According to the World Health Organization, South Africa tends to be a very fat country indeed. It’s no wonder we’re becoming more and more infatuated with the fat acceptance movement.
Everyone knows our gay community worships youth and beauty (among other things) and we’ve all fallen victim to the trap on both sides at some point. Most of us fight desperately to get over it till the day we die. But there is another side to our community. A much wider and more accepting side, a side we hardly see, yet there are countless of guys who claim (and own) Chubby Chasing as part of their identity.
I admit it’s not exactly a politically correct term, but it’ll have to do for now. Depending on who you ask, you’re always going to get a new definition. Generally it refers to a man whose sexual attraction mainly lies on people with meat on their bones, and I mean lots. They like big people and for whatever reason, it’s at the top of their non-negotiable list when looking for a man on Grindr or searching for a life partner.
Having an attraction for big people is no different than a man who claims to like jocks, surfers, bikers or twinks. It’s what they’re attracted to, but what surprises me the most is how they’ve managed to surpass society’s standard message of beauty. As artificial and unrealistic as it may be, it’s damn near hard to dodge when we’re force fed it at an early age. In the gay community, there’s no escape from the message. Beauty is trained and shoved in our faces all our lives, so for a man to claim that he’s only interested in big people says a lot about where his heart and soul lie. It’s clear he’s been unspoiled by the artificial world. That, or he just doesn’t give a f**k what anyone thinks.
Like most other fantasies or fetishes, chubby chasing is often tied to an association of some sort. But there is a difference between fantasizing about “fat sex” and wanting to welcome intimacy with big people only. The former is tied to sex while the latter is associated by generalizations.
We usually know the kind of guys we’re attracted to from an early age, and more often than not it has to do with a link to our childhood experience. The environment in which we’ve lived in, the kind of people we were around, the guys who befriended us from the start, even bullied us, all might have an effect on the guys we’re drawn to throughout our lives. When you say you “only like black guys” or “only like tatted guys” or “only like fat guys,” you are generalizing a person based on past experiences.
As we get older we naturally give into the pressure of building a communal prototype, as it were – an ideal image of what makes a body, a man, or a relationship sexy. Sooner or later, we place that original “type” on the backburner because it doesn’t mesh well with that of our friend’s or parent’s or the worlds.
I have to admit, it’s rare to find a gay guy who happens to be a Chubby Chaser. But trust me when I say they exist. During my research, I perused Craigslist, Grindr and other social apps, and believe me, Chubby Chasers are alive and well, but what saddens me most about the whole thing is that they feel a need to hide. They’d rather have casual sex so they can satisfy a part of their fantasy, while ridding themselves an opportunity to start a relationship (which is what they really want) out of fear of being judged.
But even if you identify yourself as a Chubby Chaser, society has hypnotized us in such a way that even bigger guys feel like they don’t deserve you. In my article Former Fat Kid Syndrome in the Gay Community, I discussed issues big people deal with when trying to find love. Thanks to our culture’s continuous message, unless you look like an underwear model, you’re never going to be an object of desire. This makes overweight people feel unwanted and invaluable, even if there’s a man outside their window trying to win their love.
More often than not, chubby chasing is better left on the down low. When you’re with a group of friends scouting out the hotties at your favorite outdoor café and you see an obese man walk by, why is it so hard to admit that you think they’re a hot piece of meat? We’ve taught ourselves to filter our thoughts because we’d rather live in secret than risk a chance of being teased by our closest friends. It’s a trick we picked up in our younger years when we were desperately trying to find a social rank.
I say, it’s time to stop the shaming. The more we let other people’s ideas affect our own, we’re never going to find the source of what makes us tick; much less, fill the holes of our missing fantasies. Being ashamed of the type of guys we’re attracted to is never going to be healthy for our wellbeing because we’re sending an unconscious message that we’re shaming ourselves rather than the fantasy. We like what we like, and there’s no reason to lie about it.
Chubby chasing has built a bad rep. Like most generalizations built by the gay community, we’ve associated it with sex. “They like big guys because they love to see the jiggle when they’re getting pounded,” “They like big guys because they’re the only ones that can take his giant d*ck,” or “They like big guys because they want to feel like the hotter one when they take their clothes off.” Believe it or not, these are actual quotes I hear all the time.
It has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with comfort. You might be more comfortable with older men, hippie guys, professional types, artsy fartsies, bikers, twinks, jocks, or whatever it may be, so let everyone else do the same thing. We all have our own type, which is separate from everyone else’s. So please, let the chasers chase in peace. Trust me, you’re doing the world (and your wellbeing) a Giant favour.
By Alex James/queerlife.co.za
Everyone knows our gay community worships youth and beauty (among other things) and we’ve all fallen victim to the trap on both sides at some point. Most of us fight desperately to get over it till the day we die. But there is another side to our community. A much wider and more accepting side, a side we hardly see, yet there are countless of guys who claim (and own) Chubby Chasing as part of their identity.
I admit it’s not exactly a politically correct term, but it’ll have to do for now. Depending on who you ask, you’re always going to get a new definition. Generally it refers to a man whose sexual attraction mainly lies on people with meat on their bones, and I mean lots. They like big people and for whatever reason, it’s at the top of their non-negotiable list when looking for a man on Grindr or searching for a life partner.
Having an attraction for big people is no different than a man who claims to like jocks, surfers, bikers or twinks. It’s what they’re attracted to, but what surprises me the most is how they’ve managed to surpass society’s standard message of beauty. As artificial and unrealistic as it may be, it’s damn near hard to dodge when we’re force fed it at an early age. In the gay community, there’s no escape from the message. Beauty is trained and shoved in our faces all our lives, so for a man to claim that he’s only interested in big people says a lot about where his heart and soul lie. It’s clear he’s been unspoiled by the artificial world. That, or he just doesn’t give a f**k what anyone thinks.
Like most other fantasies or fetishes, chubby chasing is often tied to an association of some sort. But there is a difference between fantasizing about “fat sex” and wanting to welcome intimacy with big people only. The former is tied to sex while the latter is associated by generalizations.
We usually know the kind of guys we’re attracted to from an early age, and more often than not it has to do with a link to our childhood experience. The environment in which we’ve lived in, the kind of people we were around, the guys who befriended us from the start, even bullied us, all might have an effect on the guys we’re drawn to throughout our lives. When you say you “only like black guys” or “only like tatted guys” or “only like fat guys,” you are generalizing a person based on past experiences.
As we get older we naturally give into the pressure of building a communal prototype, as it were – an ideal image of what makes a body, a man, or a relationship sexy. Sooner or later, we place that original “type” on the backburner because it doesn’t mesh well with that of our friend’s or parent’s or the worlds.
I have to admit, it’s rare to find a gay guy who happens to be a Chubby Chaser. But trust me when I say they exist. During my research, I perused Craigslist, Grindr and other social apps, and believe me, Chubby Chasers are alive and well, but what saddens me most about the whole thing is that they feel a need to hide. They’d rather have casual sex so they can satisfy a part of their fantasy, while ridding themselves an opportunity to start a relationship (which is what they really want) out of fear of being judged.
But even if you identify yourself as a Chubby Chaser, society has hypnotized us in such a way that even bigger guys feel like they don’t deserve you. In my article Former Fat Kid Syndrome in the Gay Community, I discussed issues big people deal with when trying to find love. Thanks to our culture’s continuous message, unless you look like an underwear model, you’re never going to be an object of desire. This makes overweight people feel unwanted and invaluable, even if there’s a man outside their window trying to win their love.
More often than not, chubby chasing is better left on the down low. When you’re with a group of friends scouting out the hotties at your favorite outdoor café and you see an obese man walk by, why is it so hard to admit that you think they’re a hot piece of meat? We’ve taught ourselves to filter our thoughts because we’d rather live in secret than risk a chance of being teased by our closest friends. It’s a trick we picked up in our younger years when we were desperately trying to find a social rank.
I say, it’s time to stop the shaming. The more we let other people’s ideas affect our own, we’re never going to find the source of what makes us tick; much less, fill the holes of our missing fantasies. Being ashamed of the type of guys we’re attracted to is never going to be healthy for our wellbeing because we’re sending an unconscious message that we’re shaming ourselves rather than the fantasy. We like what we like, and there’s no reason to lie about it.
Chubby chasing has built a bad rep. Like most generalizations built by the gay community, we’ve associated it with sex. “They like big guys because they love to see the jiggle when they’re getting pounded,” “They like big guys because they’re the only ones that can take his giant d*ck,” or “They like big guys because they want to feel like the hotter one when they take their clothes off.” Believe it or not, these are actual quotes I hear all the time.
It has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with comfort. You might be more comfortable with older men, hippie guys, professional types, artsy fartsies, bikers, twinks, jocks, or whatever it may be, so let everyone else do the same thing. We all have our own type, which is separate from everyone else’s. So please, let the chasers chase in peace. Trust me, you’re doing the world (and your wellbeing) a Giant favour.
By Alex James/queerlife.co.za
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