So, I finally copped (here, and to myself) of a bit of a dental fetish that stems from an early, unpleasant dentist visit to fill my first cavities. I won't revisit it here except to say the traumatic part, for me, was when the dentist seemed to hold my head firmly to his chest to control me and then gave me the most painful injection just above one of my front teeth. I'll try not to rehash the details -- I wrote prolifically on it on a thread in the Dental Fetish section (https://en.zity.biz/index.php?mx=forum;ox=display;msg=1055392) -- so you can jump over there if you need to.
Now I'll step forward just a little further down my road of self-discovery and say that it's this experience that I believe triggered the rest of my medical fetish.
Frankly, that experience also gave me a serious dental phobia, so I think the dental part of my fetish is incidental. However, the feelings and sensations from that episode weren't really about teeth, the mouth, or dentistry -- it was about fear, control, willing submission, pain, and humiliation / embarrassment.
My feelings were so strong because...
1. I remember having to voluntarily submit myself to the whole experience. No one forced me, my parents didn't "drag" me, it was just something I was learning as part of growing up that I just "had to do". By submitting myself voluntarily, I feel like I gave permission for everything else that came next.
2. Even though when I walked in I didn't know how it would end, I feared the worst and was "rewarded" with confirmation. All the sensations leading up to "it" all point to the same outcome, so those sensations all became triggers: sitting in the chair, all the smells (especially in a dentist's office!) that emphasize where you are, the background conversation between the dentist and assistant talking about instruments and "stuff" you don't understand.
3. I was shy and hated being the center of attention. But here I was, everyone focused on me; I couldn't slink into a corner and pretend I wasn't there. Those people were there for me. The dentist (a doctor, regardless of being mouth-focused) spent years to become what he is -- and now his attention was focused 100% on me. There was also at least one assistant -- someone whose sole job is to make it easier for this learned, experienced, authoritative person to do his job...on me.
4. Maybe the experience started off with willing submission -- walk in voluntarily, park your butt in the chair, and try to be cooperative. But eventually, there came a point where fight-or-flight started to kick in. Either I controlled it and continue to submit, or give into flight and be forced to continue through to the end. In my case, the dentist had a firm hold of my head and he controlled my head and mouth so I wouldn't hurt myself with my sudden movements or attempts to "escape". At that point I knew I no longer had any control of what was happening to me.
5. What's next? I'd never had a cavity filled, and that fear of the unknown was massive! I had no idea I'd have my head held in a vice grip while being impaled by a fiery needle, what else don't I know about?
6. I discovered that it could be worse. Now, what I experienced probably wasn't all that bad -- maybe my surprise accentuated the feelings of pain -- and certainly I've now heard stories of much worse experiences. But at the time, this was the worst thing ever to happen to me, and when he said to my mother afterwards (about whether it had to hurt so bad) and said "Well I could have given him a shot in the roof of his mouth, but he wouldn't have liked that" -- somehow it impressed upon me that this was the first of terrible dental/medical experiences, and there were much worse ones to come!
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As I said, I believe it was this confluence of feelings and thoughts that came about during this experience that may have cemented my medical fetish. Even though this was a dentist, none of these feelings or fears were specifically because of dentistry -- and they all easily translated to the medical domain.
When I visited the pediatrician I'd have butterflies in my stomach in the waiting room, wondering what "surprises" they had in store for me. Then I'd start looking around seeing other kids ... especially girls ... and I'd start wondering what "surprises" they had in store for them! Hell, I knew basically nothing about girls and they already had an entire universe of surprises in store for me! So, my curiosity led me to this grand unknown, what went on behind those doors? What did the doctor see when looking under a girl's panties? What would he be looking for (as a doctor)? What scary "surprises" might he pull on them when they're not expecting it?
As I grew older I'd spend more and more time in libraries, eventually on the internet, scouring books about medical tests, medical texts about physical exams, learning about different medical instruments I'd never (and may never) encounter personally.
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So.... What say you all? Is this all obvious to everyone else, and I'm only just coming to terms with the fact that what makes me "unique" actually just makes me just like all of you? Did any of you share the same confluence of emotions during a formative experience but that it led you to a different sort of interests? And I wonder, most of all, perhaps, how repressed must I be to only now start coming to terms with it at the youthful age of ... 49?
-g