Of all the unanswered questions in human sexuality, perhaps the one that puzzles me most is “Where do kinks and fetishes come from?” There are so many different explanations out there – several of which are scientifically supported – that it’s hard to come up with a unifying theory on the subject. Maybe our horny human minds are just too complex to be pinned down like that!
Part of the confusion stems from stigma – because, unfortunately, some people only ask “Where do kinks come from?” in an attempt to get rid of a fetish they’re ashamed of, or to gather psychological ammo for shaming a fetishist in their life. But with very few exceptions, those people can fuck right off.
Personally, I think the immense variety of kinks is worth celebrating, not suppressing – and so, when I’m wondering about the origins of kinks, it’s often in service of these two underlying questions: How can I lean into my partners’ kinks, and my own, in the most satisfying ways? And how can we gain even more new kinks to enjoy?
That last question has actually been addressed by science. Lemme tell you about it!
The rubber boots study
Fetish formation was studied way back in 1966 (yes, 60 years ago!!) by a researcher named S. Rachman at London’s Maudsley Hospital, who tried to induce a rubber boots fetish.
The study had just 3 participants, all “unmarried psychologists” and ostensibly cis straight men. They were shown images of “black, knee-length woman’s boots (a common fetishistic object)” in between slides of “attractive, naked girls,” with the idea being that sexual arousal from the nudes would be redirected onto the boots, creating a Pavlovian link between boots and pleasure. Arousal was tracked via a phallo-plethysmograph, a stretchy ring that goes around the penis and measures its bloodflow.
Rachman successfully induced a kink for boots in all three men, meaning that they got aroused from the boot pics even without a boob-based pre-show – although, interestingly, the study notes that all three participants experienced “spontaneous recovery” from the fetish just 4-7 days after gaining it, suggesting that kinks formed through deliberate association are probably weaker and more malleable than kinks that seem to arise spontaneously/without you doing anything to foster them.
This study was small and was conducted a long time ago, so it’s hard to extrapolate anything meaningful from it, but I think about it regularly nonetheless. I wonder if kinks formed in this Pavlovian way are like an initial spark when you’re trying to light a fire – they could grow into something blazingly bright and beautiful, but only if you keep ’em well-fuelled with firewood (erotic stimuli, fantasy, repetition) and protect them from the wind (shame, distraction, social and cultural pressures).
The penny jar study
Another study, published in the journal Behavior Modification in 1999 and conducted by Joseph J. Plaud and James R. Martini, used similar methods to the rubber boots experiment, in an attempt to induce a fetish for a jar of pennies. They arrived at the same outcome as the other study: there was “a significant increase in penile tumescence to a previously neutral stimulus that originally elicited no tumescence.”
Notably, the researchers tried different ways of ordering the stimuli – naked girls first and then pennies, and also the inverse – and found that this type of conditioning only works when you get horny and then encounter the thing you’re trying to fetishize. So if you’re looking to try this conditioning method in your own sex/kink life, think carefully about your order of operations when planning your sexy slideshow!
With its small sample size of just nine participants, this study doesn’t offer universal answers about how fetishes can be formed – in part because, as the authors themselves point out, “Only males have been studied in these experiments, which provides no data about patterns of sexual arousal in females” – but it’s interesting that both studies found we can pick up new kinks if we want to. What an inspiring fact for those of us who are always looking to expand our sexual horizons!
This study doesn’t comment on how long the participants’ fetishistic associations lasted, like the other one did, so it’s hard to say whether Pavlovian conditioning can actually create a long-term, enduring, capital-F Fetish in somebody. But at the very least, you could use these techniques to install a short-term arousal trigger, which might or might not linger after your scene is done. Could be a fun science experiment to try on your next date night… Let me know how it goes!
This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.