Coming Out Bigger

Hi. This is a blog I’m writing about my journey to body acceptance, a sort of “how I became a gainer” story for anyone interested to hear it. This is a work of creative nonfiction, in that these events did happen to me, but for the sake of narrative coherence, I’m moving some details around. The quotes I’m putting into my recollections are, obviously, a combination of what I remember and what fits the essence of what was communicated during the various conversations I’m recalling.

Let me tell you about how I realized I wanted to get bigger.

By most standards, I’m a fairly average guy. The one aspect that sets me apart most is that I’m gay, but I’m still a cis, white man, and for the most part I pass as straight enough to not worry about the bullshit my sissier brothers endure. I’m of average height. I weighed 165 pounds for the most of my life. If I robbed a bank, the witnesses would have a hard time identifying much that could differentiate me from the next average white guy.

As a gay man, I’m fairly unexceptional. I was fit enough — which is to say fitter than your average straight guy my age, but not the fittest guy in the room. And since I’ve come out, I’ve mostly dated trim guys more or less my own body type.

A year ago, I was getting out of the shower when I noticed that I’d gotten a bit of a belly. Work had been stressful, and the general state of the world got me self-medicating with a drink or three every night, and though I’d been active, I’d credit that paunch to the booze. Note that I say “credit,” not “blame.” Because when I realized I’d gained a little weight, I got hard. (I know, I know. Two paragraphs in, and I’m already talking about boners. I’m sorry. I don’t think I will do this often. As the story goes, this is actually kind of important, though.) So I’m standing in the bathroom, naked, looking at my slightly chubbier body, and getting aroused. This was very surprising to me. This was not something I would have predicted would happen to me.

I was actually ashamed of this in a way I hadn’t felt since I first started realizing I was attracted to men, when I thought being gay would ruin my chances at any kind of happy life. And though I kept replaying this little bathroom scene in my head — feeling the same level of shame every time — I subsequently would try not to focus on my belly when I was getting out of the shower.

Maybe two months later, I made the rookie mistake of going to a gay bar near me on an empty stomach. I wasn’t black out drunk, but I was a little looser than I normally would have been on a weeknight. That’s when I saw him noticing me: a guy who was not my type.

He had a big beard. (I’m down for facial hair, but I had written off guys with beard that big as being either old-time prospectors or religious fundamentalists.)

He had a freshly shaved head — razor-shaved, down to the skin. (I’m mostly bald myself, but I buzz it. There’s usually stubble, and if I bic my head like that, it usually takes a day or two for me to look like myself again.)

He was in his 50s.

He was a little shorter than me.

And most “not my type” of all, he had a belly that stuck out quite a bit. (I would later come to learn that this is referred to as a ballgut.) He was big in general, around 260 lbs., I’d find out later. But even being a big guy, his belly still stuck out.

Let’s call this guy Dave.

I was waiting for a drink I didn’t need when Dave and I locked eyes, and it lasted only a second. I saw him, I saw that belly and I quickly turned away. But within a minute or so, Dave was sliding up next to me at the bar. He introduced himself and complimented my t-shirt, which was vintage but bought at an overpriced store where you go to buy vintage shirts without doing the work for hunting for them. He was wearing an old shirt too, and when I returned his compliment, he said it had been with him for years. I believed him, but based on how tight it was around his belly, I would have guessed it wouldn’t be with him that much longer.

So I’m shy and polite, and I’ll basically make polite conversation to anyone who comes up to me, especially at a gay bar and especially if it’s an older guy, just because in the shallowest pits of my twenties, I never wanted to be one of those gays who sneers at someone he’s deemed too old to fuck. So Dave and I talked, and as a result of me being polite, we ended up discussing 80s synth music and Drag Race and a bunch of other faggy stuff. We finished our drinks, he ordered another and we ended up outside, since it was warm in the bar but also probably I was just drunk. Dave was great to talk to. He knew pop culture, he knew about the stuff I was into, he could tell me stuff I didn’t know. He was charming in a way I have rarely encountered in bars. And then he pulled me in and kissed me. He pulled me toward him, which meant that big ballgut was pressed tight against me. I’d never felt that before. I’d never felt a body that fat before. Ever. And I certainly had never felt it on a man who was kissing me. It felt amazing.

The kiss ended and for a second I wanted to think that this came out of nowhere and Dave had overstepped, but this was not true. I’d wanted him to kiss me. I’d wanted to feel that belly. I just would not let myself acknowledge that I wanted these things. But I was feeling them now, very strongly, and I put my arms around him as best I could and kissed him again, longer.

He told me he was housesitting for a friend about two blocks from the bar, and if I wanted to I could YEAH LET’S DO THAT LET ME CLOSE MY TAB.

And so we left the bar and walked to the house, and most of the way Dave had his arm on my back, and yeah, I did wonder if someone noticed that I kissed the guy with the huge belly and then we left together. Someone probably did, but then again I look like a lot of guys so maybe they wouldn’t be sure it was actually me.

We were kissing from the moment we got to the house, and before too long Dave was peeling that shirt off. “You want to rub it, don’t you?” he asked me. He knew. I put a hand on his hairy, round belly. I don’t know how I thought a belly that size should feel, but it was surprisingly soft. I pressed my hand into it. I rubbed my hand across it. I pulled it. He moaned. He liked having his belly played with.

I took off my shirt and pants and Dave told me I had a good body, that I was sexy. Instead of something like “Now that I see your hairy, fat belly, I can’t even think of a guy built like me being even remotely sexy. I want to worship that fucking globe of a gut, daddy,” I think I probably gasped “thank you” and kept playing with what to me was a new sexual organ I was just discovering.

We didn’t fuck, technically, but we jacked ourselves off while we kissed and I continued to feel Dave’s fat belly. We cleaned off and then just laid in the guest bed together. He was winded. I was feeling the ecstasy of what I’d just experienced give way to that shame. I was trying to process what had just happened. I half-wanted to leave. I watched Dave’s belly rise and fall as it breathed. My god, was that belly big.

Finally I got something out: “Your belly is so damn sexy,” which I immediately corrected to “Your body is so damn sexy,” because it sounded weird to reduce him down to just one part of him.

Dave: “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

I put my hand on it again. Dave: “I’m pretty proud of it.”

That line took me back, just because I’d never heard someone say he’s proud of being fat. Had I? Is that possible? Is it even okay to be proud of being fat? Are we allowed to do that?

Dave: “You wouldn’t believe how many guys ask if they can touch it.”

This actually made sense to me. “How could anyone not want to touch it?” thought the guy who just earlier than night was talking to the fat guy because he felt sorry for him.

I asked Dave if he’d always been so big, and he laughed and said, “No, I was skinny as a kid and pretty fit into my twenties, but I started gaining when I was in my early 30s.”

Me: “Gaining.” I just said the word, implying…. what? That his use of it seemed novel to me?

Dave: “Yep.”

That seemed to be explanation enough for him, but I asked if gaining was, like, a thing.

Dave: “Oh yeah, a lot of guys are into it. Guys who like the feel of getting bigger and seeing their body change as they put on weight. I know guys who have gotten massive. Like, they put on hundreds of pounds. But most guys just want to get fat. I used to lift too but a few years ago I hurt my back and it really fucked my ability to go to the gym. Sometimes I miss my arms and pecs, but I’ve kinda leaned into just getting bigger.”

I silently processed this information.

Dave: “And then some guys just like big guys and don’t gain themselves. And some get off on helping guys get bigger. My husband cooks, and he really enjoys seeing me eat his food. And he gave me the okay to get big so long as I keep it under 300, for health reasons. Don’t worry. We’re open. But he’s actually put on a few himself the last few years and he’s not complaining about that.”

I silently processed this information.

Dave: “I kinda always knew I wanted to be big, since I was a kid, and I just pushed it to the back of my mind. But then I had a really bad breakup and I put on a bit of weight. And then I just got to a point where I stopped telling myself that I needed to lose it. Because I didn’t want to.”

Me: “Huh.”

Dave asked me if I wanted to see a picture of him before he gained all the weight, and soon enough he was flipping through photos on his phone, the vast majority of which were pictures of his belly — Dave, shirtless, in bed; Dave, at a pool party, wearing a speedo; what looks like Dave’s belly next to another belly almost exactly as big and therefore probably not his husband’s, I’m guessing; Dave, standing in his bathroom mirror, his eyes smoldering and his round belly rested on the counter.

Finally he got to the “before.” I would not have guessed in a million years that this guy could be the big-bellied monster in bed with me. He was cute as hell. He looked like a twink who’d been getting his the value of out his gym membership. No beard — cleanshaven and sort of 90s-preppy. He looked happy. He looked like the kind of guy who’d still tell you about his Eagle Scout project. He, at this point in his life, probably would have been out my league for me in my twenties. Dave guessed he’d gained a hundred pounds. Dave guessed he started gaining about two years after this photo was taken.

I asked him how he knew he wanted to keep getting bigger, and what he told me was a sentence I’d think about a lot in the next year.

“I just knew who I was.”