Type "Sneeze Fetish" into Wikipedia. There used to be a page. Now it's gone.

Type "List of Paraphilias" into Wikipedia. Here are a few fetishes listed:

Chronophilia: sexual attraction to a partner of a widely differing chronological age
Dacryphilia: sexual pleasure in eliciting tears from others or oneself
Forniphilia: sexual objectification in which a person's body is incorporated into a piece of furniture
Katoptronophilia: sexual arousal from having sex in front of mirrors
Narratophilia: sexual arousal in the use of dirty or obscene words to a partner
Scatophilia: sexual arousal from making obscene telephone calls as a form of exhibitionism
Zelophilia: sexual arousal from jealousy

Am I the only one who thinks this is weird? I'd never dream of these fetishes, but steruphilia (if that isn't a word, I just made it up) isn't respected. At the time I wrote this, there were 2,155 members on this forum, as well as 101,750 posts. Isn't it interesting how we aren't actually "respected?"

Actually, I believe a bunch of members here wanted the Wikipedia page gone. So, it isn't because of dis-respect, it's because a lot of people didn't like what was said in it. Also, a lot of people don't want this fetish "publicized" like that.

Really? Hm, I never thought of it like that. Sorry for wasting your time.

Yeah I think I like it better that the page isn't there anymore, I guess lot of other people felt that way too.

There was another thread about this quite recently, and I personally agree that it is a bit of an insult that they have decided we don't exist; despite the fact that they had a link here, It's not clear to me what written sources they accept as proving the existence of something, if they don't accept other internet sources.

I've never worked out the whole history of this. Was this originally put up by some of us in the teeth of opposition from others? And yet all the time it was up nothing untoward seemed to happen, and lots of us originally found this place through that article and felt that it was very helpful for explaining the fetish to others, if one were foolish enough to do so.

And as before, the conventional construction for liking sneezes would be either ptarnophilia or ptarmophilia or, my favourite, ptaerophilia, partly because one could pretend one said pterophilia and really liked wings .

Are things taken down from Wiki just because people object? It's not much of an encyclopaedia if it's not reasonably unaffected by that type of opposition.

Well, I think they do in some cases, because by its very nature they get a lot of hoax stuff put up; this hs been gone into in some detail by Private Eye, eg regarding Lord Monckton's activities falsifying his own and others' biographies.

However, in our case it was stated to be because there was no supporting evidence in written sources that we really exist, despite the fact the atricle had a link here.

Indeed on a recent thread I think Atchoum pointed out that there is a learned article about the fetish; but presumably no one pointed this out to them.

I don't know what happened when the article was removed, but I do remember the article, and the discussion about it when it was first written. I don't really object to an encyclopedia article publicizing our fetish, but in this case the objection was relevant, because the person who wrote the article did originally write the article to publicize the fetish, rather than to explain it in the sort of objective way that is usually expected in an encyclopedia article. The article did not set this fetish in the context of fetishism and sexual psychology in general; instead it talked about what sneezing fetishists do and where you can find them online. It was more of an advertisement for our sites than an objective discussion of what a sneezing fetish is.

Given that, it was entirely appropriate for people to debate about whether such an advertisement is a good thing, with one side arguing that it would help sneezing fetishists feel less abnormal and alone, and the other arguing that we don't need the mockery or abuse of unsympathetic non-fetishists. But whatever view you have about advertisements, you ought to recognize that they are different from encyclopedia articles. I think the Wikipedia folks had justification for removing the article on that basis.

count de tisza is right that there is a scholarly article on the fetish, and it is this one: Michael King, "Sneezing as a fetishistic stimulus," Sexual and Marital Therapy 5(1), 1990, pp. 69-72. (Sapphire sent me a copy a couple of years back.) It's just a single case study, though, and it doesn't make any sort of generalizations about the fetish. From reading just that article, you wouldn't find evidence of a sneezing fetish exhibited by any other people; it's just described as something idiosyncratic to one patient. So again, an enclyclopedia could fairly demand more scientific or scholarly support for claims about our fetish. I understand that our site itself can count as evidence that there is clearly a class of sneezing fetishists. But still it would help if an encyclopedia article could say more than: there are these people who are sexually stimulated by sneezing, and here is where they hang out.

this isnt a waste of time atall, zneeze. this is what we're here for!

while this is has the tendancy to turn into a Pit-wrthy debate, i think we can all manage to keep it civil out here.

i have to wonder, how many people would actually want the fetish to be publicized, versus how many people would feel more comfortable not attracting such attention. many people have a deepset fear of being discovered, and their concerns are quite valid. i think they were releived to know that the page was removed. personally, i dont care if there is a page up about it, as long as it is tastefully done, preferrably BY a fetishist, who can give accurate information. i'd be interested in seeing that article.

I wasn't trying to be mean or anything. I was simply explaining that there used to be one, but it's been taken down, and that a lot of people aren't really upset it's gone. I didn't care one way or the other, because this place pops up as soon as you put "Sneeze Fetish" into any search engine. But, a lot of people felt that the Wikipedia thing was skewed.

I don't know if anyone would object to a new one being written, but again, a lot of people don't like any attention being brought to this fetish. They like to be secretive. I'm not one of them, I'm just trying to speak out on everyone's behalf, that's all.

Don't sweat it. People on Wikipedia have no respect for anything.

Thanks for being here for me, Chui.

There was an article, which was written by "one of us", I do not know which one. To be blunt it was not well written, and from a fairly personal point of view. I disagreed with a lot of the content. Im sure it was true for the author, but I didnt feel it represented us as a group.

There were repeated requests on the talk page for references, not to the existence of the fetish but to the detail of the claims made on the page. Wikipedia, I think, normally expects references to published material, either in journals, press, or some respectable online sources, like newspapers online. People argue all the time on wikipedia about what is a good reference and what is not, references to both this forum and the other one were variously added and removed.

No references were ever added for most of the article, and there were various warnings that if they were not added, the article would be deleted. No one added any.

There was a vote for deletion, which I mentioned at least to the staff (cant remember I think I put it in the adults section, or maybe the Lounge). The vote was overwhelmingly for deletion, I think on the grounds that it was a poorly written, and unsourced article, which had multiple ignored requests for improvement.

I voted for deletion.

I then put a note on this forum mentioning that the vote had gone through and the article deleted, and the responses were mostly positive about the deletion.

The deletion log for the article is here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...Sneezing_fetish you might be able to get more information from it, but I cant work out how.

Also, in my opinion, wikipedia is a joke, which articles survive is random or arbitrary, rules are not clearly enforced, and things that are downright wrong are claimed as fact. No different to most websites, I guess, but it is not the golden panacea many people perceive