Erotic Fantasy. Hans-Jürgen Döpp

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      Every lover is also somewhat of an erotic fetishist. He, or she, loves objects that have been in close or intimate contact with the beloved and thus are especially dear. These objects ensure the proximity and closeness of the beloved. Special physical forms of expression of this desired person can also become a symbol for the significance of the partner as a loved and cherished individual: a way of walking, a way of smiling, “the way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea.” Physical characteristics such as hair colour, shape of eyes and mouth, clothing, etc. can constitute the cause, the movens, of being in love. Today, a value such as youth itself seems to have turned into an overvalued fetish. As long as these concrete and physical symbols represent the totality of the loved individual, one can speak of a “normal fetish”.

      However, there are forms in which the sexual partner disappears completely behind the symbol, sometimes to the extent that the symbol is stripped of its symbolic character and becomes the sexual trigger and stimulus itself. This is what occurs when items of clothing, especially shoes, stockings, handkerchiefs, and underwear play a significant role.

      In classical literature cases are known when handkerchiefs, clothing, money purses, and braids are snatched from their owners through violence and trickery to satisfy a sexual motive, while orgasm occurs in part during the act of purloining, in part through masturbation when subsequently viewing, or handling the fetish.

      All of these objects are charged with magical powers similar to the “holy relics” of Christianity and the amulets of so-called “indigenous tribes.” The term applied to the phenomenon of fetishism also has its roots in ethnology. During the fifteenth and sixteenth century, when the Portuguese in West Africa noticed the reverence and veneration with which the local natives treated such objects as stones, sticks, and idols, they compared these objects with amulets or talismans and called them “feiticio” [Italian: “fetisso”] or “magic,” a word which is derived from the Latin “factitius” [of magic power]. This magical thinking, which also penetrated the cults of Christian religion, corresponds with a deep human need. Those who are aware of the close relationship between religious and erotic sensations and feelings understand that fetishist imagery also occurs frequently in love.

      The Frenchman A. Binet was the first to describe sexual fetishism in his 1877 article Du fétichisme dans l’amour. The few mentioned examples of fetishist objects already illustrate how much the fetishes themselves depend on current fashions. The braids of old have been cut off a long time ago and a paper Kleenex will hardly become an object feverishly desired by a lover. Shoe and foot fetishism has been influenced by fashion as well. When women still wore long skirts with their feet every so often accidentally peeking out from underneath, it was literally a “fiendish joy” to steal a glance at an ankle and shoe. СКАЧАТЬ