Why do we have fetishes? Kinks? Traits?

[Like Ra]

I am a neuroscientist

Finally! Thank you! Reading now!

[princesitanatty]

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 seem 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 developmentalyl 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".

Do you have any hypotheses to explain fetishes?
I disagree that conditioning accounts of fetishes are limited to "traumas in early childhood". Conditioning of sexual responses can also occur during late childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and the stimulus pairing event doesn't need to be experienced as traumatic. I think conditioning accounts are compatible and complementary with other accounts that refer to innate individual differences.

[SLL]

Hello,

I also reject the trauma hypothesis.

I do not reject later conditioning as explaining some aspects of our disposition. I see an genetic-environment interaction explanation as most likely because genetics explains 40 to 50% of the variation in personality differences and random brain wiring for perhaps 30-40% of the rest (see Pinker's The Blank Slate).

If I must guess, I would hypothesize that a generic variation or variants result in miss-wiring of our sexual synapses so that something untypical is sexually exciting. We discover this something at some point, if ever, and make the association between the something and sexual pleasure. Naturally, if your environment precludes encountering the sensation of, e.g. latex, then the discovery is never made. This idea can't explain individual fetishes but might serve as a general scheme to explore the question.

One problem, one thing from my experience which makes this hypothesis unsatisfactory is my discovery of BDSM inclinations in a wet dream at a time of total sexual naivete. This suggests something deeper than simply forming an association. It seems more like an innate drive. A more unsettling observation: since covid we have had a box of nitrile gloves in the kitchen and my daughter (3 yo) enjoys playing with them. I also enjoyed playing with gloves as a small child. For me this eventually lead to the discovery of latex gloves... Genetics might be a big factor... But why and how a gene for gloves? And, in my case gloves did nothing sexually until they were latex gloves.

There is the possibility that the question of "why this kink" might be totally wrong. The kink may be an epiphenomenon. E.g. I like the feel of tight, smooth clothing and this became a latex kink. But I don't really like tight clothes other than latex so so much for that. Our kinks might dlbe there long before we are conscious of the stimuli that establishes the connection. The question may not be why this kink but why was I receptive to that stimulus?

What's your kink and what do you think stimulated it, or did it just pop out of nowhere as a preformed sexual drive?

[egregious]

Ok, if you want to relate adolescent behaviour & conditioning to fetish:
I have a thing for tight & shiny clothing.
But I can't get on with rubber/latex. It always looks so nice in pictures polished & unpolished. It ticks all the boxes, but I am blocked from sexualising it because I associate the smell with fixing punctures in bike tyres as a youth.
It's where I think your traumatic experience theory doesn't work for everyone, as I found fixing bike on the way home from holiday job in the rain at the side of a busy road quite traumatic back 20 years before we had mobile phones to call for help.

So anyway, that's why I fixate on shiny lycra & just can't quite do the latex thing that so many others of you enjoy.

[Like Ra]

but I am blocked from sexualising it because I associate the smell with fixing punctures in bike tyres as a youth.

That's interesting. I wonder what kind of latex have you dealt with: https://www.likera.com/blog/wp/archives/3079

[princesitanatty]

Most fetishes fall in a small set of categories: dom/sub, identity, sexual orientation, bodily restrictions, sensorial stimulation. Those few categories have an evolutionary function and were probably selected in the history of our species. Learning and random individual variation probably cause neutral or maladaptive byproducts in each of those categories.

[MIWSTIUS]

Our kinks might be there long before we are conscious of the stimuli that establishes the connection. The question may not be why this kink but why was I receptive to that stimulus?

What's your kink and what do you think stimulated it, or did it just pop out of nowhere as a preformed sexual drive?

Hi there,

Well, I have the intense shiny Lycra fetish and I think it's mostly a combined result of cause & effect, plus environmental association.

Cause & effect
- Had childhood skin problem, a strong OCD developed for perfect smoothness. (somewhat of a perfectionist personality).
- Had early 80's school swimming lessons; Speedo's made of shiny Lycra were THE standard.
- Before properly into the water, they had us practice the swimming strokes on the dry; I could feel the slick friction of the Speedos (for reasons unknown to this day, mother gave me Speedos without front inner liner - ergo, direct Lycra to skin contact).
- Private swim class had us waiting at the side of the pool, elbows resting on the pool edge. The pool featured incredibly strong water circulation blow holes in the side walls of the pool. I happened to be waiting there - the circulation holes happened to be at crotch height; 'Stimulus' would be understatement of my childhood decade.

Environmental association
- Of course, 1980's mail order catalogs! What started as browsing these thick books for toys, became naughty browsing; the lingerie and swimsuit pages.
- I could definitely see the women's swimsuits were made of fabric virtually identical to my Speedos; I started to seriously wonder if girls experience the same sensations from their swimwear.
- So yes, from that point on I became aware of the sexual 'thing' this Lycra swimwear affection had become.
- My childhood bed was squeaky, hence 'rubbing' my Speedos was way more stealthy than jerking off. No ejaculation at that age, so I could go on unpunished, without making a moist mess LOL. (although mother did discover this penchant I developed for the Speedos).
- From there on I knew this was my fetish, even without knowing the word 'fetish'.

Full on fetish developed and evolved.
- However my fetish remained limited to Speedo style Lycra swim briefs until I finally got the courage to purchase an actual women's one piece swimsuit in 2008.
- I only started wearing Lycra leggings since 2020, again because I finally got the courage to buy and wear them (in public) and the realization that I do not have time to worry anymore about social stigmas.
Final conclusion on my Lycra obsession: It's visual and tactile - a holy trinity of fabric aspects:
* that typical Lycra sheen, similar to satin
* but at the same time it is more stretchy, thin and pliable than the other fabrics; this works as a tactile multiplier when you stroke it, LOL. And even if the fit is often tight, it doesnt feel constrictive - it doesnt squish your balls to death.
* and last but not least it's the slippery feeling

Most other fabrics do one or two aspects of this trinity, but Lycra really has it all.



This story might look very familiar to plenty of Lycra enthusiasts of my generation.

[Michael]

Oh, we have some things in common about swimsuit fetish:

Cause & effect
- Before properly into the water, they had us practice the swimming strokes on the dry; I could feel the slick friction of the Speedos

Environmental association
- I could definitely see the women's swimsuits were made of fabric virtually identical to my Speedos; I started to seriously wonder if girls experience the same sensations from their swimwear.
- So yes, from that point on I became aware of the sexual 'thing' this swimwear affection had become.
- From there on I knew this was my fetish, even without knowing the word 'fetish'.

- I masturbated into swimsuit and then cleaning it, so nobody found out.

As time goes and when I still lived with parents, i had several occassions to try mother's and cousins onepieces. I wanted to confirm about how girls feel in them as stated above. It was been better feeling compared to normal guy speedos, which contributed to developing my swimsuit fetish. Normally i wear swim trunks. I dont dare to wear speedos, because of arousal may come in inappropriate times in public. But for fetish, when I do it in home, i have some girls sporty onepieces from Leohex or SwimHXBY. Leohex has more sexy fabric, like satin and very slippery. SwimHXBY si almost identical so more expensive Arena/Speedo fabric.

When I started living in my own, I got some girls sporty onepieces and continue my fetish.

In addition to swimsuit fetish, my hypnosis, wristwatch and earring fetishes come by when i was 12-13. I think the main stimuli for it were movies.
- Naked Gun movie, where people being hypnotized by beeping wristwatch alarm. I fantasized about my female friends being hypnotized and to obey my command like that. About that time, puberty started, so it was even better when I discovered how to masturbate.
- Various Movie/shows with girls wearing wristwatch, where I fantasized about them being hypnotized by watch.
- Earring hypnosis, as seen on last part of Knight Rider, where Michael gets controlled by earring for a while.

And lately, I have migrate from controlling ppl by hypnosis to being controlled. Hypnosis feels better to me when i can just obey and dont think. But I can still be domninant if in right mood.

So in the end, i get dressed in girls onepiece, wristwatch/fit. bracelet and let myself be hypnotized. Because i want to know and experience it again and again, how would hypnotized girl like that felt.

[Lancer]

My turn to jump into this thread. I am not a neuroscientist or anything but I believe that it is basically a crap shoot, can come preprogrammed or created in my personal experience. Do mind that this is coming from a neurodivergent or abnormal brain. I will list the two big ones I have and why.

Bondage: (random/created/innate) in another part of the subreddit I once explained that I started off bondage due to a recurring dream from the scene of pokemon where coffagrigus wraps up one of the pokemon. I didn't elaborate much at the time but I feel like it deserves a bit more of an explanation since the big brain neuroscientist SLL could take a gander. Originally it just started with the scene but it evolved into it's proper awakening form, I get captured by coffagrigus and it wraps me up before and this is the most confusing and unknown part. Somehow my brain decided after I searched up what coffagrigus does (converts captured people in mummies after centuries) that the way it does that is by needle, so I get injected with this needle in the back of a head and get mind converted to a mummy. How in the fresh heck did my 8 year old brain come up with that is beyond me, note that I did not watch any TV and that was the only time I ever saw anything remotely including bondage. Had I not watched that one scene that would probably never happen

That was one major pusher but there is a more trauma side as well. Truth be told I wouldn't tell this paragraph to my own mother or anyone in my life but it is integral to the explanation and with luck no one will know who I am irl. For most of my life things around me never panned out the way I wanted and for a very long time I had either declining standards of living or unsteady living. I moved house and school many times, my parents endlessly argued and eventually I was basically single parent due to work reasons. I had few friends and many bullies due to being short and shy, ADHD kneecaps everything I did and eventually the bitterness ate through me, it was the lack of control and the futility of it all that an 8 year old had no chance of stopping. Eventually it boiled over, my shy and kind personality did a 180 and became cruel, violent and manipulating to assert control over my daily life, as time wore on and my living conditions stabilized and became happier my personality returned. You can't ever go back from that though. Self bondage is one of the perfect paradoxical solutions, both enabling you to take control and forcing you to accept and relax at the restrictions and enjoying the whole process. This is why I believe trauma can cause it, it can be a controlled and enjoyable way of dealing with and relieving past trauma. 

This part is for SSL if he reads it or for anyone else. I highly disagree with the idea that trauma or other events do not have an impact. I don't remember the sources but I can remember reading peer reviewed articles that rats can genetically pass down the fear of a scent, that if you punish a rat when a scent is present eventually it can form the association of fear with the scent, the research demonstrated that rats born from these conditioned rats continue to exhibit the same fear as their parents without additional conditioning. It may be that trauma can change our DNA or it's expression with wide reaching impacts on behavior. It is possible that in a human the DNA is simply far too blunt on our complicated minds and just doesn't work correctly sometimes, rather then creating a phobia as it should it instead causes people to want the experience, sort of like masochism. I am talking out of my ass at this point but I believe that it might be a byproduct of how our nerves form associations, in a neural net for computing one of the things you desperately have to minimize are false results, if a neural net does the right choice but gets eliminated from a false result and replaced it destroys the association it encoded. If our nerves signal for fear yet the person feels a positive result due to sexual pleasure it might damage the association those nerves created, like how you feel fear at getting into a hot bathtub due to burning your foot until you test the temperature and find it comfortable and feel the fear go away. 

Crossdressing/trans: (innate) Even from a extremely young age (3-4) I wanted to wear my mothers stuff and try them on. Necklaces, heels, you name it I wanted it. Note this was not specifically my mothers as that was just what was available and this was long before I understood the concept of gender in any form. At the time the most I could have known about gender was the difference between mum and dad. This continues on to this day although I understand it, it is an innate sense more then anything else. In differing circumstances I would have transitioned but I realize that the process is far too damaging to bodily integrity and would be very difficult. I still enjoy in both sexual and normal form wearing swimsuits and skirts.

[Like Ra]

Another explanation:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk