Looking back, there were signs of it throughout my childhood, before it was necessarily sexual. It started as just a fascination with things like my mother's stomach (who is a bit of a bigger woman) that I couldn't explain. And then later I remember looking at Google Images about a cartoon I liked and I saw a drawing that someone had made of a female character from the show, except that they were extremely obese. This gave me an erection, and I at the time, I had no clue what this meant. I spent a while trying to figure out what it meant and why it had happened and I eventually narrowed it down to larger women and then the specifics later on I guess. So I would say that this has been present inside of me from a young age and unfortunately not something I planted into myself from viewing weird porn.

Your second set of questions are a bit more difficult to answer. It's been a while since I indulged my fetish so I'm not sure what to say. In my most recent memories of doing so, I didn't feel any shame while doing the acts. I was more ashamed of my addiction to masturbation at the time, but that's a whole different issue... I did feel a lot of shame, however, when telling my girlfriend about it. She was actually sort of accepting when I first began to share details with her, but as I told her more and more of the thoughts I had, things that turned me on, things I masturbated to, etc. she grew less and less accepting until the point we're at now where she's told me that she hates that part of me and feels that she can't love all of me. That sounds bad on her but I understand her completely for feeling that way and I'll explain it in a second. I believe I am ashamed by the lengths I've gone to fulfill my fetish. I didn't choose to be attracted to the things that I am, but I do have a choice of whether I indulge in them, especially to things that would upset people if they found out (as has happened with my girlfriend multiple times).

Yes, this is my first serious relationship. It upsets her for a few reasons. First, the things that turn me on are things that she's struggled with and gone through a lot over throughout her life. She's struggled with body image issues for a long time and she finds me masturbating to and getting pleasure from things like that extremely disrespectful to her and others that deal with those issues every day. Second, I have had sexual thoughts about things relating to her, like her stomach and weight, that she is self conscious about. In our relationship, when she mentioned how she thought she had gained weight or felt fat, I often masturbated to these messages at least a few times, despite the fact that she was extremely upset and miserable over them. Third, my fetish has gotten in the way of our sex life. I used to mostly touch only her stomach when we made out, or even at other times, like at the movies. Not only did this do nothing for her sexually, but also made her uncomfortable and feel ignored as I was focusing more of my attention on this part of her than her as a whole. She asked me to touch her stomach less and my behavior didn't change very much, if at all, so she decided to stop letting me touch her stomach completely. Eventually, she let me do it again, but only sometimes. My focus again returned to her stomach and since then she doesn't let me touch her stomach at all, including outside of sexual situations. I understand why she has done this, as I couldn't control my behavior, despite how many times she asked me to stop. I feel really terrible for this and as a result, our interactions are changed forever. We can't even touch our stomachs when we hug anymore. So my fetish and my behavior involving it has been extremely upsetting for her. She has tried to starve herself many times before because of how self conscious I make her feel and she feels like she needs to work out and that she can't be happy with her body because of me. I love her body and I want her to love it too, but at this point, even me saying that I love her body is enough to make her feel self conscious.

After reading the articles you posted, I think I may have a legitimate fetish. I've always found myself unusual in the fact that I've never found porn arousing in any way at all, even involving the type of women that my fetish makes me attracted to. I didn't realize that may be because of my fetish. I also have much less of a sex drive than my girlfriend and I usually get tired and disinterested doing sexual things with her after a short amount of time (we haven't actually had sex, which I feel like I should clarify, despite my use of "sex life" and "sex drive"). This is also upsetting to her because she continues to want to do things after I get tired of it. I didn't think that that could be connected to my fetish and I really hope it's not.

It really means a lot that you not only cared to reply, but to also to write your replies so thoroughly. Thank you so much for replying to my post and taking time out of your day to help me.

I thought about your question about if I get shame from my fetish or my actions involving it and I've decided that I am actually ashamed of my fetish in itself as well. The thoughts I have and the way my body reacts to certain things upsets my girlfriend and that doesn't relate to my actions. I'm ashamed that I get turned on by things like that.