At the beginnings of the Gothic, in the eighteenth century, there was an anxiety or taboo surrounding consumption and appetite for the Gothic text itself and for the excessive and sensational themes that the Gothic discussed. The female body, becoming a commodity in society, was objectified within the texts and consumed by the villain (both metaphorically and literally) who represented the perils of gluttony and indulgence and the horrors of cannibalistic desire. The female was the object of consumption and thus was denied appetite and was depicted as starved and starving. This also communicated the taboo of female appetite, a taboo that persists and changes within the Gothic as the female assumes the status of subject and the power to devour; she moves from being ethereal to bestial in the nineteenth century. With her renewed hunger, she becomes the consumer, devouring the villain who would eat her alive. The two sections of this study discuss the extremes of appetite and the extremes of bodily representations: starvation and cannibalism.

Disordered eating in men is said to be uncommon with men forming less than ten per cent of reported cases. Yet it has been suggested that the number of males with eating disorders is beginning to increase, affecting more men than ever before. This presents problems for healthcare services that have created previous models of support around women. Current research offers pathological and epidemiological data, including information about testing men for eating disorders using male-centred instruments. However, understanding is aetiolated due to a focus on medical accounts of male disordered eating, rather than focusing on the stories that men themselves have to tell. This exploratory qualitative study addresses this problem by focusing on men’s stories of disordered eating. Four men share their accounts of living with an eating disorder and these are analysed using a hermeneutic approach, in order to glean insights into their experiences with food, body and self. These insights include an examination of the meaning of fat male bodies, analysis of the phenomenon of gender ambivalence that prevails in men with disordered eating and the fragmented and colonised nature of the male eating disordered self. These represent an original contribution to understanding as they have not been considered elsewhere in the literature to date. Additionally, an extensive analysis of the male eating disorder literature, use of a hermeneutic methodology and the positioning of male eating disorders within the context of masculinities studies further add to the novel value of this research.

Disordered eating in men is said to be uncommon with men forming less than ten per cent of reported cases. Yet it has been suggested that the number of males with eating disorders is beginning to increase, affecting more men than ever before. This presents problems for healthcare services that have created previous models of support around women. Current research offers pathological and epidemiological data, including information about testing men for eating disorders using male-centred instruments. However, understanding is aetiolated due to a focus on medical accounts of male disordered eating, rather than focusing on the stories that men themselves have to tell. This exploratory qualitative study addresses this problem by focusing on men’s stories of disordered eating. Four men share their accounts of living with an eating disorder and these are analysed using a hermeneutic approach, in order to glean insights into their experiences with food, body and self. These insights include an examination of the meaning of fat male bodies, analysis of the phenomenon of gender ambivalence that prevails in men with disordered eating and the fragmented and colonised nature of the male eating disordered self. These represent an original contribution to understanding as they have not been considered elsewhere in the literature to date. Additionally, an extensive analysis of the male eating disorder literature, use of a hermeneutic methodology and the positioning of male eating disorders within the context of masculinities studies further add to the novel value of this research.

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