As the title says, how we ended up having fetishes? Is is psychological/physiological/subconscious thing?
In: Other
Nobody is precisely sure but the likely explanation is going to be a mixture of things.
We are sensory creatures and understand the world in terms of what things look like, what they smell like and so on. We like some things and dislike others. We acquire some tastes over time despite disliking things originally.
So what happens with fetishes? The going idea is that the fetish focus is presented to us at some point during early life and associated with sexual arousal either by coincidence or intentional symbolism or society’s attitudes in general.
Taboo seems to play a part too. If society drums into you that feet are gross, that women should be submissive and chaste etc and you get excitement over some of these things, then attempting to bury those desires tends to cause mixed messaging in the brain and the connections get stronger compared to anyone who has not somehow connected feet or powerful women up to sexual arousal. Violating taboos typically makes people feel something intense, and this includes arousal for fetishists.
So it is likely mostly down to how your brain gets wired when you’re young. Your brain is built to associate sensations, to learn better. Your brain is also built to get aroused and seek out sex. These can get mashed together. Trauma can do this, but so can inadvertently stimulating your junk while feeling constricted and uncomfortable in a raincoat or even just growing up in the 80s and watching aerobic exercise videos.
I’ve not looked into it, but I would predict greater representation of neurodiversity in fetish communities than the average.
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