FETISH INFODUMP ESSAY 
While many tend to use them interchangeably, fetishes and kinks aren't actually the same things. In fact, many tend to use these terms in contexts where the meaning is entirely subjective, construed differently from person to person. Kink, fetish, and paraphilia are all terms that heavily overlap in definition and common usage, distinguished by how they are used colloquially, how the individual relates to them, and how society relates to them. Kink or kinkiness refers to the use of unconventional sexual practices, concepts, or fantasies in human sexual behavior. In contrast to "vanilla" sex, kinks usually involve taboo, unconventional, or odd preferences during or surrounding sexual interactions, such as wearing lingerie or BDSM. A fetish is a psychological development that is similar to kink, yet is more of a requirement than a preference. While a kink is something that one may find sexually interesting or exciting, a fetish is something that is necessary in all cases in order for arousal or sexual satisfaction to occur. For example, if one is turned on by the sight of blood, but does not need blood to be aroused, it would be considered a kink. If the sight of blood is needed in order to feel arousal, that would be a fetish. Paraphilias, while related to these concepts, is a term that is used in more clinical or medical contexts, wherein the sexual practice or interest is considered abnormal or intense to the point of social condemnation. This usually involves significant distress or functional impairment to the individual involved.
Current psychiatric definitions of paraphilia are subject to the notion that there is a "normal" way to engage in sexuality and kink, which has little evidence to support it. Joyal and Carpentier (2017) found that almost 50% of people admitted to an interest in at least one paraphilic behavior, and about 34% had engaged in paraphilic behavior at least once in their life. According to the DSM-5, the distinction between "paraphilic" and "normophilic" interests lies primarily in persistent sexual interests not involving "genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically normal, physiologically mature, consenting human partners." The DSM-5 also distinguishes between paraphilias and paraphilic disorders, the term "disorder" indicating that the paraphilia causes distress, impairment, or is reflective of a dysfunction in the individual. Not only are these definitions inadequate, limiting normophilic interests in other human beings to whatever is viewed as "phenotypically normal", as well as not providing any instruments or methods to evaluate the degree of how intense or persistent a sexual interest is compared to others, but so too are these definitions employed with the purpose of identifying, preventing, and treating sexual offenders, rather than defining what kinds of sexual interests are "normal" or "atypical". This implies that anyone with paraphilic interests, namely intense and distressing ones, should be monitored as having more potential to sexually offend than those with normophilic, nondistressing sexual interests. Kink, on the other hand, is often associated with a healthier relationship with sexuality, despite also being considered outside or deviating from the norm. Some research has even supported the idea that BDSM practices contribute to more self-confident, well-adjusted individuals (Joyal, 2018).
So, what's the origin of these abnormal, unconventional, or socially unacceptable desires? Some theorize it is in part caused by abuses during childhood contributing to an over-involvement in sexuality. For instance, a study of paraphilias in the public population (Longpré, Galiano, Guay, 2022) found evidence that childhood trauma has a high frequency of co-occurrence with paraphilic arousal, but also causes hypersexuality, which increases chances of paraphilic arousal. They also found evidence that sex and gender roles cause rates of paraphilic fantasy and behavior to differ depending on the category, such as pedophilic fantasies occurring more in men than women (14.4% of men vs 2.4% of women reported fantasizing about it often, i.e. more than 10 times), or sadistic fantasies occurring significantly more in men than women (30.8% vs 9.6%) and caused arousal more in men than women (27.2% vs 11.4%). In the words of the study itself, "the relationship between childhood trauma and paraphilic sexual arousal is mediated by hypersexuality, problematic pornography consumption and personality traits, which partially support H3 and is in-line with H4"; which basically means the data suggests that logically related paraphilic interests are multifactorial, and that childhood trauma, personality traits, hypersexuality, and pornography consumption all contribute to the rates of self-reported paraphilic arousal. The data also suggested that hypersexuality and pornography consumption are stronger predictors of self-reported paraphilic arousal than personality traits. However, the rates of paraphilic fantasy and arousal show that the perceived socially acceptable or ethical sexual interests, such as narratophilia (dirty talk), have stronger correlation between fantasy and arousal, while in most immoral or socially unacceptable cases, a drop was observed where there are significantly less arousal instances than fantasy, such as with necrophilia, pedo/hebe/ephebophilia, and zoophilia. In other words, the majority of people who fantasized about socially unacceptable behaviors stipulated that fantasy was the extent of their interests, and were not aroused by the real-life prospect of pursuing said behavior.
On a cultural level, "unconventional" sexual practices have been a part of human sexuality since conventional sex was even a thing. Ancient civilizations like Greece and Rome recorded practices in art, literature, and inscriptions involving cross-dressing, master-slave dynamics, and private sex clubs. Philosophers as old as Jean Jaques Rousseau wrote in his autobiography about his desires to be spanked and dominated by a mother figure. The oldest dildo recorded is thought to be at least 28,000 years old (Esmé Louise James, TEDx). Things that are considered kinky, unconventional, or socially unacceptable in one's modern, civilization-specific culture may be normal or "vanilla" to another in a different time or place. Even then, those with "unusual" sexual preferences will still find ways to explore and embrace their interests.
Today, kinks, fetishes and paraphilias have made their presence known across all modern forms of media, such as film, social media groups, and pop culture at large. Kinksters and fetishists have created spaces where indulging in their sexual inclinations can be done safely, ethically, and consensually, such as BDSM clubs, niche websites, and private chatrooms, where discussion and content distribution is self-regulated. These communities have created an environment where such proclivities can be expressed without consequences or judgement, and can be explored to an unrestrained, unfiltered, even gratuitous extent, in ways that are often diluted by the clinical nature of survey-centered experiments. These spaces can even develop their own vocabulary, terminology, and, to an extent, their own culture. The community found here, despite the internet-typical anonymity, is one that is undeniably flourishing, with a vast and diverse library of artwork, literature, and photographic manifestations of fetishistic and kinky desires, that can only come about through complex, supportive networks of interconnection, communication, and cooperation. It can also create an amplification effect where even nicher kinks are discovered and invented, and as such, even more positively bizarre creations and forms of art, such things like “Bowser Fart” (MrRyuHayabusa, 2019) and “the Deviantart Wonder Bread Guy” (DeadwingDork, 2019).
References
DeadwingDork. (2019). The DeviantArt Wonder Bread Guy. YouTube. https://youtu.be/YuDN4kRYKwc?si=hgr_MfwlbiDR5fnx
Joyal, C. C. (2018). Controversies in the definition of paraphilia. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 15(10), 1378–1380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2018.08.005
Longpré, N., Galiano, C. B., & Guay, J.-P. (2022). The impact of childhood trauma, personality, and sexuality on the development of paraphilias. Journal of Criminal Justice, 82, 101981. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2022.101981
Philipp. (2023, May 1). Bowser Fart GIF. Know Your Meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bowser-fart-gif
Writing kinky sex back into the history pages. (2022). TEDx. https://www.ted.com/talks/esme_louise_james_writing_kinky_sex_back_into_the_history_pages
