Sexuality is slightly more complicated than I thought it was when I was in high school 14-15 years ago. To make a long story short: when I was still a juvenile tanuki (age 13-18) I knew I liked boys and girls. I knew society was expecting me to be heterosexual, but in the back of my mind, I knew folks of my gender were pretty cute too. And with the prevalence of the Internet I learned about the whole LGBT spectrum (I didn’t know they started adding the Q+ until I got to college).

I was able to grow into my bisexual identity starting in college. Now that I started to have some autonomy, I was able to go out and experience the world. I went on dates with mostly other fat boys (I’ll discuss why the fat part is important later) and sometimes that got a little sexual. But because I was so naive about what I wanted, I and probably my date left feeling unfulfilled about the encounter. I dissected one of these encounters a few years ago in The Importance of Boundaries/Expectations, but that wasn’t the only encounter I had; I had multiple. And each of them ended in roughly the same fashion: things would get awkward and we’d slowly stopped communicating with each other.

Whether it was actually my fault or not, I believed from here that clearly I was the one in the wrong. I was able to quickly identify the problem, but I lacked the tools and the experience necessary to put these into platitudes I could use. These were also discussed in Boundaries/Expectations.

Let’s fast-forward to the modern day: I figured out through many, many hours of reflection and meditation that even though I was able to appreciate many sexualites and genders that I myself didn’t want to participate in common sexual activities with them. In short: penetrative sex was not for me. I really enjoy the idea of mutual masturbation and handjobs myself. I wouldn’t call that a fetish per say, it’s just how I experience my sexuality to folks who are comfortable with sharing them with me.

It wraps around to the title of this journal: What are my fetishes?

For context, I believe wholeheartedly that participating in fetishes does not inherently make it sexual, though it can turn out that way if all parties involved consent. Here’s an example: being a gainer I get my kicks from gaining weight and consuming food and, by consequence, take up space. It’s not going to be sexual if I’m in public for obvious reasons. Now if I was doing these things in a private space with a few friends and they consent to it, I might get a little sexual with it. I hope that makes sense to you, the reader.

Let’s start with the obvious fetish and one I’ve already mentioned earlier: my love of fatness. Whether you’re gaining weight or maintaining your weight, I will appreciate you. If you flaunt your belly or hips, I’ll definitely look. This extends partially to slob as well. While I don’t really enjoy burps and farts, it’s something I’ve just come to accept as part of the fat experience. Food stains and crumbs are a definite no-go. Ironically, I do enjoy sweaty fat folks.

You’re probably wondering after reading that last sentence why I specifically mentioned sweat. It’s pretty simple! I just want to watch fat folks exert themselves doing activities. Walking around or doing exercises or just moving around in general, I just love watching that movement. This applies to me as well. Yeah it might suck but I enjoy it deep down.

It ties into another fetish of mine: healthplay. I don’t just want to watch you being fat and taking up space, I want to help care for that fat body as well. A friend of mine who has similar fetishes to mine told me once that there's more to pleasure when it comes to exploring a massive body. Providing sponge baths, rubbing lotion on hard to reach spots, tending to various itches, massaging sore places, and even sharing a moment with food can deepen a bond better than sex ever would, in my honest opinion.

I guess that’s the ultimate message I want to end on: there are many ways to experience pleasure that don’t involve sex. I do have a couple more fetishes but they too ultimately lead up to the desire to take up space and watching others do so as well. And here’s hoping that will give you some insight into how I operate and what kind of stuff I like. Please leave your thoughts about this in the comments below whether you share the same thoughts as I do or just have feelings about this journal. Thanks for showing up!

(I apologize in advance if this journal entry is a jumbled mess of thoughts)

June 10th was just a regular Saturday for me. Me and Flint were planning to go out to a card store in Jeffersonville. Only got like four hours of sleep, but I was just so excited to stretch my brain muscles for a long day of playing Magic the Gathering. But as I was walking out, Grinex stopped us for a minute to tell us the bad news.

I wasn't sure what I was feeling when I first heard the news of Tyler's passing. My lack of sleep and just the general strangeness of the whole situation didn't mix well with me. By instinct, I did the same thing that my father and his father before him did when they heard about bad news: I went on autopilot. I went about my day like nothing was going on. I was in my own world, trying to distract myself from the news.

After that day, we went to White Castle. We sat down and just... talked about Tyler. Well, I did. Flint just listened to me.

I was going through my second year of college. I was probably at the Ivy Tech campus in downtown Indianapolis, sitting in a corner of one of the many places students could sit down. I didn't do the smart thing and work on any assignments, I was just trying to flex my newfound freedom and escape my dull reality. So I was on FurAffinity instead, looking up the latest weird fetish things I was interested in. I don't remember which of Tyler's works I saw first, but I did run across him in my search. I made the first move and started chatting with him. Probably through Skype or something? I wasn't sure what I was thinking about, but I was doing my best to try to expand my friend group.

I'm not sure how I did it, but we hit it off pretty well. We talked occasionally through FA's comments and Skype. I even got a piece of art from him! Years after this, we could chat a lot about random things. He was just always there. He was there when I dropped out of college. He was there when I was hunting for jobs. He would shower me with gifts of art occasionally just out of the blue without warning and all of those really brightened up my mood.

Our relationship slowly turned into a working one once he was done with school. He was one of the first to draw my new Zangnuki form. He even drew me with sizable testicles! He didn't have to do that for me, but I'm really glad that he did. Of course once he started working on Smasher and the Will o' the Thiccs, I definitely wanted to make my mark. Flint was able to get me in as a character in the game you could play as and interact with in one of the levels. I definitely played his game a lot, trying to get high scores in everything and getting 100% in the game. After this, he would have these big YCH projects that I participated every chance I get. Every time I saw something done by him, I was elated and was usually a highlight of my day.

I actually got to meet him and Lexal once. We were in town for a Magic the Gathering event and we had dinner at a Thai restaurant near his place. I even wore a shirt he got me a long time ago.

But then I woke up on June 10th. And I got the news.

Tyler: if you can read this, I love you so much. I wish you were still here, chatting it up and talking about the progress of whatever crazy YCH project you were working on. I'm glad I met you and now everything just seems dark without you there to fall back on.

I underestimate the value of a longform journal like this. This is definitely something not fit for Twitter. Not because I don't think anyone would read it, but, literally, it will not fit for Twitter. 280 characters isn't a lot! At least here I can write it all out without having to break it up into multiple small segments and leaving footnotes letting the reader know how much longer it is until the end.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about something I did ten or so years ago. I'm sure we've all done something in our youth that would you'll look back on as an adult and wonder why the hell you did what you did. I have many of them myself! But this one thing I did has bothered me a lot because it is the antithesis of my identity and all the values I've developed as an adult.

As you may know or would have guessed from the content I post on here and on Twitter, I am quite entrenched in the gainer community. Basically it's a community (mainly consisting of males) where the members are focused on putting on as much weight as possible. I knew about them before I graduated from high school and, during college, I thought I'd wear the gainer label and get invested in the idea of building up my body. I was always a big kid, so it was something I easily transitioned into.

There were plenty of different community websites and forums where gainers would talk to each other and share their progress. My website of choice was Grommr, which is still alive and well today. I enjoyed my time for the short while I was there. Knowing that there was a community who enjoyed fat people was very comfortable to me.

Matt, a man in his 40's who was local to my area, messaged me. He was labeled as an encourager. As you might guess from the name, an encourager is somebody who encourages gainers to grow.

I admit, I was desperately seeking physical companionship wherever I could get it. So I figured I could get some from this person who was interested in my goals. The age didn't really matter to me so much.

We met in a bar in downtown Indianapolis. We talked about things and he told me a little bit about himself. He traveled around Indiana pretty often and his apartment was close and he invited me there. So I thought this would be fun. And if it led to sex, I would just kinda let it happen.

We got to his apartment and we relaxed together. Then he started to hit on me and pressure me into sex. This was something I wanted, but... I didn't want to. I wasn't as comfortable with it as I thought I was. So we ended it there, pretty much.

I left an awkward first impression on this guy. Instead of telling him how I felt and establishing boundaries like an adult would, I said something that I regret saying. It was something I didn't personally believe but it left my lips anyway because I wasn't thinking straight.

I told him that I wasn't comfortable with being with a guy his age.

After that final word, I never heard from him again. He didn't comment on any of my posts and he wouldn't respond to my messages on Grommr. That ship had officially sailed without me and it was all my fault.

I feel really dumb because I later realized that what I said was a really shitty thing to say. I also wasn't being genuine with him about my feelings. I had certain expectations for the relationship and since I didn't relay them or established any boundaries, I messed up.

The lesson here is something I want all young adults to learn: when you and another person are looking into doing things, you both need to establish boundaries and talk about your expectations. That way none of you will walk away feeling dissatisfied or pressured into doing things you don't want to.

It's something I've learned to articulate better through playing social games like Magic the Gathering, but this lesson applies to all things you do with other people, including sexual things. It doesn't seem like a lot, but believe me when I say that humans aren't mind readers. If you don't talk to each other about boundaries and expectations, then it's almost guaranteed that at least one of you will walk away with a misunderstanding or hurt feelings. And none of us want that.