Unlocking the Power of Fetish

text LAWRENCE LANOFF

4×5 film MILANA BURDETTE

Fetish is about unlocking the deepest parts of our psyche and allowing them, from time to time, to come to the surface and breathe, pulsate, be. To touch the energy of fetish is to tap into powerful, even mythological parts of our often undernourished sexual psyche. 

If human sexuality is anything, it is complicated, varied, and unique. Most of us live in a domesticated world, as domesticated animals desperately trying to tamp down our sexual energy. Along the way of our process toward becoming a functional member of society, things happen to our physical being and body. And sometimes the crazy things that happen to our body become wired to our sexuality and sexual desires.

When our organizing sexuality gets wired to an object, a circumstance, a feeling, an emotion, an idea, an image, or a person, a seed is planted deep inside of our sexual being. As we continue to develop, we often lose sight of the “dirty” desires as they are shunted aside and masked deep within us. These seed-desires sometimes evolve into fetishes, emerging from time to time from the shadows of our subconscious.

To reach a level of true human self-expression and sexual fulfillment, we have to uncover and give space to these deeply buried fetishes.

Even as you read this and see the images, there are parts of you that quicken, that want to be seen and heard. Fetish, as we imagine it in this issue, is about giving breadth and depth to those parts of you that have been pushed to the bottom of the cold waters of your sexual mind. Most of the time they remain frozen there. But if we’re lucky, we find a safe space or a safe person with whom we can begin to share and open those experiences. Sexual self-expression and freedom are some of the great things about living in a modern world—where we are free to express exactly who we have the potential to be. Especially sexually.

We invite you to delve into the shrouded crevices and folds of your sexual mind—the mind that exists behind the gates of your prefrontal cortex and the self that you present to the world. To go deeper with another, to be vulnerable and to be seen, to feel and tap into the unacceptable, to explore the unworthy, to examine the innermost parts of you that, if ignored, create a life unfulfilled and incomplete. Without unleashing the raw, life can become very mundane.

From where I sit, fetish is the access window behind a hidden room that we must open and enter. 

Embrace the unacceptable.

Fetish is discovering and exposing our stunted or vulnerable parts and allowing them to exist in a context that frees up our creative sexual life-force energy. We want to learn to accept these parts and find safe, exploratory openness with the self and others, in capacities that offer breathing room and expression. Through this process, we have the potential of finding a community of like-minded people to share our true selves with. 

I will relate to you two experiences. One, which was not connected to my sexuality, but that has the potential to be fetishized. And another that was directly linked to my sexual development, that in the moment of the encounter created a feeling of disgust, but over time, embraced, has created delight, curiosity and wonder.

The first experience, around age four: I fell. I was taken to the hospital because I had cut open my ear. And there I was strapped to a gurney, given no anesthesia, and stitched up. I screamed and screamed until I was exhausted. I remember the doctor saying, “He will never remember this.” But of course, that helplessness was seared into my mind. Now that has potential to be turned into fetish: the tied down, the complete out-of-control, the ability to completely let go, perhaps even the needles or the thread or the feeling of something in your skin being sewn—all of those could be potential fetishes. 

The second thing, which I did sexualize, was the midriff. As a young person growing up in the 1970s, halter tops were a thing—a thing I never understood. All I saw from my vantage point, from my height, were dirty belly buttons and hips, stained from the filth of New York City. The emotion I felt was mostly one of disgust. Yet my older friends would comment on how cute or sexy an outfit was. For me, it just seemed gross. However, in this intense emotional reaction, seeds of fetish were planted.

As I got older, there was an extra appreciation for the midriff—and the subtle exposure of belly buttons and hips. Something that once evoked disgust was now something that triggered strong pleasure responses in my mind and body. And, once embraced as a fetish, midriffs in all variety, forms, and shapes can powerfully trigger my brain into states of pure pleasure.

The point being, whatever “it” is for you, ultimately, you want to give space to explore safely in your own mind—and if you are lucky, it’s something you can entrust others to explore with you. 

The energy of fetish is a beautiful thing, and one that I yield to, letting that energy incite the deepest parts of my body and mind, now embracing—no longer disgusted. Instead, my fetishes enliven me, turn me on, awaken me; and for this, I am thankful.

As humans, ultimately we can learn to sexualize anything. And we do. Think of all the ways human sexuality expresses itself, not only outside in the world but also inside your mind. And this is the pure power of fetish. It is a superpower to be held and cherished, to be respected, to be included in the totality of who you are as a self-actualizing, fulfilled human.

Sex energy is spiritual energy. And fetish can unlock the most intimate, vulnerable parts of ourselves and empower them. So I invite you to go forth and unveil the inner vestiges of your fetish psyche. It could change your life.