Exploring the World of Fetishes

Article by : Svetozar Kuzman Apr 21, 2024

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Up to 1 in 6 people have at least some kind of kinky activity that spices up their sex life, that’s 1.6 billion people globally! The word “fetish” in modern times usually denotes sexual fetishes, materials or objects that are associated with sexual pleasure but which are not usual constituents of a sexual act per se. Sexual fetishism can be understood as a mental disorder: in this sense, a fetish completely takes over a person’s sex life, so that it becomes impossible for someone to reach sexual pleasure without engaging in fetishistic activities.

There are many different kinds of fetishes, in fact, they are extremely diverse. Some people are into latex and they love to dress up in tight latex clothes (along with their partners), others are more into mainstream lingerie, and yet others get sexually excited by feet; these are just some of the more basic fetishes, but in this article we will also delve deep into some of the lesser known sexual activities/fixations, besides the most common fetishes.

We can divide all sexual perversions (or paraphilias) into three major groups:

1. Dysfunctional choice of activities that bring about sexual pleasure (getting excited by various dangerous activities such as choking, submission, domination, violence, etc., as well as voyeurism and exhibitionism)
2. Streamlining sexual excitement into peripheral objects (getting excited by things such as clothes or other inanimate objects; getting excited by body parts that have nothing to do with sex, such as feet)
3. Deviant choices of sexual objects (usually involving non-consensual humans such as children or extremely old people)

Fetishes form the second group of sexual perversions enumerated above. We’d like to emphasize right from the start that the word “fetish” gets thrown around quite a lot, with many people being completely unaware of the implications. Fetishism can sometimes be a mental disorder, and as such gravely affects one’s functioning and actually reduces the quality of sex life. However, quite often fetishism does not cross into the territory of severe dysfunctionality, remaining a more or less circumscribed area of sexual interests.

Only about 1% of all psychiatric patients suffer from a fetishistic disorder, which means it is a fairly rare psychiatric issue. This is why in this article, we will use the word in its more general, nonpsychiatric sense, unless specified otherwise.

Top 11 Fetishes and Perversions

It is safe to say that people search for fetishes online quite a lot. This is why we will give you a list of common fetishes searched on Google in 2024:

1. BDSM

BDSM stands for

1. Bondage and Discipline
2. Dominance and Submission
3. Sadism and Masochism

It is not, strictly speaking, a fetish, but a dysfunctional choice of sexual activities, and it falls within the first group of perversions.

It is true that a lot of people who have a penchant for BDSM or any aspect of BDSM live normal lives and do not suffer too much because of their sexual choices, usually because BDSM is just one aspect of their sexuality. It is when BDSM becomes the sole motive of sexuality that real problems start to appear. Sometimes, BDSM practices are quite dangerous, as in the cases of choking, severe maltreatment, etc., potentially resulting in serious injury or emotional trauma. BDSM is fairly complex and can further be combined with fetishes such as role-play or cuckolding (forcing a person to spectate a sexual act), wax play, or fisting.

There is a really big group of celebrities who like to spice up their sex from time to time with BDSM, for instance:

1. Carmen Electra
2. Eva Longoria
3. Rihanna
4. Zayn Malik
5. Armie Hammer

2. Furries

“Furries” refer to a variety of practices involving costumes of anthropomorphic animals, usually with cartoonish appearance. This is a complex perversion in that it combines fetishism (attraction to furry texture of costumes) and the choice of anthropomorphic animals as sexual objects.

The trend exists within the rich context of furry fandom, which is a largely male-dominated community of people who admire furry cartoon characters but it is safe to say that it is less common in comparison to foot, clothing, or body fluids fetishes.

In the internet context, furries are one of the top fetishes in 2024, which shows that a lot of people are intrigued by it without necessarily wanting to participate.

3. Voyeurism

Voyeurism is a dysfunctional choice of actions of sexual satisfaction. Pathological voyeurs are fixated on watching other people have sex or watching others as they undress. Usually voyeurs spectate individuals who do not want to be observed, which is why they have to watch others in secrecy. It is not surprising that voyeurs often come into conflict with law because of this.

We might say that excessive porn-watching is a form of voyeurism, happening largely in the digital realm.

4. Fisting

Fisting is a practice that might fall within the BDSM/dominatrix spectrum. It is a part of the extreme insertion fetish, which needless to say can get rather dangerous, resulting in very unpleasant injuries of genitals/anus. There is a whole sex toy industry nowadays, and extremely large dildoes figure as somewhat popular merchandise in this niche.

5. Role-Play Fetish

This fetish is complex in that it involves clothes linked with sexual pleasure (e.g. uniform, different types of costumes) but also activities linked with the roles ascribed to costumes (e.g. pretending to be a policeman).

A lot of people use role-play to spice up their sex life: role-play can bring back novelty and excitement to a sexual relationship that has become a sort of routine over time.

Transvestism can be thought of as similar to role-play fetish: in both cases we have a very apparent focus on clothes linked with certain roles (whether it be fictional characters or different genders).

6. Group sex

Interestingly, group sex is not often discussed in the context of perversions/fetishes. Group sex may refer to some of the following:

1. Threesoms
2. Foursomes
3. Orgies

Group sex is of course a taboo and would be labeled as deviant and non-normal by most people, but it is not completely clear how group sex fits in the world of perversions and fetishes. It is possible, however, that the desire to engage in group sex can cross into the pathological realm, much as any sexual fetish.

7. Foot Fetish

Foot fetish is probably the most common fetish of all. It is true that we do not really know too much about exact and relative prevalence of fetishes. However, it is certain that foot fetish is one of the more mainstream fetishes. A number of different objects can be involved in a foot fetish:

1. Toes
2. Footwear
3. Socks
4. Smell of feet

For a foot fetish to become a real disorder, a person really has to be obsessed with feet and completely unable to reach sexual satisfaction without engaging in activities linked with the feet fixation. There is a fairly large community of people who are very open about their sexual interest in feet, in fact, you can find a lot of foot fetish happenings all around the world.

But foot fetish was probably a thing way back in history. Philostratus, an ancient Greek, wrote two very telling poems: To a Barefoot Woman and To a Barefoot Boy.

There is a whole list of celebrities have this famous fetish:

1. Ricky Martin
2. Enrique Iglesias
3. Brooke Burke
4. Tommy Lee
5. Idris Elba

…and many others

8. Squirting

Although not exactly a fetish, some people are turned on by this physiological phenomenon. It gained traction due to online pornographic sites where people could readily access videos showcasing this somewhat rare biological function. It is one of the most searched fetishes on Google in 2024 thus far, being in the top 10 fetishes in the world, below BDSM, furries, etc.

9. Choking

The choking fetish, like the following two, are subsumed within the broad category of BDSM, but sometimes they occur independently from other BDSM subfetishes which is why we want to discuss them separately. Women are somewhat more likely to be turned on by choking, though there are many men who find sexual excitement when being choked.

It has to be emphasized that this fetish, like BDSM in general, can be taken too far. Some people even died or suffered serious brain damage due to choking linked with sexual play.

10. Bondage

Bondage fetish spans from having a penchant towards the use of handcuffs during sex all the way to the use of ropes and specialized devices that completely restrict one’s movements. Like choking, bondage can be very traumatic and damaging, if extreme, because it provides a lot of space for complications, abuse, and trauma.

11. Dominatrix

The dominatrix fetish is usually found in the form of men who love to be dominated by women. Usually it involves some kind of bondage and sadism inflicted on men who have this fetish. So the dominatrix phenomenon is a very good example of how various forms of BDSM can occur together.

Some More Obscure Fetishes

You have probably heard about some of the fetishes we described by now. In this section we will explain some more obscure habits that often spark great indignation and scandal. While these, by a rule, are not the biggest fetishes in the world, they have very much entered the popular discourse; they may not be the top 10 most popular fetishes in the world, but they can still be very much interesting; let’s take a look at:

Acrotomophilia

This is being sexually attracted to people with amputated limbs. It is an extremely rare fetish, but can be encountered from time to time. It has to be distinguished from apotemnophilia (body integrity disorder), which is an irrational desire to have one’s own limb amputated, though the two can co-occur.

It is possible that acrotomophilia has its roots in early childhood, as is the case with many other fetishes.

Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David Lynch, directed a movie that focuses on acrotomophilia, titled Boxing Helena.

Formicophilia

This is by far the most unusual fetish of all: just imagine being sexually excited by the sensation of insects crawling on your skin! That is exactly what formicophilia is, a strong desire to have insects crawling on one’s skin and more specifically on one’s genitals. Understandably, it is very rare.

Agalmatophilia

This is a strong sexual penchant for statues. People who have this fetish may want to attempt sexual acts on statues. Usually these would be human statues showcasing idealized figures of the human body. For instance, there was a somewhat controversial case back in the 19th century of agalmatophilia in the context of the famous Venus de Milo statue. This fetish received some coverage way back in ancient times: there was an ancient Greek legend of the famous sculptor Pygmalion who once made such a beautiful statue that he fell in love with it!

Dacryphilia

Dacryphilia is associating sexual pleasure with tears/crying. Needless to say, it can co-occur with the wider BDSM trend, but it can sometimes be dissociated from dominating/violent tendencies.

Eproctophilia

Continuing our long journey along the lines of obscure (and somewhat yuck) habits, we come to eproctophilia, or sexual arousal in relation to farts. This fetish is relatively close to the aforementioned coprophilia (being sexually aroused by feces), though it can occur in an independent form. Just how strange and gradual an introduction to the world of fetishes can be, is nicely showcased by a case study of a young man who had eproctophilia.

While he was in high school, he developed a strong attraction to a girl from another class. His attraction reached incredible heights when he heard a rumor that his crush actually farted in the science class. From then on he developed a sort of fixation on farts, proceeding to have his face farted on by numerous men and women.

In this case, it is the attractiveness of the people who fart that matters. So here the more mainstream sort of attraction is combined with eproctophilia, introducing an interesting and unexpected dimension to a romantic relationship.

Necrophilia

With necrophilia we are entering the darker realm of fetishes. Necrophiliacs like to have sex with corpses. It is the unresisting and unresponsive nature of the corpses that attracts them and leads them to necrophilia. People sometimes go to extreme lengths in order to satisfy this rare desire, committing murders in order to obtain corpses, or committing necrophilia in addition to serial murders, tortures, etc. Thus in some necrophiliacs there also seems to be a fascination with death and murder. Some of the most infamous serial killers such as Ted Bundy or Edmund Kamper were also necrophiliacs.

It is generally believed that most necrophiliacs are male, though there are instances of female necrophilia, as in the case of Karen Greenlee who confessed to having sex with numerous corpses after stealing a hearse and running away from the funeral with a corpse.

Mechanophilia

We all love our cars, motorcycles, and phones, but do we get sexually aroused by them? Probably not, but there are people who really get turned on by machines! For instance, this man from Thailand tried really hard to have sex with a Porchse, back in 2015, and was caught by a CCTV camera!

The Line Between Pathological and Normal

We emphasized several times that having a fetish and being mentally unwell are two different things. There are many people who have fetishes but live normal lives and have healthy sex. Simply put, there is a big difference between a fetish and a fetishistic disorder. Disordered sexuality is characterized by:

1. Complete inability to reach sexual pleasure without the use of a fetish
2. An intense obsession/fixation with the fetish
3. Going to extreme lengths in order to meet one’s fetish fantasies
4. Spending too much time on fetishistic activities

So it is only when a habit becomes fairly extreme that we can talk about the existence of a real disorder. Certain actions might tend to be more dangerous than others: practices such as bondage, domination, fisting, etc., can potentially result in serious injury, both physical and psychological. Group sex and swinging, in turn, increases the risk of contracting STDs.

Fetishes as Aspects of Normal Sexuality

It is through exploring this interesting phenomenon that science began to understand the complexity of human sexuality. Human sexuality is not simply about reproduction. There are many different ways to reach sexual pleasure. Even people who are not really into fetishes might like to try new things out occasionally. For instance, even though a lot of people might not identify as big BDSM fans, they may prefer to have at least a little bit of roughness in their sex life (e.g. spanking). Similarly, even though someone might not be really into latex costumes, he/she may be turned on by tight clothes or skirts.

Human sexuality is incredibly complex and there are many layers to it. Crucially, each person is special. There are no two exactly identical sexualites, much like it is impossible to find two identical individuals.

The Internet also made it easier for people to research different fetishes. Before, this was much harder, but the Internet now allows one to “engage” in virtually any fetish, without having to actually engage in activities typically linked with fetishism. We believe that the Internet contributed to the impression that fetishes are extremely popular and widespread, without actually increasing the prevalence of fetishism or fetishistic disorder.

Conclusion

We have explored some of the most common sexual fetishes in this article, as well as more obscure and unusual ones. Hopefully we have been able to give a full picture of this captivating and diverse phenomenon.

Human sexuality is extremely complex: there are many things going on, and the genitals are just one of many possible erogenous zones and objects of arousal.

So how do people develop fetishes? For some sexual habits, there are scientific explanations. For instance, foot fetishism can be at least partially explained by potential neural links between regions of the brain that receives sensations from genitals and feet. In other words, the association between feet and sexual arousal can be due to the fact that there is a very straightforward neural connection between the two.

Explanations of necrophilia are much darker: necrophiliacs are usually depressed individuals, fascinated and attracted by death. Sometimes they experienced severe trauma in childhood, which painted their life in extremely dark colors.

In a lot of cases there are no straightforward explanations for fetishes (especially non-pathological forms). Quite often it is just something that people do to prevent sex becoming a routine and boring activity, that is where the recent popularity of BDSM or foot fetish comes from. It’s not like all of a sudden we have a lot of people plunging deep into the world of BDSM and goth culture. It’s more realistic that most people are just searching for something interesting to try out.

Moreover, for quite a long time, sexuality has been quite heavily repressed and any “deviant” forms of sexuality pushed to the peripheries. With the sexual revolution that started in the sixties and continues today, different forms of sexuality that have been around from ancient times have finally come to light. It is quite telling that ancient Greeks, who lived in a very specific sexual climate, gave us some of the oldest examples of foot fetishism or agalmatophilia (statue fetish).

Nowadays we have a lot of celebrities coming out and talking about their fetishes. We have the immense popularity of Fifty Shades of Gray which finally launched BDSM into the mainstream. The doors of free sexuality are opening up. Interestingly, some practices, such as coprophilia (love of feces), formicophilia (love of sensation of insects crawling on one’s skin), acrotomophilia (sexual attraction to people with amputated limbs), may still be regarded as a taboo, even by people who freely engage in other, more accepted fetishes. To each his own, we say!

FAQs

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List of sources

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