Visible Fetishes

Triggered by a conversation around this seemingly simple post on FetLife, Del and I sat down and discussed the nature of fetishism. She and I both have fetishes that border on the clinical- things that need to be there to get it on. But ours are not as out of place as other people's seemingly "wacky" fetishes, and it got me gnawing, as a bear, or pup like myself, might do.Fetish is a technical term, that like Sadism and Masochism has been usurped by the sexual fringe community. Clinical sadism is about deriving pleasure from others suffering- what is called Sadism by "BDSM" (one of the poorer choices of group self-labeling if one is wanting inclusion in mainstream society) is not clinical sadism a gross bulk of the time. It is deriving pleasure from inflicting intense sensation. Yes, there are clinical sadists in our community who use this hypo-allergenic form of sadism to get their needs met by suspending disbelief, reading their own porn-overstory onto a scene, or by purposefully overstepping bounds... but they are not the bulk of self-identified sadists in kink that I know. Many of those folks are in fact Happyists, Pleasurists, Hedonists, or Intense Sensation Players.The same applies for Masochism- how many masochist in the scene truly enjoy suffering? Some, yes, I will happily grant that... but it is rarely looked at as a long term positive fact. It is a mental illness for a reason- because it can harm one's life. Deriving pleasure from experiencing intense sensation that *one asked for* is in my opinion not masochism. Masochism in its subtlety is enjoying being drawn into drama that harms one's life, and in its extremes is people causing car crashes, getting their bones broken, or crippling their own lives to be in a place of abject suffering. It is not asking to be spanked and getting spanked.I see this same thing come up in Fetishism. Fetish is a common term for the work "paraphilia," which literally translates as "besides love" from the Greek. It is something that is needed, to some degree, to have pleasure be, well, pleasurable. The range of extremeness of clinical paraphilia is fairly wide, and is sometimes looked at in a scale where the low end is partialism, or interest... oooh, she has hot heels on, she gets a bonus point in my book... to debilitating paraphilia... I would rather spend all of my energy on heels and can not even fathom getting it on or thinking sexual thoughts let alone achieve orgasm without heels involved.This makes the conversation, as you can see, with clinicians... very tricky. The funny thing is- according to the DSM, sexual sadomasochism is more often than not listed under Fetish/Paraphilia than it is under Sadism and Masochism. It makes sense really- most SM players I know need kinky sex to get it on, and thus it falls in that range from partialism to debilitating paraphilia, not in the range from clinical sadism or clinical masochism.So what does this language lesson have to do with visible fetishes?Our conversation turned from what is a fetish to what qualifies as a fetish in kinky sex terms. If BDSM has usurped Fetish as a stand alone term (which clinically speaking makes no sense, but BDSM was catchier and had a better press team) for kinky sex, where do classical Fetishists go to get their needs met? I think of a friend of mine in the SW USA who is a self professed food fetishist and lover of the big ladies. He is one of the nicest guys I will likely ever meet, but since he has a fetish for feeding people, food, and curvy lasses, he had real issues picking up people because the big ladies though he was making fun of them, and the average guy at a bar thought he was a bit off his rocker.So he joined a BDSM group. Not because he likes pain in his sex, or leather, or latex, or Dominance/submission power exchange. Nope. Because walking into a BDSM group, he had people go "oh, not my thing, but you're far less weird than me." However, the bulk of the group's meetings, classes and conversation topics were not his kinks. Spanking, bondage, Mastery, slavery and the like were far more popular, and he has since become not as highly involved... plus he has found a few curvy ladies in the past few years he can spoil rotten.But the FetLife post that started this all was looking for a place for fetishists like my Southwestern friend to meet and talk about their kinks, fetishes, etc... without having to be around all the spanky spanky, hitty hitty. I like the idea, but would my needs be met? Are my fetishes edgy enough? Weird enough?My fetishes are comparatively normal.They are things that at least once a year, sometimes twenty times a week, I can visually indulge in and build up stock footage in my masturbatory mind. I can ask my lovers to put up with me without anyone thinking it too terribly strange. But they are there nonetheless- the things that get my crank turning hard and my peter more than perky.Tight bluejeans. Yup, I am a classic fag aren't I. The second skin, the worn cotton, the way they curve and change. Like leather it becomes personalized with wear, it morphs and changes. It hugs the form. And its so much easier to clean when I gnaw on an encased cock or slightly dampened twat through them than leather ever will be. Bonus with boots, heels that *fit* right, or bare feet that are taken care of... but let me see the ass, not baggy please.Snug sweaters over encased breasts. Or in some cases on guys, but its hit or miss on guys. The texture under my fingers, the 2nd skin nature again... and people wonder why I hang out with knitters.Bubbles. Suds. I love washing people, fur filled for cleaning, and I know exactly where that one came from.There are more... but the question that was brewing for me was whether my seemingly innocent fetishes were less valid. They are at supposed "fetish clubs" where "fetish dress" does not allow my date to rock up in a pair of RMD jeans, pointed toe black stillettos, tight gray cashmere and her hair in pony tails with shiny lip gloss (glitter a bonus)... because she's not in fetish attire. What? She's in my fetish attire. She is my picture perfect image of stainable snow, destroyable usable fuckable lust... but because its not black and shinky its not fetish.I am not knocking black and shiny- but it really bothers me that fetish attire has become so labeled, pre-approved, sterilized for our consumption. I remember being in line for Torture Garden in London many years ago, and the gent in front of me was a bull dog of a man, probably of Italian descent, maybe 5'6" at most. His head was bald and he wore either white or very light blue denim jeans and a denim jacket... and when he got to the front of the line the bouncer looked him up and down and said no. This was with 85 quid tickets. I was happy for the guy who took off his jacket and underneath he was tight laced in a matching corset and bare chest down to something I likely never would achieve, and the bouncer sighed, said fine, and let him in.If a bald headed denim clad corseted italian cowboy isn't fetish... what is? It wasn't though because it wasn't shiny. It wasn't the holy trinity of modern kink- latex, leather, pvc. It wasn't black. It wasn't what was expected to be taboo, out there, inapproriate. Like the punk movement, we rebels keep wearing black- just like everyone else.So if my fetish is visable, it could be percieved of as every day, does it make it less viable as a fetish? Or in the other direction, if my fetish is cooky, curious, a quandry- does it become less valid in the eyes of the fetish majority? I would say yes.I was hoping that by 2008 the world would be a little less methodical with its desires, and in some ways it has. 13 years in kink and nowadays I finally see laughter in dungeons- but the dungeons are all almost still all black, maroon, silver or medical. My partner recently purchased a St. Andrews Cross (classical icon of kink, but one of the more useless inventions for my kink, and how it wreaks hell on my ankles when I'm bottoming) and while she was gone, her housemate started to paint it black for her. What, she reacted? What? She didn't ask for a black cross, the red was nice, and maybe even natural wood, or luscious wood finishes... but her house mate made an assumption that real kink needs to be black, chrome, high performance... the out of the ordinary, even in our out of the ordinary community, is still looked at quizzically.The last piece my brain has been chewing on in this idea of a fetish munch though is what would we fetishists do? Maitrisse Betka Schpitz used to run a latex/tight/shiny perverts gather in Oregon, and that made sense- yes, many latex fetishists had many different things they liked about latex, but at least they had latex in common. They came dressed up to Venom Fetish Mafia gatherings in corsets, latex dresses, spandex encasement suits, pvc trousers... eat food, have conversation, flirt and have a good time. Bring their cameras, network... this makes sense to me. Leather & Levi weekends in the mens community. Big Bear roundups. Ahe play munches.But general fetish gatherings? What will the steampunk gothling say to the 'looner (balloon fetishist)? How does one host a party for a foot fetishist and a cannibal? Other than the fact that their desires fall somewhere in the realm of obsession, or are intense, what else do these people have in common?TNG groups share peer to peer networking with age- same cultural references, same tv shows growing up.Singletailers get together to share the crack, a common desire in one activity.Portland has had a munch going for 15 years based on location.FLAG (Fits Like a Glove) keeps a mailing list, newsletter, and gatherings going based on a shared passion for a specific item.Age, activity, location, shared object desire... these I can get basing a get together around- whether they are sexually themed or not. But the more vague a gatherings reasons for gathering, the less ability it has to do anything, draw anyone, or help those who do attend find commonality with one another. How many "women's groups" have fallen down this rabbit hole by having nothing in common with one another but being raised the same gender.So I find myself gnawing at this bone, debating whether a group like this would serve me at all. Debating if my fetishes (the 3 listed and the ones not listed) are viable if they are visible (and the harder it is to get, is it more viable, IE if I lived in Hawaii would my sweater fetish become edgy), and where I sit in this thing called kink.