Where can I find the pro-ugly sites?

May 9, 2007 12:40 PM

Ugliness as a fetish on the Internet - resources? websites? chat?

The Internet being as big as it is, there is supposedly a page or two for every fetish and taste, no matter how bizarre or unlikely. I have never been able to make much headway however in my search for those whose tastes run to what is usually considered ugly - scars, deformities, etc. (not so interested in fat girls or body mods, thanks, there's plenty of that available). Also, there is certainly an abundance of sites which feature pictures of carnival performers and so forth, but I'm looking for those who crossover to actually expressing appeal for such things, as opposed to LOLFREEKZ. Many thanks in advance.

posted by stinkycheese to computers & internet (10 comments total)

BMEzine (about body modification) certainly has lots of examples of things most people would consider ugly, done intentionally and admired.
posted by mendel at 12:44 PM on May 9, 2007

Mendel: I'm on BME and I'm not ugly. 'Sides, the OP specifically mentioned "not so interested in body mods".
posted by nursegracer at 1:18 PM on May 9, 2007

There's a lot of amputee porn out there that you could google for. Some of it is even authentic.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 1:22 PM on May 9, 2007

A friend of mine has, in the past, been a mod of a 'community' or 'group' focusing on this, on a Deviantart-like website. (DA probably has similar ones, though.) Some of it is fanart, some of it is original art. If you want actual human beings, I can't help you there, but if art is OK, my e-mail's in my profile.
posted by cobaltnine at 1:28 PM on May 9, 2007

Mendel: I'm on BME and I'm not ugly.

Well, that's kind of the sticking point, though. Any fetish for things that the mainstream finds ugly isn't going to consider the object of its fetish ugly.

But yeah, I caught "scars" but must have skimmed "no body mods", sorry.
posted by mendel at 1:53 PM on May 9, 2007

Just scan the alt.binaries.erotica hierarchy on usenet, I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for.
posted by rhizome at 1:59 PM on May 9, 2007

Ugly People.com but I think it is more humor oriented.
posted by banished at 2:03 PM on May 9, 2007

It depends on what you consider ugly or bizarre, of course. As you mentioned, there are hundreds of websites that fetishize extremely overweight people. There's some market for amputee porn and midget porn, both of which could be considered bizarre. There are even sites devoted to big noses on girls, which are usually considered ugly.

The thing is, from what I've read, people who like those "ugly" things like them not because they think they're ugly, but because they think they're pretty. Those guys who photoshop models' faces so they have impossibly huge noses say they "are holding these women up as the ideal of [their] conception of feminine beauty." They aren't saying that big noses are hot because they're ugly; they're arguing that big noses aren't ugly at all.

Then there's the question of what fetishism means. Even if people use the word themselves, they may not really mean the dictionary definition. For example, there's a (really gross) zit fetish community on LiveJournal, but as far as I can tell, the name's meant more as a joke than it is to imply literal sexual attraction.

Also, you mentioned scars specifically. If you want to research that, you might try to infiltrate this group (German, I think). I've had an eye out for scar fetishists for about five years; in that time, out of the few people I've heard of who did literally fetishize scars, they all fetishized the pain behind it, and the scar only as a representation of that pain. They all wanted to inflict more scars, usually in ways as extreme and painful as possible.

If there's one particular aspect of ugliness that interests you, probably the best you can do is post an ad on Craigslist in major cities. Strongly emphasize whatever issue you pick, and encourage anyone with that fetish to contact you. And use a throwaway e-mail address to sign up, too, because despite your precautions, your inbox will still be flooded with dick pics from guys who didn't read the ad.
posted by booksandlibretti at 2:28 PM on May 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thanks everybody, especially those who included links.

booksandlibretti touches on some of the rationale behind my interest, and the use of the word fetish*. The question of what relationship repulsion has with excitement or arousal is very interesting to me, but I suppose, upon reflection, that such concerns are secondary to the quite natural - and not necessarily sexual - fascination with the 'ugly', abnormal or malformed.

That urge to stare because the brain perceives that 'something is wrong', even before the eyes have figured out what that might be. Most of us have been taught that it is impolite to stare at such people or conditions, or indeed to dwell too long on 'ugliness' of any kind. Such urges seem to me innate, and born of evolutionary prejudice as much as anything else.

Of course ugliness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, but some conditions are likely universal in being rejected: malformed or severed limbs, skin disease, and so on and so on. I would've thought that the Internet, in its scope, reach, and anonymity, might offer a polite chance to stare, and discuss what is being seen, and why it is so fascinating. Maybe, away from the conformity of the physical group in cyberspace, opinions and tastes would become so abstract or diverse as to be stimulated by what we normally reproach. Certainly that's the case in so many other arenas.

The closest we seem to come - usenet aside, which I am sadly unacquainted with - is uglypeople.com, rotten.com, and the like; sites which offer 'the goods' as it were, but couch the presentation much like a joke. You're supposed to laugh, or be grossed out, but you're not supposed to think about it.

I'm just shocked really that people don't talk about ugliness in society at all, except to either exclude said ugly outside themselves (as in "did you see so-and-so?"), or to disparage their own ugliness and talk about how they're going to get rid of it ("I'm so fat, I have to go on a diet"). I would suggest that, as time goes on and the present course of society becomes more extreme, this will likely change, and outright eroticism of the heretofore 'ugly' will commence in earnest, if only in secret.

*A digression: as to the fetishization of the inanimate object, could a scar be construed as such a thing? It's attached to a person, but it is somehow detached as well (may be added to the body or removed, with or without ones' desiring it).
posted by stinkycheese at 8:13 PM on May 9, 2007

This is probably chatty, but I have had psoriasis since I was 14 and I can't even articulate how much it has affected my self-image and sexuality. It's interesting to think that there might be people out there that would find it interesting or even attractive. The best I can do is finding lovers who aren't disgusted (or at least won't admit it.)
posted by loiseau at 11:33 AM on May 10, 2007