fetish n. Something, such as a material object or a nonsexual part of the body, that arouses sexual desire and may become necessary for sexual gratification.
First of all, let's just establish how normal we all are. I'm perfectly normal, as are all of the people reading this, I am sure.
So why am I writing about fetishes? Because I want to. And you want to read about them. Well, maybe you specifically don't want to read about them, but it seems an awful lot of people do. The internet has transformed our world in many ways, but I don't think there is any question that its most far-reaching impact can be found in the world of sex. Pornography apparently used to be a difficult thing to find, if you were looking for something beyond your typical Playboy or Playgirl. You could probably find homosexual porn, or even porn that could be considered "fetish" porn, but you would have to go through some awfully seedy alleys to find it. I suspect most people not only didn't make the effort, but they probably didn't even know such things existed in the first place. Those days are long gone.
Now, the list of fetishes that are officially recognized by the internet is a very long and strange one. Frankly, I have to believe that most of these are relatively new. I'm not a formally trained sexologist, but it seems to me that a large part of human sexuality is about danger, or the Forbidden. As our society has grown less fearful of God, and thus less fearful of the sex act itself, we have looked to other places for sexual danger and taboo. And boy, have we found them. Here's a partial list of some of the fetishes that you can find out in cyberspace, and a brief description of them as I understand them to be. Again, let me stress: I present this only from the standpoint of detatched curiosity, and in no particular order...
Feet-Sure, I like feet. But these people really like feet. Using feet during sex, looking at feet, you name it. Doesn't do much for me, but maybe I never met the right feet. This is now a rather pedestrian fetish, by current standards.
Ooh, baby.
Smoking-Pictures and films of girls and guys who do very little but smoke. I don't know if it's the whole oral fixation thing, or the "bad girl" point of view.
Casting-This is one of many subsets of the domination/confinement school. We're talking about arm, leg, body casts. I think the fetishist can be either in or outside the cast. I don't get this one at all. I had to wear an Ace bandage on my ankle once, but that did nothing for me.
Beastiality-Never understood it, never will. Wrong on so many levels. I love animals, but only as friends.
Hair-All kinds of hair fetishes, including hair color, long hair, etc. I guess there is a body hair fetish, where people seek out really hairy people. Clearly, a gateway fetish for Beastiality.
Trample-I don't know a lot about this, but from what I can gather, some people get off on the idea of being trampled. Yeah, sign me up for that one. Hey, what do you get when someone with a beastiality fetish develops a trample fetish? A one-way ticket to Pamplona, Spain.
Crushing-Jim Haefele said he heard about this on an episode of The Practice. Yeah, sure Jim. As far as I know, people like to see women in high heels crush things, like bugs. I guess I get the high heels part...
Corsets, S&M, Boots-Remember when S&M was the ultimate taboo that people talked about? As for the boots, I think they mostly have to be leather, and somewhat up the leg. There is an off-shoot fetish that only focuses on moon boot-style snow boots, but those people have serious problems.
Well, I could list probably 50 more, but you get the point. We like some weird stuff. But do we really like it? How many people are engaging in these behaviors, and how many are just reading for entertainment value? My guess is that a growing number of people are at least trying these things. We are humans. We grow, and we innovate. Sex remained pretty stable for a long, long time. You wonder which of these ideas are just fads, and which ones will stick.
Finally, I'll leave you with a headline I read in one of my Onion books last night: "Jurisprudence Fetishist Gets Off On Technicality". Man, I wish I'd thought of that line.
12:04:07 PM 
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