Zaftig Fetish: The Love of a Full Figured Jewish Gal
There has been a lot of bickering back and forth about body image issues on the Kinky Jew Is Back Forum on MySpace over the last week. Short, tall, ugly, attractive, fat, thin, etc. We felt it was a good opportunity to focus on the Zaftig Fetish: The Love of a Full Figured Jewish Gal. One little sidebar though before we get started so no one reading this gets worried thinking we were writing this with them in mind. Dont worry, we werent. Promise. : )
Its no secret that a lot of the Jewish identity revolves around food and festive meals with family and friends. All those falafels,
matzah balls,
bagels,
knishes,
pastrami on ryes,
kugels,
and cholents
add up. Not to mention the healthy doses of Jewish motherly guilt that goes with making sure we take second servings of their delicious food.
Its not always simple to keep svelte with a diet like that. Needless to say those calories add up and sometimes lead to a fuller figure. In Yiddish, we affectionately call the curvy Zaftig.
According to Bubby Gram (http://www.bubbygram.com/yiddishglossary.htm) the Yiddish word Zaftig or alternatively spelled Zoftig means literally, juicy. Although it has come to mean fat, it is really a compliment, meaning a buxom, lush, juicy. Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith were/are zoftig. Audrey Hepburn and Callista Flockhardt were/are decidedly NOT zoftig.
So unlike calling someone fat, Zaftig has a more erotic and confident vibe to the word.
Many men and women have fetishes for Zaftig women. For us, we love the Diva Zaftig Jewish Goddesses like Annie Sprinkle
(http://www.anniesprinkle.org)
and Candye Kane
(http://www.candyekane.com).
Let us know who your favorite Zaftig Godesses are.
In case you want to know more about this sexual proclivity, a Zaftig Fetish is a sexual fetish in which sexual pleasure is derived from onself or one's parter being Zaftig, overweight or obese. The weight ranges from being only mildly overweight or so obese as to be immobile and unable to walk.
The homosexual and heterosexual communities tend to parallel each other. In a basic Zaftig fetish relationship, one or both partners are overweight.
Often, the thin partner takes a dominant role due to the other's reduced mobility.
The relationship becomes more complex if feederism is involved.
Zaftig fetishism may at times overlap with Breast fetishism (especially large breasts), expansion fetish, breast expansion fetish,
inflation fetishism and pregnancy fetishism.
The fondling of the adipose tissue of an overweight or obese person for one with a Zaftig fetish is usually sexually arousing and is often similar to that of mammary intercourse. They may be aroused by the presence of a pannus or other hanging flaps of skin such as those on the thighs, arms, back and other places. For those aroused by an obese male, the presence of fat under the chest simulating breasts (also known as "man boobs") is arousing.
The issue of erotic weight gain has caused a collision, at least in a heterosexually-dominated realm, between the goals of Zaftig acceptance (represented by NAAFA and others) and feederism (see Dimensions Magazine online), which some contend are not mutually exclusive interests/movements. One argument mobilized against the feeder movement is that sexuality is privileged over social movements toward Zaftig acceptance, and direct criticisms usually entail the possibility that feederism contributes to a counter-productive objectification and dehumanization of the "feedee". Feeders/feedees and sympathetic ZAs argue that most members of their community partake of this fetish only in the realm of fantasy and are more than mindful of rational boundaries. Also present is a belief that the sexualization of fat is not as pernicious as its detractors claim, and that if the "Zaftig Admirer" or "Chubby-Chaser (male)" archetypes become more visible or mainstream, fat will thus lose a major aspect of its general social and cultural stigma.
For both the heterosexual and homosexual communities, there are strong online communities that have thrived on a variety of websites.
Terminology
Heterosexual - relies heavily on abbreviations.
BBW - Big Beautiful Woman
SSBBW - Super-Sized Big Beautiful Woman (typically is much larger than a BBW and is often mobility limited or immobile)
ZA - Zaftig Admirer (may or may not be a feeder) (or FA = Fat Admirer)
ZFA - Female Zaftig Admirer (or (FFA = Fat Female Admirer)
BHM - Big Handsome Man (the male equivalent of a BBW)
feeder - the partner who is helping their partner gain weight by feeding them
feedee - the partner who is trying to gain weight
Male Homosexual
Chub - an overweight man
Superchub - a very overweight man
Gainer - a chub who is trying to gain weight
Encourager - a man who is helping a gainer to gain weight
There has been a lot of bickering back and forth about body image issues on the Kinky Jew Is Back Forum on MySpace over the last week. Short, tall, ugly, attractive, fat, thin, etc. We felt it was a good opportunity to focus on the Zaftig Fetish: The Love of a Full Figured Jewish Gal. One little sidebar though before we get started so no one reading this gets worried thinking we were writing this with them in mind. Dont worry, we werent. Promise. : )
Its no secret that a lot of the Jewish identity revolves around food and festive meals with family and friends. All those falafels,
matzah balls,
bagels,
knishes,
pastrami on ryes,
kugels,
and cholents
add up. Not to mention the healthy doses of Jewish motherly guilt that goes with making sure we take second servings of their delicious food.
Its not always simple to keep svelte with a diet like that. Needless to say those calories add up and sometimes lead to a fuller figure. In Yiddish, we affectionately call the curvy Zaftig.
According to Bubby Gram (http://www.bubbygram.com/yiddishglossary.htm) the Yiddish word Zaftig or alternatively spelled Zoftig means literally, juicy. Although it has come to mean fat, it is really a compliment, meaning a buxom, lush, juicy. Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith were/are zoftig. Audrey Hepburn and Callista Flockhardt were/are decidedly NOT zoftig.
So unlike calling someone fat, Zaftig has a more erotic and confident vibe to the word.
Many men and women have fetishes for Zaftig women. For us, we love the Diva Zaftig Jewish Goddesses like Annie Sprinkle
(http://www.anniesprinkle.org)
and Candye Kane
(http://www.candyekane.com).
Let us know who your favorite Zaftig Godesses are.
In case you want to know more about this sexual proclivity, a Zaftig Fetish is a sexual fetish in which sexual pleasure is derived from onself or one's parter being Zaftig, overweight or obese. The weight ranges from being only mildly overweight or so obese as to be immobile and unable to walk.
The homosexual and heterosexual communities tend to parallel each other. In a basic Zaftig fetish relationship, one or both partners are overweight.
Often, the thin partner takes a dominant role due to the other's reduced mobility.
The relationship becomes more complex if feederism is involved.
Zaftig fetishism may at times overlap with Breast fetishism (especially large breasts), expansion fetish, breast expansion fetish,
inflation fetishism and pregnancy fetishism.
The fondling of the adipose tissue of an overweight or obese person for one with a Zaftig fetish is usually sexually arousing and is often similar to that of mammary intercourse. They may be aroused by the presence of a pannus or other hanging flaps of skin such as those on the thighs, arms, back and other places. For those aroused by an obese male, the presence of fat under the chest simulating breasts (also known as "man boobs") is arousing.
The issue of erotic weight gain has caused a collision, at least in a heterosexually-dominated realm, between the goals of Zaftig acceptance (represented by NAAFA and others) and feederism (see Dimensions Magazine online), which some contend are not mutually exclusive interests/movements. One argument mobilized against the feeder movement is that sexuality is privileged over social movements toward Zaftig acceptance, and direct criticisms usually entail the possibility that feederism contributes to a counter-productive objectification and dehumanization of the "feedee". Feeders/feedees and sympathetic ZAs argue that most members of their community partake of this fetish only in the realm of fantasy and are more than mindful of rational boundaries. Also present is a belief that the sexualization of fat is not as pernicious as its detractors claim, and that if the "Zaftig Admirer" or "Chubby-Chaser (male)" archetypes become more visible or mainstream, fat will thus lose a major aspect of its general social and cultural stigma.
For both the heterosexual and homosexual communities, there are strong online communities that have thrived on a variety of websites.
Terminology
Heterosexual - relies heavily on abbreviations.
BBW - Big Beautiful Woman
SSBBW - Super-Sized Big Beautiful Woman (typically is much larger than a BBW and is often mobility limited or immobile)
ZA - Zaftig Admirer (may or may not be a feeder) (or FA = Fat Admirer)
ZFA - Female Zaftig Admirer (or (FFA = Fat Female Admirer)
BHM - Big Handsome Man (the male equivalent of a BBW)
feeder - the partner who is helping their partner gain weight by feeding them
feedee - the partner who is trying to gain weight
Male Homosexual
Chub - an overweight man
Superchub - a very overweight man
Gainer - a chub who is trying to gain weight
Encourager - a man who is helping a gainer to gain weight