When I tell people I’m researching sexual fetishes, they often tell me their theory about what causes them, but I’ve found myself consistently disappointed at how simplistic they are. I hear that fetishes are caused by childhood anxiety, or childhood exposure, or are a psychological attempt to regain control. My sense is that the answer is probably gonna look closer to like “all of the above, sometimes, depending”.
The phrasing you use around hormones fits with how I think about my own interests. For example, I might find women's feet attractive simply because they're a part of the body I don't get to see 8 months out of the year in Canada, as long as they're not hideous, and because I have a high sex drive hormone profile. I could look for a narrative about that, but what does it matter?
As I did your last survey, I realized that most of the things that got my score so high aren't true die-hard fetishes that I need to be satisfied, but things I'm in to because I'm in to nearly everything. Kind of similar to how I don't have a physical type of partner because I'm in to almost everyone for different reasons.
My fetish priors
The phrasing you use around hormones fits with how I think about my own interests. For example, I might find women's feet attractive simply because they're a part of the body I don't get to see 8 months out of the year in Canada, as long as they're not hideous, and because I have a high sex drive hormone profile. I could look for a narrative about that, but what does it matter?
As I did your last survey, I realized that most of the things that got my score so high aren't true die-hard fetishes that I need to be satisfied, but things I'm in to because I'm in to nearly everything. Kind of similar to how I don't have a physical type of partner because I'm in to almost everyone for different reasons.