Using embodied sociology, this article offers a virtual ethnography of ‘fat
male embodiment’. Reporting and analysing qualitative data generated
online, it includes a typology of big/fat male body-subjects and supportive/admiring
others. These fat-friendly typifications are unpacked by referencing advocated codes
of self–body relatedness, sexualities and the relevance of food. The
virtual construction of acceptable, admirable or resistant masculinities is then
explored under the following headings: (1) appeals to ‘real’ or
‘natural’ masculinity; (2) the admiration and eroticization of
fat men’s bodies; (3) transgression, fun and the carnivalesque; and (4)
the pragmatics and politics of fat male embodiment. While alternative (positive)
understandings of fatness are presented online, discrepancies between virtual and
actual identities render stigma an ever-present possibility for those with
‘real’ fat male bodies.
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