Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission (65 page)

E
IGHTEEN

T
he sacred and profane are nowhere more intimately intertwined than in the realm of fetishism, whose linguistic identity itself originates in the religious and whose practices often involve elaborate, sometimes ecstatic rituals. Fetishism always has been a fertile field for sexuality research, both because of its apparently infinite permutations and its conduciveness to theorizing. The arguments on nurture versus nature are heated: Some believe that fetishistic interests in adults are the result of traumatic events in infancy and early childhood. To others, genetic predisposition is the dominant influence.

In this chapter we profile two individuals who bring distinct perspectives to fetishism:

The definitions of
fetish
are so numerous that one would not be completely amiss in saying that each of us, to one degree or another, has at least one. Would Linus in the comic strip
Peanuts
be the same without his little blanket?

The word
fetish
derives from the Portuguese
feitiço
. It was apparently first used by 15th Century Portuguese explorers to describe West African sacred carvings. In its original (and current anthropological) meaning, fetish refers to a sacred artifact invested with spiritual or talismanic power. The erotic fetish is not merely a symbol of the divine but is itself divine. It possesses a discrete power: It can arouse and, sometimes, induce ecstasy in its devotee. For fetishists, a shoe may be sexier than the foot it adorns; lingerie more enticing than the erotic anatomy it screens; a rubber coat more stimulating than the person it contains.

Fetishism is a translocation of desire: The sexual impulse is directed away from genitalia and toward another part of the body or to an object. To Freud, this turning away clearly implied castration anxiety, and neo-Freudians proceed from this basis. To Jung, fixation on objects associated with childhood sexual encounters implied arrested sexual development. (Indeed, contemporary psychiatrists, such as Otto Kernberg, attribute all sadomasochistic acts to arrested development, although such analyses are no longer necessarily censorious.) Contemporary theorists are still wrangling over the etiology of fetishism.

The clinical definition of a fetishist is someone who cannot be aroused without the fetish item. Formerly a distinction was drawn between the erotic
interest in inanimate objects (fetishism) and erotic interest in parts of the body (partialism). Modern theorists, however, expand the definition of fetishism to embrace both.

So varied are the types of fetishism that have been studied in the last century that a plethora of subcategories exists. A short list includes
hyphephilia
(arousal by human hair, animal fur, leather, and fabrics, especially upon erogenous zones);
mysophilia
(arousal by smelling or chewing soiled and/or sweaty apparel);
olfactophilia
(arousal by the odors of parts of the body); and
transvestophilia
(arousal from wearing the clothing, especially underclothing, of the opposite sex).

The American fixation on female breasts is really fetishism by popular consensus. Women who opt for breast augmentation can bear testimony to the American equation of buxom and sexy. What we believe to be sexually acceptable is always culturally determined. In America even disfigurements of the female form, such as implants that result in titanic but nonfunctional protrusions, are sometimes admired. In other cultures different body parts excite the erotic appetite. In Japan, for example, the nape of the neck is tantalizingly sexy; in some African cultures, bulky haunches are a paradigm of femininity; in China, it’s a petite foot.

To be out of sexual syncopation with your society’s beauty standards puts one at a distinct disadvantage; the American man who prefers a foot to a breast is likely to be viewed with discomfort or antipathy.

Why it is that an object may be more exciting than a person, or a part more exciting than the whole, has been a source of lengthy debate.

Pioneering studies of sexual fetishism were undertaken by the father of standardized testing, Alfred Binet, in 1891. Binet theorized that fetishism is acquired largely through association. For example, if a boy has an erection at the moment he sees a woman remove her fur coat, he will from then on equate his excitement with the act or the object and become dependent upon fur for excitement. This theory is supported by anecdotal information and may help explain why men are more often observed to be fetishistic.

Women, differently equipped, do not have as conspicuous a signal of arousal. Yet many of the women we interviewed reported that they were fetishists; more women, indeed, volunteered this information than men.

It has been a clinical truism for decades that fetishists are uniquely male although extensive case studies of female fetishists abound in the earlier psychological literature. There are documented cases of grown women with fetishes for dolls or who were erotically addicted to satin.
³

We believe that both genders are equally likely to be fetishistic, but that from childhood on, men are apt to be more aware of the erotic connection because their arousal is visible. As adults, they are more assertive in seeking out encounters and discussing the interest. Women are liable to be unaware of the connection between object or act and personal arousal. And since women are usually discouraged from acting on their sexual impulses, they
probably are more likely to hide their desires, even from themselves. Meanwhile, women have sanctioned outlets for fetishistic urges. They may collect shoes, for example, without stirring comment.

Perhaps the reason many of our female subjects identify themselves as fetishists has to do with the general tendency of D&S females to identify and experiment with a diversity of erotic stimuli and to acknowledge sexual quirks openly.

In response to Binet’s associative theory, Krafft-Ebing proposed another analysis: Some children are predisposed to become excited. Krafft-Ebing’s “constitutional theory” became the standard behind which the psychological community rallied for a time. It tied in with an accepted tenet of psychological theory that mental deviation is either the product of injury or disease of the central nervous system,
or
it is a congenital condition. Sigmund Freud later emphasized a similar conclusion. Such personality theories are, at best, debatable. Reliable scientific study of environment’s effect on sexuality is virtually impossible (sexual research remains anecdotal), and genetic research is still emerging.

John Money’s concept of lovemaps—a primarily philosophical catchall concept that emphasizes environmental factors—has won some popularity. It posits that trauma can cause the fetishistic impulse. For example, the child whose parent teaches him to respond with deep shame or disgust to genitalia may then direct his lust to a less emotionally charged object.

None of our interviewees reported a specifically and sexually traumatic link, although it is impossible to ignore the amount of guilt and shame many fetishists experience. It seems likely that low self-esteem and fetishism are inextricably intertwined in most fetishists, and not that one necessarily proceeds from the other. Self-acceptance among fetishists is among the lowest of any category of sexual diversity. The lonely fetishist stealing secret moments to indulge his interest is a distressingly common phenomenon.

The first conscious memories of fetish experience are often pleasurable ones.