Scan barcode
mandalor3960's review against another edition
2.0
This book can be summarized as being an apologetic feederism writing towards the depiction of immobility in mainstream culture. Sure, it details topics other than immobility, but the research as well as several topics, seem to reference immobility and the ways that mainstream culture has negatively portrayed an extremist practice of feederism. Of times when the book deviates from this topic and instead focuses on topics like the origin of feederism or its history, these topics are few and spaced out. These chapters are confusing and hard to follow because of the seeming lack of organization and the vast amount of research articles being quickly summarized.
Returning to the first issue mentioned, the problem I find with this book being an apologetic to immobility is that immobility is almost a tenant in feederism and the public has a legitimate reason to fear feederism because of this. One of the themes of the research was highlighting extreme feederism practices, among them immobility, as rare and fantasy-based rather than the norm. The majority of the participant’s rejection of the immobility aspect seemed to have been in agreeance because of the impracticality of it, but it is very much still a fantasy and position in feederism. The authors tried to end with this conclusion: “Those involved in feederism generally have no interest in becoming immobile.” Yes, but this is sugarcoated. It is still a fantasy and would be done if feasible. I still do not see why the public would not fear this. An analogy could easily be drawn between other sexual deviations, of which I do not want to go into detail. Thankfully, the research ends its apologetic ways in the third chapter, explaining that the selected participants could have influenced this research, since the couples were not abusive and neither were the participants, which could be not depicting a portion of the population that is abusive and would be for coercing others into becoming immobile.
Another apologetic aspect related to the mainstream depiction, specifically how the mainstream depiction had tarnished the connotation of terminology for the participants (words like feeder, fedee, etc.) The report continuously wanted to push how the connotations for the terminology have negatively depicted members of the community but I think this could recur if new words replaced the current terminology. Again, the article in its apologetic ways, wanted to depict the terminology as being a tool for the mainstream culture to depict feederism in negative ways, yet portions of the negative connotations are sexually appeasing to some of the participants.
The research itself was tedious to read. I was disappointed that the research did not include the age, sexuality, and educational background of participants.
There were a couple of other minor issues that I found. Neoliberalism supposedly conflicts with feederism as explained here: “Different types of lifestyle almost seem inconsistent with the value-laden mantras associated with neoliberalism, which encourages a specific type of lifestyle where exercise and a healthy diet are prerequisites to a good life.” Neoliberal society does not necessarily conflict with feederism for the reasons above. I do not see how neoliberalism affects feederism. If anything, models in the feederism community thrive in a neoliberal country to reach immobility and receive money for the videos that they sell.
The book did not seem comprehensive in explaining the changes of beauty ideals in the world. It tries to explain it in what seems like a few pages and jumps between Greek culture two-thousand years ago, to American culture as recently as 1880. Even in summarizing beauty standards today, it has this to say: “Terry provides a brief cross-cultural context for the status of fat women in Western society by highlighting that the modern Western beauty ideal of a svelte woman is atypical if a global perspective on beauty is taken.” The next few sentences speak of the positive views of fat women in Mauritania and Nigeria. Two countries, particularly in Eastern Africa, view weight gain positive. That does not seem to be a global perspective.
I was dissatisfied with the book and research’s focus on heterosexuality in feederism. Glancing at the community sites mentioned, there seems to be many in the community that are gay and bisexual. I cannot see how this was not prevalent in 2015, the year that the report was conducted.
For chapters not related towards the research on the participants, these chapters were confusing. It was hard to follow the ideas presented because of the abundance of research articles being quickly summarized and the lack of layout organization.
I think using five stories to analyze was too little. There are thousands of stories on many sites. To generalize that male weight gaining using “significant metaphysical elements” or magical methods is inaccurate when there are other stories that do not use metaphysical elements or magical methods. Again, they failed to tie the endless weight gain of characters and their immobility in fiction to the immobility issue of feederism. If anything, immobility is central to the feederism mentality, and potentially dangerous, but it is never mentioned.
Of the positive aspects of this book, there are some that I think deserve merit. It was nice to see Foucault’s writings being related to feederism. I also liked the concluding chapters of the difficulty of researching feederism and using terminology for it, the issue of whether feederism is a fetish or sexuality (which the book sadly does not answer), the psychological view of relating masochism to feederism (which I do not think was explored enough in the ensuing research in the book), and the sociological views on feederism. These positives, that make up the first 34 pages of the book, are not enough to outweigh a dissatisfaction with the majority of the text.
Update 9 June 2019
With the adoption of my new rating system, a two star rating is befitting. The original rating and review conform to the new rating system.
August 31, 2019
Update
I was dissatisfied with the two star-rating and decided to skim through the book again. I find that the book is disorganized and has topics that aren't valuable to understanding feederism, referring now to the constant references to how immobility isn't the goal and everything is consensual. I was hoping for a more in-depth psychological and sociological analysis. The final ten-page section was useless to read and the interviews that took up the second section brought very little useful information. My time is short and I can't waste a few days reading a hundred page book, only to gather one or two pages of important content.
January 5, 2019
Rating Update
One star to two stars. I have raised the novel because I recall my initial reception of the book being that the reading was decent and it was a good book to gauge and understand feederism. There are sections that were useless but I find that amidst this disordered organization of the book, there is important content.
February 1, 2020
Update
I have changed the rating color from yellow to green. I believe that to rate this book at one stars is wrong since, amidst the disorder, I can find some good content, and I did as it was in certain spots.
Returning to the first issue mentioned, the problem I find with this book being an apologetic to immobility is that immobility is almost a tenant in feederism and the public has a legitimate reason to fear feederism because of this. One of the themes of the research was highlighting extreme feederism practices, among them immobility, as rare and fantasy-based rather than the norm. The majority of the participant’s rejection of the immobility aspect seemed to have been in agreeance because of the impracticality of it, but it is very much still a fantasy and position in feederism. The authors tried to end with this conclusion: “Those involved in feederism generally have no interest in becoming immobile.” Yes, but this is sugarcoated. It is still a fantasy and would be done if feasible. I still do not see why the public would not fear this. An analogy could easily be drawn between other sexual deviations, of which I do not want to go into detail. Thankfully, the research ends its apologetic ways in the third chapter, explaining that the selected participants could have influenced this research, since the couples were not abusive and neither were the participants, which could be not depicting a portion of the population that is abusive and would be for coercing others into becoming immobile.
Another apologetic aspect related to the mainstream depiction, specifically how the mainstream depiction had tarnished the connotation of terminology for the participants (words like feeder, fedee, etc.) The report continuously wanted to push how the connotations for the terminology have negatively depicted members of the community but I think this could recur if new words replaced the current terminology. Again, the article in its apologetic ways, wanted to depict the terminology as being a tool for the mainstream culture to depict feederism in negative ways, yet portions of the negative connotations are sexually appeasing to some of the participants.
The research itself was tedious to read. I was disappointed that the research did not include the age, sexuality, and educational background of participants.
There were a couple of other minor issues that I found. Neoliberalism supposedly conflicts with feederism as explained here: “Different types of lifestyle almost seem inconsistent with the value-laden mantras associated with neoliberalism, which encourages a specific type of lifestyle where exercise and a healthy diet are prerequisites to a good life.” Neoliberal society does not necessarily conflict with feederism for the reasons above. I do not see how neoliberalism affects feederism. If anything, models in the feederism community thrive in a neoliberal country to reach immobility and receive money for the videos that they sell.
The book did not seem comprehensive in explaining the changes of beauty ideals in the world. It tries to explain it in what seems like a few pages and jumps between Greek culture two-thousand years ago, to American culture as recently as 1880. Even in summarizing beauty standards today, it has this to say: “Terry provides a brief cross-cultural context for the status of fat women in Western society by highlighting that the modern Western beauty ideal of a svelte woman is atypical if a global perspective on beauty is taken.” The next few sentences speak of the positive views of fat women in Mauritania and Nigeria. Two countries, particularly in Eastern Africa, view weight gain positive. That does not seem to be a global perspective.
I was dissatisfied with the book and research’s focus on heterosexuality in feederism. Glancing at the community sites mentioned, there seems to be many in the community that are gay and bisexual. I cannot see how this was not prevalent in 2015, the year that the report was conducted.
For chapters not related towards the research on the participants, these chapters were confusing. It was hard to follow the ideas presented because of the abundance of research articles being quickly summarized and the lack of layout organization.
I think using five stories to analyze was too little. There are thousands of stories on many sites. To generalize that male weight gaining using “significant metaphysical elements” or magical methods is inaccurate when there are other stories that do not use metaphysical elements or magical methods. Again, they failed to tie the endless weight gain of characters and their immobility in fiction to the immobility issue of feederism. If anything, immobility is central to the feederism mentality, and potentially dangerous, but it is never mentioned.
Of the positive aspects of this book, there are some that I think deserve merit. It was nice to see Foucault’s writings being related to feederism. I also liked the concluding chapters of the difficulty of researching feederism and using terminology for it, the issue of whether feederism is a fetish or sexuality (which the book sadly does not answer), the psychological view of relating masochism to feederism (which I do not think was explored enough in the ensuing research in the book), and the sociological views on feederism. These positives, that make up the first 34 pages of the book, are not enough to outweigh a dissatisfaction with the majority of the text.
Update 9 June 2019
With the adoption of my new rating system, a two star rating is befitting. The original rating and review conform to the new rating system.
August 31, 2019
Update
I was dissatisfied with the two star-rating and decided to skim through the book again. I find that the book is disorganized and has topics that aren't valuable to understanding feederism, referring now to the constant references to how immobility isn't the goal and everything is consensual. I was hoping for a more in-depth psychological and sociological analysis. The final ten-page section was useless to read and the interviews that took up the second section brought very little useful information. My time is short and I can't waste a few days reading a hundred page book, only to gather one or two pages of important content.
January 5, 2019
Rating Update
One star to two stars. I have raised the novel because I recall my initial reception of the book being that the reading was decent and it was a good book to gauge and understand feederism. There are sections that were useless but I find that amidst this disordered organization of the book, there is important content.
February 1, 2020
Update
I have changed the rating color from yellow to green. I believe that to rate this book at one stars is wrong since, amidst the disorder, I can find some good content, and I did as it was in certain spots.
More...