From what I remember, Sigmund Freud defined a “fetisH” as some physical object that had a sexual significance. This significance could be very strong-such that touching or seeing the object could actually evoke a sexual experience.
My question: in modern American society, sex is used to sell all manner of products-from cars to mothwash. Given this constant exposure, are fetishes really all that important anymore? Do people really get a charge out of thir sexy new car? Or has this constant exposure caused people to become jaded?
But fetishes were never “just liking” an object or being materialistic about it. I don’t think your average person got a sexual thrill out of a car ever.
As far as I can tell Freud wasn’t right about anything. He used no controlled experiments, he just observed and then made shit up. I don’t know why he isn’t regarded like Lamarck.
I dunno - I find dirty moths sexy.
Give up my “Deby Does” femdoll for “mothwash”? Not on your tintype.
Isn’t a fetish, properly so called, something without which a person can’t be sexually aroused? There’s a difference between “I like X”, or even “I find X arousing”, and “I can’t be aroused without X”.
That is my understanding but as someone with two very strong “preferences” I’m not sure I agree.
One explanation I read that rang “true-ish” for me is that a fetish is the eroticization of a deep seated fear. The example given was that a fetish for women dressed in Nazi get-ups is almost exclusively found in Jewish men. Whether that is true or not, I can’t say but it illustrates the point.
I would consider the following to be ‘fetishes’ (but I’m not endorsing anything specific that Freud might’ve said about them):
•fascination with panties (in the absence of cute chix inside of them at the time)
•high heels (likewise)
• sexual interest response to the smell of perfume (assuming it does not literally smell like a woman)
Then these others are sort of ‘pseudo-fetishes’ — there’s a female actually involved but sexual interest has been associated with something else in conjunction with her such that it is not her alone who engenders the attraction:
• women in garter belts, fishnet stockings, or high heels (assuming that the same women in other equally revealing but less ‘symbolic’ clothing would not attract as strongly)
• women in wonderbras or equiv with low-cut tops and boobs smushed together and hoisted aloft to create cleavage (with same disclaimer-assumption)
• women carrying purses, weilding lipsticks, displaying long painted fingernails (again, same disclaimer)
The latter group is more arguable — someone could claim, I suppose, that there is something intrinsically more attractive to women when presenting themselves in such fashions and accessories — but I’m convinced of it personally (that no, there’s not, that there’s a collective cultural fetish by which such things have been rendered “sexual”).
I don’t follow… A woman wearing lingerie, etc. is, on at least some level, signaling sexual availability and desire. Of course that renders her more sexually attractive! Now, the specific clothing used to convey that message will vary from culture to culture, but the message is the same.
I said “when compared to a woman in other equally revealing but less symbolic garments”. Well, not verbatim but was I unclear?
Yes, I saw that, but I’m not sure of the relevance. How much skin is showing is largely irrelevant; what matters is the message conveyed by the clothing.
Right. Pseudo-fetish.
Exactly. That’s the current psychological definition. However, most people tend to use it for anything outside a small subset of sexual activity. Others use it for merely liking something more than usual.
BTW, Freud thought that women’s love of shoes was a fetish. And that every desire was ultimately sexual.
Yeah, he thought that, but really that’s just a phallusy.
So, a woman could be a fetish? (She is, among other things, a physical object.)
I’m reading a book called “Rationale of the Dirty Joke” in which an intellectual attempts to deconstruct dirty jokes, generally from a Freudian point of view. I don’t know which is funnier, the jokes themselves or the analysis. Apparently most of men’s opinions and actions are strongly tied to a constant fear of getting castrated, often by a vagina with teeth in it. Also, all women wish they had dicks.
I’ll second those who say that a good starting point is to assume that Freud was incorrect about any of his highly-theoretical, amateruish and often personally-revelatory hogwash.
Then there’s always this: