I found a crumb of M/f in a manga
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@miss-lillipants said:
“Different people have different reasons for being involved in the fetish or lifestyle.”
This is crucially important to remember, particularly to people just now discovering their fetish and assuming everyone online must be into it for the same reason. I made this mistake for many years before I started listening to others.
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@miss-lillipants said:
For me, the idea of a giant being in control is a comforting thing - not because I don’t want control of my life, but because being an adult is exhausting!
When I was feeling ashamed of my shrunken man fantasies, one way I would beat myself up was to tell myself that it was an infantilizing fantasy driven by my reluctance to take responsibility for my life. It took a very long time to give myself permission to take the occasional vacation from adulthood.
Then I had to learn how to give myself permission to enjoy taking control of shrunken women…
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@miss-lillipants Oh yes, I agree with all of this 100%! There’s definitely no single way for a kink to form, and I know there tends to be an issue with people assuming it forms from a negative experience. For me it’s both the fear aspect I was describing earlier and a comforting one. And sometimes it determines the type of fantasy I want to conjure up: do I want to bullied or doted on?
That’s a great article! I really love how it emphasized that these “kinks” can vary in how sexual they are. For some people it absolutely is a fetish, for others it’s more of a lifestyle. And I’m sure for many people it’s both. A huge amount of my size fantasies don’t involve sex at all.
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@miss-lillipants Thanks for sharing that article. Sadly, I’ve yet to see some in-depth research done specifically for size kinks (we don’t talk about Dr. Helen Friedman).
I agree there’s no be-all / end-all explanation to their origin, I’m not trying to find a universal truth. I’d just like to understand myself better.
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@Olo said in I found a crumb of M/f in a manga:
When I was feeling ashamed of my shrunken man fantasies, one way I would beat myself up was to tell myself that it was an infantilizing fantasy driven by my reluctance to take responsibility for my life.
This resonates. Did you ever feel like the shame was a result of your fantasy being at odds with your own sense of integrity? The way you’ve worded it, it sounds like there was a belief there that responsibility was synonymous with control.
I ask because I’m one of those people who started out using it as a coping mechanism, a deep desire to hide from the world because the world sucked- the only difference being I never found that part of it shameful. For me, avoiding responsibilities was entirely fine, but the shame was rooted in the prospect of giving myself to someone wholesale. Considering that trust being violated was the entire reason I needed such a cope to begin with, it felt gross and confusing to me why I would find comfort in the same situation.
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@skysayl said:
Did you ever feel like the shame was a result of your fantasy being at odds with your own sense of integrity? The way you’ve worded it, it sounds like there was a belief there that responsibility was synonymous with control.
I believed responsibility was synonymous with adulthood, and I felt I was shirking it by not launching a career or doing any of the other things that were expected of me. If anything, my fantasy was too aligned with my sense of self, such that it was a tempting distraction from getting my shit together. For a while I entertained the possibility that I would have to abandon size fantasy if I were to ever “grow up.”
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@Olo That makes a lot of sense; and I think it’s probably very common for it to attach to our sense of self like that. I’m glad you seem to have found a way to banish that shame. At least, I assume you have because every comment I’ve seen from you has been level-headed and emotionally intelligent.
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@blehb said in I found a crumb of M/f in a manga:
I do wonder about the connection between fear and sexuality in the brain.
Off the top of my head, the ‘starter’ fetish of bondage is basiclly a fear, but dressed up in leather. Most fetishes feel like something a step or two away from being a reasonable fear.
@foreverlurk said in I found a crumb of M/f in a manga:
The desire to protect (or control ) is harder to pinpoint - I always loved taking care of smaller animals, or looking after my younger siblings. Beyond that, I think I felt like I lacked control in my life - so having control over another smaller person could have been projection on my part.
In part, there’s definitely a desire for control on my end; I don’t want to really do anything with it, but I want it. On the other hand, though, those horror movies? I’ve read and watched horror since… probably too young, in all honesty. I’ve always loved the monsters, and they’re always big and scary, all but unstoppable. There’s always a pretty woman nearby. Eating is always on the table.
Being the big is honestly me making myself into that monster for someone else.
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@skysayl said in I found a crumb of M/f in a manga:
I’m glad you seem to have found a way to banish that shame.
Thanks. It took a long while, and there’s a sympathetic twinge every time I see someone else struggling with shame.
At least, I assume you have because every comment I’ve seen from you has been level-headed and emotionally intelligent.
Oh dear. I need to start posting while drunk more.
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On the topic of fear and fetishes: first, I hope that I didn’t come across as dismissive by sharing my own experience - I worried that it was giving off a “wElL I dOn’T fEeL tHe SaMe So ThAt CaN’t Be RiGhT” vibe. I also genuinely thought that the article would just be an interesting little primer on fetish development that highlights, I think, that almost any theory from anyone’s personal experience is a valid one. We know so little about fetish development in general: literally all these studies saying “we need to do MORE studies”
Second, to make up for it and if anyone is interested, someone wrote a thesis that is publicly available on the correlation between anxiety and fetish/paraphilia development (I realise it’s not fear per se, but I think they’re closely related). There have been lots of studies that suggest a correlation between the two, but the author argues “no specific link” and, essentially, that it’s a bit more complicated - something we can all appreciate, methinks. There are more recent studies available, but her review of studies and existing theories at the time (2011) might address some of the common questions on fetishes/paraphilia in general - beyond unsubstantiated bunk. Really fascinating, but understandably not the lightest of reads. I only VERY quickly skimmed through some sections.
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@Olo said in I found a crumb of M/f in a manga:
Oh dear. I need to start posting while drunk more.
We need a SW drinking game, fictional or meta. Sounds like a fun concept. Should probably get some thimbles though.
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@miss-lillipants said in I found a crumb of M/f in a manga:
someone wrote a thesis that is publicly available
Oh yeah, written by a Québécoise, no less!
Great find, I’ll have a closer look later, but this here is interesting data :
Joyal and Carpentier (2016) surveyed the prevalence of paraphilic interests and behaviours in the general population within the province of Quebec. In their sample of 1,040 adult men and women, 46% reported a desire to engage in, and 34% indicated having engaged in, at least one paraphilic behaviour and having been sexually aroused by it
Well, that’s a much higher percentage than I would have thought! There’s still hope I’m not the only size freak around here…
