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One of the finest purposes the Internet serves is that it makes ya feel normal. When you investigate the odder fetishes out there, you can’t help but feel that your own attachments, obsessions, and fixations are pretty freaking vanilla and mundane. Over a decade ago I featured some sterling images from the worlds of the gunge/slapstick-fetish fans, plushies, and, oh yes, the furry underground on the Funhouse. Along those lines, I refer you to another blogspot blog, one run by writer Dennis Cooper, where Funhouse correspondent “stevee” supplies a short laundry list of some of the wondrous and extremely strange fetishes that can be found on YouTube, the site that is truly, uniquely American, in that it is terrified and threatened by the notion of human genitalia and bared breasts.
In the dim dark days, back when I was in college, I used to regularly peruse adult materials. One of the most interesting mags to read at that time was Nugget, the skin mag that had turned from girlie photo spreads and writing by such dedicated toilers as Stephen King to a wholescale fascination with fetishes. Some of these kinks were perfectly understandable, some practically wholesome preoccupations (girl-on-girl) among the straight male of the species.
The magazine also included various things that were not as, well, easy to behold and consider sexy, to some/most of us. Since I am fascinated by things that are deemed sexy by some but that I find rather bizarre (seek out my past blog entry about the since-removed "Deviant Desires" fetish chart that included bug bites, sneezing, and clown shoes as fetishes), I would check out Nugget even as its definitions of "turn-on" started to move further and further afield (boredom in the boardroom? Editors need amusement too).
These included the “Roadside Leak” fascination (’nuff said) and photographic tribs to girls who were missing limbs, sprawled out in sexy lingerie and revealing their stumps. The amputee fetish may not have rung any of my bells, but there are a younger generation of British gentlemen who will now be apprised that, yes, that a girl missing an arm and a leg (or two) is really a hottie worthy of “meditation” (or research, or whatever you’d care to call it), thanks to the new BBC show Missing Top Model.
So, what are the girls missing? Well, an arm or a leg, but they’re not lacking in sensuality, and so they will compete for top prizes, and will no doubt participate in those fucking godawful “talking head” confessional bits that are the single most odious element of reality shows (“so I’m there, and I’m looking her right in the eye, and I can’t believe she’s telling me this…” Shot of girl looking other one in eye. Cut back to “I’m like, ‘uh-huh, that’s not true!’” Flashcut to confessional girl saying, “Uh-huh, that’s not true!” All things must be spoken of as well as seen in the threadbare and oh-so-carefully-prefab reality genre). I guess there are moments when fetishes do truly go “above ground” for a bit, freaking out some of the populace, and introducing the uninitiated into their pleasures. I for one am not so sure about the stump kink (I’m sure the girls are perfectly fine ladies, just as sexy as the next girl, different only in that they possess “one leg too few”). I will note that my perusal of Nugget ended for good when I encountered a fantasy letter that involved a colostomy bag. Anyone ready for another reality series…?
In line with this week's episode, which is a vintage show from 1999 that surveys the Internet with a focus on the very interesting and shall we say unusual twin obessions of the "furry" lifestyle and "plush love." This brought me in mind of one of the more unusual URLs I have sent around to friends in the past few years, the wonderful guide to unusual fetishes found on Katharine Gates' wonderful website Deviant Desires. Her "road map" to fetishes appears at the URL below. (If you can't find it at the URL, click on the image above to read it more clearly.) I did notice that one or two stray items are missing, but the ones she has included — specific suckers like "bug bites," "sun burn," and the glorious "clown shoes" — more than make up. Also, I should note that she was interviewed on the legendary Midnight Blue some years back and was asked bluntly by host Al Goldstein what the "strangest" fetish she'd encountered was. Since she didn't want to be derogatory about her field of study, she simply noted the one that surprised her the most: men who could only have an orgasm when a balloon was popping. She did not specify how many men have this fetish (and if it does indeed relate to the plate-smashing one on her chart; for that matter, do these balloon gentlemen get raging hard-ons every time they hear gunshots?). Many items on here are head-scratchers, but they are glorious ones. Minutes of research, and bemused laughter, should ensue.
The road map of fetishes
One of the finest purposes the Internet serves is that it makes ya feel normal. When you investigate the odder fetishes out there, you can’t help but feel that your own attachments, obsessions, and fixations are pretty freaking vanilla and mundane. Over a decade ago I featured some sterling images from the worlds of the gunge/slapstick-fetish fans, plushies, and, oh yes, the furry underground on the Funhouse. Along those lines, I refer you to another blogspot blog, one run by writer Dennis Cooper, where Funhouse correspondent “stevee” supplies a short laundry list of some of the wondrous and extremely strange fetishes that can be found on YouTube, the site that is truly, uniquely American, in that it is terrified and threatened by the notion of human genitalia and bared breasts.
