Charles de Brosses created the idea in 1757 when along with other contemporary scholars of his day he suggested that fetishism was the most primitive form of religion. In other words, less civilized cultures rather than creating elaborate systems of religious beliefs placed their faith in magical objects or “false” gods. Obviously, such presumption would seem derogatory by today’s ethical standards and even by the 19th century, philosophers like Herbert Spencer rejected the theory that fetishism was the "original religion". Later in the same century, anthropologists and historians of religion including E. B. Tylor and J. F. McLennan formed other theories such as animism and totemism to explain the concept of fetishism³. Needless to say, the word fetish stuck as far as describing objects with magical powers and much later in time, the concept was perverted to mean objects taking on a sexual power. Think of it like Dumbo’s magic feather but instead of getting the elephant off the ground, the sexual fetish object just gets the elephant off period.

In the past especially, sexual fetishes were considered perversions or at least deviations from the norm. Let’s face it that’s how the mental health community once treated being gay or women who liked sex “too much”, but now psychology tends to only judge behavior as adaptive or maladaptive, in other words if it works don’t fix it. The true measure of a person’s wellbeing and behavior is whether he or she can function effectively in society and whether he or she can develop stable and long lasting relationships with the people around him or her. Obviously, you can be quite serious about a fetish behavior and still hold down a job and form romantic attachments. You might even form special bonds and relationships based upon your specific fetish interest. It’s questionable to refer to fetishistic practices as abnormal either from a psychological standpoint, not to mention the flood of fetish clubs, websites and media references right within the mainstream⁴. It needn’t be anyone’s dirty little secret at this point.

Let’s begin to look at some of the earliest psychological explanations for sexual fetishes. We must of course turn to our favorite old pervert, Freud, who of course had a tendency to connect all issues to sex and refer to much of what he deemed “peculiar” personal habits as signs of poor development during childhood. Rest assured a fetish for him falls very comfortably under his perversion theories. The young male child is thrilled to discover his own penis, since of course the penis is a wonderful thing. Once little Willy has discovered his little willy, he feels compelled to admire the penises of all his idolized loved ones as well, including of course, his mother. When a male toddler realizes that his motherly parental unit has no parental unit, he is immediately horrified since according to Freud the young child assumes that his mother did have one but it was cut-off (castration anxiety). In that brief moment of terrified castration realization, the male baby will develop a sexual dependence on whatever object immediately comes into view after his traumatic discovery of mommy’s unfortunate lack of a penis. It may sound slightly far-fetched. However, one must admit that if a small child was checking between his mother’s legs and then looked away when no penis was found the next thing to see might be her shoes, stockings or bare feet, which are all commonly known and accepted fetishes for many men to have⁵... (to be continued)

References

1. "Fetish." Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 1998. Merriam-Webster Online, 20 Jul. 2005.

2. Ibid.

3. "Fetishism." Wikipedia, 2005. Answers.com GuruNet Corp. 20 Jul. 2005.

4. “Sexual Fetishes.” Cool Nurse, 2005. CoolNurse.com, 20 Jul. 2005.

5. "Sexual fetishism." Wikipedia, 2005. Answers.com GuruNet Corp. 20 Jul. 2005.

6. “A monopoly of perversion.” Psychology Today, March 1992. Psychology Today Online, 20 Jul. 2005.