What is a fetish?How do fetishes develop?How to Explore your FetishWhat if your partner doesn’t want to explore your fetish?

What is a fetish?

How do fetishes develop?

How to Explore your Fetish

What if your partner doesn’t want to explore your fetish?

Some folks with a fetish are so focused on this one object that they cannot get aroused without thinking about or incorporating their fetish. However, for most folks with a fetish, it is just the spice that makes an encounter more exciting. Including their fetish is unnecessary for arousal.

Research showsthat the most common fetishes involve arousal directly related to the human body (feet, toes) or objects closely associated with the body (clothing, etc.). Specifically, it was foundthat feet were the most common fetish, with 1/7 adults having a fantasy that involved feet. Other common fetishes include body fluids.A studyfound that 45% of men and 35% percent of women fantasized about spit before, 31% of men and 14% of women fantasized about breast milk, 32% of men and 15% fantasied about urine and 6% of men and 2% of women fantasized about feces.

Of course, there is a significant difference between having a one-off fantasy and having a full-on fetish. Fetishes often take up a significant component of one’s sexual energy. Folks often watch porn related to their fetish, join chat groups related to their fetish, and are more likely to enact their fetish in real life (or at least want to!). However, fantasies are often thoughts that we indulge in thinking about for a bit. Fantasies are more likely to change over time and are less likely to be something that someone would be interested in exploring in real life. Fetishes are more likely to be desires that play a significant role in our sexual desires and behaviours throughout our life.

The media tends to cover the dark side of fetishes instead of exploring how, for the most part, they are healthy and fun to explore consensually. Instead of hearing the positive stories, we tend to only hear about the one guy who licks lady’s feet at the shoe store or exposes themselves without consent. Theresearchshows that kinky people are overall less neurotic, more social, and happier than those who are not kinky. So, for the most part, folks with fetishes are well-adjusted, friendly ordinary people, despite what the media would have you believe.

Although there is a lot we don’t understand about how fetishes develop, there tend to be some patterns that researchers have discovered. Many fetishes develop through conditioning, early childhood experiences, or our unique biology.

Although this conditioning usually develops after several pairings, when someone has an experience during a critical age in sexual development, one significant pairing can be enough to create a fetish. For example, if someone’s first sexual experience is with a woman wearing heels or fishnets: this can be enough to imprint this preference and impact their desires moving forward.

Many folks have childhood experiences that may bring to light a desire that was always there. For example, someone on Reddit shared, “The kids in my neighborhood used to play a game and if you were captured you had to be tied to a tree. Turns out little kids suck at tying knots but I remember fantasizing at a very young age about being inescapably bound. This was also around the time I watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the whole Frollo/Esmerelda thing made me feel weird “down there”. Something about a guy wanting you so badly and so fully that he’ll tie you up so that he can use every inch of you as you’re forced to submit helplessly just…yeah.” As you can see in this example, fetish may come to light through childhood experiences. In this case, it is hard to say if the desire was always there or if something about watching that movie or being tied up led a bondage fetish to develop.

There is also a relationship between humiliation and arousal. As someone on Reddit with a scat fetish explains, “I find scat to be unique in a sense that I can relate to from childhood experiences. After much introspection, I can look back too many points of my young to adolescent life where I was humiliated in some way involving scat (shitting my pants in front of people, fascinated with diapers, enduring the repercussions of untreated celiac disease for about 12 years, etc.).” For some, it is an unpleasant or traumatic incident that leads to the development of a fetish. Eroticizing trauma is not unhealthy, and for some it can be a healthy way to move on.

Humans are complex creatures, and fetishes can develop from so many sources. As someone with a pregnancy fetish describes, “It’s just something I always remember wanting. If I go spiritual about it, there may be a connection to my innate desire to be a mother and the feeling of power that goes with creating life. Another important piece of it is that I have fertility issues, so there’s a chance I never will get pregnant, and being able to at least pretend is better than nothing.” It is common for us to reframe or work to regain control over what we can’t change through sexuality and fetishes.

As we saw, foot fetishes are among the most common types of fetishes, and they may develop through a biological mechanism. We have a sensory map in our brains where each part of our body that experiences sensations is represented. It turns out that the genitals and the feet are right beside each other in this sensory map. Therefore, the feet and genitals may become neurologically linked due to slight neural misfiring. In other words, when you think about feet, it may create a feeling of excitement like you would feel with your genitals.

There’s fascinating research exploring this phenomenon with folks who have amputated legs. It turns out that some folks experience a neural rewiring after their amputation, which leads their phantom foot to become sexualized. Perhaps because there was no longer a physical representation of the feet, the sensory representation of both foot and genitals merged, leading folks to experience orgasms through their missing feet!

If your partner isn’t into your fetish, this doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker. Many folks keep their fetish as something they explore alone and have happy, fulfilling partnerships. Some folks are satisfied with exploring their fetish through fantasy and porn and may not need to engage in real life. Some couples decide that one partner can explore their fetish with other folks who share their excitement. This isn’t the same as an open relationship, so if you are exploring this with a partner, create clear guidelines so nobody gets hurt. Some explore their fetish with sex workers to ensure that level of separation.

Remember, nobody should ever make you feel shame for experiencing sexual excitement. It makes your sex life more interesting. As society shifts towards becoming more sex-positive, there will likely be a shift towards acceptance of all types of fetishes. In the meantime, find sex-positive spaces to explore your fetish. Work on getting comfortable discussing your fetish and normalizing these types of conversations. Happy Exploring 🙂

Related posts:The Psychology of Long Distance RelationshipsOperant Conditioning (Examples + Research)Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI Test)Abandonment Issues (Examples, Causes, and Treatment)Variable Interval Reinforcement Schedule (Examples)

Reference this article:Practical Psychology. (2023, January).The Psychology of Fetishes.Retrieved from https://practicalpie.com/the-psychology-of-fetishes/.Practical Psychology. (2023, January). The Psychology of Fetishes. Retrieved from https://practicalpie.com/the-psychology-of-fetishes/.Copy

Reference this article:

Practical Psychology. (2023, January).The Psychology of Fetishes.Retrieved from https://practicalpie.com/the-psychology-of-fetishes/.Practical Psychology. (2023, January). The Psychology of Fetishes. Retrieved from https://practicalpie.com/the-psychology-of-fetishes/.Copy

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