Why are unusual kinks and sexual fetishes considered 'highly arousing'?

[aldiboronti]

@Jonathan_Chance

Bolding mine.

I want to call this into question. I realize it’s easy to figure that a huge percentage of the population have some sort of oddball fetish or kink but I think that’s yet to be determined. Such things get outsize media attention because they make good stories - a story about people who are strictly vanilla doesn’t merit ink or airwaves - and things that are different seem to pop up in pornography.

But still, I’d want to see some double-blind research before I’d accept the premise that such are ‘quite common’.

I agree. The notion that such fetishes are common goes back to Alfred Kinsey’s influential 1948 book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male but as many critics argued at the time and since Kinsey’s research depended on finding subjects who would be willing to answer the most intrusive questions on their sexual practices from which he extrapolated figures for the population as a whole. The problem was that these subjects could not be considered a representative sample as their frankness about sex made it far more likely that they would have adventurous sex lives.

[standingwave]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

I agree with this. I mean, I’ve heard Pavlov’s dogs could get conditioned to salivate upon hearing the bell that got paired with the savory food they’d craved; and I’ve been a young and hormonal guy who got uncontrollable erections at seemingly random times while my personality was still a work in progress; and if I’d gotten my first erection while getting spanked, I’m guessing psychology would’ve ensued.

Yeah, conditioning is my first thought. Given the right reward system, I suspect that anything could be sexualized.

But S&M has another thing in its favor: Brain chemistry. Endorphins (a natural pain killer) and serotonin (a natural anti-depressant) are released when pain is experienced and these chemicals are is responsible (in part) for the runner’s high. They also happen to be released during sex so it’s not too surprising that combining these activities are a popular pastime.

Steve Martin: "So this couple comes up to me after the show and say, “Hey, are you bi?” I thought to myself, “Well, I speak a little Spanish, but not really enough to be bilingual.” But I didn’t want to look stupid, so I said, “Sure, I’m bi.” And they said, “That’s great! We’re having some S&M people over after the show. Why don’t you come on over?” So, I thought, “Great, Spaniards and Mexicans! That’ll be fun to go over there and speak a little Spanish…”

[igor_frankensteen]

A couple of people touched on what I think is the main point with this, but I want to rephrase it anyway:

Kinks and sexual fetishes are NOT arousing, in and of themselves. If they were inherently arousing, then everyone would find them so, regardless of their own predilections.

And that’s the key to getting the understanding of both “regular” and “irregular” sexuality. Sexual arousal is a response from within living beings, not a stand-alone characteristic of anything.

It is vaguely reminiscent of Quantum physics in that way. Without a panting observer, the weirdest fetish in the world, is just a random collection of inanimate objects with spoog on them.