Fetish desire is one of the most common and least understood features of adult sexuality. In this third installment of my Fetish series, I look at how we currently think fetishes develop, and what 30+ years of research and clinical work have taught me.
Where Do Fetishes Come From?
We don’t know. Yet. Anyone who tells you they know for a fact what causes them or, worse, believes they can “cure” fetish is not backed by science or evidence.
We have a body of clinical observation, learning theory, and a small but useful research literature. Together, they point to a model that fits the patients I see in my office. So let’s dive into some of my clinical theories, which are now proven out by the burgeoning science of BDSM I’ve been sharing with you.
Is It In Our Genes?
Sexologists and scientists have given a good bit of thought to the idea that our sexual preferences and needs (and not just kinky ones) could begin in our gene markers. A study of our food preferences showed 814 food markers that influence how individuals respond to flavors.
So could there be a genetic map of sorts for sexuality? Likely an emphatic yes.
It’s worth pointing out, by the way, that having the gene markers for any sexual behavior doesn’t mean you will live out that sexual behavior. This is where culture, home environment, education, religion, social opportunities, and much more can alter both the choices we make and the adult we become.
Mendel Knew
Why does one child develop a fetish while siblings do not? Science first explained this 166 years ago.
Gregor Mendel established in the 1860s that traits are inherited. What he couldn’t have imagined is how complex that inheritance turned out to be!
Modern genomics has revealed that most human traits — including personality, behavior, and almost certainly sexuality — are polygenic, meaning they are shaped by hundreds or even thousands of genetic variants working in concert.
Bottom line: No single gene makes you kinky. But the genetic architecture that shapes who you are almost certainly includes the building blocks of your erotic self.
Fetish is Visceral
Some of us experience the sensory world around our fetish intensely. Fetish is more than an object or body part: it is also the human or object’s various odors, the precise feel of the material, or how it fits the body. Beyond that are the invisible magic within the fetishist’s mind: the pleasure, the euphoria, the sense of calm, the delight, even joy, and most of all, the feeling that everything in that moment is right with the world.
Fetish is a powerful psychological force. The hunger for a fetish outlet can drive people to compulsive behaviors, intolerable frustration, deep shame, and self-hatred. When engaged in fetish, the experience brings a sense of psychological well-being that almost nothing else in the world can trigger.
Pivotal Sex Memories Aren’t the Answer
“Henry K.” had a huge fetish for spanking. Being spanked occupied his imagination night and day, much to his dismay. Henry found himself continuously annoyed, bored, and otherwise disinterested in his engineering job. All he could think about was when he might find someone to spank him, whether he had enough to pay for a dom or if he could find a free spanking somewhere. When he wasn’t mourning over his lack of opportunity, he was watching and downloading more adult spanking porn than he would ever have time to watch.
Henry came to me for help getting his life together. He was failing at work; his house was a wreck, and in need of many simple but critical repairs; his wife left him over his spanking fetish, and told their kids about it, which cast a very dark shadow over his relationship with them.
As I gathered his history with fetish desires, he told me that he knew where it all began. Interesting.
“When I was 10 years old, I saw my friend’s younger sister get spanked by her father. It was like I was hit by lightning. I never forgot it and I knew then that I wanted to be spanked just like that, over a woman’s knee while people watched,” Henry told me.
What Henry’s Story Tells Us
Many people have come to my office remembering a single childhood event they believe turned them into fetishists. It’s a neat theory but not how humans develop. By the time Henry was 10, there was already something in him ready to be triggered. Perhaps a previous event as a toddler that he will never remember. Maybe one of those mystery genetic markers that inclined him to find pain more intriguing than intimidating.
He said the house was filled with kids. A group of them stopped to watch the spanking. I asked him, “How many of them do you think turned into spanking fetishists?”
That took him aback. He realized how unlikely it was that all the kids would suddenly turn into fetish lovers. I pointed out that another child might have silently sworn never to spank their own kids, while others saw nothing unusual about a dad punishing his child.
In other words, he was already fetishistic; the punishment he witnessed already held an attraction for him. Henry was not made a fetishist that day. He was revealed as one.
My Fetish Developmental Theory
In my 2013 book Sex for Grown-Ups, I described what I call the Seven Stages of Sexual Development in fetishism. It’s a pattern I observed across decades of clinical practice, research, and personal experience as a player. Most fetishists share an eerily similar erotic arc across their lives.
Stage 1 begins in early childhood. They have innocent, non-sexual but unusual reactions — fascination or excitement — toward taboo behaviors (notably bondage and spanking), body parts (especially feet, rear ends, and body hair), or objects (shoes, undergarments, clothing made of leather or rubber). Nothing erotic is happening. The child’s mind is simply tagging something as significant.
Stage 2 arrives at puberty. As the body begins its march toward reproductive capability, things that once merely intrigued them become “mysteriously associated with erotic responses and sexy fantasies.” If they masturbate during this stage, elements of those early fascinations replay in their fantasies, now in a more sexualized form.
Stage 3 runs through the teens, when fetish or kinky themes begin to pervade sexual fantasy life. Young fetishists may notice they are different from peers who focus primarily on intercourse and oral sex.
Stage 4 covers young adulthood, when social pressure often wins. Many young fetish people make choices designed to fit the mainstream, keeping their true desires private even from intimate partners.
Stage 5 is the settling-down years. The choice of partner shapes erotic destiny. Fetish people who partner with someone accepting rarely end up in my office. Those who partner with someone who rejects their sexuality often do.
Stage 6 marks full sexual maturity. The need for fetish or kink sex is now fully defined. Orgasms come more easily, sometimes only, when fetish elements are present. The drive for specific fetish experiences may rival or exceed the drive for conventional sex.
Stage 7 is post-prime. The older fetish people get, the greater their need for kink to achieve complete satisfaction. Late-bloomers who wait until their 40s or 50s to explore are common. It is not jadedness. It is usually the time it takes to overcome decades of shame and give themselves permission to be who they are.
Fetishes are not aberrations. They are not signs of damage, perversion, or arrested development. They are one of the most common and least discussed features of adult erotic life. The data show it. The clinic shows it. The culture is finally starting to catch up.
— quoted verbatim from Sex for Grown-Ups (2013).
I described this pattern thirty years before most researchers thought to look for it. I saw it first in myself, then in my Community, and finally in my clients. I tested the theory on dozens of clients. They recognized that basic developmental template as their own path in life, regardless of the fetish in question. These days, it’s one of my basic tools for organizing and analyzing a client’s most private journey.
Forget-Me-Not
By the way, I know many of my fans follow my free blogs and articles online, and I love you for it. But if you haven’t kept up with my graphomania over the past decades, I have about a dozen books you might like. Everything I write has at least a little, and often a lot, of BDSM/kink in it.
Different Loving was the outgrowth of my Community involvement. Kind and generous with their knowledge, they gave me all the room to be authentically myself. My mentors and early partners were ordinary people who were extraordinary in their sexual maturity and evolution away from mainstream conventions. I was home.
The support group I started on CompuServe in 1987, by comparison, was largely filled with people who had no local kink Community. They had suffered and beaten themselves up over their kinks, quirks, and fetishes. My mission became to let them know they were not alone, not unlovable, and real people with valid needs.
That was the message in Different Loving (1993), Come Hither (1999), and Sex for Grown-Ups (2011, 2013). It is normal and healthy to be “different” in bed, as long as it’s for mutual pleasure and with mutual consent. The ICD-11 states it as fact. Decades of peer-reviewed studies affirm it. Psychiatry owes us a platinum plus apology.
Next time, I will move on to some of the most interesting and rare fetish cases I’ve worked on.
photo credit: Google DeepMind on Pexels
