From a better objective standpoint, any particular sexual fixation onto something, or someone is not a form of fetish either way? I think by the "unusualness" of a said fetish, you meant a paraphilia, which is any due form of psychosocially devious fetish triggered by mental health disorders in the same vein than bestiality and other criminable sex deviancies.
And this is how by applying the indeed-niche attraction as psychosocially off-charts is tricky when we deal about attraction toward bigger women, given historiographical studies that demonstrates, from one hand that such attraction was quite the contrary of being unusual in pre-industrial and early industrial period Western societies, then to the other hand was even more frequent in both African and Near East societies prior European colonial expansionism in these regions; where the latter cross-cultural trend remained strong in most sub-Saharan African countries and rural/pastoral Berber-speaking communities across the Sahel and Sahara, but virtually banished in more urban regions of North Africa, Egypt and Western Asia where contemporary Eurocentrizied norms of Turkic-Arab beauty prevails the utmost (light/white skin, delicate features, thin frame and "Caucasoid" or "Armenoid" features... among populations of various ethnoliguistic and regional origins - most of those non-European - whose skin complexion varies predominantly from light olive to tawny to swarthy to red-brown to dark) and plumpness or roundness a subject of baser temptations, volupty, deriding and lest for the most conservative or fundamentalist expressions of faiths, heathen.
Of course from an evolutionary standpoint, biological norms of mating fitness plays along how we men reacts to plump, moderably overweight and bigger women, I'm not denying this. Apple-shaped women and evenly proportioned corpulent women are far less desirable to men then women of lesser or similar bodyweight with a waist-to-hip ratio below 0.80, a defined curveousness/voluptuousness and, depending which culture or region, a thigh-buttock ratio below 0.8 too (the aesthetically ideal WTH ratios and TB ratios, whom to them, varies pretty much from culture or population group to culture or population group) .
But my issue about the negative feedback is the paradox I've observed is when I see people commenting that in some manner, you're going to find one recurrent argument about men who comments about the so-called "obesity pandemics" among black women - let alone women all short in some Western countries - but doesn't dig deeper into the both socio-economical, cultural and psychosocial factors that bred to the widespread of unchecked weight control, but nonetheless appreciates their curves and roundness if ever they weren't much bigger than they are; then to the other hand another reccurent argument, more subtle albeit radical, about what plump and bigger black women destroys black culture, but as subtlely reproachs nonblack women to masquerade the appeal of stereotypized black women bodies by fattening up themselves-- but bigger black women destroys black culture, then how nonblack women are actually minestreling anything??
Hence why I found out that the issue is less about health, psychosocial norms and social/mating fitness and much about moral anxieties and socionormativism defined often by dominant classes and peoples who doesn't belong to the African people and its many diasporas, neither generically hold positive views about us and our culture.
You're right about pre-industrial western society. Obesity was considered attractive and empowering. It was a physical signifier of wealth, abundance and security during a time of extreme social and economic disparity. A bluntly apparent, starkly contrasting manifestation of the reality of the haves and the have nots. It wouldn't have been apt to claim it as a fetish
back then. But it's worth noting the relativity of socio-cultural norms, given that it could be argued the attraction during this period was a negatively pressured consequence of inequality. Living today, in far more advanced and egalitarian times, and through communications and globalization exposed to far more peoples and culture than ever before, the standard of sexual attraction has shifted. The global populace is relatively healthier, smarter, more educated and more exposed, and at least partly as a result of this progress of civilization, obesity has fallen out of favour.
For those reasons, I think it's safe to say it is indeed more about health, social norms and mating fitness. Considering both the former and latter, a low WHR, low BMI rating has been found to be the most desirable, which perhaps is an evolutionary development explained by research showing higher ratios of adipose tissue in the lower body being correlated with better health and cognitive ability for both the mother and her offspring.
Again though, I'm mostly rebutting in respect to genuinely obese individuals, not the bigger, fuller bodied, curvacious women we've been promoting for decades. In regards to the latter, it's undeniable that the association of black bodies with primitiveness (as in the case of Sarah Baartman), in attempts to legitimize racial superiority through pseudoscience, was a historical reality. Less so in our modern age, where you'll have seen plenty of outrageous T&A in men's magazines and pornography, although still only in substitution of fair representation on the red carpet, cat walk or elitist media, which speaks to an ongoing tension with body types not deemed delicate enough. Of course, to be fair, African women don't have a monopoly on thickness and European women don't have a monopoly on daintiness. Based on observation, the average woman of all backgrounds tends to the more basic side of body type and so stands to benefit from prevailing Western beauty standards, discounting other differing features like skin colour and facial features of course.
Thinking of the mindset of major fashion designers, casting agents and magazine editors... why go for thin body types, whether white, black or asian? You could ask many valid questions. Is voluptuousness too distracting? Too threatening? Does it appear lowly? Is it the domain of the sordid? There'd potentially be a resounding "yes" to all of the above. That perspective wouldn't necessarily be rooted in supremacism, but could very well be. The fact that the most powerful and influential people in media are largely white can't be brushed off. But it's also to be expected. The western world is by and large white. They're naturally and understandably going to promote what they find most comforting and appealing. Which is why it's up to us as minorities living and working in their world to fight for representation..
Fortunately, the tide seems to be turning in some respects for awareness and consolidation of the worth and appeal of varying body types.
(I can't really speak on this negative feedback thing you're referring to. I'm not aware of any of that tbh.)
