You've probably heard of foot fetishes, leather fetishes or fetishes involving just about any object. You've probably heard people say, "Oh, this person has a foot fetish," or, "This guy likes that. It's kind of a fetish." What exactly is a sexual fetish?

A fetish is an object. Fetishism is a disorder whereby a person is experiencing extreme difficulties in their lives because of the fact that they like these particular objects to provide for them a great deal of sexual arousal. The only way they can achieve this type of sexual satisfaction is with an inanimate object, a non-living object. The important point is that it interferes in your life. That it's not just something you like to do or you want to do, but rather something you have to do.

A typical person with a true fetish is not obsessed with sex, but in reality obsessed with dysfunctional sex. Their everyday sex lives with their partners, if they have partners, are actually quite boring and mundane. They have a hard time maintaining an erection. They have a hard time maintaining intimacy, so they really don't suffer from too much sex, they just have too much bad sex or dysfunctional sex. By "bad," I'm not casting a judgment; I'm just saying for them it becomes a compulsion that interferes in their lives.

For example: Let’s take a male with a body-piercing fetish. If he is able to function sexual and lead a productive life without having to seek a woman with body piercing (either in media or in person) then it is not considered a fetish. It is just a sexual preference. In order to be considered a fetish he would have to be unable to perform sexually without the image of a woman with body piercing. It's almost like there's a compulsion. Like there's no other way to have an orgasm except with an image of a body piercing.

Foot Fetishism as the New Norm

I mentioned in the introduction having a foot fetish. That seems to be the one everybody talks about. Foot Fetishism is the most popular or most documented fetish worldwide, So much that the scientific community have begun to consider treating certain cases of foot fetishisms as the norm instead of as an aberration.

According to the scientific definition of a fetish, a fetish must have an inanimate object as the object of desire. Since the foot is part of the body, is there really such a thing as foot fetishism? Technically, it's not really a fetish. It is either a partialism or sexual preference, a part of the body that is an extremely important part to achieve sexual arousal.

In order to be considered a partialism, the body part has to be of extreme importance, meaning the person must be unable to obtain sexual arousal without the physical or medial presence of the body part.

If the person is fully capable of achieving sexual arousal without the body part and only seeks it occasionally it is considered a sexual preference. The sexual preference “foot fetish” is the aspect that some are now treating as the norm.

For example a husband who occasionally likes to play with or ejaculate on his wife’s feet and is otherwise able to obtain a normal sexual arousal would be considered as having on a sexual preference and not a fetish or partialism since it does not interfere with his life or sex life. According to a new standard set by some scientists this would now actually not even be considered a sexual preference but a new norm.

Men vs. Women

It seems like you always hear about guys having fetishes. Do women have fetishes? Of course they do, they just don’t have them in such great numbers as men do. Whereas 40% of the male population may have a fetish, only 13% of women have been documented as having some form of fetish.

Why is this more prone in men than women? It's an interesting question. Nobody really knows the answer to that, but most of in the scientific community are split between a genetic component and the testosterone among various other things, but research hasn't borne out what the real reason is.

It could also be that men are less socialized. They have more difficult times in social situations than women. Women find social situations a lot easier. They talk with each other more. They experience emotions and feelings a lot more, so they're able to go ahead and develop more healthy, adult sexual relationships than men are, so men will turn to an object to go ahead and satisfy their sexual desire because they find it really difficult to connect with a person who they have a sexual desire for. It is like a crutch to aid their sexual expression.

What is more interesting is that women have, on average, more sexual disorders than men, so it's so interesting that fetishism is predominantly a male disorder, whereas the estimates are 41% of women have a lifetime prevalence of sexual disorders, 16% of men. So women are over it by 25% but they, of course, have more disorders like anorgasmia and vaginismus.

Origins of Foot Fetishism

Let's take the average man who has a shoe fetish or a foot fetish. How does he develop that? He doesn't just one day wake up and say, "Hm, I think I'll get a fetish," look through the book and pick that. How does something like that manifest? It's controversial. No one knows. There are lots of theories, and you could pick the one that appeals to you the most. There's a learning theory (Dr Ivan Pavlov), or one could take more of a Freudian approach, that it's a childhood experience or a disturbed childhood experience that someone's trying to rework and replay. I had one patient who developed a weird relationship with his sister's underwear, and ultimately, of course, he become obsessed with panties.

The major theories are:

Dr. Sigmund Freud’s theory of Sexual Stages of Development  (also called Random Association) let’s say that your childhood experience was one such that you were really under-socialized, and therefore when you grow up and you develop relationships with the opposite sex, that you are feeling really inhibited about doing that, you develop a sense of shyness, and the only way, really, to get sexual gratification is to go ahead and seek objects that are associated with some sexual act with a person of the opposite sex that they are attracted to but are too shy to go ahead an have an encounter with.

Dr Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning - (also known as Pavlovian Conditioning) is a form of associative learning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov. The typical procedure for inducing classical conditioning involves presentations of a neutral stimulus along with a stimulus of some significance. The neutral stimulus could be any event that does not result in an overt behavioral response from the organism under investigation. Pavlov referred to this as a Conditioned Stimulus (CS). Conversely, presentation of the significant stimulus necessarily evokes an innate, often reflexive, response. For example: a child that frequently saw his father giving his mother a foot rub and subsequently saw both parents display affection (hugging, kissing) may associate affection with the foot rubbing and develop a foot fixation or foot sexual preference.

Genetic Inheritance theorizes that there is gene that determines what if any fetishes a person will develop. The basis for this theory is a 1986 study conducted by the Ivan Pavlov University in Prague that showed two brothers or a father and son were likely to have the same fetish.

Most modern psychologists strongly disagree with the genetic theory.

Other Lesser popular theories are the Accidental Association and the Cross Communication Theory

The accidental association is usually innocent or unappreciated for its sexual content when it initially occurs. For example, a young boy experiences his first unexpected sexual arousal, while watching his sister use the bathroom. It is common for young boys to experience an erection or sexual arousal out of the blue, without any stimulus. A boy experiencing this may accidentally associate urination with sexual arousal.

The cross communications theory suggests there is a cross communication in the brain between the area of the brain that controls sexual arousal and the area of the brain that controls motor functions such as moving hands and feet.

I am personally inclined toward the Random Association Theory.

Since the 1990’s the adult entertainment industry has incorporated more and more aspects of foot fetishism into their productions than before, be it a subtle 5 second zoom in on the porn star’s feet or a script that includes interaction with the porn star’s feet as part of the movie. If you analyze porn movies made prior to the 90’s the female was always wearing high heel shoes or the camera angle never included the actress’ feet at all. Most modern movies have some direct or indirect reference to feet.

This change is adult production trend may be responsible for the growing popularity of foot fetishism. A young boy watching an adult movie for the first time sees sexual interaction involving feet may associate feet with sexual gratification. This may later become subconsciously reinforced when he finds himself looking at the feet of girl he is attracted to.

The genetic inheritance study also failed to consider the possibility random association. If a father and son both have a foot fetish, did the boy develop it as a result of looking at his father’s adult videos or magazines focusing on feet? Did the boy develop it as a result of watching his father play with his mother’s feet? This study makes no reference to any effort to scientifically invalidate the possibility of a random association or classical conditioning.

Fetishes and Treatments

Some fetishes are treatable. The main goal of treatment is to try to reduce the arousal that accompanies the particular object. That's really hard to do, because people develop these fantasies and they don't get rid of them so easily. In fact, often the bad news is that sometimes they never lose the fantasy, the shoe, the bra, the underwear is what turns them on the most. But we try to expand their repertoire and we try to give them some other options and try to improve their sex lives so that they have the option of having normal sex.

The treatment also focuses on the theory that a fetish really is an inability to be assertive or an underdevelopment of social skills, then we teach them assertiveness and socialization skills. We help them interact with people in a social way that they begin to feel comfortable so they can go out on a date, so they can begin to become communicative with a person as opposed to just an object. Medications also have an important role, because if you look at fetishism as a compulsive act, we would also want to give someone an anticompulsive medicine like Prozac or Zoloft, those kinds of antidepressants that have anticompulsive effects.