Elevation elation: A brief look at ‘lift and carry’ fetishism

In previous blogs on both muscle worship (i.e., sthenolagnia) and sexual piggybacks, I briefly mentioned that some individuals have ‘lift and carry’ (L&C) fetishes. To my knowledge, there has been no academic research on L&C fetishism but it did make it into the Buzzfeed website’s ‘11 Most Unlikely Sexual Fetishes’ list along with balloon popping, gut flopping, beard rubbing, masking, and pedal pushing. According to an article on L&C fetishism at the Area Orion website:

“The fantasy world of female muscle is no stranger to the odd and weird. Another such addition is Lift and Carry, a fetish where someone is aroused by being lifted and carried away, most often by a woman. She doesn’t need to be a bodybuilder or powerlifter, just strong enough to carry the weight of a full grown man. So what is the turn on with Lift and Carry? To many, it can be harmless fun or even part of foreplay. Some like the helpless feeling of domination by a powerful woman with no control. Others like the difference in size and enjoy the feeling of having the women struggle beneath their weight. There are various types of lifts popular to L&C. Piggy-back rides, shoulder rides, over-the-shoulder carries, pony & donkey rides and Fireman’s carry are just a few. These obviously depend on the strength of the woman and weight of the man to pull off successfully…Many men are embarrassed to have this fetish, feeling the gender role reversal makes them appear weak. Fortunate for them, there are websites, videos, stories, forums and even porn for Lift and Carry where fans can live out there fantasies in private”.

A short article about L&C at the Nation Master website makes a number of claims. It asserts that the fetish is popular, harmless, used by some as a form of sexual foreplay, and is engaged in by both genders and (implicitly) by all sexual orientations. More specifically:

“Lift & Carry is an interest wherein a person may receive sexual stimulation by either being carried around by another person or carrying one yourself. Several forms exist: Male/Male, Female/Female, Female/Male and Male/Female. Especially Female/Male and Female/Female…Some are aroused by the fact that they feel dominated because another person carries them and they have no control. In this case, the person usually likes the one who is carrying them to be strong and muscular. Others enjoy the feeling of having a person struggle to carry them and enjoy feeling the person under them having a hard time. Still others may enjoy the surprise of a smaller, lighter girl who suddenly lifts another off his or her feet”.

L&C fetishism may also have psychological and behavioural overlaps with anasteemaphilia (i.e., a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual arousal from those who are much taller or shorter than themselves – here, it is the large difference in height that is the primary source of sexual arousal). This is because the Nation Master article claims:

“The people who have this fetish are usually interested in the height and weight differences between the person carrying and the person being carried, and often prefer to see a small person carry a big person, but there are also some who prefer the opposite situations. There are several sites catering to most tastes of Lift & Carry and also [pornographic] pay sites serving customers who have this fetish”.

The article also claims that L&C fetishism is “somewhat related” to ponyplay fetishism (that I examined in a previous blog) where people get sexually aroused from dressing up like horses and engaging in horse-like activity. Although this has some face validity, this is the only article that I have seen mention the link between L&C fetishism and ponyplay. In researching this blog I visited lots of online forum and discussion sites where various individuals discussed their love of this activity or how they wanted to stop liking the activity and be ‘normal’, or from women who have partners that are into it. Here are a few selected extracts:

• Extract 1: “This fetish has been bothering me forever and I just want to be the normal guy I am. I heard that it might be because I am submissive, but I don’t want to be like that at all, I just want to be a man. Any tips from anybody?”
• Extract 2: “I have strong fetish of lift and carry and I want to heal it. How can I do that?”
• Extract 3: “I am the caring and compassionate kinda guy. I admit that I enjoy both carrying girls (all different kinds of ways) and being carried by girls (again in any kinda way). I find that either way arouses me…I just like them to be regular, feminine-figured women. I discovered this when one day I was playing around with my then [girlfriend], and I held her around my waist as we kissed – I had a huge rush. For some strange reason, she decided she wanted to reverse it, and she held me around her waist as we kissed. I had an even bigger rush!! Is there anyone else out there with similar desires?”
• Extract 4: “My boyfriend recently told me that he has what is referred to as a lift/carry fetish. Specifically, he fantasizes about me giving him piggy-back rides. I would love to be able to satisfy his desires; he tends to be pretty reserved and undemanding, so I was ECSTATIC that he was able to tell me about this. But our size difference makes the idea a little terrifying (me: 5’5″, 160lb; him: 6’2″, 200lb)”
• Extract 5: “I’d like to know if this one has a name…several men have contacted me online because I’m tall, all wanting to know if I could pick them up and carry them around like they were a toddler…I’ve also been hit on by men with a thing about being shrunken to a few inches tall and carried around…In my travels about the [internet] I’ve stumbled across entire sites devoted to the Lift-And-Carry fetish (which doesn’t seem to have a snazzy name). I don’t quite understand it myself – it seems to be a subset of guys who get off on giant women”.
• Extract 6: “I have a lift and carry fetish and I would really love a woman to carry me(especially the piggyback rides)”
• Extract 7: “I’ve long been fascinated with lift & carry, but honestly, it all depends. I’m really not at all into guys lifting other guys. I mean, I’m a straight male for starters, but beyond that? My fave thing is seeing women strong enough to lift and carry other women or men. My ex-wife was awesome in that respect. She was *really* strong with a thick build. She weighed a lot more than people ever guessed (around 200lbs at 5’6″ when people usually guessed at least 50lbs. less). So it was always amusing when a guy (or a couple times, even a female friend) would try to pick her up”

The activity (while niche) appears to have a large online following with discussions on sex and fetish forums, and seemingly masses of pornographic L&C videos. There also appears to be a market for men buying the services of strong women and bodybuilders that supplement there income with those that desire to be lifted and carried. As the Area Orion article on L&C fetishes reported the case of the ‘Lift Goddess’:

“Lift Goddess is one such professional, a Lift and Carry dominatrix who can lift a 250 lb man while wearing stilettos. She is a naturally strong athlete, former Las Vegas Showgirl and classically trained dancer. A one-hour session runs $400 plus a $100 booking fee. She describes the experience as ‘You will be lifted born upon the wings of my superior strength. I may carry you in my arms like a child. And you will wonder… am I your Protector, or are you my prey?’”

As I have noted in other blogs on strange fetishistic behaviour, it never ceases to amaze me what arouses people sexually. A couple of people in the extracts above claim they have this fetish but do not want it (suggesting they want their fetish to be ‘treated’) but I doubt whether L&C fetishism will ever be the subject of empirical research.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Area Orion (2011). Lift and carry. October 19. Located at: http://areaorion.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/lift-and-carry.html

Klein, A.M. (1993). Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Love, B. (2001). Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. London: Greenwich Editions.

Nation Master (2013). Lift and carry. Located at: http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Lift-and-Carry

Richardson, N. (2008): Flex-rated! Female bodybuilding: feminist resistance or erotic spectacle? Journal of Gender Studies, 17, 289-301

Sex and the University (2008). Sthenolagnia: Muscle fetishism. Located at: http://sexandtheuniversity.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/sthenolagnia-muscle-fetishism/

Wikipedia (2012). Muscle worship. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_worship

Flat mates: A brief look at BBW squashing fetishes

While researching a previous blog on fat fetishes, I came across the practice of ‘gut flopping’. According to the online Urban Dictionary, gut flopping is “where a large bellied individual raises his or her stomach and allows it to drop upon his or her sexual partner in a way that creates a smack sound [and] is an act performed for sexual pleasure”. There is an infamous clip on the internet featuring gut flopping (which you can check out here if you are so inclined), but there is little written about it academically (or non-academically for that matter). However, one variant of this that appears to be very popular among a minority of men is ‘BBW squashing’ (i.e., men being squashed by one or more ‘big beautiful women’ for sexual pleasure) and also known as ‘crushing’ or ‘smashing’ by squashing enthusiasts. One such BBW (‘Massive Mocha’) appeared on Dr. Drew’s US television show in October 2011 talking about her experiences as someone who catered for men’s fetish to be sat on and squashed by very large women. ‘Massive Mocha’ revealed that men ask her to sit on them until they feel they are going to pass out from loss of breath.

According to the Squashing Fetish website, there are many variations of the fetish. Heterosexual squashing comprises very obese women squashing smaller (typically thin) men. Homosexual squashing comprises very obese men squashing much smaller men. For some, fantasizing about being squashed may satisfy the sexual fetish. This may include someone (weighing anything from 200 pounds to 600 pounds) sitting, standing, jumping, and/or crushing their face, belly and/or chest (resulting in the person being squashed squirming). The relationship (concerning control) is psychologically similar to the dominant and submissive in sexual sadism and sexual masochism. Being unable to breathe (or breathe properly) appears to be critical in the fetish and in that sense shares similarities with hypoxyphilia (i.e., autoerotic asphyxiation in which individuals derive sexual arousal and pleasure from the restriction of their oxygen supply).

Last year (May 22, 2012), Channel 4 (in the UK) screened Nick Betts’ documentary My Big Fat Fetish. One of the women interviewed at length in the show was BBW Reenaye Starr. She was interviewed by a British tabloid newspaper prior to the show being aired and was asked whether the physical contact associated with a squashing was seen as the ultimate prize by men who pay to be squashed by her. Starr was reported as saying:

“It depends. There are so many different kinds of ‘fat admirers’. Some men are not interested in squashing at all. Some men are just into big ladies looking cute. And then there are some into hardcore pornography who want to see big ladies having sex. It all depends on what your sub-fetish is – but to these men, being with a big woman in any capacity is their ultimate desire. [My] subscribers come from all over the world. But there is definitely a huge following in the UK…I personally – other than my husband – have two feeders who send me money for food online. They don’t physically feed me as they’re too far away but one is based in the US now so he does come in for squashings”

In an online article on BBW squashing (which looks as though it was written by BBW squashers themselves but I can’t be sure), it noted “we may not be able to explain how being squashed can be sexy, but it is an important part of foreplay for those who have this kind of fetish”. The (anonymous) writer confirms my own view that BBW squashing is on the same spectrum as sexual behaviours such as sadomasochism, bondage, and domination “which means that in order to find sexual pleasure, one must feel pain from lack of oxygen, beating, among others”. The article also claims that BBW Squashing “is not as life-threatening as autoerotic asphyxiation since the man can tap the BBW anytime he feels that he’s close to passing out”. It claims that most BBWs engage in squashing for financial reasons and that their primary aim is “to concentrate on the sexual gratification of their clients…Others like Queen Raqui, it’s more like a sport in which she also earns money, without the pressure of having sex with her clients”. The article mainly concerns all the different types of ways that men can be squashed by BBWs.

• Face-Sitting: This position involves the man lying diagonally across a bed with his head at the corner of the bed. The BBW squasher (BBWS) then sits on the man’s head with the man’s face in the BBWS’s crotch. Some BBWSs may move or shake about to enhance the man’s pleasure.
• Sixty-Nine (69): This position involves the man lying flat on the bed while the BBWS lies on top of him so that her face is in the man’s crotch and is facing his legs (and vice-versa). Either partner may stimulate each other’s genitals while in the 69 position.
• Back-Lying: This position involves a man lying on his back with the BBWS sitting on him and crushing his chest and/or face.
• Leg-Captivity: This position involves the BBWS wrapping the man’s head between her legs with the man facing either her crotch or her buttocks. The BBWS may completely suffocate the man in this position (and has to rely on the man to signal to her to let her know when to let go).
• Riding Horse Man: This position (as might be expected from the name) involves the BBWS riding the man like a horse while he is on his front. This is said to increase the man’s sexual arousal.
• Double Trouble: This is not a position as such but involves two BBWSs sitting on a man in any variation of the positions outlined above.

In a previous blog I examined both macrophilia (i.e., sexual pleasure and arousal from giants) and crush fetishes (i.e., sexual pleasure and arousal from crushing or being crushed), and there seems to be some psychological similarity between BBW squashing and these other sexual paraphilias and fetishes. For instance, some macrophiles date extraordinarily tall women (so called ‘Amazons’) even if they have to pay for the privilege to do so. For instance, Mikayla Miles (who when wearing her fetish boots nearly 7 feet in her fetish boots, and 6 feet 4 inches without the boots) provides private sessions with macrophiles to engage in behaviours such as trampling. This has a lot of resonance with BBW squashing. Research has been carried out into both sadomasochistic sexual activity and fat fetishes, but little on where they intersect. This would certainly be a fruitful area for further empirical investigation.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

All Experts (2009). Fetishism/BBW. September 16. Located at: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Fetishism-2835/2009/9/BBW-1.htm

Call Escort Girls (2012). BBW squashing. February 28. Located at: http://callescortgirls.com/bbw-squashing

Leigh, R. (2012). “I work with attractive women who love themselves – what could be more empowering than that?” My Big Fat Fetish’s Reenaye Starr on squashings and whether she feels exploited. Daily Mirror, May 22. Located at: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/my-big-fat-fetish-bbw-model-844022

Monaghan, L. (2005). Big handsome men, bears, and others: Virtual constructions of ‘fat male embodiment’. Body and Society, 11, 81-111.

Murray, S. (2004). Locating aesthetics: Sexing the fat woman. Social Semiotics, 14, 237-247.

Swami, V. & Tovee, M.J. (2009). Big beautiful women: the body size preferences of male fat admirers. Journal of Sex Research, 46, 89-96.

Terry, L.L. & Vasey, P.L. (2011). Feederism in a woman. Archives of Sexial Behavior, 40, 639-645.

Called up for navel duty: A beginner’s guide to alvinophilia

Alvinophilia – according to Dr. Anil Aggrawal in his 2009 book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices – is a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual pleasure and sexual arousal from the navel and bellies (although he refers to it as ‘alvinolagnia’). He also notes that:

“[Navel fetishism is] a strong attraction to the human navel (often called the belly button). Navel fetishists are sexually aroused by viewing, licking, tickling, sucking, sniffing, or kissing the navel of another person, or by having any of this activity done to their own navel by partner or to a lesser extent, by themselves. Some navel fetishists engage in outercourse (non-penetrative or dry sex as opposed to intercourse) involving the navel. Navel fetishism often co-exists with stomach fetishism”.

I have yet to come across a proper definition so for the purposes of this blog but some sources say it includes any sexual pleasure or arousal from any aspect of a belly or a navel (but this particular blog will just examine bellies as including navels will take me into the whole world of body piercing which I will leave for another blog).

I have only come across one academic paper that makes a specific reference to ‘alvinophilia’ and that was a study led by Dr G. Scorolli (University of Bologna, Italy) on the relative prevalence of different fetishes using online fetish forum data. I have made reference to this study in previous blogs on paraphilias such as lactophilia, mysophilia, and stigmatophilia. It was estimated (very conservatively in the authors’ opinion), that their sample size comprised at least 5000 fetishists (but was likely to be a lot more). They reported that some of the sites featured references to belly and/or navel fetishes (3%). However, there was no further information as to whether the belly/navel fetish was connected to piercing, pregnancy, and/or belly inflation.

In a previous blog, I looked at fat fetishism. Obviously belly size is one of the most important aspects of a fat fetishist’s sexual focus. Many fat admirers are ‘feeders’ who deliberately over-feed their sexual partners (i.e., ‘feedees’) on their way to becoming a ‘big beautiful woman’ (BBW). Within the context of their sexual relationship, feeders obtain sexual gratification from the encouraging and gaining of body fat through excessive food eating. For many, it is the increasing stomach size that becomes the primary sexual focus. The bigger the stomach, the more sexually aroused the feeder becomes.

There are also fat fetishists who are turned on my ‘gut-flopping’. This involves masochistic elements involving female domination (“femdom”) and has to be seen to be believed. In an article on the world’s strangest fetishes, the Pop Crunch website reported:

“Femdom + masochism + BBW = gut flopping. A heavily obese woman comes up to you, usually on all fours, and drops her belly on you with full force. It combines the pain and control of your run of the mill dominatrix with the obsession and fetishization of fat that accompanies chubby chasers and feeders. The scariest thing about this fetish in particular, is the potential for damage. These ladies are large. Their stomachs are large. They’re hitting your back with a significant amount of speed and force, and you’re in a position where there’s not much support. Imagine someone dropping a bag of oranges on your back, while you’re in that position. Yeah…that’s all kinds of screwed up”.

It would also appear that another behaviour related to alvinophilia is pregnancy fetishism (i.e., maieusiophilia). In a previous blog I outlined the various attractions of maieusiophilia including belly size. Some maieusiophiles prefer an abdominal bump that is “just showing” whereas others – seemingly the majority of maieusiophiles – prefer “the bigger the better”). As I also noted in that article, for a small minority, the belly is so big that all thoughts are fantasy-based as the source of sexual arousal can become “a belly with a girl attached”. In fact, one online website (Bastion Works) claims that some maieusiophiles “have been known to enjoy the concept of stomachs grown to the size of vehicles, buildings, or even planets”. This would seem to indicate that there is a crossover with macrophilia (which I also examined in a previous blog).

There is also a related sexual fetish that involves belly inflation which I would argue is subsumed within alvinophilia. Belly inflation is also part of the wider practice of body inflation, and involves the practice of inflating (or sometimes pretending to inflate) a part of one’s body (in this case the belly), typically for sexual gratification. For some, this may be connected with sexual arousal from the receiving of enemas (i.e., klismaphilia). There are a number of websites dedicated to this practice such as the Body Inflation website. Here are a few online accounts I came across:

Extract 1: “Somewhere in my pre-teen years I became captivated with the look of full, pregnant-like bellies and began “experimenting” with large balloons under my shirt and pants. Then after noticing the female profile of very pregnant models wearing girdles and pantyhose in mail order catalogs, I got a girdle. One night I placed a large punching type balloon between it and my belly and started pumping up the balloon until it was incredibly huge. Needless to say I was really hooked now! Then I became curious about actually trying to inflate my belly; and so one night inserted the pump hose and soon I had my abdomen pumped up rock hard. Now I was even more hooked. Over the years I experimented with using water until today – some 40+ years later – I now regularly ‘fill-up’ with 2+ gallons of saline water, creating an incredible very pregnant looking profile. Why do I do it, well I guess it’s the incredible rush that I get every time!”

Extract 2: “I have an inflation fetish myself. Every now and then – which is starting to become daily – I usually inflate my stomach with air or water. I occasionally chug [almost] a gallon of milk or water with salt in it – chugging too much water can be poisonous, so always put some salt in it to balance your electrolytes. I find it very arousing to get a rock-hard stomach and I want to continue to make my stomach bloat bigger and rounder, yet maintain my abs. It’s a fun challenge”.

This next one makes a connection between fat fetishism, feeders, and belly inflation:

Extract 3: “I have the same fetish. I’m a gay guy, and I prefer belly expansion in particular. I think this fetish is somehow tied to the weight gain fetish that the internet and media has exposed in recent years. I, too, have a weight gain fetish. However, I enjoy helping or watching a partner partake in weight gain, but not myself. Getting back on the subject, though I do enjoy inflating myself. Whether it be through bloating with water, air enemas, or water enemas. Water enemas have become my personal favorite method, plus they’re actually healthy and cleanse your colon. I have noticed a lot of people with similar fetishes though. Everyone has their own niche of what turns them on”.

Given the lack of research into alvinophilia, online accounts such as the ones above are about all that academic theorizing has to go on. This is definitely an area that the research community would benefit from knowing more about.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Bastion Works (2012). Maieusiophilia. Located at: http://bastionworks.com/Mikipedia/index.php?title=Maieusiophilia

Gates, K. (1999). Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex. Juno Books.

Pop Crunch (2010). The 17 Most WTF Fetishes Imaginable. May 11. Located at: http://www.popcrunch.com/the-17-most-wtf-fetishes-imaginable/

Scorolli, C., Ghirlanda, S., Enquist, M., Zattoni, S. & Jannini, E.A. (2007). Relative prevalence of different fetishes. International Journal of Impotence Research, 19, 432-437.

Swami, V. & Tovee, M.J. (2009). Big beautiful women: the body size preferences of male fat admirers. Journal of Sex Research, 46, 89-96.

Terry, L.L. & Vasey, P.L. (2011). Feederism in a woman. Archives of Sexial Behavior, 40, 639-645.

Wikipedia (2012). Body inflation. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_inflation

Wikipedia (2012). Pregnancy fetishism. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy_fetishism