Fetishist disorder

Abstract

Fetishism, as a technical descriptor of atypical sexual behaviour, was noted in the writings of the well-known nineteenth century French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857–1911) (Binet, 1887) as well as prominent European sexologists Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) (Krafft-Ebing, 1886), Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) (Ellis, 1906), and Magnus Hirschfeld (1868– 1935) (Hirschfeld, 1956). In their seminal writings, all of the afore mentioned sexologists used the terms “fetish” and “fetishism” to specifically describe an intense eroticization of either non-living objects and/or specific body parts that were symbolically associated with a person. Fetishes could be non clinical manifestations of a normal spectrum of eroticization or clinical disorders causing significant interpersonal difficulties. Ellis (1906) observed that body secretions or body products could also become fetishist expressions of “erotic symbolism”. Freud (1928) considered both body parts (e.g., the foot) or objects associated with the body (e.g., shoes) as fetish objects. For the purposes of this review, a “broader” historically based core definition for Fetishism will include intense and recurrent sexual arousal to: non-living objects, an exclusive focus on body parts or body products. Keywords: fetishism, Paraphilia, Partialism, DSM-V.