When I was receiving new thread notifications from the Submissive Women and the Comfy Chair groups on fetlife, at least once a week someone'd start a thread to the effect of: "why are we like this?" Here's my take on it.
There is a theory (heard it from the marvelous Dan Savage, I'm not sure if it's his or not) that some fetishes come from an intense fear, and the mind turns it into a sexual obsession in order to cope. I think that theory has some merit, at least for me, because I always have feared losing control or losing bodily autonomy. I hate and am really really terrified of local anesthesia, because I'm awake but I can't make use of whatever body part has been numbed. It's creepy, I'm not in control of my own body, and I hate it. But at the same time... I like being tied up, and I adore having my mind shut down so that I can't help but follow orders. It is an amusing contradiction.
I was mulling this over the other day with Nauzy, and we tried to see if he gets turned on by any of his fears. No such luck. "Maybe it's a matter of correlation rather than causation," he said. Possibly so. "That, and I'm sure the lingerie and high-heels fetishists weren't scared of them as kids," I replied, amused by the idea. "But consider this: the sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight response) is involved in arousal and orgasm.... yet the parasympathetic nervous system (it does the opposite) has a hand in there too."
Who knows? There're probably quite a few different ways people develop fetishes or were born with them. Mine seems to be a fear response, though there's got to be more to it. Maybe the predilection to have fetishes is genetic, but needs to be triggered somehow. Maybe it's a matter of conditioning: someone likes masturbating to a certain kind of porn, and then it becomes the only kind of porn they can get off to (though, the turn-on would've still been there in the first place somehow...).
I think the only conclusion we can make is: human sexuality is immensely complicated, and I don't envy anyone researching it. :p
5 comments:
It may be the fear response, it may be genetic, it may be the underpants Gnomes... My personal befief is its exposure to certain stimuli and media. Just look at any action cartoon in the early eighties...
But what ever the why is, it isn't as important as just being yourself.
;0)
Of course. :)
Hey, been reading for a while, I enjoy the blog. :)
Genetic predispositions are actually rather likely, although the environment influences how they'll be expressed. I remember reading about a twin study where both men had a construction worker fetish. Perhaps that was a case of both having a predisposition to being aroused by "strength," and construction workers symbolize that in the current culture.
Expanding on that thought, maybe a lot of current hypnofetishists would have been sadomasochists or D/s role players if they had been born before The Jungle Book and Ring Around Gilligan...
But I think the fear explanation makes a ton of sense, too, and seems accurate to my own experience with my hypnofetish - although it was as much intense curiosity and incomprehension as fear.
I'd guess that it is surely a "some of one, some of the other" type thing.
Ohh, you found a twin study! I keep meaning to find them but never know where to look. That's cool.
Sadomasochism seems to me to be a whole other kettle of fish; I enjoy power play without hypnosi (so plain ol' D/s), but I hate pain. :p That's anecdotal, though; you may be right.
In any case, glad to see another reader around! :D
Oh that ring around the Gilligan... The classics never die....
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