Feeder Fetish: What is it? Who has it? Where does it come from? What’s the difference in liking food or becoming an obsession? Where’s the transition? These questions are being explored through on going research and allowing me to create my own opinion on the matter.
Fetishes is something that I am not personally come across before, neither am I obsessed with anything for it to become a sexual desire of mine. This experiment is helping me understand the urgencies in which some people have with food. So what does the word fetish mean? You may get a different response to this question depending who you ask this to. However the dictionary states:-
a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, (Oxford University Press,2013)
With recent documentation from Channel 4, Big Fat Fetish in May 2012, which was an documentation on food fetish’s discussing their relationship with foods. Many people questioned their sexual desire towards food and is this seen as ‘normal?’ However this is something in which they saw as ‘normal’ and the fetish was a necessary sexual desire for them. But do we know what the word ‘normal’ really means? Who makes the decision to define what normal is? This could lead into a debate of is the word fetish valid? The next step is to record a conversation between us and discuss the relevance of fetishes in todays context and how we connect differently to objects not necessary in a sexual desire but emotionally. When I first heard about Food fetish’s I automatically judged, I saw it as something weird, strange and not something I would ever understand, but through this process and research I am coming to a understanding everyone has different relationships with food.
Eating disorders are a part of many people’s lives. They are psychological disorders that affect the relationship individuals have with food and their own body image. According to online medical resources Anorexia-nervosa affects 1 in 20 teenagers in the UK, though teens are not the only sufferers of the illness. Symptoms of anorexia include starving oneself in order to lose weight and keep their weight as low as possible. One of the main symptoms that stand out for me is the body image distortion that sufferers tend to have. This causes the sufferer to perceive their body as different to how it actually looks; anorexics see themselves as fat or overweight when they are thin or even underweight, even though they can acknowledge others who are of a healthier size than themsevles to be “thin”.
When I studied psychology at A-level the module on eating disorders was an eye opener. It made me aware of how body image and our opinions of body image are altered and affected by many things. There are multiple theories about eating behaviour and eating disorders within the psychological and medical community. As I have mentioned briefly in other blog posts the most obvious cause of eating disorders stems from how “Contemporary culture is obsessed with bodies” (Di Benedetto, 2007, p. 127), as can be seen in the media on a daily basis. However, of the many theories associated with eating disorders the theory that sprang to my mind when we started looking into feeders and gainers were the psychodynamic theories. According to Hilde Bruch’s Psychodynamic theory, anorexics are engaged in a struggle for their own identity and are in conflict with their parents, especially their mothers for personal control. Bruch claimed that the origins of Anorexia can be found in early childhood where parents failed to respond to their child’s needs effectively. This leads to the child becoming confused about what its own internal needs really are, causing them to become over reliant on the mother or primary carer to tell them what they need and when. Bruch’s theory suggests that during adolescents the over reliant teen seeks to establish autonomy and find a way of having some control over their own life. A person may have limited control to what they look like, but they can have control over their weight and how thin they look, as only they can determin how much of what food they consume. Limiting the food they eat, sometimes to the point of starvation not only gives them control, but creates a visual representation of that control. It has also been suggested that over protective parents or “pushy” parents can also cause teens to take drastic measures to achieve autonomy. Interestingly a statement from a patient in a study on the causes of adolescent onset anorexia nervosa a supports this theory;
“I was the first child of very young parents that overprotected me” (Nilsson, 2008, p 128).
In the feeder/gainer relationship however the gainers appear happy to relinquish control over their body and allow another human being to have power over various aspects of their life, including the food they consume; the polar opposite of anorexics.
Another theory on anorexia that suggests that gainers have polar opposite mentalities to anorexics is Freud’s psychodynamic theory. Interestingly, though unsurprisingly, in Freudian psychology eating is a substitute for sexual behaviour. Freud suggested that refusal to eat can be interpreted as a means to repress sexuality. He stated that starvation was a means of a person retaining their child like body, both visually in that the “skinny” body looks childlike and therefore less sexually attractive, and biologically, in that in girls being underweight can cause Amenorrhoea (defined by the absence of periods for three of more months in girls who have already started menstruation) and could therefore be seen as prepubescent and therefore not sexually desirable. Gainers on the other hand seek to put on weight to make their bodies more attractive and in a way promote their sexuality. They state that having more fat on the body makes them feel more attractive and say that it makes them feel more comfortable or confident in themselves. I personally find it hard to believe that such a self destructive way of living could make anyone lead a happier life, yet the phenominon is not limited to a few individuals, there are many gainers out there who all claim the same thing.
While it is easy to argue that on a psychodynamic, non chemical level, the reasoning behind the act of starvation in anorexics and gorging in gainers are very much opposite it could also be argued that they are very much the same. The aim of both being to reshape and retrain their body to make themselves into what they perceive to be a more attractive figure.
Works Cited
Brawner, L (2008) ‘Linda Montano, Anorexia nervosa and an art of hunger’, Women & Performance, 18, 2, pp. 127-132.
Di Benedetto, S (2007) Contemporary Live Art and Sensoral Perception. In: Sally Banes and Andre Lepecki (eds.) The Senses in Performance. London: Routledge.
Nilsson, K, Abrahamsson, E, Torbiornsson, A, & Hägglöf, B (2007) ‘Causes of adolescent onset anorexia nervosa: patient perspectives’, Eating Disorders, 15, 2, pp. 125-133.
Skarderud, F (2009) ‘Bruch Revisited and Revised’, European Eating Disorders Review, 17, 2, pp. 83-88.
The obsession with food is world-wide with varying forms; however in first world countries this obsession is causing extreme disorders which have grave effects on our health. For millions of people, food is simply for survival and they have no choice of eating for pleasure. They are thin because there is simply not enough to go around. Food literally means life or death, “As the 21st century begins…there are over 800 million chronically undernourished, food insecure persons in the world. They do not get enough to eat on a daily basis”(Senauer and Sur, 2001, p68). The juxtaposition of the starvation of millions and those with eating disorders is shocking yet it is allowed to happen as for so many, food is a personal and freely available choice.
The cultural obsession with food and the body across first world countries across the world is huge and contrasting. On the one hand, we are bombarded with images of the ‘perfect’ body which can have big impacts on the way young people in particular imagine they should look like. As Rothblum suggests, “Media portrayals establish standards of attractiveness”(1994, p63). On the other, fast food advertising is particularly persuasive leading to many choosing to eat calorie ridden food on a daily, obsessive basis. These two factors have caused three main eating disorders; anorexia, bulimia and obesity. Indeed for many people, “the shape of their lives depends on the shape of their bodies” (Seid, 1994, p3). We are all in some way or another affected by the way we look and all have certain beliefs and ideals on what our form should be, particularly for women. As a society we have been programmed to associate fat with negativity, thereby excluding many people who struggle with their weight, “The fat body stands as a symbol of gluttonous obsessions, unmanaged desires and the failed self” (Murray, 2004, p239). The desire for thinness became predominantly important in the 1960’s in response to new models, in particular Twiggy, “her image became one that women thereafter aspired to meet. Female beauty had come to be represented by a gawky, bare-boned adolescent”(Seid, 1994, p7).
(Ideal Beauty Academy, 2013)
This desire to be shockingly thin in comparison to those who have no choice into how thin their bodies become, is quite horrifying.
In contrast, moving beyond obesity is a new obsession of the body in which select people deliberately become overweight in an attempt to satisfy their fetish. Feeders and gainers gain pleasure and fulfilment by either gaining weight or helping a partner gain weight. In interviews, they view the stomach as a ‘sexual organ’ which becomes more appealing the bigger it becomes. How has this fetish come about in a society still obsessed with the perfect body? In the past, the perfect body was perceived very differently as Seid comments, “fat was seen as a silken layer that graced the frames of elegant ladies…regarded as stored up force equated with reserve of energy and strength” (1994, p5). Is this perception towards fat becoming popular again or is this obsession a new fetish of the 21st century?
Works Cited
Fallon, P., Katzman, M., and Wooley, S. (eds.) (1994) Feminist Perspectives on eating disorders. USA: The Guilford Press
Ideal Beauty Academy (2013) The Evolution of the Supermodel. [online] USA. Available from http://idealbeautyacademy.net/evolution-of-the-supermodel/ [Accessed 28th November 2013]
Murray, Samantha (2004) Locating Aesthetics: Sexing the Fat Woman. Social Semiotics Vol 14 Issue 3 p 237-247
Senauer, Ben and Sur, Mona (2001) Ending Global Hunger in the 21st century: projection of the number of food insecure people. Review of agricultural economics, – Vol. 23, p 68-81
In contemporary theatre we often here the question ‘what constitutes a performance?’ and ‘how must we define it?’
Erving Goffman, cited in Performance Studies: an Introduction, defines performance as “all the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way of the other participants” (Schechner 2002, p. 29). A performance can be a variety of things, such as playing a sport, putting on a show, simply carrying out a daily routine or ritual, and even having sex can be categorised as a performance. It is essentially something you aim to succeed in, an action to be carried out in front of an audience. It may be durational or last for only a short period of time. Many performance theorists argue that everyday life is performance as “at present, there is hardly any human activity that is not a performance for someone somewhere” (Schechner 2002, p. 40), whether it may be someone getting dressed or making their journey to work. These everyday routines can be classed as ‘restored behaviour’ because they are actions which will have being repeated more than once during your life time, as a result performances that consist of actions within a daily routine may be more interesting to an audience as they recognise them as their everyday life . What is interesting is that though all of it is considered artistic what may be performance to one person could perhaps not be thought as performance to another.
In relation to this, in class we undertook an experiment that when it was first described to us what we were to take part in, generally most of us did not think it could be branded as performance. We first talked about Marina Abramovic’s performance The Artist is Present, where every day for three months, she sat for seven and a half hours on a chair, staring into the eyes of audience members who sat opposite her staring back. Below is a video of this performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS0Tg0IjCp4#t=62
(MiticoMazz 2012)
Throughout the process she was present and completely focused on the person sat opposite her. Being so motionless made her as a performer more vulnerable to the audience, there was no barrier between them, just herself. For Abramovic it was a strong form of communication, it was able to bring up emotions that might not have been unexplored or supressed in the audience members and also Abramovic herself. To investigate this theory, we undertook an experiment that closely resembled her performance. We were told to take a chair and sit opposite someone, creating two rows in the middle of the room. We were then told that for 10 minutes we had to stare back at the person opposite us, emotionless. Those 10 minutes, for me personally, dragged for what appeared to be a very long time. I had cleared my mind of anything so I was completely present and I just stared back completely still. Once the time was up we were told to stay where we were, to everyone’s dismay, and that this experiment was going to last for another hour and a half. No time was given to absorb the shock; instead we had to focus back on the person opposite us. If those first 10 minutes felt like hours, the next hour and a half felt like a life time. Being able to completely focus yourself on one person for a short amount of time was not too hard, but as the time goes on your mind starts to wander, there appears to be a limit of how long you can keep it blank. You start to run things through your head such as shopping lists or something that you are worried about. The person sat opposite me was very successful in this experiment, they did not move or fidget once, and because of such deep concentration there became a very powerful atmosphere between us. I on the other hand found it very difficult, focusing so hard caused my eyes to tear up and strain. It became physically painful and tiring to keep them open. On a few occasions I felt myself fall to sleep as I just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
For me, this may not have worked as well as Marina Abramovic’s because there were many of us in the same room undertaking the same experiment. Or maybe it was because we hadn’t prepared ourselves for something so intense. What at first glance appeared to be such a simple and motionless task was actually unbelievably physically and emotionally challenging. Such results will come in use when thinking about what other tasks we could experiment with.
Works cited
MiticoMazz (2012) Marina Abramovic e Ulay – MoMA 2010 [Online Video] Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS0Tg0IjCp4#t=62 [Accessed 9 November 2013]
Schechner, R (2002) Performance Studies: an Introduction (2nd Ed.), London and New York: Routledge
When thinking of a performance or experiment, I was instantly drawn towards the idea of a task. Completing a task, or setting a physical challenge that had to be completed, despite obstacles or impediments which may affect the process. When thinking of a task, a durational performance offers much more to both performer and audience member, than one which is time restrained. “The phrase ‘durational art’ implies a specific construction of time, a deliberate shaping of it to effect a particular experience for the viewer or the audience” (Scheer 2012, p.1), and it is the construction or deconstruction of time which I believe has the possibility to hold the most performance potential.
Melati Suryodarmo’s ‘Butter Dance’ experimental performance, although uncomfortable to watch, made for fascinating and compelling viewing. Every time she falls you inwardly gasp, wondering if she is going to get back up again; if anything is broken or if she will just give up on her set task because the pain and bruises become too much.
This performance of (as a concept) a simple task is captivating. No façade or artsy pretence; just one woman deciding to dance on butter, in heels, to the beat of a steady rhythm. Experimental performances such as these “mark identities, bend time, reshape and adorn the body, and tell stories” (Schechner 2002, p. 28), even without a vocal narrative. And this is something I wanted to explore further; to have a task set, and for it to be completed in front of an audience. The first idea which materialised within the group was that of completing a jigsaw.
(Photo taken by Lauren Watson: 28.10.13)
Initially, we wanted to develop this idea into a more performative piece, with the use of multiple jigsaws (one for each member of the company to complete), while all being in one pile, with us not being able to leave the space until your own jigsaw was completed. However, after just 40 minutes of attempting and failing to complete just one 1000 piece jigsaw between the six of us, this idea quickly dissipated. Although it started off as a novel and slightly entertaining task, our excitement and positive outlook quickly disappeared, and in its place we were left with fits of anger, an almost constant stream of expletives and multiple urges to throw the puzzle pieces out out of any window we could find.
(Photo taken by Andrew Tinley: 31.10.13)
With the jigsaw idea well and truly buried for the sanity of everyone involved, we then turned to food, and the idea of feeding and being fed. For our first experiment we each brought two items of food; one which we liked, and one which we hate. We then placed all these items on a table, and got an impromptu audience member to give each one of us an item of food.
Russian Roulette with food.
As seen in the above image, not everyone received foods they liked or bought for themselves. For this experiment to work, it was imperative that the ‘audience member’ didn’t know our likes and dislikes, this way they could not be biased when handing out the food. From this experience, the magnitude of what we wanted to achieve really started to make itself apparent. Eating is a day-to-day task, without which we wouldn’t survive…but what happens if we over indulge in this life saving task; forcing ourselves to eat food which repulsed us. Even though this experiment lasted merely minutes it was a difficult process, with members of the group retching and fighting down sick. Even though this would make for a personally difficult experiment for us as performers, it wouldn’t be all that stimulating or enjoyable for the audience. Therefore, from this experiment we decided to choose foods which we liked, but to eat them in abundance.
Theatre, and especially contemporary experimental performance “have been deployed as key metaphors and practices with which to rethink gender, economics, war, language, the fine arts, culture and one’s sense of self” (Ridout 2009, p. vii), and this is hopefully what we hope to achieve, although physically we are just completing a task which we have all agreed upon; to eat. Eating is a necessity. A vital part to any life. However, some people go days without eating, while other gorge themselves to death. And for 6 average sized girls to potentially gorge themselves to the point of sickness starts to question the social position of food, alongside that of young women, while also on one level questioning and challenging body image acceptance. Why would six, healthy girls who care about their image and size want to binge? These are questions which we hope the audience wills start to ask themselves, after all, “to witness an event is to be present at it in some fundamentally ethical way, to feel the weight of things and one’s own place in them, even if that place is simply, for the moment, as an onlooker” (Etchells 1999, p. 17).
Works Cited
Etchells, Tim (1999) Certain Fragments, London: Routledge.
Ridout, Nicholas (2009) Theatre & Ethics, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schechner, Richard (2002) Performance Studies: an introduction, London: Routledge.
Scheer, Edward (2012) ‘Introduction: The end of spatiality or the meaning of duration’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, XVII (5) October: pp. 1-3.
