Why do we have fetishes? Kinks? Traits?

[Like Ra]

traumatic events in childhood

Why traumatic?

[essanym]

Ah, maybe some fantasies are associated with traumatic events in childhood that we do not remember, but the brain actively reacts to stimuli in the future.

I can see how that could account for some fetishes like masochism or rape fantasies but I would guess that majority of fetishes aren't from trauma.  I really can't think of any kind of trauma, forgotten or otherwise, that would lead to me having a latex, spandex and shiny clothing in general fetish.

[Like Ra]

For now all I can say is that we do not choose our philias or phobias consciously. E.g. "I want to get a new fetish" and BAM! your body begins to react to that trigger. A "fetish" is something stable (not temporary), philias or phobias can not be explained, acquired or got rid off "logically" (e.g. "No, there is nothing to be afraid of! Look, it's just an XXX" or "How can you like THIS? It's a YYY!!!"). To explain the reason by using the word "subconscious" (e.g. "subconscious choice") is no better than "it's a karma", "it's your past-life experience", "it's an egregore", because nobody knows what subconscious is 😁

[princesitanatty]

For now all I can say is that we do not choose our philias or phobias consciously. E.g. "I want to get a new fetish" and BAM! your body begins to react to that trigger. A "fetish" is something stable (not temporary), philias or phobias can not be explained, acquired or got rid off "logically" (e.g. "No, there is nothing to be afraid of! Look, it's just an XXX" or "How can you like THIS? It's a YYY!!!"). To explain the reason by using the word "subconscious" (e.g. "subconscious choice") is no better than "it's a karma", "it's your past-life experience", "it's an egregore", because nobody knows what subconscious is 😁

Philias and phobias can be created through pavlovian conditioning.

[Like Ra]

Philias and phobias can be created through pavlovian conditioning.

the keyword is:

something stable (not temporary)

If you do not reinforce conditioned triggers they will stop working over time. Fetishes are permanent and can not be cured. They can be only suppressed.

Unless there is a traumatic event, that led to a particular behaviour. In this case, this behaviour can be mitigated by working with this event using various techniques (e.g. dissociation, EMDR, etc). But usually such cases are not about sexual fetishes.

[princesitanatty]

Philias and phobias can be created through pavlovian conditioning.

the keyword is:

something stable (not temporary)

If you do not reinforce conditioned triggers they will stop working over time. Fetishes are permanent and can not be cured. They can be only suppressed.

Unless there is a traumatic event, that led to a particular behaviour. In this case, this behaviour can be mitigated by working with this event using various techniques (e.g. dissociation, EMDR, etc). But usually such cases are not about sexual fetishes.

Conditioning can have permanent effects too, it would be wrong to assume its effects are always ephemeral.

[Like Ra]

Conditioning can have permanent effects too, it would be wrong to assume its effects are always ephemeral.

Not ephemeral, but temporary. If not periodically reinforced with unconditioned stimuli, the effects (conditioned stimuli) will wear off with time. It's called "extinction".

[princesitanatty]

Conditioning can have permanent effects too, it would be wrong to assume its effects are always ephemeral.

Not ephemeral, but temporary. If not periodically reinforced with unconditioned stimuli, the effects (conditioned stimuli) will wear off with time. It's called "extinction".

Yes, but search about what it's called "resistance to extinction". Some conditioned stimuli are permanent, even when they are no longer paired with US.

[Like Ra]

"resistance to extinction"

That's interesting! Thanks for that! Found some articles, reading...

[SLL]

Hello,

So I am a neuroscientist and indeed, some associations cannot be extinguished, but these are mainly associations that involve emotions deeply rooted in the amygdala such as trauma or the smell of grandma's freshly baked bread.  But we need to put this in perspective. If you are snapped with a rubber band as a small child (trauma) how is it that you then spend the rest of your life working through this traumatic event by wrapping yourself in latex? And how does this trauma suddenly become a source of sexual pleasure? We can extend this to pleasurable experiences as well: the nurse fondles your genitals with a latex glove when you are a kid, and now you suddenly start wrapping yourself in latex when you hit puberty. What do you know about sexual pleasure as a small child? How does the sexual association first form? That is the critical question. It seems to me that it is quite a leap to make the association between trauma and sexuality when they can be decades apart. These seem more like Freudian just-so stories than a real hypothesis.

For myself, going into a comic book store a few years back and seeing all the villains and heroes decked out in form fitting shiny clothing on the cover pages immediately brought latex to mind... And for a while this got me thinking that perhaps my latex kink has to do with early exposure to such comics... but then what does a 6/7 year old boy know of sexuality and how is the association made 7 years later when I put on a latex gloves and immediately feel the sexual excitement...? ...And then begin to imagine of full latex encasement and catsuits without ever knowing such things existed---by this time I had forgotten about the comic books. My first wet dream was full on BDSM, but I didn't know what BDSM was until the advent of internet porn. (I knew what wet dreams were, but I was quite bewildered why the dream imagery had caused it.) So, for me, the question is how do these ideas, these sexual associations, get into us in the first place? Was I genetically or developmentally fated (by errant brain wiring in early development) to find latex and BDSM sexually exciting before I knew such things existed? Was I programmed by comic books, TV etc... to make the association*---but then why are there so few of us in which the programming took?

These questions puzzle and vex me. I would much rather be boring** than have these kinks. They have presented some problems in my relationships. Yesterday I had the double whammy of a latex dream (oddly enough very Platonic) and then later had to blow up balloons. How is that for an association: the smell of latex triggering the sexual excitement..? ...but until I first got latex gloves, the smell of latex did nothing for me. So, there is a genuine association. I had been pretty good the past few weeks about not watching porn on my phone, but now last night I couldn't put the damned thing down (another association). Anyway... I think if we want to go down the association route, then we have to be careful about confusing the sequence of triggers and associations.

To my mind, our kinks are intrinsic to us and the associations follow the discovery of the kink. They don't come about because of an association, and might just be coincidental to some other event.

* The sexual programming might not be so far-fetched. Visit https://www.youtube.com/user/TheScariestMovieEver . After a while it become tough to believe that all the associations are just apophenia.
** I eschew the term "normal".