preference obsession or fetish.

[Salacious_Scribe]

I have a question, where is the line between a preference, obsession, and fetish?

For example, I like pretty feet on women, especially if they have bright red polish on their toenails, but I have no desire or aversion to fucking/sucking/licking women's feet or toes. So I don't have a foot fetish.

One of my characters has a thing for women's hair, specifically long (mid back or longer) straight or wavy, hair. Bonus if she's a natural redhead. He's always wanted a hair job, but never got one until my story, and he loved it, but it's not an all-consuming passion, though he has in the past slept with women he wasn't attracted too, just because of their hair.

I'm pretty sure this is more than a preference, but not sure it reaches the level of a fetish.

Thoughts and opinions are welcome.

 

[RetroFan]

The lines do blur somewhat and people's opinions do differ. Using foot fetishism as an example, I'd say the line between preference and fetish would be a guy whose girlfriend gives him a blowjob on two separate nights. One night she is barefoot, the other night she is wearing shoes. If he has a preference he would enjoy both, but prefer the experience when she had bare feet. If he had a full blown foot fetish, he would not enjoy the time she did it wearing shoes, as the fetish - i.e. bare feet are not part of it.

Obsession I believe is when somebody acts abnormally or it affects their life due to their sexual fetish. Again with feet, if a guy spent hours at the beach or swimming pool to see women with bare feet, hung around outside a women's shoe store at the mall watching girls trying on shoes and spent hours and hours online looking up not only erotic but non erotic material that involve women with bare feet, I would say that would be an obsession.

 

[lovecraft68]

Since I have a foot fetish I'll go with your example

You said you can appreciate pretty feet

Preference for you would be a woman who keeps her feet as sexy as the rest of her, pedicures, polish, maybe a toe ring and of course, whether you have a thing for feet or not, what guy doesn't like a woman in a pair of fuck me shoes or boots?

You have no sexual desire there, but it adds to over all sex appeal...

Fetish, you want suck, lick, and fuck her feet. You want her to 'use' them during sex. A footjob is an amazing treat...just looking at her feet can get you hard.

Obsession- you can't obtain an erection or become fully aroused unless you're touching her feet or she's using them on you (Fetishism=a fetish turning into an obsession.)

In your case I'd say Having a thing for hair and always fantasizing about a hair job goes past preference and becomes fetish, but being that I'm assuming your MC has had plenty of sex without needing her hair to be able to perform, its not obsession

Preference would be leaving it at I prefer longer hair on women(which I do) but because I like how it looks and feels, but I don't think of it sexually.

Now having said this I guess its a fine line...a woman's hair on your stomach or thighs during oral sex can enhance the thrill, as can wrapping your hand in it...etc...

Maybe there's something in between preference and fetish...'enhancement"

 

[SimonDoom]

In general, I think discussions that begin "What is the line between . . . " are unhelpful and misguided. That's not to knock the question; people ask questions like these all the time. But they try to answer something that can't be answered, and people end up getting worked up over labels and definitions, which don't really have anything useful to do with writing.

It's like the "Is it erotica or is it pornography?" debate. Totally meaningless. You end up going down rabbit holes you never had to go down.

I think it's more useful to see concepts like preference, obsession, and kink as being concept blobs with blurry boundaries, which overlap with other concept blobs. At their cores they embody somewhat different ideas, but at the margins they merge messily with the margins of other concept blobs.

As to the three concepts here, my general sense is:

1. A preference is a liking for something without any indication of how strong it is. It can be weak or strong, healthy or unhealthy.

2. Obsession indicates a preference that is very strong and psychologically/emotionally unhealthy.

3. A fetish, in the context of erotica, is an unusual and perhaps abnormal preoccupation with some thing, usually an object, that arouses sexual interest, or in which sexual interest is displaced. It doesn't have to be an object, but in common parlance it usually is.

There are no lines between these concepts. They overlap. But they center around different things. Purge your mind of the need to draw lines. That way lie rabbit holes.

 

[lovecraft68]

In general, I think discussions that begin "What is the line between . . . " are unhelpful and misguided. That's not to knock the question; people ask questions like these all the time. But they try to answer something that can't be answered, and people end up getting worked up over labels and definitions, which don't really have anything useful to do with writing.

It's like the "Is it erotica or is it pornography?" debate. Totally meaningless. You end up going down rabbit holes you never had to go down.

I think it's more useful to see concepts like preference, obsession, and kink as being concept blobs with blurry boundaries, which overlap with other concept blobs. At their cores they embody somewhat different ideas, but at the margins they merge messily with the margins of other concept blobs.

As to the three concepts here, my general sense is:

1. A preference is a liking for something without any indication of how strong it is. It can be weak or strong, healthy or unhealthy.

2. Obsession indicates a preference that is very strong and psychologically/emotionally unhealthy.

3. A fetish, in the context of erotica, is an unusual and perhaps abnormal preoccupation with some thing, usually an object, that arouses sexual interest, or in which sexual interest is displaced. It doesn't have to be an object, but in common parlance it usually is.

There are no lines between these concepts. They overlap. But they center around different things. Purge your mind of the need to draw lines. That way lie rabbit holes.

I think some people need lines to be drawn for whatever reason

Some draw their own, and never question it

Some do, but wonder if they should

Preference/fetish might be a bit blurred it all depends on the strength of the preference. Do you prefer red heads, but if a woman you really like is brunette, then its no big deal or will you only date redheads? One is preference one is fetish

Obsession is certainly a line that is clearly visible.

Which brings us to the line of what is advice and giving an opinion and what is out right telling someone what to do or not to do

I did the former, you're doing the latter.

And I'm not saying this with any snark, I'm saying that apparently the OP thinks its worth having a line drawn or at least wondering about definitions, so I responded to his question.

I myself don't have that question or roadblock in my writing, but some do, and it doesn't make them wrong.

Not everyone's a fuck it all free wheeler

 

[SimonDoom]

Which brings us to the line of what is advice and giving an opinion and what is out right telling someone what to do or not to do

I did the former, you're doing the latter.

I don't agree with that at all. I'm not being any more dictatorial in my response to the question than you are.

I actually did give the OP my answer to the OP's question. So I didn't dismiss it, and I didn't say one shouldn't discuss these things at all. My answer's different from yours. That's all.

But my answer is that the discussion should be reframed. It's more helpful for people, I believe, to stop thinking in terms of lines, and to reframe the way they think of concepts. I've been around these threads long enough to see people ask these questions all the time, but I'm not sure I ever see people get helpful answers. They get many different perspectives, most of which have some kernel of truth to them.

The idea of line-drawing is, in most cases, a logical fallacy, that's driven by a deep human impulse to want to name things and distinguish things. It's the fallacy of essentialism -- that different things are "essentially" different. It's not true. The world doesn't actually work that way, and language doesn't work that way.

"Men are men and women are women." "Man is different from the beasts."

These generalizations have some usefulness but they prove to be untrue at the margins. The difference between the set of things we call men and the set of things we call women is subtler than we want to acknowledge. It's unsettling, but that's because reality is unsettling.

Man is a type of beast. Human beings have qualities that distinguish them as a species, but in nature there really are no lines. Same thing with language.

I think you and a few others here greatly exaggerate the harm or problem of "telling people what to do" on this forum. People ask for advice, and people give advice. There's nothing wrong with that. Discussion is more interesting when people feel free to say what they want and answers are robust without too much undue concern about whether feathers are ruffled. Let people give what advice they want and let others do what they want with that advice.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I'm in agreement with Simon and with the reasons - and definitions - he has given.

Labels and tags can be useful - or they can be impediments. Use them if they help and ignore them if they get in the way. Handcuffing yourself to or within a particular label or definition could easily, I think, hamper your creative efforts.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm in agreement with Simon and with the reasons - and definitions - he has given.

Agree this. These are words with standard dictionary definitions which clearly define the differences in meaning, and state whether or not there are accepted medical definitions - which fetish and obsession do have, but preferences don't.

Why do people want to second guess dictionary definitions all of a sudden? That's like Humpty Dumpty deciding words only mean what he wants them to mean. Words have meanings, but if you go changing those meanings on a personal whim, you'll quickly find other people won't understand what you're trying to say.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

Great feedback and discussion. I wasn't expecting this much of a response. Thank you.

 

[jsmiam]

I personally like @RetroFan (and others) pointing out that Fetish (including many dictionary definitions) means, you're not turned on without it, whereas Preference means "hey, I like that thing that some people think is weird." (I always fall back on that when I'm trying to rationalize my own, um, preferences.

And I do like the obsession definitions too; When your fetish or preference creeps (ha, nice word choice) into your real everyday life, it's time to look out!