Why is this fetish even a thing, anyway?

[DontShowMeOnGoogle55555]

I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of vore as well.

But really, what the fuck is wrong with us?

We're supposed to be afraid of being eaten. That's how animals (and plants) are supposed to react to this sort of thing. It's what keeps an animal alive.

And yet, here we are, hundreds or even thousands or maybe even more of us, SEXUALLY AROUSED by the thought of being eaten.

...What?

How did this happen? Did some weird genetic mutation happen a long time ago that managed to stick around and be spread to a bunch of people?

...Again, what the fuck?

[FanficFetishist]

There's weirder kinks out there.

[Littledude]

My theory: Everyone has a switch in their brain for reacting to something. A fetish happens when that switch gets wired backwards.

[FaceInCrowd42]

Yeah, I guess it is pretty odd looking at it from a scientific perspective. Don't think it qualifies as something "wrong with us" or anything though.

[EldritchWriter]

...

[Loranna]

I'd hesitate to say there's something wrong with us, unless we're making a habit of seeking out wild and dangerous predators for the purpose of getting ourselves eaten.

People have different tastes. Some folk find latex intensely arousing, others get turned on by diapers, still others by hair or feet or what have you.

If I were to try to parse it out in a semi-logical fashion, I'd assume that fear can be arousing, especially when you realize that a predator devouring its prey is, in some way, the ultimate form of dominance - or, seen the other way, getting eaten is the ultimate form of surrender.

Loranna

[Jimmies]

I think it's probably down to a childhood thing for most people. There are a bunch of scenes in cartoons and movies and stuff where there's an obvious depiction of sexual interest and tension, complete with close bodily proximity, talking about their body and what they'd like to do to them, nervousness and trepidation etc, but instead of a character wanting to fuck another one they want to eat them. Fetishes usually seem to boil down to the brain associating sex with something weird that it remembers being part of its sexual awakening. I bet this damn lizard made things pretty awkward for a bunch of kids, for instance.

[RuffledFerret]

A question for all fetishes/paraphilias really, and not just this one.
And I don't believe anyone here would actually enjoy being eaten in real life, at least not without a long list of impossible factors and preferences that would protect them from the dangers that would be experienced.

[Hariken]

Psychologically-speaking, in my opinion it's something about getting closer to someone or something, then it just branches off from there on if it's hard or soft vore, fatal or non-fatal, ect.

We're probably more normal along the lines of kinks.

[the_Wolf]

My theory (unprovable by any ethical experimentation) has always been classical conditioning from either an early age or other susceptible point in time.

The human body experiences undifferentiated sexual excitation pretty much from the word go. Theory is that during one of these times, we saw a particular cartoon or other media of a character eating another, and the brain made a connection. If it happened a few more times, it solidified and the brain connected one character consuming (or trying to consume) another with sexual excitation, then places the person in one role or another (or multiple roles) depending on personality and a host of other factors. Then later on, we explore it genuinely as a kink and expand what we like and don't like, what turns us on more or less from that core conditioning.

Again, this is just a hypothesis extrapolated from very basic psychological knowledge. Could be that we each come to our kink/fetish in some different formula of various mental tumblers that line up in numerous ways. And like others, I'd echo there's nothing wrong as long as a person has a healthy boundary between the real and the fantasy, regardless of how it happens.

the Wolf

[lXlNeMiSiSlXl]

'Tis all in the mind. I certainly wouldn't want to be eaten and I wouldn't want anyone else to suffer the fate either. Thats what the outsiders don't get - it's all fantasy. I'm no Brain scientist or whatever but the way I see it is that certain sounds and sights trigger the sexy parts of people's minds. Big stuffed guts and gurgles along with them must switch something on up there in us.

Though it's most likely just cartoons we watched as kids, there's a suprisingly large number of implied vore in the cartoon world, seeing that stuff whilst the Brain is still developing probably helps too.

[vore2412]

There is no fully explainable reason for why certain people fantasize about it. Those that take the fantasy to an unhealthy level have already earned the Darwin Award. The largest appeal of vore to many inherently, is that the fetish helps a person feel closer to a fantasized character and is a means of escape, especially for those who are denied any true personal attachments in real life. This is not saying all vorarephiles don't have close and real personal relationships in real life, but that part of the appeal is the desire for intimacy that grows more inclusive than simple sexual fantasies to the point where becoming one with another person is taken to a literal level in their fantasy setting.

Of course, this is hypothetical and I'm certainly no psychologist, if you're really interested in learning why the fetish exists maybe you should ask a professional that gets paid to analyze the human mind. As for me, I'll just enjoy the fact it does and there is a community in which I can participate in enjoying the fetish.

[KingKabal777]

There is no fully explainable reason for why certain people fantasize about it. Those that take the fantasy to an unhealthy level have already earned the Darwin Award. The largest appeal of vore to many inherently, is that the fetish helps a person feel closer to a fantasized character and is a means of escape, especially for those who are denied any true personal attachments in real life. This is not saying all vorarephiles don't have close and real personal relationships in real life, but that part of the appeal is the desire for intimacy that grows more inclusive than simple sexual fantasies to the point where becoming one with another person is taken to a literal level in their fantasy setting.

Of course, this is hypothetical and I'm certainly no psychologist, if you're really interested in learning why the fetish exists maybe you should ask a professional that gets paid to analyze the human mind. As for me, I'll just enjoy the fact it does and there is a community in which I can participate in enjoying the fetish.

What he said. if you don't find it offensive, then you'll be able to get the point easily and it doesn't mentally destroy you. There's a lot of kinds of it, ever played a game as a kid and see something like this? Legend of Zelda has vore and makes it well known in the community. But what this vore2412 user said is right, if you want to learn how the mental image of others works, find one or speak to a therapist that can handle such.

PS I came here since a friend of mine referred me here. Adults are adults, they're fully grown, they know better and
have grown to understand that some people just have their own ideas and choices. Some hate it for what it is, and if they don't like it then they should fuck off and find another fetish they enjoy.

[dreamweevil]

I'd hesitate to say there's something wrong with us, unless we're making a habit of seeking out wild and dangerous predators for the purpose of getting ourselves eaten.

That's the best answer so far. It's equally fair to say there's something right with us.

That something is imagination. If you're reading this, it likely means that you can take an normally unpleasant situation and, through pure imagination, find something interesting, even pleasant in it. It gives you freedom that not everyone can enjoy.

[Humbug]

Couple of false assumptions here:

The first is that every vorarephile wants to be eaten. That's simply not true. Not by a longshot. A good number of us are observers, and an even larger number are predators. The majority, yes, identify as prey, but there's a significant chunk who have zero interest in being eaten at all.
The second is something people are saying in the replies: That no one on this site actually wants to be eaten IRL. There are a few people who swear up and down that if they had a chance to be eaten via soft vore, even if they were killed in the process, they'd go through with it in a heartbeat. Though I have a suspicion that they'd chicken out if actually presented the chance, I'm willing to take them at their word that there really is a desire for it, and who knows? Maybe they wouldn't even chicken out. I think if it were possible, they'd need HELP, mind, but I don't really doubt that the desire is there.

But yes. Science. Brains making weird connections. Human brains are weird and complicated, and it's easy to fuck them up, especially during childhood development, so the fact that this exists isn't really that weird considering how intense such a thing can be.

[Justin-Time]

I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of vore as well.

But really, what the fuck is wrong with us?

We're supposed to be afraid of being eaten. That's how animals (and plants) are supposed to react to this sort of thing. It's what keeps an animal alive.

And yet, here we are, hundreds or even thousands or maybe even more of us, SEXUALLY AROUSED by the thought of being eaten.

...What?

How did this happen? Did some weird genetic mutation happen a long time ago that managed to stick around and be spread to a bunch of people?

...Again, what the fuck?

As it's already pointed out that some vorarephiles don't want to be prey, and as I very much lean toward pred myself, I'll just say this. I think the preds feel more messed up when they ponder this. True, just as in general prey don't actually want to be eaten preds don't want to eat living things in a vore like manner. Still, if we did want to live out our fantasy, prey would just have a serious lack of self preservation where preds would kind of be monsters (assuming death was a part of it.) If me IRL was like my characters, I'd probably be considered evil, and rightfully so.

I'm not trying to make any particular point. Just bringing in a point of view I don't think has been put into this conversation yet.

[GramzonTheDragon]

Note that I am a predator/observer, so I don't fantasize about being eaten unless it's a bad dream. I sometimes wish I had a prey mindset, as trying to explain that you're fetish is getting eaten sounds like it would go over better than saying your fetish is eating people. Then again, to help keep that disassociation with reality I dislike humanoid prey and despise human-like preds, so I even got pushed into the furry fandom haha.

I've asked myself this question before, and the best answers I could locate have been stated already. The best guesses people have come up with were: making a sexual link to characters eating each other during childhood, likely from cartoons. Alternatively, another idea was that vore is a strange over the top way of expressing desires for closeness, and intimacy. Lacking a partner and being lonely possibly contributing and some people claiming they outgrow their fetish once they settle down with a spouse. However I've seen profile of people on other sites claiming longer term romantic relationships while still being into vore so this seems hit-or-miss, too.

Brains are weird, yup.

[sweetladyamy]

My theory (unprovable by any ethical experimentation) has always been classical conditioning from either an early age or other susceptible point in time. ....

Classical Conditioning, Bingo.

For me, it wasn't even a cartoon, but a simple children's illustrated book, authored by Mike Thaler. The Teacher from the Black Lagoon.

Every single fetish I have, was a result of this classical conditioning, though for the majority of my fetishes, it involves sexy models in makeup adverts.

Or...photos of forced feminization....okay, getting off topic, but the truth is, is that a lot of my fetishes end up melding together through this conditioning, though to be honest, I mostly did this to myself because I really didn't know much about vorarephilia until seven years ago (I think).

But I was in the third grade when I read this book, over, and over, and over, just for the two following scenes...

When Ms. Green swallows Doris Foodle whole for 'chewing in class' (she was chewing gum noisily)...

But even more so this scene...

Role Call...

"...Doris Foodle...is digesting..."

Of those two scenes, I probably ogled the latter of the two twice as much as the former.

I've seen Ferngully, and that implied vore scene unfortunately had little effect on me, but likely because I was tied up in the plot too much to care much about that scene. I mean, Hexxus, the Lord of Toxin, is too much of a plot stealer.

Back then, vore was vore to me; gender had little to do with it (but most of my fantasies involved animals anyway).

Oh, let's talk about vore in movies, TV, etcetera.

There's one anime...in which one girl tries to swallow some guy and I think gets him halfway down...I haven't seen the whole thing but it was on YouTube...

Uemi's Law?

I dunno, but I can only imagine a vorarephile writing up such a dialogue.

'Not all vorarephiles want to be eaten...'

'...Or eaten in real life...'

If one would care for a percentage on who is predator/prey/observer/switch...

1 in every 13 is likely to have an affinity for predatory nature
1 in every 7 is likely to have an affinity for prey nature
1 in every 8 is likely to just marvel at the sight
1 in every 3 is likely to be a switch

This is actually taken from a BDSM Big/Little D/s type of testing, vore involved or not. Vore is in truth, a type of dominance/submissive type of thing.

'There are other, more odd kinks out there...'

Yes, absolutely. I won't name any though (no war starting from me).

Why is that we're so fucked up in the head?

I'll tell you why I am. I warn ya, it has nothing to do with vore.

One: I am enraged by the circumstances of the governmental powers, and am sick of life as an enslaved but free to do nothing person.
Two: I was not raised to live an independent life; thanks a lot Mom, you guilt-tripping, attachment syndrome....OOOOH!
Three: My severe mental disorder has kept me from obtaining even entry level employment, which is only going to get worse because of reason one.
Four: Those of us with fetishes, mental disorders, or if we're gay, lesbian (Me!), bisexual, transgender (Hi!), or anywhere else on this spectrum, we're seen as fucked in the head and okay for others to attack without consequence.
Five: For all four reasons above, I am inclined to want to do something drastic, and yes, I am one of those who would NOT regret taking my fantasy to the realistic level because it would mean I would no longer suffer inside this lackluster mortal vessel!

I embrace Death, and await with open arms. No, I don't need help for that. I know I have no realistic future. So yeah...

[Justin-Time]

I honestly have no clue what started my vore fetish. Cartoons are a reasonable guess though. I've watched enough of them. Another theory that just came to mind has to do with the fact that my mother sheltered me from adult stuff pretty much as long as she could and longer than what was necessary (She was a decent mother altogether, but she had her flaws, one of which was being over protective.). Maybe one of the first adult things I saw had vore so it kind of grew on me.

[Thagrahn]

Note that I am a predator/observer, so I don't fantasize about being eaten unless it's a bad dream. I sometimes wish I had a prey mindset, as trying to explain that you're fetish is getting eaten sounds like it would go over better than saying your fetish is eating people. Then again, to help keep that disassociation with reality I dislike humanoid prey and despise human-like preds, so I even got pushed into the furry fandom haha.

I've asked myself this question before, and the best answers I could locate have been stated already. The best guesses people have come up with were: making a sexual link to characters eating each other during childhood, likely from cartoons. Alternatively, another idea was that vore is a strange over the top way of expressing desires for closeness, and intimacy. Lacking a partner and being lonely possibly contributing and some people claiming they outgrow their fetish once they settle down with a spouse. However I've seen profile of people on other sites claiming longer term romantic relationships while still being into vore so this seems hit-or-miss, too.

Brains are weird, yup.

Being Furry isn't a bad thing, not is being a predator.

Honestly, there are links out there that are harder to explain than vore. Take heavy bondage, in which people allow themselves to be subjected to things very similar to the ways people use to get tortured. Then there are people who let themselves be used as furniture, and being treated as an object.

Being a predator and furry myself, I believe the source is part instincts and part what we got subjected to in childhood. In one cartoon, you have an animal based character that is trying to eat a character based on it being a natural prey to the first character. In a second cartoon series, they have characters that should be natural predator and prey flirting, romancing, and kissing each other.

We are the characters, connect with both ways they have been displayed, and Then the conflicting signals get crossed.