TABOO DIARIES: PART THREE ouchy subjects and pushing limits are my dark chocolate. Delving into deliciously dangerous mediums that trace art-sex culture and unorthodox themes, such as Nakid Magazine and Georgia O’Keefe paintings, triggers a sensual release that I do not experience in my everyday life. Occasionally, I find myself drifting into the land of what ifs and shoulda coulda wouldas, only to delete the blindfold from my Amazon Prime cart and mumble a couple of Hail Marys. Pretending that we are not sexual creatures with primitive and inherently infantile desires is useless and unhealthy. After a lot of Googling/soul searching, little ol’ me is coming to terms with the fact that everyone has a thing—a kink, a fixation, an obsession, a compulsion, a weakness. You may not realize it but you—yes you— probably have a fetish. The fetish culture is tragically tabooed. It always has been and unfortunately always will be thanks to meanies, legal-types, and your mom. However, according to some people smarter than me including psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and sexologist (#careergoals) Magnus Hirschfeld, having a fetish is an inevitable part of human development. There has been no cause conclusively established for fetishes, however, the theories streamline into the act of recognizing sexually desirable objects during childhood. This association seems to occur during the child’s earliest experiences with arousal and desire, and in time, voila! A fetish is born. Naturally, people are unaware of the science behind fetishes and are embarrassed when they realize they feel an attachment to something that derives from the “normal,” and therefore are quick to
stereotype people with fetishes as weirdos. So, ignorantly, I expected to see the absence of normality when I stepped into Condom World on Newbury Street. I began by mentally preparing myself to get slapped in the face with a condom and weave my way through an American Horror Story-esque menagerie of sex crazed freaks. Needless to say, I felt like an idiot after my conversation with employee Lauren Guastaferri and realized that everyone in Condom World looked just like me—awkward, innocent, and cookie cutter normal. No freaks, no weirdos, just people taking risks and allowing themselves to be, essentially, human. “This is a judgment-free zone,” said Guastaferri with a smile. The three year employee’s warmth transformed the seemingly intimidating store into a safe place. “When people come in, I can sense if they are nervous, shy, or whatever and open them up a little by starting them off with BDSM basics and employee favorites,” said Guastaferri while confirming that, yes, normal people do in fact have fetishes. Best sellers include whips, handcuffs and blindfolds as dominance and submission heighten in popular culture. College kids and middle aged people who have just discovered Fifty Shades of Grey are the typical Condom World clientele, differing from what one might expect. “I encounter one creep a year,” she said with an eye roll, “I’ll send them straight to Hubba Hubba if they have any crazy specific fetish.” Defined as an “alternative adult boutique,” Hubba Hubba in Cambridge made Condom World look like a kindergarten classroom. My faint heart was not ready for what I encountered when I arrived and I realized that there is a lot more to the fetish culture than I knew.
I thought I could handle this—I almost ordered a blindfold, I had read three chapters of Fifty Shades! I started sweating profusely when I saw the nipple torture toys and the latex masks. “Are you OK?” an employee asked me when I started breaking out in hives. “Yes, just new to this,” I said through a pained expression. My eyes were opened to a world I thought I knew a little bit about; however, the list of fetishes is absolutely unreal. It isn’t just feet and dominance. I was shocked when I stumbled upon a “comprehensive list of kinks, fetishes, S&M acts, and paraphilias,” and so were the innocent library-goers when I spit out my water while reading the list. Burping fetishes made me laugh, then squint, then consider it. “Yiffing”—a fetish involving stuffed animals—took me on an emotional roller coaster ride of Toy Story associations and weird feelings. My favorite was “yeastiality”—a bread fetish which involves having sex with warm dough. I don’t know how to feel about it either. All joking aside these hyper-specific fetishes can cause a lot of shame and confusion for people. “We get a lot of people asking for advice and confirmation that what they are feeling is ok,” said Guastaferri, commenting on how people call Condom World alarmed and looking for validation of a fetish. It is simply shocking that in such a progressive era full of diversity and inclusion that we are still caught up in sexual taboos, ostracizing those with sexual kinks. Even
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FETISHES? WHAT