"Feederism" is a sexual fetish

Many of you probably saw this past week a story about a 600-pound woman who wants to increase her weight to 1000 pounds.  The tabloids suggested that she was "trying to set a world record" and that she did garner some financial support from men who pay to watch her eat.  Salon explains that it's more complicated than that:

The site... shows her posing naked, in lingerie, wearing handcuffs and rubbing folds of her flesh against another obese woman. Men don't just "pay to watch her eat," they pay to get off.  Her site is but a small part of a thriving online community for fat fetishists...

Then, there are sites that cater to feederists, who like to watch super-sized women eat, sometimes to the point of painful fullness. Often times, there is a male "feeder" who gives a female "feedee" fatty junk foods.

Feeders get off on the idea that their feedee might one day become too 'satisfied' -- and too obese -- to move, thus making them completely dependent on their feeder. It's an extreme manifestation of the idea that masculinity in men involves eroticized dominance over women...

There's more discussion and explanation at Salon.