Yeah, yeah. It's alright. It's a par the course for the day. Honestly.

Prakash: 1:05

This day. This year. We're recording this on like January 10. Has it been a struggle for me earliest.

Kristen: 1:13

I mean, before we hit record, the first time I was telling you that I worked for an hour and now have so much brain fog that I didn't realize that I wasn't reading the words in front of my face for like 15 minutes. So...

Prakash: 1:27

Yeah. And then we also discussed how my winter break was four business days.

Kristen: 1:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Prakash: 1:35

Yeah. Anyhow, so our fun intro co-star horoscope dragging.

Kristen: 1:43

So today co-ster has told me that my soul is fighting mediocrity.

Prakash: 1:55

Kristen. No. That is so rude. Especially because your last one told you that you weren't reaching the peaks of your game.

Kristen: 2:08

Co-star is telling me to do more, do more and be better.

Prakash: 2:11

Not in this house. Not in team do less? No, no, no.

Kristen: 2:16

Wow. My soul is fighting mediocrity. Okay, cool. Good to know, I guess

Prakash: 2:23

Does it mean that it's fighting the mediocrity around you?

Kristen: 2:26

Sure. Let's read it that way. Because the other meeting is that I am being mediocre. And my soul is trying not to let me do that.

Prakash: 2:34

Yeah, I can't. I can't accept that.

Kristen: 2:38

Oh, that's so funny.

Prakash: 2:39

My co-star today from 30 minutes ago told me to find a way to neutralize people who have power over you.

Kristen: 2:47

Okay.

Prakash: 2:48

Does that mean murder? Neutralize people? Like is all my bosses better be aware.

Kristen: 2:54

I guess.

Prakash: 2:56

That's frightening,

Kristen: 2:57

Is it? I mean, I'm down. Let's neutralize some folks.

Prakash: 3:03

I mean, I also like, yeah, yeah, my employers I guess had the power of employment over me but not really because I... One, I'm in a union. Two, I brought money to my job. And three, yeah, I'm a contractor. My main three jobs so I... Who else has power over? Ma'am?

Kristen: 3:27

I mean, literally any government.

Prakash: 3:30

Oh, true.

Kristen: 3:30

Your landlord. These systems we live in?

Prakash: 3:35

Yeah. Ah, yes, systemic. Don't get me out of the neoliberal ideology of...

Kristen: 3:41

Yeah.

Prakash: 3:43

...individual action. You're right. You're right.

Kristen: 3:46

Because we were literally talking earlier about like, ideal life is to work 10 hours a week at something that like pays astronomical amounts of money so that we don't have to do anything.

Prakash: 3:59

Yeah, but speaking of things we hate, fetishization. And I'm going to continue to mispronounce this word and people just have to deal with it because I cannot get out all the syllables. Fetishisation.

Kristen: 4:09

Why are you trying? It's okay.

Prakash: 4:11

Because I feel like I'm missing a letter but I don't think I am.

Kristen: 4:14

No.

Prakash: 4:14

Anyway,

Kristen: 4:15

Even if you were I'm not the person to tell you. We just talked about how I was staring at my screen for 15 minutes without realizing that I was... Anyway.

Prakash: 4:21

Oh God anyway, so I'm gonna go over this very briefly because I had just talked about it.

Kristen: 4:29

We just did this.

Prakash: 4:30

Before my computer died. But essentially, I'm going to sort of like separate fetish from fantasize fetishization. Goddamn. I'm moving on. So, we have fetish, which is like, it could be like an obsession, with something often linked to like sexual fetishes. But there are other kinds of fetishes that are not sexual in nature. But with what we're talking about today. We're next sort of keep it within the sexual realm. And so there are things called fetish communities in which people who like share a fetish interest might like, get together in order to like, consensually practice certain sex acts, which may seem outside of the norm. The big disclaimer that I'm not an expert in any of these things, but this is just like, from my own knowledge and from like, being proximate to a lot of like, I was gonna say, like non-normative sexual communities, by way of being very active in like queer culture and queer community for...

Kristen: 5:32

Just like...

Prakash: 5:33

...my adulthood.

Kristen: 5:33

... every time you say, like, normal, I want to throw something at you.

Prakash: 5:39

Normative. Not normal. Again this is like...

Kristen: 5:43

I don't want to throw something at you for use of the word, I want to throw something at you for the things that have been normalized.

Prakash: 5:49

Yeah.

Kristen: 5:50

Yeah.

Prakash: 5:51

Yeah. And so often, like, there are lots of expressions these days, not lots, I can think of two, where it's like, don't don't yuck other people's yum. And the other one is no kink shaming. This is, this is like, sort of in that same line of that, where it's like some people have like certain interests that like, may seem outside of the norm of like, white supremacist heteronormative sexual behavior.

Kristen: 6:23

That's the thing I want to throw my shoe at. Yeah.

Prakash: 6:26

This is how we're thinking about, like, quote, unquote, normalcy in 2022. Which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, or a problematic thing or whatever. Like, I think there are more nuanced arguments to be made in regards to like, the problematics of fetish communities. But that is not we're talking about here today. And also, this podcast, cannot be the only sort of nuance because we're, like, barely scratching the surface of any of these topics. Because within 30 minutes, it's only so far, you can go into you know, if you really want to dive in deep, take a course. You know, Google Scholar, get deep into it. And so, that's fetish. Fetishization, so the act of like fetishizing a thing becomes problematic when we are diving into creating fetishes, out of peoples' bodies, of peoples' qualities of a person. So it's one thing to, like, have a fetish over like uniform, I find something in a uniform, very sexy. Or like, I love leather, or latex or whatever these things that like that are not like bound to a particular kind of person or a particular body. But the issues we can like return back to episode we did in season two, I believe with friend of the pod Maka, and we talked about the fetishization of Asian women, and how people have managed to distill the gigantic and complex continent Asia into the sort of like domiciled petite Asian woman who only exists to be subservient to like a white man. If you're an Asian woman, in Canada, on dating apps, you already know that people are like, wildly gross. And like the problem with this is like, there's nothing wrong with like, loving Asian cultures, you know, big "S" at the end.

Kristen: 8:26

The problem comes when fetishization becomes objectification because the thing that you quote, unquote, like about, quote, unquote, Asian women, is a singular trait and removes the humanity from the person and the people who you're speaking about. So I fetishize Asian women, because they're docile, makes them an object for your pleasure, instead of actually women who exist and, like live in this world.

Prakash: 8:58

Yeah, because you're like, you're like painting with the very broad brush billions of people. And that does not make sense. Because like, there is no way like even like the, like, supposed positive stereotypes, which I think are also stupid, right? Like, and we've already talked about the model minority and whatever, in other episodes, but the idea that like, all of like, x people are like, beautiful or smart or whatever these things that like seem positive, like, just cannot be true.

Kristen: 9:27

It's still objectification like you're still seeing all of this thing is this way. But you can't say that. Like, how am I going to say I don't know. All black handles are black. Yeah, cuz their handles that have been painted black. I can't say all Black women are something because that just doesn't make sense.

Prakash: 9:49

Yeah, like, all people are individuals. And when you remove someone's humanity in favor of, yeah, objectifying them over like something that's arbitrary, it's Asian-ness, it's stupid and weird. Stupid and weird. I don't care for it, it doesn't make sense. And I wish people wouldn't. But they continue to.

Kristen: 10:12

And I think they continue to because they don't even realize they're doing it, right? Like that, to certain extent, media and projections and all the things we see, literally every person that is a celebrity is objectified for us. Like, we don't even know that it's happening anymore. And there's a level of like, understanding that, like we have and our friends have, but like, clearly, society doesn't have that, like all of the things being shoved at us, all of the people being shoved at us, all the features being shoved at us, is a form of objectification. We are removing the humanity of the person that is being referred to. We are removing the humanity of the group that is being referred to. We are not taught to see them as individuals. We're taught to see them as objects. The media sees them as objects, and therefore we do as well.

Prakash: 11:00

Yeah, you're, yeah, you're like, very on on the money. Even though money is fake.

Kristen: 11:07

I was gonna- Did you know I was gonna say it? I was like, ready to...

Prakash: 11:11

You're on the very fake money, and speaking on the very fake money, I think I am so exhausted with conversations about media representation, and like, we need more representation. And I'm like, no, no.

Kristen: 11:24

No. We need better representation.

Prakash: 11:25

But it is important to have, better representation, and like diverse not just like having like people of colour, but having people of colour with a diverse range of lived experiences. In terms of behind the scenes, and what's on screen, the stories are portrayed. Like, it's cool that we have Crazy Rich Asians, right, like, you know, very like expensive, well made movie with a star studded cast. But if that is going to be like the be all, end all of Asian representation, that all we see are like light skinned East Asians who are thin and wealthy.

Kristen: 12:02

That's not it.

Prakash: 12:02

That's not it.

Kristen: 12:03

That's not it. And see, like that feeds the objectification feeds the fetishization, because we're not seen, we're not seeing wrong verb tense, all of the things that go into Asia. So the regular, I'm gonna call him Joe, Joe on the street, who like doesn't do anything other than go to his nine to five, and then come home and watch, I don't know, CBC. What other Asian representations is he seeing. When he thinks Asian, he's going to think East Asian, he's going to think thin, close to white, model minority, beautiful, because that is what the media is showing him. And therefore, if he thinks I love Asian women, he's now fetishizing Asian women without even realizing that he's doing it. Because he doesn't know. And it's, like, so far unable to understand the nuances and the levels of individuality and humanity that are missing from the representations he's seeing.

Prakash: 13:07

And this is so common, like you only need to, like take a quick glance at a show like 90 Day Fiance, where these like middle aged white men, or you can just go to these places I mean, don't go there now because COVID, but like, it is such a phenomenon of like white men who like are old 50s 60s older even, to like go to Southeast Asia predominantly, or East Asia or South America, literally to like, marry like, basically child brides. People who are like late teens, early 20s, like these men who have children who are older than these women that they marry because they want to go there for the sole purpose of getting married to have power over someone to, yeah, so this work of fetishizing them being like, ah okay, these are the traits that I know, of based on, like what I've understood from Western media that they are like, you know, all these negative stereotypes, I'm not going to continue to repeat them. And then I can have this sort of like dominion over it. And it's fucked up, and that's gonna lead us to our, like, actual topic, which is the fetish, fetishization of Black bodies. I'm sorry, no, that's not even right.

Kristen: 14:12

No, it's not but it's where I was gonna go. Cuz I was gonna say before we even go to where we were going to go like that applies to any race that is outside of the white race, like white men have been taught they can fetishize women who are not like them. And so it applies to literally, like Latin x women to Black women to Asian women. And not even just women. Like any race, that's not their own race. They've been taught that they can fetishize it so and like, because that's the like main, so any other like race who buys into white supremacy is also taught that they can fetishize other races in the same way and it's annoying and frustrating and gross and just like so many negative descriptive words.

Prakash: 15:05

It's true. Yeah. And this goes way beyond like, you know, just straight white men doing this right? Like I've had many people who close on my life who also said like, really just outlandish things. Being like, oh, like I only date people have like x race, even if it's not like, it's, it's a huge red flag if people are like, I only date white people. I'm like, hell now you're a racist. But it's still racist to be like, I only date I don't know, like, like, Latinx people or something like that. Like, especially if you're not that race. It's like, what? What?

Kristen: 15:37

What have you learned that has taught you that this is okay?

Prakash: 15:42

Or like, we're gonna have to how are you going to, like, paint this entire continental worth of people with like, one brush. There's no way that all of any any group can be the same unless it's a group that's ideologically driven. Like, I'm only trying to date, you know, people from Europe because I want to EU passport. That's different. Can you fetishise money because I, Mama, I'm there.

Kristen: 16:11

That's what capitalists do, isn't it?

Prakash: 16:14

I mean, there we are. But listen, the gays rotted you know, all these sorts of tropes of like night riders or like, BBCs or whatever. Like...

Kristen: 16:26

What's a BBC? I don't know. Should I just Google it instead of you answering?

Prakash: 16:34

Don't google it. In private browsing.

Kristen: 16:39

Oh no.

Prakash: 16:40

In the chat.

Kristen: 16:40

Oh no.

Prakash: 16:45

I kind of love that you don't know this. But

Kristen: 16:47

How would I know this? Oh, my God, why? I'm done. I'm done. See this. This is why as an asexual person, like sexuality is confusing to me that like this is no I'm done. I'm done. I can't even. I don't have words.

Prakash: 17:10

If you don't know what BBC is, it's a pretty pejorative sort of like acronym for people who are Black, who have very large penises. And I'll leave it to you to figure out how the acronym works. But that is a very...

Kristen: 17:25

They really said, this stereotype is going to be the way that I pick my sexual partner.

Prakash: 17:30

And let me tell you, it is extremely, extremely common, in both gay and straight scenarios for dating and sex.

Kristen: 17:38

I'm tired.

Prakash: 17:40

And people will do this to themselves and people will objectify themselves being like, Oh, I like you know, have this feature. Or I can see you're traumatized I'm not I'm not gonna get into it.

Kristen: 17:52

I'm just like... No, it's okay. I'm fine. Move on. I have. It's okay.

Prakash: 17:59

Yeah, before the recording broke we even talked too about how like, you know, we see this a lot with like Black women's bodies and how these like specific trades get fetishized, and then removed from Black people into like, you know, the larger society and we see this a lot with like, lip injections and fillers and BBLs and these kinds of things to like, continue to, well not continue but that like perpetuates the kind of hourglass shape figure as something that's like desirable on particularly like light women, or racially ambiguous women but that are still seen as like, overly sexual or, like, degenerate, when you know, that is a natural body type of like many Black women.

Kristen: 18:46

Yeah.

Prakash: 18:47

And that's weird. I don't know. I don't have a good segue. But I think we need to talk about fat bodies because that was our intended topic.

Kristen: 18:55

That was the intended topic. It was. So for you, when I say fetishization of fat bodies, what are we talking

Prakash: 19:02

I had this long spiel about how we have been taught to about? shame ourselves for being attracted to people who are fat, or being seen in public with someone who is fat.

Kristen: 19:13

And then there's like, sorry, then there's like a double shame. Because you as somebody who is attracted to something that you quote unquote, shouldn't be attracted to and then the person that you are with already feels shamed because they embody the type of body that you quote unquote, shouldn't be attracted to and that quote, unquote, shouldn't exist.

Prakash: 19:36

Exactly. It's like there's a shame all around and I think like, in my opinion, this is just my opinion. I didn't like research this or anything, but like, I have come to sort of like the conclusion that because of all of that internalized shame, people's like appreciation for like fat bodies, for fatness has to be like, relegated into this sort of like when I was talking about like, fetish communities, but it goes way beyond that into this, like, it's one thing to like keep your like leather fetish, you know, something that's in the closet, but you cannot keep your like fat partner, like hidden away from society that's fucked up. But so because we've been trained to like believe that fatness is indesirable, undesirable? I dunno.

Kristen: 20:22

Un-.

Prakash: 20:22

Undesirable. Yeah, I think in French its in-. We've been taught that it's undesirable and so we like bottle all of our attraction, keep it in secret, then like date people keep that in secret. And then it becomes a sort of like twisted thing where you lose sense of this person's identity, their like personal autonomy, their humanity, and it makes like, either the dating or the sexual encounters with this person just about their fatness.

Kristen: 20:56

But like, not about their fatness in a way that is affirming of their body and their self esteem and their self worth. It's focused on their fatness in a way that demeans them.

Prakash: 21:07

Exactly. Yeah. And I can't remember the term for this, but there's like, a particular kind of fetish where you like, psychologically get off on feeding people and like watching them get fatter. I'll give you a minute to come back.

Kristen: 21:22

I think my biggest emotion right now is confusion. Because you would get off on... Like that's more than just getting off on controlling someone.

Prakash: 21:33

I mean, again, I'm not a psychologist, big disclaimer. But from my from my perspective, I will not confirm not deny, if I have been in this scenario, but in my opinion, please keep the cut eye to yourself.

Kristen: 21:47

Sorry. Sorry. I didn't even realize I was doing it. I'm so sorry.

Prakash: 21:53

Because like there's so much like shame attached to being fat, like if you're fat, you have like, failed in some way that that is some kind of personal failure. And so like, maybe this overlaps not only with, like, the sort of desire or attraction to fatness, but also of like food. There's probably like a compounded, and complex behavior, but like, that there is like some kind of like, interest or like obsession, or like, yeah, fetish of, of seeing a body get bigger that like you yourself are unable to do for yourself because you're, like, shamed by society. And so you project that on to somebody else. which is one thing to like, you know, make a meal for your, for your person, be like your friends, like hi, like, please enter this food that I made. But to do it intentionally to like, gross feed someone to like for the purpose of seeing them get fatter, and then seeing them increase in size gets you off. Again, like going back to the beginning like no not yuking your yum. I mean, again, in a consulting relationship like this is fine. But like, if the relationship is just to objectify somebody for their body, like vis a vis, their fatness, or like, you would not then also take that person to like, go to the mall to hang out or like, go on a date in public restaurant, go on the fucking ferris wheel or like whatever, like this is all just kept in secret. There's something, in my opinion, that needs to be evaluated about, about this behavior and this practice.

Kristen: 23:27

Even if it's not kept in secret. Like I don't know, there's something that all around needs to be evaluated about this because there are also instances of people being with fat people in public and using it, like using the people around them and their expectations as a way to make that fat person feel bad and feel worse, in a way that they won't necessarily acknowledge. And that does happen in public. And so I'm always like, I'm like, yes, it like it happening in private is fucked up, but it shouldn't happen. But also, people will demean fat people they are with in public in a way that is wrong as well.

Both: 24:16

Yeah.

Prakash: 24:18

In terms of like going back to like a dating context, like there are, like weird terminology around like chubby chasers. And there's absolutely like nothing wrong with being attracted to people with like, specific body types. Do I believe that? I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure I believe what I just said, but, there's definitely nothing wrong with being attracted to someone who's fat.

Kristen: 24:52

I think that just like this entire episode, for me, is just like crystallizing that there's like two things that are broken here. The one of them is like, our understanding of what it means to date and like people and ew fall in love, quote, unquote fall in love with people. And then the other is our relationship to food and to nourishment. And the way that those things speak to each other. Because on the one hand, fetishization wouldn't happen if we had, like, a real understanding of what it is we like. And if we felt like we could go after that in a way that is not harmful to anyone. Like if two consenting adults can do whatever the fuck they want, then they can do whatever the fuck they want. But there's a sense as well in fetishes, like fetish groups, fetishization that, like, it's not okay to have the thing that they want and to pursue the thing that they want. And I think that is steeped in this fucked up weird, heteronormative Christian, but we're not really Christian, society that we live in. And then the other thing is food. Food is life. I say that so often, food is life. We need food to live. And so why is it that certain people are punished and like, not even, even before I get there, there's the assumption that if somebody is fat, it's because they overindulge. And overindulging is such a white supremacist concept to me, I'm confused by it. Because like, you assume for me to be fat, that when you eat one meal, I eat three equivalents. And how do you know that? You don't know? You don't know that that's what's happening. And so it's this weird assumption that because you are fat, you are doing what I am doing in excess. And because you were doing what I am doing in excess, you don't have a good relationship with food. You don't understand what a good relationship with food is. And I am allowed to tell you what a good relationship with food is. And that's fucked up too.

Prakash: 27:02

I think we could have a whole episode about how like, puritanical Christian ideologies has really infiltrated and perpetuated how modern Western society is constructed. But I think that you're that you're like that you're right, that are these like overlapping sort of insidious things around like shame, fatness, food, neoliberal control over oneself. Like these kinds of things. I feel like this is probably like a larger discussion. And I would love to know what people who are listening, like, have thoughts. I think this probably wasn't the most, like, clear topics that we've done. Because I think we're thinking about this. I mean, I'm someone who like really learns, through through dialogue that I like, can't just like, write myself into theory, but I have to, like speak it with someone to like, make it make sense.

Kristen: 27:47

Yeah, yeah. So I think like an exploration was happening here, as well, about this topic, yeah.

Prakash: 27:52

Yeah, I think for me, like in my life experience, the I think we can end it there. most sort of, like, critical thing that I like, taken around, like, the fetish or the interest in fat bodies has been this, like, secrecy element around it. And we see this in like, the fact that they're like, dating apps for like fat women, specifically, to find people, you know, who are like, attached to them, because it's like, I don't know uncouth to like, just be on hinge or whatever. Very strange. But then also, like people who are like trans attracted, like, typically men who are attracted to like trans women, there is like, a lot of like, also shame and secrecy tied to it. So it happens a lot in like, in the shadows, like not in public. And this has often lead to to the harm or death of the trans partner. And so I think just like we, as a society, people who are like trying to think critically should like, push a little bit further to think like, have I ever dated someone fat? Would I? If the answer's no, then maybe like thinking more critically, the same way that we talked about sexual racism, we asked similar questions about like, why is it that we have these particular prejudices about people's bodies? And like, when we do have a particular interest, let's say in a fat person, is it because you are interested like them as a person, and they are fat? Or do you like only care about their body and the pleasure it gives you over their humanity? Or is it a combination of both? And like, it is what it is, I'm not telling you to, like do anything about it. I'm just like, encouraging you to ask yourself these questions and maybe start to like, unravel some of these knots in your head of all the things we continue to critique, like white supremacy and capitalism, neoliberalism, etc. Cool. So we'll see in two weeks for a new episode. Who knows what it'll be about?

Kristen: 29:49

We'll see.

Prakash: 29:51

We'll see. And until then, stay in the know.

Both: 29:53

Bye.

Kristen: 30:03

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