Slightly off-topic thought regarding penny jars and fetish formation:
I’ve heard that fetishes are more prevalent in cultures where sex is repressed. I always wondered why this would be the case (assuming that it is in fact true). One explanation is associations: if people are raised to think sex is dirty, or that sex is a necessary but base bodily function akin to using the bathroom, then they might fetishize urine or excrement. And if people are raised to think that sex is beastly and animalistic, they might fetishize things that are related to animals and violence.
However, the penny jar experiment suggests another, more “innocent” explanation. Perhaps it’s simply that, in sexually repressed cultures, people don’t have sex very often, or they do it in a special ritualized setting. If this is the case, then accidents of that ritual setting might become associated with the sexual act itself. So, perhaps the neurons corresponding to the distinctive pink pillows on a lover’s bed get wired up with the neurons that correspond to actually having sex. Then later, the pink pillows are enough to cause arousal, and perhaps in extreme cases pink pillows later become /required/ for arousal. This presumably wouldn’t happen as much if the sex-location changed frequently, or if the setting was not seen as an important component of the ritual.
The first hypothesis seems to be a better explanation of things like poop fetishes, while the second hypothesis might better explain things like lacy pink lingerie. What do you think?
Also, it goes without saying that I enjoyed your article. =)
I’m concerned that this sort of explanation could just as easily explain the exact opposite and so doesn’t really give us much information. For example, one could imagine that in societies with less sexual repression, people are more likely to have sex or engage in sexual activity in a variety of circumstances and so have more opportunities to imprint on non-standard objects or situations. Moreover, the more open a society is about sex the more likely people are to hear about some fetish and decide to try it out just to see what it is like, and then get imprinted to it.
Those are valid concerns. Regarding the first, that’s why I emphasized the ritual component of sex in a repressed society. I suspect that such a society would have very strict rituals for sex: it must occur only at specific times in specific locations, and in the presence of certain stimuli. Some examples of stimuli are candles or lacy lingerie or dim lighting. An example of a time is night. I’ve heard lots of comments to the effect that having sex in the middle of the day would be strange, and that sex is strictly a nighttime activity. This could be classified as a “nighttime fetish”, perhaps. The ritual component of sex would serve to highlight the ritual times/locations/stimuli, causing them to imprint more strongly than other, non-ritualized components of the sexual act.
Regarding your second objection, while that definitely seems like a possibility, the variations and experimentation would probably mean that no one thing would imprint strongly enough to become a fetish, because its presence wouldn’t correlate strongly enough with the sexual act.
The nightime/daytime issue seems to be more an issue of sex being taboo than being a fetish. And one thing that seems clear is that a lot of fetishes specifically revolve around breaking taboos.
Regarding the second issue, keep in mind that the degree of imprinting that occurs when someone is actively having sex is likely to be higher than simply the level of imprinting one would get from simply associating the fetish with sexually attractive images. It might not take more than a few times having sex with a specific fetish for it to imprint. This is further complicated by the fact that some people take sexual pleasure specifically in their partner’s sexual pleasure, so one can have additional imprinting simply if the partner has a pre-existing fetish.
In general, I think we drastically overestimate the level of generalizations that we can make about societies sexual attitudes. Most of the notion of repression → fetishes seems to come from Victorian Britain where things were highly repressed and had a lot of fetishtic behavior, especially BDSM. One reason some terms for BDSM equipment are so ornate is that they date from Victorian times and were sometimes euphemisms or the like. (The most obvious such example is the St. Andrews Cross.)
But other societies that were extremely open about sexuality also has a lot of fetishtic behavior. The ancient Greeks, ancient Romans and ancient Indians are all prominent examples.
Moreover, some societies just have wildly different notions about sex. For example, consider the Jews of the Talmudic time period. They are generally seen as sexually repressed and with good reason. The Talmud discusses how it must be dark when one has sex, and lists probably about 20 or 30 other taboos, some of which seem misogynist. But, a married woman has a right to at least a certain amount of sex a year while a man has no such right. Moreover, the Talmud when discussing non-standard forms of sex outlaws cunnilingus under the logic that if they do it the men will become addicted. To modern thought processes this seems very strange. Moreover, when discussing whether anal sex is permitted with a female on the receiving end, the Talmudic response is that obviously this is ok.
Cultural attitudes about sex and sexuality vary a lot.
Slightly off-topic thought regarding penny jars and fetish formation:
I’ve heard that fetishes are more prevalent in cultures where sex is repressed. I always wondered why this would be the case (assuming that it is in fact true). One explanation is associations: if people are raised to think sex is dirty, or that sex is a necessary but base bodily function akin to using the bathroom, then they might fetishize urine or excrement. And if people are raised to think that sex is beastly and animalistic, they might fetishize things that are related to animals and violence.
However, the penny jar experiment suggests another, more “innocent” explanation. Perhaps it’s simply that, in sexually repressed cultures, people don’t have sex very often, or they do it in a special ritualized setting. If this is the case, then accidents of that ritual setting might become associated with the sexual act itself. So, perhaps the neurons corresponding to the distinctive pink pillows on a lover’s bed get wired up with the neurons that correspond to actually having sex. Then later, the pink pillows are enough to cause arousal, and perhaps in extreme cases pink pillows later become /required/ for arousal. This presumably wouldn’t happen as much if the sex-location changed frequently, or if the setting was not seen as an important component of the ritual.
The first hypothesis seems to be a better explanation of things like poop fetishes, while the second hypothesis might better explain things like lacy pink lingerie. What do you think?
Also, it goes without saying that I enjoyed your article. =)
I’m concerned that this sort of explanation could just as easily explain the exact opposite and so doesn’t really give us much information. For example, one could imagine that in societies with less sexual repression, people are more likely to have sex or engage in sexual activity in a variety of circumstances and so have more opportunities to imprint on non-standard objects or situations. Moreover, the more open a society is about sex the more likely people are to hear about some fetish and decide to try it out just to see what it is like, and then get imprinted to it.
Those are valid concerns. Regarding the first, that’s why I emphasized the ritual component of sex in a repressed society. I suspect that such a society would have very strict rituals for sex: it must occur only at specific times in specific locations, and in the presence of certain stimuli. Some examples of stimuli are candles or lacy lingerie or dim lighting. An example of a time is night. I’ve heard lots of comments to the effect that having sex in the middle of the day would be strange, and that sex is strictly a nighttime activity. This could be classified as a “nighttime fetish”, perhaps. The ritual component of sex would serve to highlight the ritual times/locations/stimuli, causing them to imprint more strongly than other, non-ritualized components of the sexual act.
Regarding your second objection, while that definitely seems like a possibility, the variations and experimentation would probably mean that no one thing would imprint strongly enough to become a fetish, because its presence wouldn’t correlate strongly enough with the sexual act.
The nightime/daytime issue seems to be more an issue of sex being taboo than being a fetish. And one thing that seems clear is that a lot of fetishes specifically revolve around breaking taboos.
Regarding the second issue, keep in mind that the degree of imprinting that occurs when someone is actively having sex is likely to be higher than simply the level of imprinting one would get from simply associating the fetish with sexually attractive images. It might not take more than a few times having sex with a specific fetish for it to imprint. This is further complicated by the fact that some people take sexual pleasure specifically in their partner’s sexual pleasure, so one can have additional imprinting simply if the partner has a pre-existing fetish.
In general, I think we drastically overestimate the level of generalizations that we can make about societies sexual attitudes. Most of the notion of repression → fetishes seems to come from Victorian Britain where things were highly repressed and had a lot of fetishtic behavior, especially BDSM. One reason some terms for BDSM equipment are so ornate is that they date from Victorian times and were sometimes euphemisms or the like. (The most obvious such example is the St. Andrews Cross.)
But other societies that were extremely open about sexuality also has a lot of fetishtic behavior. The ancient Greeks, ancient Romans and ancient Indians are all prominent examples.
Moreover, some societies just have wildly different notions about sex. For example, consider the Jews of the Talmudic time period. They are generally seen as sexually repressed and with good reason. The Talmud discusses how it must be dark when one has sex, and lists probably about 20 or 30 other taboos, some of which seem misogynist. But, a married woman has a right to at least a certain amount of sex a year while a man has no such right. Moreover, the Talmud when discussing non-standard forms of sex outlaws cunnilingus under the logic that if they do it the men will become addicted. To modern thought processes this seems very strange. Moreover, when discussing whether anal sex is permitted with a female on the receiving end, the Talmudic response is that obviously this is ok.
Cultural attitudes about sex and sexuality vary a lot.