In the twilight of my career as a porn editor, when the market for print magazines was collapsing in the face of free Internet smut, my esteemed publisher told me to produce two fetish magazines that were the antithesis of what turned me on personally.
As a porno professional, I’d learned to take such assignments in stride. After all, I’d just spent a dozen years editing mags like D-Cup, Stacked, and Bra Busters, which, as the names imply, are devoted to gargantuan breasts. Though my preference is for a slim, well-toned female body, I had no trouble with this assignment. I dare say I even learned to appreciate such oversize appendages, especially when they were beautifully photographed and attached to a gorgeous woman.
This was not the case with Plump & Pink and Buf. Though the former, whose models tended towards more-than-a-little chubby, was tolerable, the latter took me into a world I barely knew existed. Buf models were often 500-700 pounds, were photographed in a purposely amateurish way that tended to exaggerate their least attractive qualities, and they participated in a fetish in which their partners grew sexually aroused by feeding them things like fried chicken and chocolate cake, and watching them grow fatter.
Though the magazine sold well, putting it together made me physically ill.
I mention this now because of a recently published book called Big Big Love: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them), by Hanne Blank. Though I’ve not read it and have no intention of doing so, the book sounds like a pep talk for fat people and people who enjoy having sex with them. And Blank, apparently, explores the line between fat admiration and fat fetishism, which sounds like the same line that divided Plump & Pink from Buf.
This is all well and good, as there are a lot of people out there, fat and skinny, who are deeply interested in having sex with the overweight. Some of them might be reading this blog. So, if you’re one of them, here’s a link to an interview with Ms. Blank.
Enjoy! Just don’t ask me to edit your favorite magazine.