# Fetishes: weird or just normal?



## Cee Paul (Apr 11, 2012)

So I have heard a lot of different fetishes and some people have them and some don't, but does that make them weird or normal and what are your particular ones if you are ok saying? Mine has always been a girl with pretty feet and hands and the better they look to me the more turned on I get.


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## Cee Paul (Apr 11, 2012)

Also, if you do have a foot fetish like I do for pretty feet(grossed out by the ugly ones)what is it about that body part, because I hear of sooooo many people having it and that it turns them on? I just heard a celebrity on a talk show last night say he had that fetish & that ugly feet is a deal breaker and a total turn off.


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## ocotillo (Oct 17, 2011)

Cee Paul said:


> So I have heard a lot of different fetishes and some people have them and some don't, but does that make them weird or normal and what are your particular ones if you are ok saying? Mine has always been a girl with pretty feet and hands and the better they look to me the more turned on I get.


'Fetish' is one of the words like 'vegetable'

There's a culinary definition for vegetable and there's a biological definition for vegetable and the two definitions aren't quite the same. (e.g. Peas are a vegetable under the culinary definition, but biologically, they're a fruit.)

Similarly, there's a common definition for fetish and there's a clinical definition for a fetish and those aren't quite the same either. If we're talking about 'weird' or 'normal,' then we're probably talking about the latter of the two definitions.

In psychology, a fetish is a sexual fixation on an inanimate object like a shoe or undergarment. It is considered a disorder, because the object is absolutely necessary for gratification.

A sexual fixation upon a non-sexual body part, like the foot for example is not a fetish in the clinical sense. It can be diagnosed as a related disorder called a 'Partialism' if and when interest in the body part supplants a normal interest in the sexual parts of the body and becomes absolutely necessary for gratification. Partialisms and fetishes both fall into the broader category of paraphilia.

In the absence of that exclusivity finding feet sexy is not abnormal; It is actually quite common. Advertising absolutely abounds with that theme. 

Nobody really has a good answer as to why some people find that body part sexy, but then nobody really has a good answer as to why people find any non-sexual part of the body sexy. 

If you try to explain why legs or breasts or buttocks or eyes or hair are sexy to someone who does not find them to be, you run right smack into the, 'Describing color to a blind man' paradox.


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## Lionelhutz (Feb 2, 2012)

People use the term fetish these days and only rarely mean the technical definition of an object REQUIRED for sexual arousal.

Even if you found it fun at first, I imagine it would become a drag to be married to someone with a true fetish because it would mean your sex life would have to be very repetitive and one dimensional.

But in the more common definition of an object, body part or kink that strongly appeals to you, I don't really have a single one but am willing to try most anything. I think the kinkiest fetish I have personally encountered is a girl who really liked spanking and was into "watersports" (she liked to be peed on) .

As with many of these more specialized interests, in my younger days I had always assumed such things were the stuff of fiction and not something "real" people liked.


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## ocotillo (Oct 17, 2011)

Cee Paul said:


> Also, if you do have a foot fetish like I do for pretty feet...what is it about that body part....


There's a theory in psychology that erotic interest in feet is a sociobiological response to sexually transmitted disease. (Giannini _et al_. 1998) This theory rests almost entirely upon correlating epidemics of venereal disease with interest in this body part expressed through art and literature. 

During the gonorrhea epidemic of the Thirteenth Century, romantic literature of the time began making numerous, detailed, loving references to this body part. Examples include the famous French _Roman de la Rose_, (Romance of the Rose) and the Troubadour poetry of Cerveri and Riguier. (Mearnshaw, 1963)

European retellings of earlier fairy tales incorporated a fairly obvious sexual interest in feet. In the Cinderella story, the young woman wears glass slippers (Which presumably would have been see-through) and her feet apparently make a bigger impression on the Prince than her face. In some versions of The Goose Girl, which is a similar story, her feet, "were so pretty that she didn't need shoes."

It occurred again during the syphilis epidemic of the Sixteenth century, and this time it was accompanied by Renaissance advances in shoe-making. True women's high heels with an abbreviated upper (i.e They showed "Toe cleavage") became popular among wealthy female rulers and courtesans. (Windle, 1992)

At the beginning of the Renaissance there were painters who specialized in decolletage, (i.e. A women's upper torso) but by the mid to late Renaissance, there were painters who specialized in women's feet. (Marle, 1930) In brothels, fully clothed prostitutes solicited customers with their feet bared. (Giannini, 1998)


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## Nsweet (Mar 3, 2012)

I have many little "interests" but one main fetish..... I ADORE REHEADS!!!! BUT I absolutely hate blonds. Now the thing is I got this fetish from watching The Little Mermaid and Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit when I was 2. 

I don't know why I don't like blonds, I have blond family members and friends who look good but I don't find them attractive because their hair color. I will not usually date white women because I find alot of them annoying but I would rather the girl have no hair than blond hair. 

Is this normal?


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## Jeff/BC (Apr 1, 2012)

Cee Paul said:


> So I have heard a lot of different fetishes and some people have them and some don't, but does that make them weird or normal and what are your particular ones if you are ok saying? Mine has always been a girl with pretty feet and hands and the better they look to me the more turned on I get.


*chuckles* If I were to describe my fetishes here I'd be tarred and feathered. Let's just leave it at "your foot fetish is still pretty tame." I'm not very clear on what "normal" might mean in regards human sexual behavior, but I have some friends who are WAY more kinky than I. They have funny stories to tell about getting shocked by their allegedly "vanilla" lovers.


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## Cee Paul (Apr 11, 2012)

My wife thinks a man's jawline or jaw structure is a major turn on for her and important and loves mine, but that's about as far as she goes with that.


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## Cee Paul (Apr 11, 2012)

One big thing I noticed is that in the beginning of our marriage and about 3-4 years after once I told my wife about my pretty feet and hands fetish/turn on, she would always get a mani and a pedi and would even keep using my favorite polish for her toes and fingernails to keep them looking sexy. Buuuuut now the past few years she couldn't care less seems like and lets them go all to hell and look very unattractive, and she might get a mani/pedi once every 3 or 4 months even when I go out and buy her a gift certificate to her favorite salon for Valentines day or her birthday, and I do that as a huge *hint hint* but she doesn't really seem to care what turns me on anymore.


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## Morrigan (Jan 18, 2012)

Personally I love being tied up in bed and in different positions. Its the feeling of total helplessness and submission. But I don't like it all the time. Similarly I like to be spanked but not extremely hard at first. I like intensity to build over a period of time. Beowulf will accommodate me from time to time but he has little interest in these activities. I guess these are fetishes in the popular sense but if it were to happen every night I would no longer enjoy it. Every person is different and as long as its not hurting anyone I don't see any harm.


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## sinnister (Dec 5, 2010)

I've had a foot fetish (only for pretty female feet..you'd be surprised how many "normals" don't get that) for as long as I can remember. But I get turned on by everything on the female body...so I guess it's not the clinical definition.


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## Lionelhutz (Feb 2, 2012)

ocotillo said:


> There's a theory in psychology that erotic interest in feet is a sociobiological response to sexually transmitted disease. (Giannini _et al_. 1998) This theory rests almost entirely upon correlating epidemics of venereal disease with interest in this body part expressed through art and literature.
> )


Interesting theory but I wonder about the specific mode of transmission for a fetish. For example at what age would a foot fetish emerge and whether or not the person would have any conscious understanding of STDs and their implications at or before the time it emerges?

I guess it goes back to a nature versus nurture argument. It is probably a combination of both. I would guess that many people are born with a strong potential of acquiring a fetish of some kind but the specifics are determined by experience.

I can see how any anatomy can be sexualized and it would be heavily influenced by where a society is at on the ever-shifting "standard" of modesty. This would explain the showing of ankles and feet in other times by women who may run into trouble showing or accentuating other parts of their anatomy. If all people were barefoot all the time, I would guess that incidents of foot fetish would dramatically decline but never completely disappear.


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## drmmommy (Apr 16, 2012)

Cee Paul said:


> So I have heard a lot of different fetishes and some people have them and some don't, but does that make them weird or normal and what are your particular ones if you are ok saying? Mine has always been a girl with pretty feet and hands and the better they look to me the more turned on I get.


I don't have any fetishes, but my husband likes to wear adult diapers, pee in them until they're really full and wet, and then have me change him like a freakin baby or threaten to force him to go out in public like that. I have a 2 1/2 year old with special needs, still in diapers, and so I absolutely do not get turned on by this. I think fetishes are fine in general, it gives you something to fantasize about. But don't force your partner to engage in them if it turns them off. Also, I'd avoid admitting that the fetish is all you're thinking about while having sex with your partner. :-(
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## drmmommy (Apr 16, 2012)

3leafclover said:


> I'm guessing he gave you no clue about this before your marriage. That's so unfair. What a huge compatibility issue to choose not to divulge. I guess it's possible he didn't come to have this fetish until after marriage, but I'd doubt that even if he claimed it...infantalism is usually an early-onset interest.


He did make me aware of it, but I guess I didn't realize how far reaching it was. I tried to be open minded, and what he does in private is his business. But expecting me to change him, apply desitin, etc before sex totally kills my sex drive. Also, he admitted that what he's thinking about while we're having sex is not me, but the diapers...
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## drmmommy (Apr 16, 2012)

3leafclover said:


> That would totally kill my sex drive, too. This fetish is definitely a boat-sinker, not a boat-floater for me. But I know there are women out there who do enjoy it...I'm just wondering why he didn't find one of those?
> 
> Sounds like maybe you both fell in love with so many other aspects of each other that you really, really just wanted to skate over this particular issue. He probably went into a little denial and understated the extent of his fetish, hoping he'd get by without it. You were trying to be open-minded and accepting of it, probably because there were so many other things about him that were just perfect.
> I guess I brought it on myself. I asked him, during sex, what he was thinking about, trying to get him to speak up, and show me I'm not doing it with a dead guy, and that was how he responded.
> ...


I guess I brought it on myself. I asked him, during sex, what he was thinking about, trying to get him to speak up, and show me I'm not doing it with a dead guy, and that was how he responded. 
His words do haunt me, we've had sex 4 times in the past year, and three of those times we've been drunk to the point of not remembering it the next morning.
Sorry to hijack this thread, just felt the need to vent about the diapers.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## ocotillo (Oct 17, 2011)

Lionelhutz said:


> Interesting theory but I wonder about the specific mode of transmission for a fetish.


Giannini described the phenomenon as 'transient emergence.' Apparently, the thought is that there are always people with this interest, but it becomes more socially acceptable during and immediately following periods of venereal disease. 

The apparent increase of people who find feet erotic during those periods when it is socially acceptable is probably illusory because people tend to keep socially unacceptable things more to themselves.

One of the things that the internet has taught us is that there are way more men with this interest than was previously thought. Type in the name of almost any female celebrity at random and feet are frequently one of the top ten search queries on Google:

I've used Bitsie Tulloch (From Grimm) as an example:


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