Learning Love Through Fetishism

Many men today are developing many unusual fetishes, like foot and panty fetishes.  It is usual for many people to put these fetishes down to perversion and not try and understand what is really going on.  So I have decided to look past any snap judgements about this and attempt look at what motivates people who like fetishes.

It may sound incredible to a person who thinks that a person with a fetish is "sick", but a man who has a panty fetish is man starting to learn about love.  Women it seems know everything there is to know about love, because when women have children a bond is created where most women will give their child unconditional love.  In men this bond to their children is not so strong, so some men who will quickly move out of a woman's life if she has a child.  Or refuse to pay maintenance to his child if he separates or is divorced from his child's mother.  

Any woman who has a child is biologically programmed to learn about love.  But for a man this biological tie to children is not so strong.  So how can a man learn about love in the same depth as a woman?  Surprisingly he can learn through so called sex-perversion.

A panty lover likes to be able to smell the used panties and drape it over his head so to him it is an oral experience.  This means that such a man wouldn't be adverse to going down on a woman and giving oral sex.  It can also indicate that the man might also want to kiss or lick the anus of a woman, as some men like to also lick the crutch piece of the panties.

So it means that a man who likes to go down on a woman is giving enjoyment to a woman without any thought to his own needs. So it is a sign that by putting the needs of another person before his own, and the beginning of learning about unconditional love.  Though it has to be said that this may be only a sign of where he is going and it many not be an indication that he has got there yet.  A man may be willing to go down on a woman but only regard it as foreplay.  Or may even go as far as bringing the women to organism but demand his turn afterwards.  So although such a man has moved on from the very selfish man who is only concerned with his own pleasure and cares little about what the women might want. He is still a long way to go in learning unconditional love in giving without wanting any reward or even praise for it.  He is still got in the same league as a woman gives to her children all her life or a Woman who can still love an abusive husband.

Likewise a man who wants to kiss the anus of a woman, although might get turned-on with this form of worship, may only feel that way while in the act of worship. For the rest of the time he may act like a normal selfish patriarchal man.  Though it is still and indication that he wants to learn how to give to and love others unconditionally.  A similar tale can be told of a man who has a foot fetish.  To kiss a woman's feet is an act of worship.  But it can be to him be only a fantasy he enjoys, and not necessary how he really feels about women.  Though for some men the feelings worshiping a woman can be so overwhelming that he finds he wants to be her devoted slave.

All these fetishes can be sign-posts and not the real thing, it shows what direction a man is moving but it doesn't mean that he has got there yet.  Women have learnt about unconditional love over the thousands of years, by caring for ungrateful husbands and children.  Men on the other hand have only just started.  Yet there is some men who are able to surrender his whole life to a woman and her children..  In the same way millions of women have done in the past and still do today.  Unconditional love, does not come naturally to a man, it is something he has to learn to do through practice.  A fetish is about emotion, and this emotion can give a man the motivation to start to learn about giving unconditional love.  For any man with a strong and powerful ego it is difficult to start to surrender his own needs in favour of another or others.  So another very strong emotional like a fetish desire, is sometimes needed to overcome the voice of his ego. It is only when the man begins to experience the pleasure and reward of giving to others, so he identify himself in others and not himself, then the need of having a fetish becomes less.

A man with a fetish is no different from a monk, who is attempting to go beyond his own selfish needs and serve others to find 'the kingdom of god' or 'enlightenment'.  It is only the motivation that is different, one is religious and the other is sexual. 

There is a path that combines both ways and that is through Tantra and Taoism.  Most religions try to overcome sexual desire, which means they are attempting to learn about unconditional love without serving a woman.  This method only allows homosexual and celibate men to follow this path, as they learn to serve the needs of other men.  Only Tantra and Taoism uses both sexual and spiritual motivation to reach enlightenment.  Which means a man can be spiritual and acknowledge his sexual desires at the same time.  Tantra and Taoism teaches men to withhold his organism that allows a woman to enjoy sex as long as possible without any fear of her enjoyment being cut short by the man ejecting.  Many Tantra and Tao "masters" have boasted of not having an organism for years in spite of having an active sex-life.  So a man doing this is surrendering his sexual enjoyment in favour of the woman.  It is also notable that in Tantra and Tao sexual positions are mostly shown with the woman on top allowing her to take control of the act.

There are many other fetishes with men that tell a similar story.  A man who gets turned on by being dressed up as a baby and having a woman treat him as one.   In one way he is still having the desire of having a woman look after him and giving him everything he needs.  Yet at the same time in playing the role of a baby he is allowing the woman to have power over him.  It is of interest that the "disciplining" of the baby is an important aspect of this fantasy.  So the man is learning about how to give over control of his life to a woman, whom he gives the power to teach him how to behave in the manner she wants him to behave.  Which means in relationships with other women, he can get used to fitting in with what the women wants and not her fitting in with what he wants all the time.  So this gift of power also becomes a gift of unconditional love.

This form of fetish can grow to a more extreme forms where a man will pay a Dominatrix to tie him up then whip and torture him.  This man is then giving for a while total power to a woman. There are many people who like to, "go-over-the-top" in everything they do.  So this could explain this behaviour, but there could be another reason for this. This may be happening because the man is not practising the lessons in love that the fetish is teaching him.  If the man is not giving any women the gift of power over him in his normal daily life, then the fetish becomes stronger to make him do this.  Unfortunately if he still refuses, then the fetish becomes so strong that he finds he has a need to be tied up and tortured by a woman in an extreme manner.  Not realising that by keeping his fantasies separate from his normal life, he is making the power of the fetish stronger and stronger.

The lack of understanding our emotions has caused great suffering in the world. Religions and social customs have encouraged people to take control of their emotions and suppress any that are socially unacceptable.  Unfortunately these emotions are never denied, and come back to us in stronger and more extreme form when suppressed, until they take over the person completely and they may do harm to others or themselves.  These forms of extreme desires have given emotions a bad name, giving people more reasons to suppress them.  What we need to realise is that emotions are our friends, without emotion we would not have a need to get out of bed in the morning.  All we would just be is just a sophisticated robot with no motivation to do anything. 

So to write off a fetish as just a perversion or a person with a sick mind, doesn't help him or society as a whole.  It is only by making them conscious, understanding why we have these types of desires that we can channel them into acceptable forms that do not harm ourselves or others.  Unfortunately psychologist or psychiatrists do not talk much about love, and because of this are not very good guides to people with fetishes.