- Is homosexuality a perversion?
All depends on the meaning you give to the word perversion! The culture influences human sexuality, and diverts its behaviors. The erotism would be then a diversion of reproduction function, like gastronomy a perversion of the food! All also depends on which point of view one is placed. Judge by yourself, the catholic church distinguishes two types of homosexual , the perverts, who live their tendency and the others who repress it and live in absolute chastity… The second type deserving still more than the first since it suffers more… On the psychological level, the true perverts are people who use the others with an only aim of satisfying their own vision of the world. One can be homosexual without being perverse, perverse without being homosexual.
Homosexuality however was regarded a long time as vice, a perversion, then a disease and today a state. At the time of Oscar Wilde, British writer, to evoke homosexuality one used a periphrasis: “the vice which does not dare to say its name”.

The English psychologist and sexologist Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), author of a famous bulky treaty in eight volumes, admits that he never has considered homosexuality like a disease, but he specifies that the public was not ready to consider it differently, and that it was perhaps a less evil.

In 1948, Alfred Kinsey, American academic, publish a study on the sexual life of his contemporaries. According to him, 10% of the male population would have had a homosexual experience at one moment of its life. (see the scale of Kinsey in our file about the bisexuality) This figure radically transform the perception of the things, and people imagine now that there are homosexuals everywhere! The senator Mac Carthy (who was probably an ashamed and frustrated homosexual) associates homosexuality with Communism and designates them as underhand and frightening enemies . However, in spite of repressions homosexuality does finish being recognized, many celebrities “came out” and proudly assume their state.

- Which definition would give to fetishism?

When part of the body, or an object which evokes it carry a love symbolic, and becomes essential to the erotic activity, one speaks then about Fetishism. In his book “l’enfance d’un chef”, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote: “All can be object of sexual desire, a sewing machine, a test-tube, a horse, a shoe.” Fetishism returns us to worship and adulation.

The sexual fetishist transforms an object into an object of worship, if this one is related to an erotic experiment. There are various degrees in fetishism, that can go from a taste for certain accessories or an erotic preference for part of the body, to a kind of addiction; consequently, the sexual intercourse is not possible except in the fetish presence, or even use the fetish like sexual partner…

What are the main characteristics of fetishism?
Fetishism seems to give more importance to the object of its worship than to the relation with the human being… If your partner adulates your hair, and only it, that give the impression not to exist completely, you feel to some extent parceled out, or reduced to the state of object… Fetishism also returns us to childhood behaviors. The child is centered on its own experiment, and live in a sort of border world, compared to adults world. The “teddy bear” is a fetish, that symbolizes an adult warm, loving and reassuring presence. The fetish makes it possible to reduce the object of the attachment, which becomes thus easy to handle, knowing that the beloved being can also indirectly generate fear: fear of being unable to behave according to his requirements, fear of being rejected, etc…

- We recently observed a fetishist “ liberation” fetishist To be fetishistic is fashioned, fetishism is posted today shameless in the newspapers, the street, in the fashion…What do you think about this?

The fashion and tribes world in post modern societies use many fetishistic codes. It is a question of marking its membership. However, we also can see conformism in this fashionable passion. Indeed, only fetishisms relating to objects with the mode are visible, and possess these fetishes often requires big means: leather, shoes, beautiful linen, branded clothing. Fashion loves fetishism for it strongly stimulates the desire to own an object, preferably expensive, with powerful capacity of identification. A fetishist of the floorcloth does not interest marketing and the massive media use of fetishism comes to weaken its attractiveness . Fashion shows a certain idea of fetishism reduced to some expressions carefully selected. True fetishism is apart from these standards.

Is fetishism is necessarily sexually connoted ?
Even if the sexual aspect is not directly explicit, fetishism appears generally carrying a strong erotic dimension. Indeed, the fetishist allots to various objects a real erotic value. The fetish then represents a phantasm and a powerful stimulating sexual desire means.

Is homosexuality a form of fetishism?

Fetishism can be present in any erotic relationship , homosexual or not. Iiving one’s homosexuality means to assume one’s erotic preference for people of the same sex as oneself, if one could underline the narcissistic aspects of homosexuality, that does not imply that the homosexual are because of that more fetishistic than heterosexual or bisexual ones. Being fetishistic, consists in choosing a “object” of the desire !

Worship and adulation object: the body. Here, clothes play a double role, first they act as visual fetish for the partner, and as a feeling one for the wearer.

- Do you think that there is a typically gay form of fetishism ? Which form of fetishism is typically gay?
There is doubtless a “gay culture” with its codes, its values, its icons. The gays can put in scene this culture very well besides while going to the caricature if one judges of it on the “gay pride” demonstrations . But between the intimate sphere of the erotic relationship and the image of oneself which one shows, there is an important shift. The worship of the body like body building, and body art, are very frequent in the gays as in others. The fetishism of the uniform, that of leather and the muscles belongs to the “gay” culture, but one them also meet in the heterosexuals.

Clearly, gay culture should not be reduced to these narrow minded point of vue...

http://www.media-g.net/

Fascinating bodies of "Stadium Gods" This calendar is a rather explicit case of  body fetishism use.

According to Freud fetishism would be an exclusively heterosexual perversion, do you agree with this thesis?
At the time of Freud, the concept of sexual perversion covered the majority of practices different from the Judeo Christian standards for sexuality. Thus, all that could have been related with the erotic pleasure was quickly classified as perversion. Freud largely took as a starting point the work of Alfred Binet (1857-1911) who put forward the importance of the first erotic invested experience, which consequently becomes a reference. It is also necessary to make the distinction between the perversion which prohibits any other form of erotic expression, and the fetishistic behaviors which stimulate the excitation but do not exclude more traditional practices.

Is fetishism exclusively male? How do you explain that men are prompter than women to adopt a fetishistic behavior?
According to Freud indeed, fetishism would be exclusively masculine and would come to compensate the fear female sex discovered causes, he writes: “Probably no male can escape to feel the terror of castration when he sees the female genital. For which reasons this impression led it some in becoming homosexual and others in self protecting by the creation of a fetish, while the enormous majority overcomes this fear that, certainly, we cannot say it.” This position must be interpreted in its context ; today, the “gender studies” that take place in the intellectual north American circles bring a different lighting on the sex and the gender.

Question of sexuality levels

What it is also necessary to know, it is that the men and the women are not always located at the same level of sexuality and that could explain the difference of their respective behaviors and in particular regarding fetishism. While the men function on an instinctual and compulsive level of sexuality, the women seek more relational fusion. The instinctual level reflect a hormonal climate, the compulsive level seeks to satisfy a need, it is the same step as in the masturbation. Many people do not reach the relational level of sexuality, the sexual intercourse between partners is only a form of masturbation. The desire can be started by an image, a phantasm, but do not require an investment in love. The relational level of sexuality brings into play feelings, its mechanism is more complex, and requires a climate of love and confidence.

Do you think that fetishism is better tolerate in the gay community than in heterosexual?
All depends on which fetishism… As long as one remains in relatively conformist behaviors, and that partners are agreeing adults, fetishism does not cause any problem. In a very general way, sex is with the mode, it is necessary to be sexy and the society establishes criteria to identify sex appeal. Everyone is concerned. A community represents a whole of people who share certain features, tendency, ethnicity group, membership… The homosexual ones were a long time constrained to hide, they thus developed a particular sensitivity to defend their difference. From this point of view, one can indeed think that it fetishism is more easily accepted in the gays.

advertisment picture for Calvin Klein, many homosexual references are explicit, both in bodies postures and acessories.

Nowadays, it seems easier to live one’s homosexuality than express fetishistic desires?
If it is indeed easier “to come out” today in France, it is far from being the case everywhere in the world, in many countries the homosexual ones are not allowed to freely live their sexuality. If on a side, the sex is merchadised with excess, other, hypocrisy reigns, and there is a true sexual misery. People know very well that sexuality in the real life is very different from the images that media widely show. Many is satisfied with a relatively dull life sexual, in which creativity does not take place. In such a context, one understands that it can be difficult to express a fetishistic request. Who dares speech of his fetishistic desires must overcome the fear of being rejected or being considered as abnormal. Who receives the request fears to be reduces to the status of object and not to be loved for himself, but just to even serve as a pretext for sexual plays for which he does not necessarily share his partner’s interest. .

Brokeback Mountain, (January 2006)directed by Ang Lee, describes two gays who hide their painfully their love in a so correct psychosocial environment . Is it really easy to come out?

The uniform fetishism is often supposed to be born in hardly homophobic professional environments, is it true? Would the uniform fetishism be related to a sadomasochistic phantasm?

It is an very largely widespread idea indeed which undoubtedly comes from pitiless hunting to which were delivered the British and American armies “to flush out” the homosexual ones. It is indeed known of long date, that the homosexual behaviors frequently happen between individuals of the same sex when they are constrained to live all together, as it is the case in the army, boarding schools, monasteries…

post card showing sailorsmen dancing together

The uniforms exert an intense erotic fascination on certain people, men or women. The uniform represents the power, the force, the imposing presence when it is about the costume of a soldier, a police officer, of a fireman, even of an ecclesiastic. That is why it can cause powerful stimulating sexual desire. But the uniform or the professional clothes also allows to play of the roles: nurse, doctor, but also waitress or schoolgirl. Wearing the uniform, the fetishist can then behave in ways which he prohibits in the real life… There are as many fetishisms as uniforms. So for a long time, the homosexuals were made fun as effeminate men, that was not the case at all the times. Muscular bodies, uniforms, exacerbated virility does not necessarily belong to homophobes environments, quite to the contrary. Because it offers a means of transgression usual social rules on an erotic mode, the fetishism of the uniform can be a part of domination/submission phantasms, or of sadomasochism.

Which is the difference between fetishism and sadomasochism?
In fetishism, it is an object or part of the body which causes the sexual excitation. In sadomasochism they are feelings: like the pain, the constraint, the immobilization, the sensory deprivation which leads to the sexual excitation. There is certainly a share of fetishism in sadomasochism, related on the accessories and the decorum, while in fetishism, it can exist a share of submission to an idealized partner considered as a goddess and represented by the fetish.
Now, it is a little simplistic to associate sadism and masochism. Let us have a look at the origins, i.e. the character, DAF de Sade lived most of his life in prison, and was regarded as a criminal. At the XXst century, he has been rediscovered and the intellectuals allotted to him of a reputation of revolutionist of the ideas, and a “Master” of philosophical dispute… Sacher Masoch which gave its name to the masochism was for its part a man integrated socially, married perfectly, father of family, exerting a trade. he lived his erotic tendancies without that making scandal.

Are the majority of fetishisms dedicated to female body or to purely female accessories? Does the male version exists also?
Of course, for example, the fetishism of the military uniform returns more to the male body. Any part of the body or accessory can become a fetish. The sociologist Francisco Alberoni in his book “Le choc amoureux” reports that certain women feel sexual desire when they iron the linen of their companion… It is rather characteristic to see that today many women choose to offer to their “darling” sexy underclothing…

How do you explain that one could feel pleasure enduring pain?
Certain people need to experience a strong sensation to be sexually stimulated, all is a question of threshold. Scourging is known since Greek and Roman Antiquity like powerful stimulating the sexual heat, this treatment belonged to the brothels menu during centuries… But it is a question of personal threshold. What is voluptuous for certain is unbearable for others. In addition, there is a challenge to overcome the pain, and that returns an image of personal power, and courage…

The body becomes a toy in the partners hands, pleasure ways could be unusual...

Which could be the origins of fetishism?
The origins of fetishism dive deep roots in the personal history, in emotional experiences. The majority of the children privilege a fetish object whose contact reassures them, but they do not become fetishistic for as much. It is more at the time of the first erotic agitations that is built a mental context in which some objects become fetishes. Any object which was in contact with loved and desired partner, or which symbolizes him (her) because they evoke the desire is a potential fetish. The fetish plays a part of anchoring, it brings back to a feeling, with an erotic excitation, and if the person tends to self isolate , fetishism develops and takes more or less importance. Cultural determinisms play also an important part, an abject that seems erotic for certain leaves others perfectly indifferent.

Does programs of care to cure fetishism exist?

While seeking well, one must be able to find some. There are for example associations which claim to come to end from the fact that one names of the “addictions to the sex”. The human beings are characterized by their adaptability, and their aptitude to be learned. If it is admitted that fetishism is a tendency which is acquired and discussed, it is possible also to be released some…

Is it necessary to cure fetishism? Is is a question of threshold?
Fetishism poses problem only if the person cannot manage to live his sexuality without the fetish. It is generally relational difficulties which lead people to want to liberate from their fetishism. As of this moment, fetishism will be interpreted like a symptom, while hitherto it was a behavior, a taste, a tendency. Sexology does not cure one’s personality, but can help to better accept oneself and reach balanced relationship between partners. The glance of the others, the fear of exclusion are generally more frightening than fetishism…

What about commercial use of fetishism?
I am not a sociologist, I simply observe that commercial recovery standardizes sex by treating it like a product for human consumption. The large merchant advantage of fetishism is to make dream. We live in a world which, as opposed to what one believes, does not facilitate dating, and even less the meetings in love. The fetish then plays the part of a substitution object… Early or late, it will however be necessary to cope with reality.