Sweat Worship, Armpit Love, & Fart Porn: How Kink Taught Me to Embrace Being Gross

Armpits ahoy! Photo by Cadence Lee back in 2017

Here’s un petit peek behind the Girly Juice curtain: when I’m asked to write a sponsored post for a client, usually there’s a particular “anchor phrase” I’m supposed to incorporate as a link. I use these client-provided phrases as my jumping-off point for brainstorming topics that could include them.

In this case, the client’s requested anchor phrase was “fart porn” (more on that later), and I knew immediately that I wanted to write about being “gross” and how that idea fits in with the cultural conditioning I’ve received as a woman – plus the ways that kink has helped me work through some of these anxieties. Come with me on a smelly journey into the realm of fetishes often viewed with disgust by those who don’t have them, and even sometimes by those who do…

 

“Women are supposed to be clean”

It’s funny/horrible how often women are held to standards that are literally inhuman (especially the more heterosexist swathes of society). We’re not supposed to have opinions or speak our minds. We’re not supposed to have our own goals in life, unless they can be neatly tacked onto the goals of whatever man we end up married to. We’re not supposed to wear comfortable clothes, lest we look frumpy; to skip makeup, lest we look ugly; or to let our body hair grow out, lest we look… I dunno… like mammals? And we’re certainly not supposed to sweat, excrete, or smell less-than-fresh – ever. We’re basically supposed to be beautiful robots who never complain, never age, and always handle our own maintenance in private.

For reasons that should be self-evident, this infuriates me. While I personally don’t feel any particular pull toward, say, growing out my armpit hair, spouting a constant stream of toilet-humor jokes, or pumping iron at the gym til rivulets of sweat roll down my back, I nonetheless think it’s fucked up that men can do all of these things without anyone blinking an eye, but if a woman does them, she’ll be judged as a failure of femininity by many segments of society. Fuck off with that shit! Let women be people! Let women be gross!

 

Fetishism as a portal to empowerment

In 2017-2018, I briefly dated a lovely person who had many fetishes I’d never encountered in partners before, from knives to robots to mortal peril. (Shout-out to those of you who read that sentence and immediately knew exactly who I’m talking about, lol.) They were also into armpits, especially sweaty armpits, and specifically requested that I skip deodorant when we’d be hanging out, because they wanted to experience the natural smell of my sweat, and even wanted to lick the sweat from my armpits.

We discussed all of this and I was open to it – there was no coercion here whatsoever, just so we’re clear! But I’d be lying if I said I felt 100% fine about it. It’s always scary at first to rebel against the rules you’ve been taught your whole life, especially if you’ve been told over and over again that your desirability, loveability, and value as a person are contingent on following those rules to the letter.

I had barely even experienced my own natural sweat smell in many years, having started wearing antiperspirant religiously when puberty popped off in middle school. I was so terrified of being mocked by the other kids back then, the way I’d seen other kids get mocked (which sucks too – we have no idea what circumstances were going on in their life that led to them showing up to school unshowered!). I remember taking the train out to visit this new beau, and surreptitiously wiping the antiperspirant off my underarms with a wet napkin en route – and even just doing that made me feel gross, in a way, like I was wiping off my good-girl femininity.

But through subsequent sessions of decadent armpit worship (which feels better/is hotter than I had anticipated!), sexting about “gross” fetishes with that partner and some others that followed, and (yes!) occasionally checking out stuff like fart porn and dirty foot worship porn just to see what’s out there, I’ve learned that the very things we’re taught to find disgusting are things that some people love more than life itself.

Hell, just yesterday I saw a post on the /r/RandomActsOfMuffDive subreddit that said, “I’m looking for someone who has a strong-smelling pussy. If you are worried you stink, that’s what I’m looking for… Just want to smell you and share in your body. If you are nervous about the way you smell, I will like it.” I’ve heard from so many people that they worry their genitals smell bad/weird, and I imagine it could be affirming and even healing to hook up with someone who actually prefers whatever you’ve got going on. What a revelation!

 

Being gross now

I’ve been interviewed a lot about my sex life and relationships (among other things), and I’m often asked about the logistics of long-distance relationships, since I’ve been in one for over six years at this point. One thing I’ll often say in these interviews, in a jokey tone that belies how absolutely true it is, is that I really value how LDRs don’t require me to shower. If I’m having a tough time with depression and/or chronic pain, I’ll sometimes skip showers for 2-3 days, leaving me grimy and unshaved – and I love that being long-distance means I can do that without needing to worry about how it’ll affect my partner. After all, they can’t smell me during phone sex!

But it’s also affirming that sometimes they’ll ask me to send them a pair of my used panties in the mail, sealed up in a Ziploc to preserve the scent – or, when we’re physically together, they’ll sometimes huff my sweaty shirt or socks when undressing me before sex. There are definitely still times when this horrifies me on a visceral level – like, “No, don’t do that, you’re gonna find out I’m human!!” – but there are also times when it feels like unconditional love, because it kind of is. My partner adores me no matter how gross or clean I happen to be at any given moment, because they see me as a full person, not just a robot who’s failing to perform femininity the way she was programmed to.

Kinks are fun and hot, yeah – but they can also be healing. They can help you unlearn the old bullshit calcifying in the back of your brain, and replace it with stuff you actually believe – including, if you like, the belief that human bodies may be gross, but they’re also glorious, strange, and miraculous. I think that’s fucking beautiful.

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

5 of the Most Commonly Fetishized “Non-Sexual” Body Parts

Taken at the Gramercy Park Hotel in 2019

I find fetishes fascinating. It truly speaks to human ingenuity that we have found ways to get horny about all manner of things, from leather boots to mannequins to piss.

Some of the most commonly fetishized objects are body parts. While some features of human anatomy are so commonly fetishized as to escape the fetish label, such as breasts and butts, plenty of oft-lusted-after body parts are generally considered “non-sexual,” despite them carrying a sexual charge for many people.

I’ll refer to this study in choosing some body parts to tell you about in this post. Let’s get into it…

 

Feet

I mean, you probably knew this was gonna be the top item on this list. 47% of the fetishists in the study have a foot fetish; it’s often thought to be the most common “non-sexual” body part fetish.

Different people like feet for different reasons, ranging from the taboo of kissing and licking a “gross” or “dirty” body part, to the powerful imagery of kneeling to kiss a god(dess)’s feet. As for people who fetishize having their own feet touched in sexual ways, power play can be an element of that as well, as can the fact that the feet are just really damn sensitive.

Curious about this fetish? I go into it in more detail in my book 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do, and you can also read more here on a different website.

 

Hair

7% of study respondents fetishized hair. This can refer to body hair as well as hair on the head. Folks with this fetish may enjoy looking at, touching, and/or licking hair. This makes sense to me, seeing as our society places a lot of importance on hair as a marker of beauty and identity.

There are lots of subdivisions within this kink – some people only fetishize particular types or colors of hair, for example (“blondes have more fun,” anyone?), while some fetishize specific hair-related actions, like someone getting a haircut or having their head shaved. This is how I initially discovered this fetish online: a friend of mine shaved her head in high school and fetishists started swarming the photos I posted on Flickr…

 

Bellies and belly buttons

3% of the study’s respondents said they were into the midriff and/or specifically the belly button. They might enjoy staring at bellies, touching them, humping them, or engaging in activities that allow for belly-to-belly contact, like wrestling, or sex in the missionary position.

I find it really interesting and, honestly, healing that many belly fetishists prefer chubby bellies. As someone who’s always been nervous about whether my stomach is “too big” (despite liking to have it kissed and complimented in the bedroom), it makes me happy that there are plenty of people out there who would like it because it’s not flat!

 

Legs

2% of respondents mentioned being into the legs and/or buttocks. It’s a little strange that the researchers grouped these two body parts together like this, since the butt is usually seen as a directly sexual body part and the legs are not, but I guess it makes sense because the two are so closely connected.

Historically, legs were fetishized a lot in the Victorian era because men would so rarely see a woman’s legs (or even her ankles) under those long skirts. I find it fascinating how cultural norms can have such a huge effect on what people find sexy, even though fetishes are often described by those who have them as feeling inborn and unchangeable.

 

Lips and/or teeth

2% of study respondents said they were into lips, teeth, or the mouth in general. This fetish goes beyond just enjoying oral sex and may involve fixating on specific lip shapes, long tongues, sharp teeth, or any number of other mouth-related features.

The mouth can obviously be a highly sexual zone for many of us, and is packed with nerve endings, so this makes a lot of sense to me. I wonder if mouth fetishists can ever have orgasms just from being kissed…

 

What anatomical fetishes do you find most interesting or intriguing?

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

The Case of the Disappearing Safety Pin Fetish

Being a sex journalist whose work often has a psychological bent, I’ve read many a research study in my time. Usually I’m just combing these PDFs for facts to bolster my argument, but occasionally I find one so consumingly weird or interesting that I read the whole thing, agog – like that time I live-tweeted reading Dr. Chua Chee Ann’s groundbreaking study in which he “discovered” the anterior fornix.

I had one such experience recently when, combing through theories of fetish formation as research for a client project, I stumbled across a case study from 1954 detailing the wild woes of a man with an unusual fetish. Buckle up; let’s get into it…

The study opens by introducing us to our protagonist, a 38-year-old man who suffers from both epilepsy and a lifelong fetish for safety pins – specifically, “bright shiny” safety pins. I say “suffers” here not because fetishes are inherently bad (they’re not) but because his interferes with his relationship, as we’ll see later. In spite of this, he admits that looking at safety pins gives him what he calls a “thought satisfaction” that is “the greatest experience of his life – ‘better than sexual intercourse.'”

If you’re wondering where his epilepsy comes into all of this, here it is. The man, the study goes on to say, started to notice “blank periods” of memory when he looked at safety pins starting at around age 8, but because he would always retreat to the privacy of a bathroom before indulging in this carnal habit, no one ever actually observed him blanking out until his wife did when he was 23. On subsequent viewings, it became clear that looking at safety pins reliably brought on some kind of epileptic episode for this man: he would look at the pin for a minute, go glassy-eyed, make humming and sucking noises with his lips, and sometimes walk backwards “while his right hand plucked at his left sleeve.” For all this time, he would be unresponsive. Sometimes this type of episode also induced “postictal confusion” severe enough that he would dress himself in his wife’s clothing afterward, the study mentions offhandedly. (Was he into crossdressing too, or was he just disoriented?! The world may never know.)

To dig even more deeply into this poor man’s sex life… He most often felt the urge to look at a safety pin during “sexual stimulation and anxiety-producing situations,” which gels with my experience of my own kinks: I think about them when I’m turned on, sure, but also when I’m stressed out and seeking comfort. Occasionally he would have an epileptic fit of the aforementioned sort if he fantasized about safety pins during sex or masturbation, suggesting, interestingly, that it was the thought of pins moreso than the reality of them that induced these episodes. (But then, aren’t our kinks always “all in our heads,” fundamentally?) In classic 1954 fashion, the study notes, “Most frequently the fits occurred soon after awakening when, with a full bladder, adult sexual outlets were sought but refused by a frigid wife.” (Dude, you’d probably act “frigid” too if your husband had a unique fetish in a world lacking proper sex education and kink-positivity. Yeesh.)

Also standard for the 1950s, the study goes on to blame the man’s “over-affectionate mother” for him being “effeminate.” In the same section, it describes his childhood habit of collecting and playing with safety pins. Apparently, on one occasion, he clearly saw a safety pin in his mother’s discarded underclothes, an event which my inner fetish detective wants to guess is the origin of his kink, but we can never know for sure.

In detailing his sex life during adulthood – which is relevant insofar as a psychological “aberration” like a fetish is often only considered a problem if it causes the patient distress or impairment in their life – the study mentions that he has “voyeuristic tendencies, with emphasis on women’s breasts,” suggesting that he has at least some sexual interests outside of safety pins. However, it goes on to say that within the last five years he has increasingly suffered from impotence, “claiming that the safety pin had replaced his need for a genital outlet.” This, we might reasonably call an impairment – though it depends on your understanding of what a healthy sex life is, doesn’t it?

In any case, the epileptic fits (if not the fetish itself) had evidently caused the man sufficient distress that he sought treatment. (He’d also experienced a few episodes of psychosis, presumably epilepsy-related, in which he believed himself to be a relative of the king or a messenger of God.) After confirming epileptic activity with brain tests in the lab, both before and after showing him safety pins, doctors surgically removed the part of his anterior temporal lobe that the tests had determined were the problem area.

16 months after surgery, the man came back into the hospital for a follow-up. Amazingly, he reported he had had no further epileptic fits and no further desire to look at safety pins. His boner issues had even resolved; he was now able to have a full and satisfying sex life with his (frigid??) wife. Further brain tests were done and confirmed that, unlike before the surgery, nothing major changed in his brain activity when he looked at a safety pin. The fetish was effectively gone.

Reading this study left me with the question: Is it good – morally, practically, or otherwise – to take away someone’s fetish if it’s causing them consternation? Obviously there are cases where reducing or removing a particular aberrant desire is arguably necessary for the greater good, like when pedophiles with a history of committing sexual assault are chemically castrated; I’m not totally sure how I feel about these measures, but many healthcare professionals and even some pedophiles themselves think this is the best option. In cases where a fetish isn’t causing harm, however – or is only causing harm insofar as it’s stigmatized and creates friction in the fetishist’s relationships and/or self-image – can we really say it’s “good” to take away the locus of someone’s passionate desire?

Like the kinky equivalent of conversion therapy, many methods have been suggested for “removing” people’s kinks from their brains. But also like conversion therapy, it seems to me that this line of thinking only comes up because we live in a world that so deeply stigmatizes some people’s perfectly acceptable desires. Who is harmed by this man having a safety pin fetish? Maybe his wife, who wanted a better and more conventional sexual connection with her husband – but perhaps then she should’ve picked a different partner, or learned how to use his fetish to arouse him during sex. Maybe he himself is harmed, in that he felt inadequate and weird because of his fetish – but arguably that’s just a function of cultural kinkphobia. Both of these people were probably just trying their best, within a time period that severely limited the ways one could think about fetishism – but this attitude often still persists today, at a time when we’re much better-equipped to handle and think about fetishes, and it’s sad.

While I’m glad that the man in this study was seemingly cured of his epileptic episodes, I wish he had been able to hang onto his fetish – without it upsetting him or troubling his relationship. Looking at safety pins, after all, was “the greatest experience of his life,” even if he no longer cared to do it after his surgery. It saddens me to think that anyone could see that type of exquisite “thought satisfaction” as anything less than healthy, wonderful joy.

Winsome in White: Wedding Dress Fetish

A strapless white Betsey Johnson dress that makes me shriek

When I attended a cakesitting party, I theorized that perhaps the spark of lust some people feel from destroying a cake materializes because we put so much time and effort and emotional energy into cakes. Not just the making of them, but also the planning for them, presenting them, eating them. They’re the centerpiece of a traditional birthday party, and to destroy something so precious and so highly celebrated is an almost unfathomable taboo. It’s why, you’ll note, many big showy “Oh no!!” moments in movies culminate in a cake being tragically (and comically) destroyed.

Around the same time, I started wondering whether this taboo of destroying highly celebrated objects could extend to other types of celebrations. So, naturally, I typed “wedding dress fetish” into Google, thinking: what could be a more celebrated object than that?

Currently, that phrase brings up 41 results. In those results, you’ve got your brides merely expressing extreme enthusiasm about their dresses, sure, but you’ve also got an Experience Project page of men professing their lust for wedding dresses, porn clips of women giving blowjobs in floofy white frocks, and a review of a mystery novel about a serial killer who dresses all his victims in wedding gowns. It’s often said that humans can and will fetishize anything and everything you can think of, and this is no exception. One fetishist writes that a wedding dress is “the ultimate in femininity and the most ultimate dress anyone can own.” I can’t argue with that, except to add that the femininity being referred to here is, of course, a capitalist and conventional form of that gender expression, tied up in many different axes of historical oppression.

More broadly, some people have a “bride fetish” or a “bridal fetish,” which might focus on the dress but also might focus on the other trappings of a woman being wed: the white lingerie under the dress, the flawless makeup, the veil, the unattainability, the supposed virginity, or any number of other things. I’m most interested in the dress as a fetish object, though, especially after having read Laurie Essig’s book Love, Inc. where she dissects the vast psychological baggage we’ve placed on the wedding dress as a symbol. It’s right up there with crosses and the human heart in terms of the importance we heap onto it.

I spent some time in a bridal shop a couple years ago when I joined my friend’s wedding party. While I was trying on bridesmaid dresses – which are pretty much designed to make the wearer look unremarkable and plain, but in a pretty way – my friend kept swanning in and out of the dressing room in one gorgeous gown after another, commanding the room. I teared up almost every time she emerged in a new dress, because the effect of seeing someone you love – or even someone you hardly know! – in a dress that culturally weighted is powerful.

I didn’t experience that feeling as sexual, but I can easily see how someone could. Swathing yourself or a loved one in white tulle and satin could be a way of accessing what’s supposed to be the best day of your life, a day when you look and feel gorgeous, a day that we all winkingly acknowledge will probably end in romantic sex. It’s a day when everyone stares at you, when you’re the center of attention but no one gets mad at you for it, when you make promises that are supposed to be binding. There’s a lot in there that overlaps psychologically with concepts like exhibitionism and voyeurism, dominance and submission, and (especially when you factor in the corsets and high heels) sadism and masochism. It’s no wonder some people fixate on weddings and their trappings in a distinctly sexual way.

Apparently sometimes bridesmaids try on wedding gowns when the bride-to-be does, because “When in Rome” and all that – but I didn’t, when I was in that bridal boutique with my pal. It would’ve felt inappropriate to steal her thunder, but also there was something powerfully sacred about these dresses in my mind. I didn’t want to try one on until I had “earned” the right by getting engaged and actually being a bride-to-be, rather than just playacting as one. I knew seeing myself in a white gown would unleash a torrent of feelings I wasn’t ready to feel. So I zipped myself into my meek blue cocktail dress and tucked that desire away for another day.

I hope someday I have sex in a wedding gown, whether or not I actually got married that day, because I imagine there’s just nothing else quite like it. What else could be as decadent – besides sitting on a beautiful chocolate cake?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Links & Hijinks: Soaking, Rimming, & Writing

• Here’s why people have more sex in summer.

• Interesting: sex researchers have less sex than everyone else.

Paying for porn is the feminist way to get off. Hear hear!

• “There are two things I love eating: steak, and ass.” This piece on rimjobs is a delight.

• This as-told-to on the Mormon sex act of “soaking” (“No thrusting, no grinding, no climax. Just pop it in, and hold the fuck still”) is hilarious and fascinating. “There was always squirming on both of our parts but never any real thrusts. I guess squirming is technically moving, but it’s not like her preacher was reffing the event.”

• Useful tips for freelancers who work at home. (I am feeling this struggle harrrd lately!)

• On that note: freelancing can take a toll on your mental health.

• I’m a little tired of reading about sex robots, because I just don’t think they’re going to be the futuristic epidemic everyone claims they will be. But here’s an interesting piece about RealDolls.

• You know, I rarely link to erotica in these round-ups, but this brief tale about orgasm denial made me all tingly, so there you go.

• Maria Yagoda wonders: is period sex okay for a first-time hook-up? “As punishment for not menstruating, people who don’t should occasionally have to deal with some of the inconveniences of blood, blood everywhere. For this reason, period sex can seem like a feminist act, as it defies the societal expectation of women to hide, or be ashamed of, this awful fucking thing.”

• Sugarcunt has some great advice on writing sex toy reviews.

• Here’s a beginner’s guide to keeping a journal.

“Unusual” sexual desires are more common than we previously thought. Hmm!

• Emmeline reviewed an inflatable swan phallus we tried at Woodhull and it’s the funniest sex toy review I’ve read in ages.

Dating while depressed is difficult but doable.

• Mired in writer’s block? Alex Franzen has some topic suggestions for you.

• Brandon Taylor is such a beautiful writer. “There is a way in which people talk about domestic writing or personal writing that does not set itself on fire—they call it quiet. They call it still. They call it muted. As if there were anything quiet about relationships that go awry.”

Date ideas for stoners. The OkCupid blog has gotten weird and I’m into it.

“Porny sex” is still valid sex. You’re not a “bad feminist” if you enjoy things like pussy-slapping, “degrading” D/s, and messy blowjobs.

• Gosh, I adore the way Girl on the Net writes about sex. Her Ambit dildo review is wonderful: “I don’t want him to fuck me with this in a playful way or a quick way. I want to catch him when he’s in this focused mode: when he’ll not just use it to warm me up for a fuck, but really settle into the act of fucking me with it. Laying it out on the bed like he’s a surgeon aligning his equipment, then ordering me to strip off my knickers and lie still.”

• We need to stop supporting and protecting abusive men.

• Taryn busted some myths about asexuality.

• We don’t talk about dental dams enough, and it’s emblematic of a bigger problem.

• [Content warning for ableism.] Some people have a fetish for becoming disabled and go to great lengths to fulfill that fantasy. Apparently it may even have a legitimate neurological cause. Uh, wow…