Whatever Spins Your Lugnuts...

Faces Come Out Of The Rain, When You're Strange!

Let's talk about fetishes. It's been on my mind lately.

I'm sort of perpetually perplexed by the odd things that seem to wind people's libido up. I can sort of grasp the concept from an intellectual POV, but it's still not quite real to me. It's like understanding the Calvin-Benson cycle of photosynthesis well enough to pass the BIOL 3304 exam. You understand why it works, but not being a green plant, it has little real meaning for you.

I guess what set this train of thought rolling was a couple of items. One was my recent visit with FlyGirl, which always generates a flood of inquiries from another friend of mine who fantasizes about spooging on her long brown curly hair. I tend to be circumspect about publicizing such carnal urges, but my friend has no problem voicing his desires. This quickly led to a distinct cooling in diplomatic relations on the part of FlyGirl towards my friend. Still, I believe that there's a difference between saying you want to do something, and actually whipping out Mr. Lizard and doing the deed. No sperm, no foul, really.

The second item behind this post is this story that came up on the radar recently. A complete nutbag up in Wisconsin urges women to drink foul and toxic liquids while he videotapes them so he can have a visual record of the women vomiting. This is what turns HIM on.

Again, we have a range of acceptability. The Instant Hair Gel thing is kinda crass and icky, but getting off on women puking???!?! That's just farookin' NASTY!

It doesn't stop there, friends and neighbors. The list of fetishes is longer than my... Cadillac. Nurse outfits, chains, latex, whipping, bondage, food, peeking in windows, high heels, horses, expensive furniture, diapers, douche bags, stockings, jerkin' your gherkin in public, amphibians, scolding, fast cars, Nazi uniforms, Silly String, baby oil, Princess Leia slave bikinis... all these are triggers for flipping on people's switches.

As is usually the case when presented with odd behavior, the Psych community comes up with a theory to explain it.
Here's one:

Fetishes often linked to childhood traumas

OZAUKEE COUNTY - What causes one to become aroused by another’s vomit? Such a condition, clinically termed emetophilia, led Mequon resident Sean Kobin to convince a Grafton woman to consume a poison that nearly killed her.

While emetophilia is rare - Dr. Lynn Vice, a prominent Milwaukee-area psychologist specializing in sexual disorders, had not heard of such a fetish - a quick Internet search turns up thousands of sites with some type of reference to vomit fetishes (Caution: some sites are informative and clinical in nature; others are pornographic).

Although not specifically listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a vomit fetish, according to Vice, would be diagnosed as a paraphilia, an abnormal sexual behavior, the most common of which are voyeurism and frotteurism.

Although she couldn’t comment specifically about Kobin’s case, Vice said fetishes in general develop through a conditioned response during an unusual or traumatic childhood experience.

Various Internet accounts describe emetophilia in similar terms, as a condition that develops following an emotionally charged experience of vomit, often ironically combined with emetophobia - a fear of vomit.

Other accounts claim the emetophile forms a link between the convulsive act of vomiting and that of orgasm.

This story appeared in the Ozaukee County News Graphic on November 15, 2005.

So, one bizarre episode involving getting your leg humped by a schnauzer in front of a group of friends in grade school, and next thing you know, you're an investment banker chained naked to a sink, having carrots jammed up your ass by a dominatrix wearing plush puppy paws and a spiked collar? I don't know if I buy that.

Are we so fragile a species that one instance of misguided eroticism in childhood irrevocably earns us a one-way ticket to whack-a-zoidery? Surely if there's a trigger that flips a switch that easily, there ought to be a way to flip it back off. Unless, of course, you believe that all normal sexuality involves costumes and carrots up the poopchute.

I'm not immune to recognizing that people have different tastes, but I'd be willing to bet the majority of humanity are more mainstream in their turn-ons. I'm certainly not one for walking too far on the wild side. Tickling with a feather, I can dig that. Pull out the entire chicken, however, and you've lost my interest.

It's also entirely possible the problem lies not with the fetish-embracing society, but with me for assigning labels like 'nasty' and 'bizarre' to the mechanisms another human being requires to obtain sexual gratification. It may well be our ultimate fate for each of us to have a starring role in a series of German Scheiße videos. I'm not going to put money on that option, though.

I suppose that if you spend your life devoted entirely to dipping your wick (or being the dippee) as often as humanly possible, sooner or later ennui has to set in. Maybe after boinking a redhead, brunette, blonde, baldy, shorty, tall, thin, fat, black, white, old, etc. etc. there's just no more mystery left, and the only way to get your rocks off is to turn to the bizarre, or give it up altogether.

Feel free to chime in. This one's got my puzzler working overtime.

Oh, and for the record, I bear NO ill will towards that schnauzer! He was probably abused as a puppy.