LECTURE FOUR
Terms
Fetishism refers to objects which become erotic stimuli. These may be specific objects of clothing such as high heels, stockings, or more complex clothing like maid’s uniforms, police uniforms and so on may all become fetishized. Fetishes are the erotic stimulus not the person wearing them.Fetishes are often very highly honed and the slightest deviation may cause the fetish to lose its erotic appeal. Some fetishes are specific materials like leather, rubber or denim and one leather fetishes reported that he liked shiny cowboy chaps, but if the chaps were dull, they were of no interest to him at all.
Fetishes are not only finely honed, but fetishists often know enormous amounts of information about their fetish.
Another complicated aspect of fetishism has to do with body modification which lies across the border of fetishism and partialism – an interest in specific parts of the body People all over the world modify their bodies. The modification may be more or less permanent with things like tattooing, scarification, amputation being among the more permanent while body paint (including make-up) is rather transitory. The very act of eating and living causes some body modification to occur – people get heavier or thinner, develop muscle or lose it and so on, Body building is a kind of deliberate body modification whereas a construction worker’s body build is a by product of work.
In some more permanent cases we might include radical surgery like transsexuals whose bodies (like Anna in Glen or Glenda) have been changed permanently and dramatically. In other cases people have had more unusual reason for alteration. One man was having toes and fingers amputated so he could appear more like an old statue that was broken What different people accept varies dramatically as does what is acceptable to different cultures. Even there, the same modification may take on dramatically different meaning.
Automobiles have a history of being associated with sexual behavior as well, although they may nit be fetishized, they are certainly associated with sexual behavior in lover’s lanes and so on, In Anatomy of a Murder, there is the discussion of a road which is used as a lover’s lane – a place where young people go to “make out”. Cars as a site of sexual activity involve them in some associative way with sex.
The question of the learned vs. innate nature of sexual orientation and even sexual stimulus can be seen even in fetishism and partialism (an erotic involvement with a particular body part). It is fairly clear that in most cases people who find one body part of particular interest (e.g. the breast) may find the buttocks uninteresting. No one has found a way to alter this. None the less the concern some people have about the association of people with different sexual orientations with others implies there is a feeling of contagion about it. If children are exposed to gay teachers, the students will become gay. This is a complex problem which we need not go into here, but only be aware of the fact that many people believe that exposure may release something which is there, but repressed. Repression is more like to be the problem however. In fact it is the eruption of the repressed which many people feel is the source of the horror in horror films.