08-28-2023, 07:47 PM
I got reminded in the shoutbox about my proposed fetish typology thread. Rather than procrastinating until I can write a 30k word essay, I’ll think I’ll try to post my ideas about it over time - starting from the most basic.
Brief story: Long ago, I wanted to make sense of the patterns I observed on f-list, /d/, and elsewhere relating to sexual fetish clustering patterns. The basic heuristic was that certain classes of fetishes naturally tended to cluster. Obviously, the most superficial pattern is naturally related to dominance or submission, but there was a host of more subtle ones (Eg, one notes a foot fetish/cuckolding/femdom pattern). In general, the basic typology I came up with was roughly the following: Fetishes could either be oriented towards other people, towards autonomous experience, or towards objects. Typically, people gravitated strongly towards one class or another, allowing for a natural degree of overlap when certain fetishes could not be placed nicely in just a single category.
The idea was to work out such a basic classification of common fetishes, and then work out secondarily archetypal patterns of sexual deviance and the disposition/personalities of those who tended to fit those patterns. When you’ve seen enough of these things, you can start to intuitively identify the kind of person someone is based on their kink. Autism is often extremely easy to spot, but one could also reliably spot BPD and similar such things.
Basically, the proposed typology starts with three broad elements of a sexual fetishes. As mentioned before, these are not necessarily exclusive categories - a fetish can have elements of all three.
Social (Collaborative/Symbiotic)
A social fetish is one that is grounded in a specific act involving at least one other person. Generally, the social element is present in most fetishes that most people think of when they consider fetishes. BDSM, vouyerism, pet play, cuckolding, exhibitionism, anal… etc. In general, these are fetishes which are inherently coupled with other people. Most social fetishes have either a power affirming (dominant) or power negating (submissive) aspect. For example, fetishes favoring acts of willful transgression elements tend to be power affirming. Those that fetishize humiliation elements tend to be power negating. As general rule, media catering to social fetishes is generally well served by video.
Experiential (Autonomous/Imagined)
A experiential fetish is essentially a sexual attraction to an experience that is fundamentally autonomous. My standard example is transformation fetishes, where the individual fantasizes about being transformed into a woman, robot, demon, and so on. Other examples are sounding, age regression, omorashi. Roughly speaking all experiential fetishes all tend to either some combination of transformation, stimuli, and explicit scenarios. For example, inflation sexual fetishes tends to involve both stimuli and transformation. Generally, these fetishes tend to rely strongly on imaginative faculty. Experiential fetish porn tends towards erotica, or things that directly simulate the experience (sissy hypno). If visual imagery is used, it functions as a catalyst for the internal fantasy.
Fixation (Particular/Focused)
A fixation fetish is fetish focused on a specific object, attire, or body part. The most well known fixation fetish is feet. Other examples: latex, corsets, uniforms, diapers, kigurumi. All of these can have experiential aspects (such as a fetish for wearing diapers, or the ‘smooth’ feel of latex), but they can also be fundamentally independent. For example, there is a specific group of people that just masturbate to woman’s shoes. Not wearing the shoes or looking at the shoes on women, but the shoes in and of themselves. See also the people that masturbate to microwaves and toasters. Contra most experiential fetishes, fixation fetishes are well served simply by pictures and videos and require minimal to no imagination.
Since I’ll write more in this thread over time, I’ll content myself with a few basic observations for now:
In a certain sense, I tend to see social fetishes as first order deviations from normative sexuality. The common elements of dominance and submission are usually present and mutated. Moreover, most social fetishes tend to appear around puberty and seem to be incubated by exposure to porn.
By contrast, experiential/fixation fetishes have more abstract and unaccountable origins. A fetish for inflation/stretchiness can arise simply from having a weird reaction to a children’s cartoon. A fetish for getting turned into a vampire can come from watching an innumerable number of movies. A diaper fetish might emerge in a young child who is told they can no longer wear them. I've known people that could trace their ultra-specific fetishes to singular formative experiences during their childhood.
Anyways, perhaps this is a good and interesting direction for this thread to start with - what is the origin of experiential/fixation fetishes? What are the common patterns and subcategories?
Brief story: Long ago, I wanted to make sense of the patterns I observed on f-list, /d/, and elsewhere relating to sexual fetish clustering patterns. The basic heuristic was that certain classes of fetishes naturally tended to cluster. Obviously, the most superficial pattern is naturally related to dominance or submission, but there was a host of more subtle ones (Eg, one notes a foot fetish/cuckolding/femdom pattern). In general, the basic typology I came up with was roughly the following: Fetishes could either be oriented towards other people, towards autonomous experience, or towards objects. Typically, people gravitated strongly towards one class or another, allowing for a natural degree of overlap when certain fetishes could not be placed nicely in just a single category.
The idea was to work out such a basic classification of common fetishes, and then work out secondarily archetypal patterns of sexual deviance and the disposition/personalities of those who tended to fit those patterns. When you’ve seen enough of these things, you can start to intuitively identify the kind of person someone is based on their kink. Autism is often extremely easy to spot, but one could also reliably spot BPD and similar such things.
Basically, the proposed typology starts with three broad elements of a sexual fetishes. As mentioned before, these are not necessarily exclusive categories - a fetish can have elements of all three.
Social (Collaborative/Symbiotic)
A social fetish is one that is grounded in a specific act involving at least one other person. Generally, the social element is present in most fetishes that most people think of when they consider fetishes. BDSM, vouyerism, pet play, cuckolding, exhibitionism, anal… etc. In general, these are fetishes which are inherently coupled with other people. Most social fetishes have either a power affirming (dominant) or power negating (submissive) aspect. For example, fetishes favoring acts of willful transgression elements tend to be power affirming. Those that fetishize humiliation elements tend to be power negating. As general rule, media catering to social fetishes is generally well served by video.
Experiential (Autonomous/Imagined)
A experiential fetish is essentially a sexual attraction to an experience that is fundamentally autonomous. My standard example is transformation fetishes, where the individual fantasizes about being transformed into a woman, robot, demon, and so on. Other examples are sounding, age regression, omorashi. Roughly speaking all experiential fetishes all tend to either some combination of transformation, stimuli, and explicit scenarios. For example, inflation sexual fetishes tends to involve both stimuli and transformation. Generally, these fetishes tend to rely strongly on imaginative faculty. Experiential fetish porn tends towards erotica, or things that directly simulate the experience (sissy hypno). If visual imagery is used, it functions as a catalyst for the internal fantasy.
Fixation (Particular/Focused)
A fixation fetish is fetish focused on a specific object, attire, or body part. The most well known fixation fetish is feet. Other examples: latex, corsets, uniforms, diapers, kigurumi. All of these can have experiential aspects (such as a fetish for wearing diapers, or the ‘smooth’ feel of latex), but they can also be fundamentally independent. For example, there is a specific group of people that just masturbate to woman’s shoes. Not wearing the shoes or looking at the shoes on women, but the shoes in and of themselves. See also the people that masturbate to microwaves and toasters. Contra most experiential fetishes, fixation fetishes are well served simply by pictures and videos and require minimal to no imagination.
Since I’ll write more in this thread over time, I’ll content myself with a few basic observations for now:
In a certain sense, I tend to see social fetishes as first order deviations from normative sexuality. The common elements of dominance and submission are usually present and mutated. Moreover, most social fetishes tend to appear around puberty and seem to be incubated by exposure to porn.
By contrast, experiential/fixation fetishes have more abstract and unaccountable origins. A fetish for inflation/stretchiness can arise simply from having a weird reaction to a children’s cartoon. A fetish for getting turned into a vampire can come from watching an innumerable number of movies. A diaper fetish might emerge in a young child who is told they can no longer wear them. I've known people that could trace their ultra-specific fetishes to singular formative experiences during their childhood.
Anyways, perhaps this is a good and interesting direction for this thread to start with - what is the origin of experiential/fixation fetishes? What are the common patterns and subcategories?