I was reading up on some scientific study of sexual fetishism the other day and APPARENTLY the general consensus among scientist is that a woman cannot be a true fetishist. "Fetishes are virtually entirely a male domain" ,"few if any women can relate to enjoying anything similar", "The female brain is typically not hardwired to allow true fetishism to develop "

Honestly, i laughed out loud when i read this. What a load of crap! haha

That's like when my biology teacher in 8th grade told us that masturbation is something only boys do. Because clearly, women are unable to have any sexual needs at all. I mean, the idea!

(yah, I lol'd)

I agree these are ridiculous ideas and very old fashioned but when I used to study sociology I read about a man called Emile Durkheim and he said that because women generally have smaller heads than men, they would therefore have smaller brains and so not be as intelligent!

Oh BS like that just makes me SO angry. Seriously. It's not very long ago I read a similar notion about fetishism from Camille Paglia. I seriously dislike being randomly told what I can be and what not because of my "female brain". And don't even get me started about academical sexism evolutionary psychology...

Actually quite interesting...

Following question comes to my mind :
do female fetishists have 'male' brains ?
I mean, would the female fetishists on here be better in 'male' things like maths, reading maps, orientation, ... than the 'average' woman ?

In my case it is true...

C

I assume the person who wrote this particular article was also a man?

Yeah, something tells me he's an alumni of this prestigious institution...




He was probably class vale-dick-torian!

What's interesting is that my first reaction was "Well OBVIOUSLY not... *points to self as case in point*" But then I started thinking about it.

My husband and I joke all the time that I'm the man in the relationship - I'm more decisive, more outgoing. I love technology (literally: I'd rather have a new laptop than a diamond necklace any day!) and cars and tend to avoid talking on the phone. I love to lounge around and watch T.V. (My husband never watches T.V. or movies.) Oh, and I'm NEVER cold. My hands and feet are always toasty warm and I'm always complaining about how the house is too hot. (He's always freezing.) About the only girly thing I like is shopping, and even then I have a 3 hour limit.

I was supposed to have been born a boy: my parents painted my room blue and everything. Surprise! Maybe I have more "male" tendencies because I am a more manly-woman?...

that is most definitely not true for me. I failed math, I can't read a map to save my life, and I'm not even sure exactly what you mean by orientation so I'm not the brightest crayon in the box. However, I do very much prefer going rock climbing or hiking or other outdoorsy stuff to shopping, and I hate getting my hair/nails done, tanning, makeup, heels, ect, I love cars and guns, I guess I'm a bit of a tomboy, I don't know if that signifies anything. Anyway, I believe this article is quite stupid and untrue, females can definitely have fetishes and enjoy them throughly just like men, we are sexual beings to and are jast as capable of utilizing that

Maybe as far as the article goes- I would say that men may be more apt to talk about having a fetish because of the traditional "society" views that women have no or few needs and that if a woman does show her needs, she must be a "whore." And because men may talk about it more (I'm not saying just on here, I mean in general) it translates to women have no true fetishes? It is still so silly!

wow... i'm really good at math and other "guy" stuff (only mentally though, i suck at sports )
...and by the way yes, i'm a female. i just can't figure out how to change my profile information

Thinks back to her degree in neurobiology and wonders if female fetishism is linked to higher levels of testosterone present during neural development?

On a more general note...

The true definition of a fetish is that you can ONLY be aroused by the object of that fetish, and are therefore not able to reach sexual climax without exposure to the fetish related stimuli. Obviously this is not 100% true and there are varying degrees of sexual need with regards to fetish stimuli. However, if I was to make a sweeping comment about this with (based on the 10 years I've been kicking around the varying forums) it is much more likely that you will read a post by a male sneeze fetishist that they cannot reach climax without sneezing than one by a female fetishist.

Plus... on a research related note... the conclusions you draw are only as good as the analysis of the data that they are based upon :-)

Personally, I doubt the biological wiring of the brain has anything to do with making one gender more likely to have a fetish. As a rule, the same structures are present in the same orientation within the brain for both male and female. The primary difference would be the effects of certain hormone levels in the body as a result of puberty and biological changes. However, that doesn't change the basal brain structure. Men as a rule do tend to be larger boned, and having a larger skull cavity are capable of having a larger brain, but honestly, that has nothing to do with the synapses formed within the brain.

I think probably the biggest factor in studying any fetish within a population is the stigma still associated around the female sexuality. Many women are still rather reluctant to address their sexuality in clinical settings for fear of being branded any number of derogatory things (harlot, whore, loose, etc). I think the numbers will appear to change for the next decade or so, when in fact they would be more accurately reflecting numbers as women become less reserved.

And I'm very much so a woman, certain martial arts and mechanical tendencies aside.

This is really intriguing; should we have a poll on it? I'm another woman who's in a profession that was traditionally male (law), and I was always a tomboy growing up.

Oh, and J's joking aside, who was this purported "scientist" and what were his credentials for giving such an unfounded opinion?

lol I laughed at this too.

Well, despite being a fetishist, like Chui I feel I'm very much a woman, even if I don't necessarily exhibit all the stereotypical female characteristics. When it comes to polling or such, I'd feel inclined to think that there are obvious cultural reasons to why many women, if they can, would like to refer to themselves as "having a male brain" or being male on the inside or whatever - because the implications are that they're good at math and have real careers like men do and are assertive and cool and aren't interested i stupid girly things like clothes and make-up. If feminine and stupid would stop being synonymous, I wonder how many women would be so eager to state how male they are.

I have to say, when I first saw this topic, I thought about posting saying "Well, OBVIOUSLY, he's never met me!" But then I didn't, mainly because I didn't think something so cimple was worthy of a first response, and by the time I came back, I saw the question about masculinity, and I have to say...I am a very boyish girl. Not in things like math or science, but in a lot of other ways, from interests to emotions to opinions on sex. So now, I guess what I want to say is "Well, that's bullshit. Apparently what he meant was that GIRLY women aren't capable of true fetishism." *runs from the girly-girls now boyishly chasing her*

~Me

The basic brain structures are the same in male and female brains but substantial differences have been shown in imaging studies, and if anything I think that these could have an effect. For example, women have a larger limbic cortex (emotion) and frontal lobe (problem solving) whilst men have been shown to have a larger parietal cortex (space perception) and amygdala (heavily involved in agression, social and sexual behaviour). Now of course that doesn't mean these areas don't work the same way for both sexes, but it may be that the differences in brain structure result in a different experience of fetish related sexual activity by the different sexes.

BUT...



you are not wrong about the stigma surrounding female sexuality, and it may be that at some point in the future where openness exists you could a) conduct qualitative research with both genders to determine how the experience of fetishes differs by gender and conduct imaging studies to determine if the brain responds differently in different genders such as it has been shown to for a number of tasks.

This is completely off topic, but there may be women who would love to have more typically feminine qualities or attributes and that don't regard those characteristics as stupid or second class. (Me, for example.) I don't think nice clothes or makeup fall into the category of "stupid" or "girly," either, unless one focuses on clothes and makeup to the extent that all intelligent thought is extinguished.

Who did this test? They must not have found true fetishists then. I am also definatly more masculine than I am feminine. I look very female and am all the way around by I'm more interested in dinosaurs, heavy metal, and cars than I am modeling, cute fluffy things, and hair extensions.

I'm not sure about the whole "male brain" "female brain" thing cause (and im kind of embarassed to say this) but im pretty sure i have a bit more of a female brain. Im more of an empathetic than systematic thinker. I also have an odd osession with cute things. *blush*

I'd like to know if the study was referring to true fetishes or paraphilia...I've met hundreds of people, online and in person, with various paraphilia but (as far as I know) never a true fetishist who needs the object ('fetish') to orgasm.
Apart from that, most people I've met with odd sexual desires have been male but a very large number have been female. Interestingly, out of all the forums I go to for my wide range of...interests...this seems to be the one with the highest female to male ratio. I've also noticed that while my tastes lie in the messier part of this fetish, the cleaner parts seem to be the most popular here. Some of my other messy fetishes are shared equally by women though so it's probably more the focus of the board than a male/female divide.
One other thing that might be relevant is a female to male transexual friend of mine. He says that before the change sex was something he only thought about on occasion, if he felt safe and comfortable. Now he finds it an almost constant part of his life.
Also, my girlfriend often wishes she had more deviant interests since I seem to have so much fun with mine

Well, from a psychiatric point of view...that's a load of shit. And that's where I'll leave it. No sense in arguing the same points over again, but fetishism is a psychiatric diagnosis (whether you agree with that fact or not is neither here nor there), and I can tell you, as a licensed psychiatrist, that there are plenty of female fetishists out there.

Holla.

Definately not for me..
Im quite the opposite actually.

Ah, so it was really my fetish that made me want to have a sex change all the time. Of course, why didn't I think of that?

Ah, you beat me to this point. Well said.

i am TERRRRRRRRIBLE at Math..in fact having trouble passing college just because of it...im an eng major for a reason! haha

I wonder if this idea originates from the original meaning of "fetish", ie an inanimate object that replaces the connection of sex and a person; I seem to remember reading somewhere that this was the case; so that a person might replace attraction to another person entirely with an attraction to shoes or whatever. Males would be seen as the instigators of sexual behaviour, thus the only people this could apply to.

And here is a confession; before I came here, I assumed that only men were sneeze fans! I suppose because I'd never seen a girl inducing...

we've fixed that for you, haven't we

That study is SO sexist. I have ALWAYS loved a big, powerful sneeze, especially from big, powerful men. I guess people like me don't exist according to the so-called "scientific" community. I guess these supposed fetish specialists neglected a HUGE swathe of the fetish community in their study.

The way I see it, everyone has a fetish. Because the nature of everyone's sexuality is unique, you could say that everyone is a part of a unique fetish with one member: you. For many people, their sexual interests overlap (e.g. many men -> female mammary glands; us -> sneezing, etc...), and in this way we relate our sexuality to others and establish in our heads social norms.


I don't know about that either. If we're going to base a census of fetishdom on who's more apt to talk about their fetish, doesn't it seem like there are even more women with a sneezing fetish than men?

I don't really believe that sexual fetishes are a male trait and that women who have them probably possess other male traits. I find a much more interesting parallel that arose out of one of the other polls to be, that the majority of fetishists seem to be either the oldest child or only child. And for those women who are in career fields mostly dominated by men, is it not entirely unreasonable to conjecture that being the oldest or only child had at least some influence on what you expected to do in life? I'm not implying there was any intentional pressure for you to assume such gender roles, but maybe some subconscious influence.


That's certainly true.


Heh... That's a conception I never had. Because from the very beginning when I first came to understand what a fetish was I knew women fetishists. In fact my first introduction to what the sneezing fetish really was, the "Diary of a Sneeze Fetishist" webpage, was written by a woman.

Classic Alfred Adler right here. Studies have been done to confirm his theories of development in relation to birth order and apparently it was discovered that fisrtborn children at least (the jury is still out on only children, but it's seeming more and more like they as well) are surprisingly overrepresented among high level academics, politicians and other professionals. The main gist of his theory being that firstborns and onlys have unique exposure to far more "adult language" stimulation than their later-born counterparts, and firstborns also having the chance to solidify their knowledge in the form of instructing their younger siblings.

This whole theory of fetishism being an exclusively male thing is based on one thing: the Freudian definition of fetishism.

I can't remember exactly how it goes, but apparently it has something to do with men being confused about women not having penises and their seeking some sort of artificial penis-substitute in women's appearance (i.e. shoes or feet) which they can focus on sexually.

That is all, really. As far as I know. FREUD.

Interesting question..
I was really good at math up to a point, but I began failing it sophomore year (of highschool) when I took trig
I am terrible at reading maps though XD

but I am bisexual, leaning more towards gay. Obviously that doesn't mean I have a man brain.. when I was little, though, I hated being a girl

Anyway, this research is such BS!! I'd like to slap whoever wrote that across the face

I think Heavy Metal is gender neutral.




Personally I'd say this is the bottom line of the issue.

Also when speaking about the sexes we should speak of tendencies rather than rules, although there are even people that get upset by that.



Mod Note: Merged posts ~Mute