Content area
Full Text
The term fetishism was introduced by the French psychologist Binet to refer to a predominant or an exclusive sexual interest in an inanimate object (fetish) or part of the human body (Binet, 1887). Fetishism is almost exclusively found among men and, in its milder forms, is quite common. However, when the interest is so salient that the object must be present for sexual gratification, or the object substitutes for a human partner, fetishism is considered a paraphilia if, in addition, the person is distressed by such dependence or if the interest is causing problems for others (American Psychiatric Association, 1987).
Persons whose fetish interests have been problematic in this sense have provided most data on the phenomenon. As Gebhard (1976) stated, "Those fetishists who have not run afoul of the law or who have not encountered clinical scrutiny remain an unknown majority" (p. 156). It has been difficult, however, to study fetishists from non-clinical sources or to go beyond individual case studies to examine the range of persons involved in the behavior.
This project originated in an opportunity to avoid some of these problems when we were invited to do a study of a voluntary organization of homosexual and bisexual foot fetishists. Here was a group who was not a clinical sample and was large, and whose members had a strong interest in fetishism. We thus offer other investigators some descriptive data on fetishists that may have wider applicability. Additionally, as the respondents are homosexual and bisexual men, this adds another dimension to the study.
Our investigation was shaped by the extant theoretical and empirical literature on fetishism. Much of the literature portrays fetishism as a learned response. The general questions raised are what types of learning experiences eventuate in sexual fetishism and how they occur. Generally it is assumed that, given the right conditions, anyone can become a fetishist because anyone can learn the behavior. This belief emphasizes the contingent nature of fetishism, as persons have different learning experiences and so come to have different sexual interests (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953).
Such conditioning is said to occur at puberty or earlier, although it may not manifest itself until later. Gosselin (1979) found about half of his sample of rubber fetishists reported their...