One thing that might be worth breaking out is sex differences vs sexual orientation differences. For instance, feet are a male-skewed interest, but at least in my data when I broke it out by sexual orientation, straight men and lesbian women scored higher than gay men and straight women respectively. So feet might be a gynephilic interest, more than a male interest per se.
I think this is actually a misleading way to look at the data because it implies that people don't like very taboo fetishes very much. This may be true when you average it, but the truth is that it's almost certainly bimodal. People who don't practice necrophila or scat probably find it very distasteful, but the people who do practice these more extreme fetishes presumably like them very much, or how else would they overcome the taboo? Not sure if bimodality is quite as pronounced on the other end, with less taboo fetishes. Are "skirts" way up there because a few people like them very much, or because many people like them a moderate amount?
This is super interesting. Two data points surprised me in their lack of popularity and their gender composition, to the point that I wonder if they might get different results if phrased differently - specifically "older people" and "very overweight people." My sense is that you might get a lot more women for "older men" or "daddy", and a lot more men for "BBW".
Yeah, the phrasing on these gives the impression that they might be outside of Aellas' area of experience. I agree with you - the current phrasing of those two is awkward, and if the phrasing were changed, "BBW" would be higher and bluer, while "daddy" would be higher and redder.
I have no idea what most of the graph is and needed to visit urban dictionary many times to make head or tail of it; so much of it is a bizarre realm of strange and exotic terms. ("Oviposition?" There are people out there who like that? As in, "Ooh, I'm laying my eggs in your ear canal, ooh, the nematodes are hatching, oh God, they're slithering into your brain?") But I've known actual, real life people who were into "BBW" and "Daddy."
Interesting. As a bisexual, I had no problem with the phrase "older people", but I can see how straights would respond better to an appropriately gendered phrase. To do better, you'd need multiple questions for each fetish, phrased differently. Is there a community interested in BBMs? Probably, but then I wonder why that acronym isn't a thing.
I'm gonna take a guess it just wasn't part of the survey: Legalizing, regulating and healthcare access for, sex workers. My guess is that most ppl would support this, a lot of people would be into participating in the subsequent industry (either as worker or client), yet it's something not many would ever admit publicly which makes it very taboo? Idk, maybe it's a stretch.
I mean, if we're gonna get technical, many of these taboos aren't fetishes if we go by the "sexual arousal triggered by objects or non-sexual parts of the body" definition. The idea of sex being transactional is taboo and I would imagine there are men aroused by the idea of only needing to have $ to receive sex, in a way, buying themselves out of the efforts needed to seem charming, flirtatious, alpha dominant, or even nice. Many people say money is a means to freedom. Maybe to some it's a path to sexual freedom which they fetishize?
Prostitution is a path to sexual freedom, but if we want to call it a fetish, the definition needs to be expanded as I described above. I think it's the sexualization of money exchange that makes it a fetish. But maybe a rush upon handing over the cash is a conditioned response, anticipating the freedom you describe. In that case, I might get closer to Vincent's claim that prostitution is not _mainly_ a fetish.
Disagree. Prostitution can be a form of power exchange fetish. Many people would refuse sex offered freely because they prefer the clear power dynamics of prostitution. Prohibition of sex work adds extra layers to these power dynamics. Serial killers presumably target sex workers for practical reasons, but non-serial killers might prefer that sex work stay illegal so that sex workers remain appealingly vulnerable.
You're definitely right. I think many men have fetish of buying sex, else way how explain popularity of sex cams? I personally don't understand why men pay lots of money for low quality cybersex instead of just watching high quality porn for free on any tube site. They must have some incentive to get exactly what they pay for live on cam that they value more than just naked womans body. And if it's a case there must be the same for rl sexwork too. Not that everyone who pay for sex has fetish of it, but I believe there are many who would choose paid sex over regular one. Same for the women - playing sexworker may be their fetish too.
I think camming is a mix of power exchange fetish and simple convenience. Some customers might want intimacy from dating but are two lazy or socially unskilled to do it, so they use camming as an alternative to obtain intimacy (not a fetish?). Models are always available, and they disappear as soon as you're done with them. But the tipping structure of the sites also allows a customer to "remote control" the model for a very reasonable price, making it very similar to contactless prostitution.
I've turned down a lot of women in my life, and I was a militant agnostic going all the way back to college. Now add the number of born again Evangelicals, devout Catholics, and sincere Muslims out there who wouldn't touch this blog with a ten foot pole, and you'll see there are *plenty* of men who would decline free sex.
The take is these men refusing free sex would instead prefer paid sex. I'm sure all the religious out there would 100% prefer prostitution to free sex, yeah yeah.
I was of course refering to men generally open to sex, obviously. Monks and devouts do exist, for some reason. But I'm pretty sure they generally don't answer to the definition of "prefering the clear power dynamics of prostitution", although some of them might because fuck logic.
It really depends on your definition of fetish. WebMD has "A fetish is sexual excitement in response to an object or body part that's not typically sexual, such as shoes or feet," and wikipedia has "sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part."
Granted, these definitions may be too strict; after all, Aella included "cunnilingus" and "masturbating," which some readers just might have noticed involve body parts that genuinely are sexual. For what it's worth, I'd be interested to see where the results for "prostitution" fell. (Purplish-blue towards the middle?)
I think you might be able to get better data by doing a comparative ranking. You can compute more clearly which things are preferred/ranked as more taboo in a more natural way (though it would require some more processing and maybe a little bit of thinking about how to optimally deploy questions).
Any chance you can split this into 2 graphs? 1) what women have expressed interest in 2) what men have expressed interest in. And please split choking into "choking - receiving" and "choking - giving" (giving is not exactly the appropriate term here. More like attacking?)
Hi, a Blind person here. Would be great if you can make this chart in more accessible in alttext or alternatively create linked rich text format of all fetishes with descriptions and some background information. Can be a good learning base for people to contribute.
One consideration is whether the strong negative association between tabooness and popularity could be _partly_ driven by people being less willing to express interest in fetishes to the extent that they believe they are taboo.
It could be interesting to include some things which might help test/account for this in future iterations (rot13'd in case you don't want people to know what the measures are for):
- Vapyhqr fbpvny qrfvenovyvgl zrnfherf
- Onlrfvna Gehgu Frehz (tbbtyrnoyr) / nfx guveq-crefbany dhrfgvbaf (ubj znal crbcyr qb lbh guvax ner vagrerfgrq va k)
Guvf znl erdhver fbzr vaqvivqhny yriry qngn gubhtu (v.r. nfxvat vaqvivqhnyf nobhg obgu nobhg vagrerfg va k naq gnobbarff bs k engure guna whfg ybbxvat ng nttertngr pbeeryngvbaf.
Could you say more about how you "did factor analysis... to find out the most predictive items to include"? The way I would have imagined a factor analysis working would to looking at associations within the set of taboo items, to see how they load onto different factors and how those factors relate to each other. But then I'm not sure why that would be finding the "most predictive" items to include.
One thing that might be worth breaking out is sex differences vs sexual orientation differences. For instance, feet are a male-skewed interest, but at least in my data when I broke it out by sexual orientation, straight men and lesbian women scored higher than gay men and straight women respectively. So feet might be a gynephilic interest, more than a male interest per se.
The different symbols for each data point might have been meant to shed light on this, but honestly I don't understand what the symbols mean.
This is incredible. Some of your best work. There's so many themes and groupings that can be seen here, and very easily too. Nice job!
PS it would be great to have an interactive version of this where one can filter the results based on various criteria! Maybe v4.0? 👉🏻👈🏻
Did you mean to say r = -0.75 (negative correlation)?
yess
I think this is actually a misleading way to look at the data because it implies that people don't like very taboo fetishes very much. This may be true when you average it, but the truth is that it's almost certainly bimodal. People who don't practice necrophila or scat probably find it very distasteful, but the people who do practice these more extreme fetishes presumably like them very much, or how else would they overcome the taboo? Not sure if bimodality is quite as pronounced on the other end, with less taboo fetishes. Are "skirts" way up there because a few people like them very much, or because many people like them a moderate amount?
Could also be r^2
This is super interesting. Two data points surprised me in their lack of popularity and their gender composition, to the point that I wonder if they might get different results if phrased differently - specifically "older people" and "very overweight people." My sense is that you might get a lot more women for "older men" or "daddy", and a lot more men for "BBW".
Yeah, the phrasing on these gives the impression that they might be outside of Aellas' area of experience. I agree with you - the current phrasing of those two is awkward, and if the phrasing were changed, "BBW" would be higher and bluer, while "daddy" would be higher and redder.
I have no idea what most of the graph is and needed to visit urban dictionary many times to make head or tail of it; so much of it is a bizarre realm of strange and exotic terms. ("Oviposition?" There are people out there who like that? As in, "Ooh, I'm laying my eggs in your ear canal, ooh, the nematodes are hatching, oh God, they're slithering into your brain?") But I've known actual, real life people who were into "BBW" and "Daddy."
Yeah, I had to look up that one too. Must be a close cousin to impregnation fetish.
Interesting. As a bisexual, I had no problem with the phrase "older people", but I can see how straights would respond better to an appropriately gendered phrase. To do better, you'd need multiple questions for each fetish, phrased differently. Is there a community interested in BBMs? Probably, but then I wonder why that acronym isn't a thing.
Interesting that the top right corner is empty. Basically there is nothing which has a high taboo rating and high interest rating.
I'm gonna take a guess it just wasn't part of the survey: Legalizing, regulating and healthcare access for, sex workers. My guess is that most ppl would support this, a lot of people would be into participating in the subsequent industry (either as worker or client), yet it's something not many would ever admit publicly which makes it very taboo? Idk, maybe it's a stretch.
it's also not a fetish
I mean, if we're gonna get technical, many of these taboos aren't fetishes if we go by the "sexual arousal triggered by objects or non-sexual parts of the body" definition. The idea of sex being transactional is taboo and I would imagine there are men aroused by the idea of only needing to have $ to receive sex, in a way, buying themselves out of the efforts needed to seem charming, flirtatious, alpha dominant, or even nice. Many people say money is a means to freedom. Maybe to some it's a path to sexual freedom which they fetishize?
Prostitution is a path to sexual freedom, but if we want to call it a fetish, the definition needs to be expanded as I described above. I think it's the sexualization of money exchange that makes it a fetish. But maybe a rush upon handing over the cash is a conditioned response, anticipating the freedom you describe. In that case, I might get closer to Vincent's claim that prostitution is not _mainly_ a fetish.
Disagree. Prostitution can be a form of power exchange fetish. Many people would refuse sex offered freely because they prefer the clear power dynamics of prostitution. Prohibition of sex work adds extra layers to these power dynamics. Serial killers presumably target sex workers for practical reasons, but non-serial killers might prefer that sex work stay illegal so that sex workers remain appealingly vulnerable.
You're definitely right. I think many men have fetish of buying sex, else way how explain popularity of sex cams? I personally don't understand why men pay lots of money for low quality cybersex instead of just watching high quality porn for free on any tube site. They must have some incentive to get exactly what they pay for live on cam that they value more than just naked womans body. And if it's a case there must be the same for rl sexwork too. Not that everyone who pay for sex has fetish of it, but I believe there are many who would choose paid sex over regular one. Same for the women - playing sexworker may be their fetish too.
I think camming is a mix of power exchange fetish and simple convenience. Some customers might want intimacy from dating but are two lazy or socially unskilled to do it, so they use camming as an alternative to obtain intimacy (not a fetish?). Models are always available, and they disappear as soon as you're done with them. But the tipping structure of the sites also allows a customer to "remote control" the model for a very reasonable price, making it very similar to contactless prostitution.
So your take is... many men would refuse free sex ? Like, on planet Earth ?
Because power dynamics don't exist if it's not illegal or there's no money involved ? Like, on planet Earth ?
I've turned down a lot of women in my life, and I was a militant agnostic going all the way back to college. Now add the number of born again Evangelicals, devout Catholics, and sincere Muslims out there who wouldn't touch this blog with a ten foot pole, and you'll see there are *plenty* of men who would decline free sex.
The take is these men refusing free sex would instead prefer paid sex. I'm sure all the religious out there would 100% prefer prostitution to free sex, yeah yeah.
I was of course refering to men generally open to sex, obviously. Monks and devouts do exist, for some reason. But I'm pretty sure they generally don't answer to the definition of "prefering the clear power dynamics of prostitution", although some of them might because fuck logic.
Sorry, 'many' was the wrong word. The point was that at least some men would prefer paid sex over free sex, so therefore, prostitution is a fetish.
I guess so, but in that case basically everything can be a fetish.
I think Aella's point is prostitution is not _mainly_ a fetish.
It really depends on your definition of fetish. WebMD has "A fetish is sexual excitement in response to an object or body part that's not typically sexual, such as shoes or feet," and wikipedia has "sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part."
Granted, these definitions may be too strict; after all, Aella included "cunnilingus" and "masturbating," which some readers just might have noticed involve body parts that genuinely are sexual. For what it's worth, I'd be interested to see where the results for "prostitution" fell. (Purplish-blue towards the middle?)
This is a fantastic chart. So many little stories! Thanks for sticking it out and really polishing this.
This is fascinating. I had no idea some of these things were kinks. Executions? How interesting.
And Zombies!
Yes. I want to know more about the zombies.
Is the chart trying to tell us that romance and blowjobs are besties? ;-)
It also proves that Doms are the limiting factor for BDSM.
The male/female interest ratio for masturbation is inverted from what I would expect.
Zombies?
I think you might be able to get better data by doing a comparative ranking. You can compute more clearly which things are preferred/ranked as more taboo in a more natural way (though it would require some more processing and maybe a little bit of thinking about how to optimally deploy questions).
Where can I find Autofellatio on the Graph?
Also couldn't find the related Autocunnilingus
Any chance you can split this into 2 graphs? 1) what women have expressed interest in 2) what men have expressed interest in. And please split choking into "choking - receiving" and "choking - giving" (giving is not exactly the appropriate term here. More like attacking?)
Hi, a Blind person here. Would be great if you can make this chart in more accessible in alttext or alternatively create linked rich text format of all fetishes with descriptions and some background information. Can be a good learning base for people to contribute.
One consideration is whether the strong negative association between tabooness and popularity could be _partly_ driven by people being less willing to express interest in fetishes to the extent that they believe they are taboo.
It could be interesting to include some things which might help test/account for this in future iterations (rot13'd in case you don't want people to know what the measures are for):
- Vapyhqr fbpvny qrfvenovyvgl zrnfherf
- Onlrfvna Gehgu Frehz (tbbtyrnoyr) / nfx guveq-crefbany dhrfgvbaf (ubj znal crbcyr qb lbh guvax ner vagrerfgrq va k)
Guvf znl erdhver fbzr vaqvivqhny yriry qngn gubhtu (v.r. nfxvat vaqvivqhnyf nobhg obgu nobhg vagrerfg va k naq gnobbarff bs k engure guna whfg ybbxvat ng nttertngr pbeeryngvbaf.
analisussy
tfw your kink is high-taboo, low-interest :\
Thanks for doing this!
Could you say more about how you "did factor analysis... to find out the most predictive items to include"? The way I would have imagined a factor analysis working would to looking at associations within the set of taboo items, to see how they load onto different factors and how those factors relate to each other. But then I'm not sure why that would be finding the "most predictive" items to include.