Sexual fetishism

Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has a fetish for that object is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regarded as a non-pathological aid to sexual excitement, or as a mental disorder if it causes significant psychosocial distress for the person or has detrimental effects on important areas of their life. Sexual arousal from a particular body part can be further classified as partialism.

Definition

While medical definitions restrict the term sexual fetishism to objects or body parts, fetish can also refer to sexual interest in specific activities in common discourse.

Diagnosis

In order to be diagnosed as fetishistic disorder, the arousal must persist for at least six months and cause significant psychosocial distress or impairment in important areas of their life.

Types

Fetishes can involve body parts, such as breasts (mazophilia), buttocks (pygophilia), or feet (podophilia). They can also involve non-human objects, such as leather (leather fetishism) or latex (latex fetishism).

See also

• Paraphilia
• Body worship
• Foot fetishism
• Leather fetishism
• Latex and PVC fetishism
• List of paraphilias

Sexual fetishism Resources
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