What is the difference

[ksst]

I've been reading the "what is your fetish" pages, and I'm by no means through with all the pages, but it got me wondering what do you all think is the difference between a fetish and a turn on?

[denuseri]

A turn on is something like...OOOooooOO he gave me flowers how sweet or ohhhh I just love it when he breaks out with the whip being all tough as opposed to the soft approach and a fetish is like I may not have sex covered in wax or leather etc (something) everytime...but when I do it's got to be vinyl, leather just doesnt cut the mustard, only vinyl seems to make me purrr I crave it, I cant stop thinking about how wearing it makes me wet etc..

[ksst]

so leather= yes, hair pulling= no? More of an object than an action?

[Ozme52]

Definitionally, yes an object (or body part)... but also, more specifically, an object, without which, you can't get excited or can't have an orgasm. It's the difference between wanting and needing.

Also... hair pulling, if necessary for the puller, might well be a hair fetish. Read enough and you will find stories of people who are totally turned on by long hair, want to entwine themselves, or comb it and then use it to masturbate... again, it all devolves to want v. need and what you can (or can't) manage without it.

[ksst]

Well, maybe it would be wrong to say I have any sort of fetish since I can manage without any particular things? They help but are not necessary to excitement?

[Ozme52]

Yep.

[ksst]

Thank you!

[thir]

I've been reading the "what is your fetish" pages, and I'm by no means through with all the pages, but it got me wondering what do you all think is the difference between a fetish and a turn on?

Taking to people who define themselves as fetishists, it seems to me to be 1) something some (but by no means all) have to have, and 2) something which, when you have it, works wonders every time!

It can be something you dress in or touch - leather, silk, vinyl, fur, rubber.

It can be an object. Examples from these talks are: a radio antenna, rain clothes, being wrapped in cling film, a baby's craddle, a baby's dummy, a bycycle, feathers. It can be anything, including stuff which to other people doesn't seem to be remotely connected to anything sexual.

It can be bodyparts - foot fetishism is quite common, and/or high heels.

Personally I think it can also be situations - bondage, chains, a D's situation, an abduction..whatever.

If you have something you must have or would SO like to have and which gets you off every time, it is that magic wand called a fetish :-)

[denuseri]

• Fetishism, the attribution of religious or mystical qualities to inanimate objects
• Sexual fetishism, sexual attraction to objects, body parts, or situations not conventionally viewed as being sexual in nature.
• Fetish (album) (1999), by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
• Commodity fetishism, a Marxist concept of valuation in capitalist markets
• Growth Fetish, the pursuit of economic growth in politics and economic theory as a universal cure for all society's problems
• Fetish fashion, clothing and clothing fetishes
• Zuni fetishes, small carvings from various stones, made by the Zuni Indians
• Venturi Fétish, a car produced by Venturi Automobiles.
• Fetish, a fictional superheroine in the Bomb Queen series.

[ksst]

I wonder if the Venturi Fetish came standard with leather seats

I'm seeing a lot of different uses of "fetish" in Denuseri's and Thir's posts, which is I guess normal for any particular word. Even just leaving out everything not to do with sex, the idea of sexual attraction to objects, body parts or situations not conventionally viewed as being sexual in nature is a very different one from the idea of requiring such objects etc. to become aroused.

[Ozme52]

I believe the word's etymology derives from the concept of religious or mystical attribution to an object. Such items are themselves called fetishes. Zuni being one particular tribe's mystic artwork.

Our use of the word, we add the adjective "sexual" to differentiate.

[Red-15]

Etymologically and linguistically, Ozme52 is spot-on. I'm the first in line to say that, yes, language is critical, it is important. We need to understand and be understood. But it's also possible to become overwrought on the whole business of definition.

I guess it's my preference to lump fetish, turn-ons, and what have you under the less-specific rubric of "kink." If "it," be it an object, action, thought, situation, visual or auditory stimulus, what have you, gets you going, gets you hot, wet, and nearer to your happy place, let it be your kink. Or kinks. Spending less time parsing, and more time doing, well, that's just plain good for us.

This maybe isn't what you were after, but I hope it is nevertheless helpful.

Don

[ksst]

That is very helpful. More time doing is always good too Well, until you're good and worn out.

[thir]

I guess it's my preference to lump fetish, turn-ons, and what have you under the less-specific rubric of "kink." If "it," be it an object, action, thought, situation, visual or auditory stimulus, what have you, gets you going, gets you hot, wet, and nearer to your happy place, let it be your kink. Or kinks. Spending less time parsing, and more time doing, well, that's just plain good for us.

This maybe isn't what you were after, but I hope it is nevertheless helpful.

Don

You are quite right, but maybe it is good to know what a fetchist is, if, for instance, your new love cannot funtion without a radio antenna. The important thing to understand would be that is does not replace you.