YPA: Your Privacy Assured/YPA.ISO/text/fetish.txt

Text File | 1995-01-19 | 5KB | 76 lines

A CHILDHOOD FEAR TURNED FETISH
I am 60, strongly heterosexual, handsome I am told, divorced ten years after a
very successful 29 year marriage which died of inattention, both mine and hers.
There are three grown children, all normal and taking care of themselves.  So,
with all this normalness, what's the problem?  Well, there is no problem.  I
simply submit this narrative as evidence that fetishism can be (and probably is)
a part of every "normal" life, although my reading on the subject suggests that
it is probably stronger among males than among females.

Not being a psychologist, any analysis I might make herein is based on a
layman's interest and hinges purely on the reading I have done over the years.
I have never seen a reference to the fetish I am about to describe in any
literature from Havelock Ellis to Psychology Today.  Thus a forum member might
just find himself here and come away happier in the knowledge that he is not
alone and discard the notion that he might be some kind of a "freak".

Based upon the well established fact that fetishes are imbedded in the
subconscious during early childhood, perhaps even in infancy, I will recollect
some early experiences.

I distinctly recall a strong fear, as a child, of any sudden impending
explosion, e.g. a magician on the stage about to fire a gun, a clown with a
gadget that I knew was going to explode before the act was over, a chum
inflating a balloon, etc.  My two older brothers easily observed my panic at
these times and when they were in a mood to tease me they would exploit my
terror accordingly, as big brothers will do.  I fully understand that this fear
is very common among children.  The only little detail I might add is that the
terror was greatly enhanced if I did not know WHEN the explosion would take
place.  In fact I had no fear whatsoever of firecrackers or any situation that
was in my own complete control.  The uncertainty seems to have been the key.

Beginning at about age 10-12, puberty, I began to be fascinated with toy
balloons.  I knew nothing, of course, of fetishism.  At this time, the early
fear was still there, but was strangely accompanied by sexual arousal.  I still
recall several birthday parties at which my pals blew up balloons for fun.  It
was at this stage that I realized there was an association with attractive
girls.  The most powerful arousal I can remember was at such a party where an
aggressive girl whom I liked very much inflated a large balloon until it popped.
I held my ears, as did everyone else, and was glad that no one paid any
attention to me and my intense arousal.  That experience remains in my conscious
mind even today!  Over the teen years, I had a variety of experiences which very
certainly established the toy balloon as a fetish for me.  I recall watching
dime store clerks (female) blow up balloons at the toy counter while I pretended
to browse, trying to talk my girlfriend into blowing one up "just for fun".
Actually any such experience served as a masturbation fantasy later in the
privacy of my bedroom.  The combination of fear and arousal remained, although
in every case the latter predominated.  Fear made the adrenalin flow and arousal
raised the blood pressure, a delicious combination.

I was not sexually active in my teens and my wife was the first real-life
experience I had had.  I think she probably knew of my quirk, but never at any
time showed any signs of exploiting it.  Oh, what a thrill it might have been
for her to blow up a balloon for us as part of our foreplay!  Remember, this was
prior to the sexual revolution when no one talked about such "unnatural" things
as fetishes.  I am convinced that such plain talk about our secret fantasies
might have prevented our marriage from becoming stale.

In the past ten years, I have had two lovers and each of them was receptive to
the idea of exchanging fantasies.  This, of course, has been fantastic for me in
two ways.  First I am able to indulge in my own "live" fantasy which, by the
way, is every bit as exciting as it is in my dreams and also am able to give my
partner her wants and desires.  One of them thought all of this was kind of
silly but the other really got into it.  We "took turns" pleasing each other.
Unfortunately, she and I are not compatible in too many other ways and are not
willing to commit our lifetimes to each other.

So, what have we here?  I believe that the perfectly normal childhood fear of
unanticipated pops and bangs transformed itself into a powerful sexual fetish
which remains in my subconscious today at age 60.  The intense fear has greatly
subsided but the arousal remains.  I am long past the stage of believing that I
am "unusual" because any student of psychology will ask you to name an inanimate
object and will then tell you that someone somewhere in the world is possessed
by that object as a sexual fetish.  Any comments??