Today, enjoy a guest post from Olo, deep-thinker and raconteur running his blog El Amante Menguante. I left the topic open to him, and he brought up a conversation that emerges in cycles in the community.

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Morts, Grandes et Petites

Lethality in Size Fantasy

Can a sexual fantasy be immoral?  Our other fictional entertainments contain all manner of horrors and crimes, some of which might be distasteful to some, yet we don’t assume every reader of, say, murder mysteries actually desires to commit homicide.  We do, however, assign a special weight to fantasies that are driven by our sexual desires.  We presume that sexual motives have a unique capacity to overwhelm our ethics and morals, which always renders them suspect.

Ever since Freud we have been assuming that everyone has hidden sexual desires that express themselves uncontrollably.  Because of the effort we go to to conceal them, sexual desires are often presumed to be more authentic than our “civilized” personae, a “truer” version of ourselves.  When those desires approach and cross into taboo subjects, therefore, we conclude that our true selves must be sinful, immoral, capable of evil and incapable of restraint.

Such suspicions have been applied to sexual fantasies featuring nonconsensual activities, supposing that anyone who enjoys rape fantasies will perforce seek out rape in real life.  This belief has, in some quarters, given way to the practice of rape victims processing their traumas by incorporating a lack of consent in their personal fantasies and arousal patterns.  But what do we conclude about people who have never been sexually assaulted or traumatized but who nevertheless want or need to see nonconsensual sex in their fantasies?  What about people who find sexual gratification in fatal encounters?

Size Fantasy offers many opportunities to explore these questions.  The power differential between characters of fantastically different sizes could arguably preclude meaningful consent in any encounter.  The physical disparity is often enough to create lethal situations even without any homicidal intent on the part of any of the characters.  Any realistic portrayal of mixed-size encounters will include character death as a constant concern.

Common tropes in Size Fantasy explicitly evoke the possibility or certainty of death within the plot.  A character larger than a building entering a densely-populated area realistically has a high chance of causing death and destruction, even just accidentally.  A rampaging giant person deliberately seeks to cause mayhem, and the plot beats specifically require certain minimum degrees of destruction and depraved indifference to (normal-sized) human life.

Likewise, most stories about shrunken people rely on deadly threats that never truly subside.  Everyday objects and activities present lethal hazards to any shrunken people unfortunate enough to be in close proximity.  Normal-sized people don’t usually view themselves as “giants” and can unwittingly imperil tinies in any number of ways.

The subgenres of Crush and Vore straight-up mandate character death at climax.  Sometimes there is a miraculous intervention to spare a protagonist, but the narrative would have no weight if other deaths were not portrayed or at least implied.

Another dimension to these fantasies is that those who enjoy them often identify or sympathize with the tiny characters who meet with a gruesome end.  Such fantasies turn on the gory details and the depravity of the giants inflicting death.  Do the authors of these fantasies have a death wish?  Why do they derive sexual gratification from thoughts of cruel and fatal abuse?

To be clear, not all Size fantasies feature death, and many Size fantasists are quite vocal about their preferences not to see violence, cruelty, or death in their erotic imaginations.  But for those who do partake of fatal fantasies, what, if anything, does this say about their character?

To answer these questions, I asked a number of Size fantasists what they thought about narrative death in their sexual fantasies, what roles (if any) it plays, and what meaning (if any) it holds for them.  I have also drawn on my own experiences in savoring Size-related lethality.

The most expected finding was that it’s different for different people.  Even in a sample-size as small as this, there were enough differences—glaring to subtle—to distinguish every respondent.  It is nevertheless worth exploring each of them in turn, as this inquiry is open and ongoing and learning others’ thoughts may provoke new insights.

Breaking the Taboo

As the greatest (or worst) crime, murder or deliberate killing represents a major transgression, and transgressions are always exciting.  In the case of lethal transgressions, fear response amplifies the excitement from the audacity of the act.  When a transgressive nature is connected to an already-attractive figure (such as a giant), many people see the transgression as evidence of that figure’s power (and therefore as another reason to be attracted to them).

Commit enough transgressions, particularly without expressing remorse or attempting to refrain, and one becomes a monster.  For some Size fans, a transgressive giant becomes the hero of a horror story, not unlike Dracula or King Kong or Jaws in that they don’t dread what the monster will do next so much as gleefully anticipate it.  There is a distinct allure to monstrosity, the pride from overcoming one’s revulsion and the knowledge that one is unique in appreciating the monster, who, like Kong or Dracula, might even reciprocate that appreciation.

The easy lethality of giants encourages constant escalation as each outrage fades before the next.  Whether it’s the demolition of entire city blocks by a giant footfall or the massacre of tiny people inside a kitchen appliance, it’s the contrast between the atrociousness of the deaths and ease with which the giant achieves them that gives Size horror its thrill.  These atrocities can be deliberate acts of malice, callous acts of indifference, or accidental acts of ignorance.  Each of these flavors have their own aesthetics of tragedy, and sympathizing with the plight of the victims is essential for the horror to reach catharsis.

Many Size enthusiasts enjoy lethal threats in their fantasies so long as they remain just that: threats.  Potential lethality lends plausibility to a mixed-size setting, and it raises narrative tension.  Characters can have close calls and muse about how bad it might have been, enjoying the gruesome details without having to actually suffer them.  Such distancing is the basic mechanic of all horror entertainment, and some of us need to move beyond contemplating lethality to fully depicting it.

Inhabiting the Monster

Perhaps the most obvious attraction to fatal Size fantasies is that lethality underscores power and domination.  At most scales featured in Size Fantasy, giants enjoy such a power differential that causing a single death is effortless and causing mass death is a constant possibility.  This informs every relationship and encounter they have with tiny people, and every death is an affirmation of the domination or submission many Size fans crave.

If anticipating how a giant might break a taboo is tantalizing, seeing their perspective as they contemplate their dominance is exhilarating.  Size fans who indulge in giant power fantasies find exquisite pleasure in demonstrating (to themselves and to observers) each quantum of their superiority through progressively egregious transgressions.  This progress accelerates as they recognize their elevation, as one respondent put it, “beyond rules, morality, and civilization.”

Crush and vore are two types of lethality that are particular to homicidal giants, and they carry rich mythological significance for monstrosity and domination.  A giant who can neither crush nor devour people is unworthy of the name.  Fear of such a death is ancient, buried in the oldest parts of our brain, and Size differential provokes those fears with immediacy and awe.  All giants will be confronted daily with occasions where they must decide how much effort they will expend avoiding causing tiny fatalities.  Dramatically relieving oneself of such concerns is a delicious indulgence.

Our brain also contains the hunting instinct, and giants looking for a way to justify their inescapable lethality will be tempted to regard their Size as a natural advantage that comes from being a predator.  Adopting a “Circle of Life” philosophy in no way prevents a giant from sympathizing with the tiny prey who meet with a tragic end, if that is the flavor of lethality they prefer, or the mass of casualties can remain anonymous at a smug distance.  In any event, people who once considered themselves at the top of the food chain are reduced to the status of livestock or insects without dignity or remorse.  Lethal Size fans derive their gratification from such irony.

Envying the Dead

Some Size fans so enjoy watching a lethal giant prove their dominance that they yearn to submit to it themselves.  Seeing a giant upend everything that is normal and predictable is an invigorating rush, even if innocent lives are snuffed out without ceremony.  To witness something so savage and implacably destructive is to apprehend a kind of beauty, like falling in love with a tsunami. 

Death at a giant’s hands or feet or teeth carries an erotic charge.  The self-destructive drive is a familiar element of sexual attraction, and many Size fans will happily direct that attraction to a lethal giant.  When a mixed-size sexual encounter is prefaced by the death of another tiny caused (intentionally or not) by the giant, the subsequent resolve of the tiny POV character demonstrates how in thrall they are to the giant’s charms.

To desire to be the object of such an immense being’s attention, if only to be destroyed by it, is not a little narcissistic.  People die every day from tediously boring causes.  Wouldn’t it be something to say instead you went out as a bloody smear on a giant’s sole or a slimy lump in a giant’s stomach?  The urge to become part of something bigger than yourself extends beyond death.

Sacrificing oneself becomes even more urgent when a giant isn’t just large but takes on the position of a god.  The act of worship conflates personal emotions with social rituals, transforming an individual suicide into a communal gift to God.  Even if the giant isn’t actually divine and has simply exploited their size advantage to enslave a tiny society, sacrifice still holds the same meaning for every member of the tiny community, and the exaltation is just as cathartic.

One respondent reports relishing being made to feel disposable by the absurd power imbalance with a lethal giant, to have their insignificance proved beyond any doubt, to have their humanity destroyed.  The giant might not even be aware of the tiny they are treading upon or swallowing with their breakfast.  The trivial ease with which a giant can bring death to tinies means they scarcely have to think about it if they decide to dispose of the lesser creatures.  This effortless obliteration of human life may be poignant, but to the right Size fans it also evokes a pang of desire.

Knowing the Difference

One thing all the respondents had in common was that they had all invested significant amounts of thought and emotion into the nature of their fantasies and their possible meaning(s).  Despite recent increases in notoriety, Size Fantasy remains an extremely niche fetish, and Size fantasists typically spend years in isolation and introspection trying to discover the source of these interests and interrogating  their influences on their imagination, their sexuality, and their relationships.  In my many years talking to Size fans about their fantasies and what it’s like to acknowledge that they can never become real, none have been indifferent to or carefree about the possible moral implications of indulging a fantasy that can so easily feature nonconsensual or fatal encounters.

Many Size fans have had little difficulty in determining that the impossibility of realizing Size Fantasy makes it harmless.  Some, however, have been troubled by their attraction to nonconsensual or lethal fantasies, worried that these desires might reflect deeper impulses that can find an outlet in the real world.  Even if such impulses do not exist or cannot emerge, the suspicion that they might is dismayingly popular.

The case of Gilberto Valle is instructive.  In 2013, a New York jury found Valle guilty of Conspiracy to Commit Kidnapping despite a complete lack of physical evidence or witness testimony supporting the charge.  The sole evidence the jury relied on to convict Valle were messages regarding his elaborate and disturbing fantasies about kidnapping, murdering, and eating women posted on a forum devoted to cannibalism fetishes.  Valle’s conviction was overturned on appeal, but not before he served 20 months in prison, seven of which were in solitary confinement.  I highly recommend reading the appellate court’s decision, which finely parses the legal conclusions that may and may not be drawn from writings intended as “fantasy entertainment.”

I doubt Valle invested significantly more time and energy into detailing his fantasies than many of the Size fantasists I’ve known over the years have.  I have read and may have even written Size fantasies that match or surpass Valle’s posts for grisly details and disturbing perspectives.  It is not unreasonable, therefore, to be concerned about how expressions of fetish desires might be (mis)interpreted by people unfamiliar with the tropes and conventions of certain fetishes.

By way of education, I would only note that one other characteristic was common to all respondents and here I include myself:  all fatalities in Size Fantasy receive the due sympathies of those who partake of such fantasies.  We feel the doomed characters’ terror and anguish and acknowledge the injustice of their fates, whether they are established characters or an anonymous mass.  The horror is not diminished by the gratification we derive from it.  Indeed, these deaths would provide scant narrative pleasure to us if they carried no weight, if their fates were glibly considered.

When a tiny in one of my stories meets with an ignominious end that is particularly mortifying due to their size, say, being flushed down a toilet, I am obliged to make it suitably horrifying, both to make it gratifying and to properly note the transgression.  If I neglect to explore every potential lethality in my Size fantasies, I am failing to make them as plausible as possible.  Note that this plausible lethality principle does not require narrative death to be depicted, but the story must acknowledge the risk of Sizey death for the characters to feel real.

I maintain that this respect for character mortality should dispel the notion that lethal Size fantasists somehow fail to value human life or that they feel no compunction about rape or murder.  The same moral revulsion toward these crimes in real life provokes horror when they are encountered in fantasy.  We have just found it in us to transmute that horror into erotic release. In this we are no different than the countless other people fascinated with fictional monsters and their depredations going back to fairy tales, folklore, and ancient mythology.

Everyone with an imagination is haunted by the possibility of transgression, and Size Fantasy is but one of the ways to explore it.  Gods, monsters, cruelty; they all come from us.  We’ve been containing them in stories for a long time.