Is this a fetish?

[KeithD]

If you either write it or seek it out as a continuing setup/theme, and, yes, it could be a fetish for you.

 

[gunhilltrain]

If I may answer your original question, the terminology doesn't matter that much. Just call it an "interest" or something that appeals to you. That's really the most important thing.

 

[ElectricBlue]

@AG31 I'm with TarnishedPenny on this one: kink, not fetish.

It's the same degree of separation as feather versus chicken, you got the feather, not the chicken.

I have a kink for long hair, because I've always associated long hair with some formative women. If I had a fetish for long hair, hair would be far more front and centre as a sexual focus, sex play, hair play and so on. I think it's a matter of degree.

 

[AG31]

You did say in the OP: "A strong man who surrenders with dignity to sexual abuse." That would mean female domination, right?

No, not at all. Of my 8 non-vanilla stories, 2 feature a mix of male and female abusers and the other 6 have only male. But my MCs are not gay.

I wouldn't call what I write abuse. It's either a completely voluntary relationship between two people, or it's a guy paying a dominatrix. In both cases verbal "chiding" is important, but it's almost all made up, a pretext in other words. In fact several people in these stories compare it to the acting and script writing professions. The term "method acting" also comes up.

The humorous part can be seen in the deliberately silly safe phrases the characters come up with, usually based on foods (tuna salad, Dinty Moore).

I started a thread a short while ago called "Talk to me about Impersonality," or something to that effect. Relationships are a turn off for me when it comes to erotica. They're absolutely great when it comes to vanilla sex.

 

[Cagivagurl]

This topic is closely related in my mind to the other post I made today, but I don't want it to get lost in that larger topic.

I have very narrow, specific requirements for erotica that works for me. Turns me on by putting me at least in the neighborhood of physical arousal. I am on the lookout for stories that feature "A strong man who surrenders with dignity to sexual abuse."

My question is, does this constitute a fetish? It's so specific, I can see how it might, but I've never seen anything that came close in the Fetish category. Of course I rarely find anything that comes close in any other category either.

I'm posting in AH instead of Fetish because I don't usually find much that interests me there.

TIA
AG

In my opinion,
A fetish is linked to desire. Fetish is when desire is overtaken by infatuation or obsession. When a thought, becomes so overwhelming you lose interest in normal sexual activity and every time you think about sex...
That obsessive thought takes over...
You think about it constantly....
When arousal is linked only to that thought...
That is a fetish... IMO

Cagivagurl

 

[nice90sguy]

Freud's "Totem and Taboo" goes into fetishes (and he coins the term in that book). But we all use "fetish" loosely these days, to mean "kink" -- a deviation from the norm.

I asked Laurel NOT to categorise my story "Footing the Bill" as "Fetish" -- I insisted it be placed in "Mind Control", which is to me what actually goes on in the story, the foot fetish being the vehicle by which the protag loses control.

I think, AG you might be in a similar situation with some of your stories. But "Mind Control" gets very few readers.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The succinct definition I read was a kink is something you enjoy and get aroused by, a fetish is something you can't be aroused without (and may not enjoy).

So probably I've only met a couple true fetishists ever. One with a foot fetish and a pile of fun kinks, good friend of mine, I got excellent foot massages off him because I didn't object to his reactions. And a couple of BSDMers who really couldn't enjoy vanilla sex.

@AG31 - the wanting a lack of relationship in your story is probably rather unusual. Would a story of a guy seeing a sex worker for appropriate 'abuse' work for you? Looking in BDSM/Fetish for johns and prostitutes/ professional dominants/dominatrices might find the vibe you're after.

 

[Bazzle]

This is what I mean by anything can be a fetish. After much googling...I found the story.

"Police caught Truscott at the farm at Tolgus Mount, near to where he used to live, wearing shiny red shorts and rubber gloves."

https://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/ne...ert-david-truscott-redruth-jailed-harassment/

 

[AG31]

@AG31 - the wanting a lack of relationship in your story is probably rather unusual. Would a story of a guy seeing a sex worker for appropriate 'abuse' work for you? Looking in BDSM/Fetish for johns and prostitutes/ professional dominants/dominatrices might find the vibe you're after.

Yes, those sorts of stories can work. Thanks.

 

[gunhilltrain]

No, not at all. Of my 8 non-vanilla stories, 2 feature a mix of male and female abusers and the other 6 have only male. But my MCs are not gay.

I started a thread a short while ago called "Talk to me about Impersonality," or something to that effect. Relationships are a turn off for me when it comes to erotica. They're absolutely great when it comes to vanilla sex.

Isn't vanilla sex erotic too? That's if you define anything sexual as erotica, which I guess is how I see it. Also, the term vanilla sex is generally well-understood here but not completely. For some highly religious people, oral sex might be taboo, although many others categorize it as "vanilla." In earlier eras, it was probably considered taboo by a wider range of people. I'd guess many of them hadn't even heard of it in, I don't know, pick a year. 1910? 1860?

 

[AG31]

Isn't vanilla sex erotic too? That's if you define anything sexual as erotica, which I guess is how I see it. Also, the term vanilla sex is generally well-understood here but not completely. For some highly religious people, oral sex might be taboo, although many others categorize it as "vanilla." In earlier eras, it was probably considered taboo by a wider range of people. I'd guess many of them hadn't even heard of it in, I don't know, pick a year. 1910? 1860?

Yes, vanilla sex can be erotic. But it's not the thing that I look for in erotica or ordinarily write about. If I find a vanilla story that really well written, it can work for me, sure. As for defining "vanilla sex," I'm not sure I can. But I can say for sure that the kind of erotica I'm talking about in this thread is NOT vanilla sex.

 

[gunhilltrain]

And what does that mean?

Well, the book and movie Crash (not the one with Matt Dillon) is about people who are turned on by automobile accidents. Possibly that is just something out of Ballard's imagination. But maybe there are people out there who think that way.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The succinct definition I read was a kink is something you enjoy and get aroused by, a fetish is something you can't be aroused without (and may not enjoy).

So probably I've only met a couple true fetishists ever. One with a foot fetish and a pile of fun kinks, good friend of mine, I got excellent foot massages off him because I didn't object to his reactions. And a couple of BSDMers who really couldn't enjoy vanilla sex.

@AG31 - the wanting a lack of relationship in your story is probably rather unusual. Would a story of a guy seeing a sex worker for appropriate 'abuse' work for you? Looking in BDSM/Fetish for johns and prostitutes/ professional dominants/dominatrices might find the vibe you're after.

Your first sentence has good working definitions of those two terms

As for your last sentence: yes, every story I've written about about prostitutes (one of them doubles as a dominatrix) has them deliberately projecting impersonality in order to do their work.

"As I sat there, I folded my hands and went into the standard hooker mode of indifference I had perfected over the previous months. I wasn't exactly rude but neither was I friendly, but I had to project an attitude of detachment in order to protect myself from whatever emotional games those clients wanted to play with me."

https://classic.literotica.com/s/nora-turns-a-trick

"Like his friends, Oliver [the client] was quick and didn't have much to say about it all. During the act she stared at the ceiling and pondered the shape of the dome light. She had looked at a lot of dome lights over the months and she was struck by how different car companies varied the designs."

https://classic.literotica.com/s/valerie-in-new-york-ch-02

 

[AG31]

As for your last sentence: yes, every story I've written about about prostitutes (one of them doubles as a dominatrix) has them deliberately projecting impersonality in order to do their work.

"As I sat there, I folded my hands and went into the standard hooker mode of indifference I had perfected over the previous months. I wasn't exactly rude but neither was I friendly, but I had to project an attitude of detachment in order to protect myself from whatever emotional games those clients wanted to play with me."

https://classic.literotica.com/s/nora-turns-a-trick

"Like his friends, Oliver [the client] was quick and didn't have much to say about it all. During the act she stared at the ceiling and pondered the shape of the dome light. She had looked at a lot of dome lights over the months and she was struck by how different car companies varied the designs."

https://classic.literotica.com/s/valerie-in-new-york-ch-02

But there's a difference. For me "impersonality" contributes to the erotic charge. In your examples the impersonality seems to be a protection against participating emotionally for the sex worker. It's not an enhancement. It's a wall.

 

[AG31]

Once again I can thank AH members for putting my curiosity at rest. I've now got an answer to the thread's question. The answer is, "No, it's not a fetish." I had a niggling feeling that this was the case, but couldn't articulate why. I give myself a little allowance for my confusion, because it's pretty clear that not all the participants in the Fetish forum subscribe to these definitions.

Thanks to all participants, but especially to these:

"the previously neutral stimulous"

A fetish to me is something that is raised so far above everything else that it is more than a preference, it becomes the only thing that matters, or close to it.

“Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part.”

When a thought, becomes so overwhelming you lose interest in normal sexual activity and every time you think about sex...
That obsessive thought takes over...

 

[AG31]

I think, AG you might be in a similar situation with some of your stories.

It sounds like you may have read some of my stories. Could I veer off topic a bit here and ask if you remember them well enough to answer these questions?

Do the MCs seem like nice people? I was surprised to find that more than one reader thought one of my MCs was "arrogant" and "conceited." I did try to fix that.

Do the MCs strike you as gay?

tia
ag

 

[nice90sguy]

Yes, nice people, and totally gay. Arrogant and conceited, no, but perhaps overly concerned with how they're perceived -- again gay

 

[AG31]

Yes, nice people, and totally gay. Arrogant and conceited, no, but perhaps overly concerned with how they're perceived -- again gay

Sigh... Can you think of anything I could do to make it clear they don't desire men? That IRL they desire women.
Thanks for replying!!!!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sigh... Can you think of anything I could do to make it clear they don't desire men? That IRL they desire women.
Thanks for replying!!!!

My read of your leading men is that they're fundamentally narcissists, which is it why it doesn't matters who does what to them, because they're the object of their own desire. They're entirely involved with their own self, especially Faranger, who spends a load of money for the club experience.

I also read your surrendering men as more closeted than heterosexual, because there's a significant focus in your stories on masculine men fucking a masculine man. It's 100% male gaze on a man - women are really superfluous to your erotica - as you've found when reading my stories.

 

[AG31]

women are really superfluous to your erotica - as you've found when reading my stories.

Too true.

 

[AG31]

My read of your leading men is that they're fundamentally narcissists, which is it why it doesn't matters who does what to them, because they're the object of their own desire. They're entirely involved with their own self, especially Faranger, who spends a load of money for the club experience.

First, thanks so much for engaging with my stories. As many may have noticed, I'm very fond of analyzing what's going on in my own world of erotica.

Second, my immediate reaction to your observation was, "Well, that must be right." The quick follow up was, "No, that's not right. We don't know enough about my MCs' personalities to make that kind of judgement." Your writing and mine are at far opposite ends of the "wholistic" spectrum. You write about vivid personalities in fully fleshed relationships (albeit often in tiny slices of life). Erotica holds a fenced off section of my mind, completely separate from my real life, and my MCs are manifestations of a very narrow sensibility. Again, we just don't know enough about them to label them narcissistic. But I can see how someone like yourself, so fixated on real life, might need to apply that diagnosis.

I do provide hints of backstory that may suggest to the reader what I believe to be true, which is that, in their fictional real life, they are much to be admired men with healthy relationships. That just happens not to be what I'm writing about.

But thanks again for providing me with an analytical platform!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Again, we just don't know enough about them to label them narcissistic. But I can see how someone like yourself, so fixated on real life, might need to apply that diagnosis.

I do provide hints of backstory that may suggest to the reader what I believe to be true, which is that, in their fictional real life, they are much to be admired men with healthy relationships. That just happens not to be what I'm writing about.

Sometimes I think authors are the last to know what characteristics they're subconsciously writing into their characters, when to other readers it's, "Well, that's blindingly obvious." Especially when it comes to sexualities that are being repressed.

Your stories have a pretty solid homo-erotic gaze, I'd have said, far more so than a typical cis-gendered piece. The women who do things to Faranger, for example, seem to be quite androgynous - although I admit, that could be just me, because I quite like androgyny. Even butch - as evidenced in one of my favourite stories, over in the other thread.

 

[AG31]

Sometimes I think authors are the last to know what characteristics they're subconsciously writing into their characters, when to other readers it's, "Well, that's blindingly obvious." Especially when it comes to sexualities that are being repressed.

Your stories have a pretty solid homo-erotic gaze, I'd have said, far more so than a typical cis-gendered piece. The women who do things to Faranger, for example, seem to be quite androgynous - although I admit, that could be just me, because I quite like androgyny. Even butch - as evidenced in one of my favourite stories, over in the other thread.

I can't think that you're right about my MCs being narcissists. I have no interest in narcissists. Why would I spend time on them?

I think, maybe, that you're so immersed in your laudable world of erotic intimacy that you just can't get your head around an erotic sensibility that doesn't depend on personality and relationship.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I can't think that you're right about my MCs being narcissists. I have no interest in narcissists. Why would I spend time on them?

I'm not the only person to suggest it. You might not have a conscious interest in narcissism, but that doesn't mean attributes don't creep into your characters, subconsciously. That's why it's called the subconscious. I wouldn't pretend to know what my subconscious content reveals to readers about me.

I think, maybe, that you're so immersed in your laudable world of erotic intimacy that you just can't get your head around an erotic sensibility that doesn't depend on personality and relationship.

It is difficult to conceive it, that's certainly true, but that's also the reason I've engaged with you, because the opposition to my own eroticism intrigues me.

 

[nice90sguy]

I avoided the loaded word "Narcissism" but kind of agree -- reminded of Kenneth Williams' autobigraphy, where he would bring himself to orgasm staring at himself naked in the mirror. I wish I was able to do that.

What's really important is to realise that no single person is a single type of person. Two of my kids are in same-sex realtionships. Knowing them both really well as I do, labeling either of them simply as gay (which they both call themselves), doesn't do justice to the complexities of their sexuality.