The mechanism of paraphilias/fetishes?

One of the most rewarding things I have got from Zity is a sense of how I'm not alone but subject to the same impulses that drive others. I'm talking about my medfet which for me, personally, involves a 'mouth' fetish (male and female mouths); also an interest in anaesthesia. I have traced it back to my sense that my tonsillectomy at age 4 was like a 'rape' (quite obviously I could not have said that at the time). In my boyhood, other situations and images began to accrue in my mind around this basic one. Then on arriving at puberty, and the more intense sexual feelings that brought, my 'fetish' became even more marked, and my related impulses and activities deeper. Also, more generalised. I had pronounced masturbatory fantasies involving my fetish. I sensed that my fetish could have permutations involving 'bodies', and not only my own. It could be explored in various ways (e.g., by reading medical textbooks, if not yet - in my case - by actual, investigatory sex).

Through personal correspondence here, and from the posts of others, I have confirmed that the above pattern is far from unique. One of my correspondents has a dental fetish, which became pronounced when in his early teens a dentist was particularly firm with him while giving him two fillings. My correspondent began to read medical and dental textbooks, and started to build up a collection of dental equipment. Two recent posts here tell respectively of a guy who was affected by the invasiveness of his school physicals, until, in his teens, his sexual fantasies began to centre around those exams - and recently he has found related part-time occupations; and a girl who underwent physiotherapy from childhood and into her teens, when the physical exams involved became in her mind more intrusive of her personal space, and who has now sought out various activities to feed the fetish that she developed ('I have no explanation as to why', she adds).

For a while I thought that no-one else here could share my mouth fetish. But I started an album called 'Mouths and related stuff' and have been gratified by several 'likes' from both gay and straight members. (The album has a range of pics.) Also, I have corresponded with a guy who suggested that the effect on me of my childhood tonsillectomy is not unlike the phenomenon described by Freud in his essay "A Child is being Beaten" which relates certain fantasies to the Oedipus Complex. (Hmm!) Lastly, for now, I recently re-visited a passage from the once well-known book 'Man Against Himself' by Karl Menninger that speculates on the traumatic effect that a tonsillectomy could have on a frightened child, and is very similar to my own memory of such an event and its effect on me.

As I say, Zity has helped me feel less alone in my fetish and its mechanisms. How do others see the matter? I would like to observe in another post that there are an extraordinary number of paraphilias, and that to recognise this fact is to be 'egalitarian'!

- Ken

I am very interested in this - indeed it seems like there are similarities between many of our experiences. I don't have the same fetish as you but I can see the parallels. I'm curious what kind of academic research has been done on the topic

I am very interested in this - indeed it seems like there are similarities between many of our experiences. I don't have the same fetish as you but I can see the parallels. I'm curious what kind of academic research has been done on the topic

Hello heartbeatheartbeat! I've only just noticed your post to this generally-ignored thread (which I started!) - although the topic of fetish-formation is certainly discussed by me and others elsewhere on Zity, such as in the thread 'On our fetishes - in the big context!' (also started by me, and which I recently revived with some success this time!).

I think I have read a post by you elsewhere on the Web. I have only skimmed it so far but can see why you say there are similarities between your (stethoscope/auscultation) fetish and my (mouth and throat) fetish! For example, it looks like our respective fetishes both have their origin in experiences when we were boys in hospital for operations (yours for squint/lazy eye, mine for tonsils and adenoids). Have I got that right?

You eventually became fascinated with stethoscopes, I eventually became fascinated with doctors looking in my mouth and using instruments like a tongue depressor!

I can't really tell you about (up-to-date) academic research on fetishes, but there certainly has been some - including, I'm pretty sure, in Australia. One book I've seen mentioned is by three doctors, Drs L'Abate, Farrar, and Serritella, 'Handbook of Differential Treatments for Addictions'. I'll try and obtain more information for you (if you don't beat me to it - read on!).

I've certainly seen stuff on the Web. These days, that might be (y)our best bet! A few moments ago I googled the question, 'how do fetishes start and develop?', which has yielded plenty of promising stuff. Here's my search result by URL:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=how+do+fetishes+start+and+develop%3F

I don't know whether that will work for you. You might have to do your own googling!

Cheers - Ken

To be honest, I have had to look up the definition pf paraphilia, and once read,it serves me to understand my particular fetish. It is sort of refreshing to know that there is an explanation, “why am I like this?”

I have posted on this site, my experience as a child and an older girl who spent a period of a few years “abusing” me. Although at the time, I did not feel at all abused, but enjoyed the situation.

She spent times forcing my foreskin back, pulling it back so hard one day that it caused my foreskin to snap away from my glans. Over the years, and to this day, I have used this theme for countless masturbation fantasies, and as the years have progressed, my fantasies have become more extreme and disturbing.

Although I can equally enjoy “normal” sex and my pornographic viewing involves just about anything, what gives me an instant erection and piques my interest, is viewing a dominant female administering heavy and severe penis torture. More often or not, it involves a medical scenario whereby the “nurse” operates on a penis which involves cutting, blood, and of course, anything to do with foreskins, The ultimate would be to watch a penis being degloved, skinned, and tortured.

All of these scenes are a magnification and extreme reflection of what happened to me when I was aged about 6-9 by this young, teenaged girl who obviously enjoyed doing what she did to my young penis.

There's a whole ton to digest here, and my response will likely only get at it somewhat (bad reading comp).

I am 44 now, and was operated on a lot when I was growing up (16 times from ages 0-16, including my 15th and 16th surgeries, which came within a week of eachother. The latter was on an emergency basis). I usually only ever spent a week in the hospital, but recovery was usually extremely painful, as most of the surgeries were on the leg muscles or the spinal cord (I haver spina bifida, if you want to look that up). And, like I said, my 15th surgery came with complications. It was for spinal tethering, and I suffered a CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) leak as I was getting staples taken out, so an emergency 16th surgery was scheduled for the next day.

My mask fetish only applies to seeing a girl have to wear one. Not to wearing one myself. But it did start with anesthesia masks before veering into N95's, cartridge respirators (half mask only) and surgical masks. So I have definitely felt the black beauty on my face before, but for whatever reason, I was never excited by that. And in today's Covid-19 era, I'm actually hating wearing the earloop surgical masks I have on hand. But in neither case am I traumatized by the mask.

I will say that, as I have mentioned ad nauseam, I had an attractive female teenage friend who wore a cartridge respirator for her immune system around the time she had a lung transplant. It was an amazing sight that first time I met her in person. 5ft6 thin brunette in a dress and boots, masked up in a matte black, half mask cartridge respirator, that was held tightly on her mouth and nose by a thick black strap harness on top, and another black strap below her ears, with tabs on the sides to adjust. It was a mindblowing fetish moment. But now I'm left wondering how a half mask cartridge respirator feels to wear, versus the earloop masks I wear for Covid-19. Maybe they're a lot more comfortable. I don't know. All I know is I'm not aware of any stares (a big complaint of patients who need to be masked up).

Zity has helped me establish those roots of my fetish, even though my particular one, for masked female patients (not nurses, not doctors), is pretty rare around here. I think I'm just comforted by the existence of this umbrella, "medfet", a word that explains it all for me.