Fun with Fetishes

[00:00:03] Hi everyone. Let's talk about sex. I'm Dr. Laura Prescott, the director of clinical training and associate professor for the Chicago School of Los Angeles Clinical PsyD program. [00:00:14] Today we're going to talk about fun with fetishes. [00:00:18] So a lot of people think about fetishes, but they're actually not realizing that fetishes fall under a broader class of phenomena called paraphilias. [00:00:29] So a paraphilia is sexual arousal to any atypical situation, object or target. And so sometimes when people talk about what they think is a fetish, it's actually a paraphilia. Fetishes are one category of paraphilia. So a fetish, think of it as focusing on that object's piece of paraphilias. [00:00:53] So a fetish is when you have gratification towards anything that is either an object or a body part that's not typically associated with sexual arousal. [00:01:04] So for example, a lot of people hear about different body parts and that's actually called partialism, by the way, if you have an attraction to a non sexual body part. So for example, oh, I really love those elbows, they're so sexy. Well, that's partialism. [00:01:18] And examples of objects, of course, can include all kinds of things. Shoes, stockings, balloons. We'll talk a lot more about these in a bit. You. [00:01:31] So with fetishes, also called fetishism, you have to understand that a lot of times this is perfectly normal and it doesn't become a clinical disorder until and unless it is either A causing clinically significant distress or B, it causes a severe impairment in functioning. [00:01:52] So some people, it rises to the level of fetishism and having to be diagnosed and having to have treatment. But for a good chunk of people, it's just good clean fun. [00:02:06] So a lot of experts disagree on the cause of how does a fetish even form. [00:02:12] A lot of experts though, think that classical conditioning is somehow involved. So for example, if you are having sex with somebody and they're wearing sp. Spiky red high heel shoes and you pair that stimulus with sexual arousal, eventually if you just have the high heeled shoes there, those, those red spiky high heeled shoes, you don't even need the person or the sex to be, to be around. You just have that stimulus and you're already aroused just from the shoes. So by pairing a stimulus and a and response, in this case the response of sexual arousal, if you pair that enough times, you can just look at the shoes and automatically, oh, I'm aroused. [00:02:55] So that's how a lot of people think fetishes develop, although there is no true consensus, there isn't 100% agreement on it. [00:03:07] And with regards to fetishes, people are probably thinking, oh, what are some common ones? What are some weird ones? So the most common ones tend to be either with regards to body parts or. Or objects associated with body parts. And usually those are objects associated with things like the butt or legs or feet. [00:03:29] So for instance, the most common objects tend to be things like stockings or shoes or underpants. [00:03:35] And the most common body part is feet. [00:03:39] Those are the most common in terms of body part. And also with regards to objects in addition to the typical stockings or shoes or undergarments, a lot of people like things like leather or rubber. [00:03:53] In fact, taking rubber to another degree, there are groups of people who really enjoy balloons and they get off on balloons. And some people really like the sound of popping balloons. And some are like, no, don't pop my balloons. I just want to hang out with them, that community, by the way, they're called loners. If you're interested in the balloon fetish people, you moving along a little bit more broadly because I know a lot of people think about paraphilias in general when they think about fetishes. So let's talk about some general paraphilias that people might be more familiar with. [00:04:29] So some of you, or many of you may have heard of urophilia, which is of course arousal to urine, urine play, or coprophilia, which is arousal to feces, fecal play. And of course, some people may have heard of necrophilia, and that is, of course, corpses, people who really like having sex with corpses. [00:04:50] So some. Some atypical ones that you may not have heard of. And there's a gazillion of them out there, but I think I'll just highlight a couple for fun. [00:04:59] So one is stygiophilia. [00:05:02] So if you think of like stygian, like the river Styx, it's when you're aroused to hellfire or damnation. [00:05:09] Another interesting one that I found was climachophilia, which is arousal to falling down stairs. [00:05:17] Yes, I thought that one was pretty interesting myself. And there's a ton of these. And it's actually really fun to look up online because if you can think of a thing or a situation, there's probably somebody who's attracted to it and gets aroused to it. [00:05:32] So have a look on Google sometime if you dare, and go down that rabbit hole because it's very entertaining and educational and I always like to read about sex so for me, it's fun. And hopefully, if you're listening to this podcast, it's fun for you, too. [00:05:48] Thanks, as always, for tuning in again. I'm Dr. Laura Prescott for the Chicago School of Los Angeles.