Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to Behind the Paddle Podcast and me, pawsome Victoria. So today we are going to talk about what is the difference between a fetish and a kink and why does that matter? I absolutely love this subject and it's something which I educate people on every now and again because, you know, some people don't know the difference and it is quite a big difference, to be fair, and some people have usually heard the words used interchangeably. You've seen them lumped together in like hashtags and well, not educational videos hopefully not but you've heard people talk about them or if you're new here, then welcome. This is what we're going to talk about today and thank you so much for trusting and listening to behind the pedo podcast. And yeah, fetish and kink, they're not the same, um. So within this hour, we're going to break down where the words come from, what they actually and why. Misunderstanding them leads to stigma, shame and confusion. So if you're autistic, like me, I like to get straight to the point. I like it very clear cut. So we're going to be straight right now and get to the point of the definitions of kink and fetish. So with kink, it's an umbrella term for a wide range of sexual interests, behaviours, fantasies and practices that fall outside of what's considered mainstream or vanilla sex. It encompasses activities like bondage, dominance, submission, sadomasochism, impact play, role play, sensation everything basically in BDSM and BDSM is like a massive umbrella Massive.

Speaker 1: 2:26

I was literally talking to somebody the other day about how unusual fetishes, ones which aren't as common, two that I've came across which are very interesting to me. Um, one of them is heat related. So I've seen it in a few instances where people like the feel of heat to the point where, like they will willingly burn themselves and get off on that, whether they are turned on or they're not, or they just like the sensation. I love the psychology behind it and everybody is different. Um, and another one was hair cutting. I have a particular person who has been dying to cut my hair for years, but I don't want to chop my hair. The more hair you chop off, the more he likes it, and I found that very interesting because the whole BDSM, kinks and fetishes it's such a large spectrum. It really is.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Anything can be a kink or a fetish, apart from illegal stuff. Let me just say that that we don't own that. Nope, nope. So flexible relationship to arousal. A kink may heighten desire, spice things up or create intimacy, but it's not always essential for an orgasm. Keep that in mind. Someone with a kink can usually still enjoy, say, vanilla sex, and they don't need that particular kink to be involved in coming or getting off, orgasming, climaxing, having a good time. And of course, kinks can be expressed in physical form like spanking, rope, bondage.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Psychological forms like power play, humiliation, praise, kink or social retaliation. Forms like protocol, role-based dynamics. It's often practiced with varying intensity. It's often practiced with varying intensity. Some may dabble occasionally, while others incorporate it as a core part of their sexual or relational identity. So for me it's a part of my identity.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Kink in general, bdsm. I don't need it to get fully off. I can have vanilla sex, but I would like aspects, if possible, and, of course, context dependent. A spanking in a kinky scene might be sexual, but in another context it could be playful, cathartic or ritualistic. Everybody has their own ways of doing things and things at looking at it and what it means to them. That's's something I learned quite early on, that everybody feels it differently, sees kink differently and again, sometimes it's not even sexual, which we'll go into on a different episode. So just to give an example, you love being spanked during sex because it turns you on, but you're still capable of enjoying intimacy without it. As I said before with my personal life, I can enjoy vanilla sex, but kink I would love a bit of kink, but it's not a necessity. Kink I would love a bit of kink, but it's not a necessity.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Now a fetish a specific or consistent sexual fixation on a particular object, material body part or experience that is not inherently sexual in itself. Traditionally defined in a clinical or psychological literature as a persistent sexual focus that may be required for arousal, it can range in intensity, so a mild fetish enhances arousal, like latex makes sex more exciting, and strong fetish necessary for orgasm or even sexual arousal. So climax is only possible when wearing latex or being around it. It's often directed towards non-genital body parts, so feet, hair, armpits or non-human objects or materials like leather, silk, rubber, shoes, hell, even balloons. Unlike kink, fetish typically centers the turn on around one element rather than a broad practice or dynamic. Fetishes can exist with or without kink. Some people with fetishes never engage in wider kink culture, while others weave their fetish into BDSM or role play. So again, here's another example you can only climax when smelling leather or seeing someone in high heels. Without that stimulus, orgasm feels difficult or impossible. So quick distinction kink adds to sex, deepening pleasure or expanding possibilities.

Speaker 1: 9:03

Fetish may replace sex or become the core of what arousal hinges on. So the origins of the terms. Where did they come from? Where did these words come from? Do they sound clinical, religious or taboo? Do they sound like that all at once? Is that how you hear it? Well, so we're going to talk about fetish. So etymology and early roots, right. So the word fetish comes from the Portuguese fideicão, meaning charm, spell or magical object.

Speaker 1: 9:55

When Portuguese traders and missionaries arrived on the West African coast in the 15th century, they noticed locals using carved figures, masks or amulets in rituals. They didn't understand the spiritual meaning, so they called them phydecos, a term that implied superstition and trickery. So colonial use. By the 16th and 17th centuries this word was weaponized in colonial discourse. I know the word fetish, right? European colonizers described African and indigenous spiritual practices as fetish worship, suggesting they were irrational, primitive and inferior to Christianity. Why does it have to always come back to religion? It wasn't a neutral label. It reinforced the hierarchy their faith is superstition, ours is truth. That's what they made out. That it said. So there was a turn in the 18th century. Enlightenment thinkers like Charles de Brosses took this further. In 1760 he wrote about fetishism as the most childish stage of religion People worshipping objects instead of abstract gods. Again, making it out like fetish equals irrational. It's psychology's turn.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Now, in the 19th century, when psychology emerged, thinkers like Alfred Binet and Sigmund Fried adopted the term but twisted it into a sexual context. Fried described fetishism as a fixation on an object like shoes, feet, fabrics that replaced the quote normal sexual object. He often linked it to castration, anxiety, trauma or repression, in other words, something broken in development. So the cultural consequences of this was by the 20th century, the word fetish already carried centuries of baggage from colonialism, associated it with with fear of the foreign and primitive. From religion, associated with irrational superstition. From medicine, associated with pathologically and deviance. And this is why even today the word fetish can sound clinical, taboo or shame-soaked. It's horrible. It was always framed as something abnormal or suspect long before it entered the bedroom. So that was fetish.

Speaker 1: 13:00

We're now going to move on to kink, where that came from? So kink comes from a very different route. Simply a twist or bend, something not straight. In the 18th to 19th century it was used literally, a kink in a rope, a kink in a hose, or figuratively, a kink in one's character, a quirky habit or odd trait. Quirky habit or odd trait. And of course, the shift. It changed. It shifted by the 1920s to 50s.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Kink began appearing in underground sexual slang. So we had pulp novels, jazz, culture, nightlife, subcultures. Unlike fetish, it wasn't imported from colonialism or science. It grew out of community language. If you had a kink it meant you had an unusual taste, something playful, experimental, a little bent from the norm. Something playful, experimental, a little bent from the norm. So with that difference in origin, oh, it's so different.

Speaker 1: 14:18

Fetish came to people through philosophy, medicine and colonialism, authority structures that judged and pathologicalized. Kink came up from the grassroots, from slang, subculture and community, and as a result, kink was often seen as adventurous, cheeky, even fun. Fetish, by contrast, was framed as compulsive, obsessive and medical. So when you hear the words today, you are hearing history. All words have history. You just need to look into it and you never know where that's going to lead. And it's crazy how we come up with words and why the fuck does religion have to be in something man I can't believe.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Fetish began as a fear of the foreign, filtered through science and shame. And kink began as a quirky twist, a slang for straying from the straight line, and even now that history shapes how the world reacts to them, I still to this day's, it's still taboo and I think people do still not understand what the difference is between a fetish and a kink and I feel like a fetish is more shamed than a kink, still to this day, because fetish, I think it feels heavier and there's a lot more to it. So psychology hasn't always been kind to people who deviate. I feel like that's very clear. So we're going to talk about fetish in their clinical context. So we're going to talk about the treatment models in history. So early pathologicalization. So we're talking 19th to 20th century. Right now.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Fetishes were long classified as mental illnesses or perversions under psychiatry. In early editions of the DSM, which stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fetishism was listed as a paraphilia, a deviant or abnormal sexual. In the mid 20th century we had aversion therapy. It was used heavily in the 1950s to 70s. The good majority of people who who did get aversion therapy were queer, sadly. So obviously, if anything isn't normal, they fucking attempt to cure it obviously. So they attempted to cure fetish interests by pairing arousal with unpleasant stimuli. So they would electrocute you and they would give you nausea inducing drugs, which obviously caused trauma, guilt, shame, fucking, ptsd, rather than actually changing the fetish or even challenging it.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Psychoanalysis, freed mid-20th century, saw fetishism as an unconscious response to castration, anxiety or unresolved childhood conflicts. Therapy involved years of dream analysis and free association, often pathologicalizing non-normative sexuality as neurosis. So medicalization in 1960s to 80s. Neurosis, so medicalization in 1960s to 80s.

Speaker 1: 18:18

Fetishism framed as a condition needing intervention, often lumped with harmful paraphilias like pedophilia, despite the distinction of consent. And it is so different from pedophilia like. Come on, guys, seriously. So today, in this modern day and age, we have sex therapy influenced by people like john money, william masters and virginia johnson, and contemporary sex positive therapists which focus on integration, not eradication, helping clients explore their fetish in healthy, consensual, shame-free ways, which is how it should be, normalizing the fetish as well as part of sexual diversity, especially if it doesn't cause distress or harm, and, of course, couples therapy.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Um, I mean, it's really important that if you do have a kink or a fetish or you are in a certain lifestyle, that you tell your partner that if you're wanting to be in a relationship with somebody, you need to be truthful about how you live. Essentially, I don't think really personally and you can take this with a pinch of salt I don't think there should be any secrets or lies in relationships. I think the world would be a better place if we just spoke to each other. I understand that it is harder for older generations who have settled down with their partners and everything like that all down with their partners and everything like that but I also understand that the person who is committing these acts of cheating and lying. They do feel a lot of guilt and I sympathize with them and I do feel sorry for them and I know that a lot of other sex workers out there do as well and it sucks and it's sad that they weren't given a life that we are, in a way, so privileged to have, where we are becoming very open with sexuality, gender, bdsdsm, sex work and our bodies. They didn't have that back in the day. So you have to think about everything. You have to think about how was it back in the day compared to now? And we have grown absolutely. We have grown that much that fetishes are no longer considered pathological unless they meet criteria for paraphilias, paraphiliic disorder in dsm5. So, as I said before, as long as they don't cause significant distress, impairment or involve non-consenting individuals.

Speaker 1: 21:37

So of course I've got to bust some myths. So we've got a few myths here. So the first one is that kink is just a socially acceptable fetish, when in reality kink is often about dynamics, roles and sensations. A fetish is usually about an object or stimulus, as I've mentioned before. Spanking as a kink, a power exchange, dynamic spanking as a fetish, a compulsive arousal, only when spanking is involved. The next myth is people with fetishes are broken, when in reality fetishes are incredibly common, from feet to latex to lingerie. Mild fetishistic preferences exist on a spectrum. Many couples integrate them seamlessly into healthy, fun sex lives, as well as just people who are solo playing with it. Hell, they might even hire a sex worker like myself to explore their fetish. And the last myth is if you're kinky, you must be a fetishist. No, not necessarily.

Speaker 1: 23:06

Many kinksters like myself thrive on roleplay, pain, pleasure or submission, dominance with no fixed object. Now I could absolutely give you A to Z on the kinks which I enjoy, but I don't need any of those in order to come or to orgasm and climax. I don't. I don't need any of those. So that one, no, no, I'm not questioning myself. I'm not a fetishist. I have fetish lifestyle focus. You need it. Whereas kink, it can be there, it cannot be so when the lines blur. What about the gray areas when kink becomes a fetish? So, for example, a submissive can only orgasm from humiliation, play, humiliation, kink becomes fetishised.

Speaker 1: 24:26

A dom who can't get aroused without boots, fetish object integrated into kink role, a foot fetishist who thrives in a dom sub dynamic is kink built around fetish. So the key difference need versus enjoyment. So if arousal depends entirely on the stimulus, it leans fetish. If it enhances but isn't required, it leans kink. These overlaps are common. The key is awareness Do you need it or you just enjoy it?

Speaker 1: 25:07

Okay, now I'm questioning because I need bdsm in my life, but I don't need to have it in the scene to look at. Oh why? Why is this episode got me questioning? I will need to come back to this. So in my life I need bdsm. It's not optional, it's how I connect and whatnot. It's how I feel most alive in my relationships and it's it's such a must, it's a massive part of my identity and without it, something vital is missing, but I can still have sex without it. I can still climax during what most people would call vanilla sex.

Speaker 1: 25:54

The difference is without BDSM, I don't feel fully expressed. Yes, it's like the difference between speaking a second language versus your mother tongue. Sure, you can get the message across, but it doesn't feel as natural as or as you. And that's the heart of kink versus fetish discussion. A fetish is when you must have a certain element, an object, a material, a body part in order to orgasm. A kink is more flexible. It may be required for climax, but it's what makes sex feel richer, truer and more exciting. For me, bdsm is an erotic language. I can enjoy sex without it, but I can't live without it. It's not that my body won't work without kink, it's that my soul doesn't feel fed, it doesn't feel complete.

Speaker 1: 26:51

Okay, this was like an hour, um, I didn't record it, but well, it would be me typing and looking, researching and going. Oh wait, what my own podcast episode has got me questioning my life. This is great, that is so interesting. Well, thank you, um, listeners, um, because if I didn't have listeners, I probably would still be doing the podcast, but it very much helps and I'm gonna laugh at that now. So now we're gonna talk about the stigma, the cultural stigma, and why we need to get it out there. And why we need to get it out there, that it's okay and it needs to I hate the word but it needs to be normalized Because, you see, fetish has been often betrayed, like comedy shows or tv media, and fetishes are, like, wrongly linked to certain um, deviance. I remember that, um, there was a csi episode where it was fairies and I was like no, this doesn't like no, why the furries have to be on the fucking csi episode. That make no, no, and I mean kink has became so mainstream.

Speaker 1: 28:41

We had the massive pop-off of 50 shades of gray, like holy crap, like forget Secretary, forget um, what was it? Crash, where, um, he falls in love with the car and like shags it and stuff. Haven't actually watched that one, I'll be honest. Um, and like there was, I mean, story of O back in the day. Very much, um, people were not okay with that. But 50 shades of gray, even though it's, uh, toxic and whatnot, and you've got um 365 days or that bullshit. I watched that movie on netflix. Terrible the ending. I will spoil it for you. It is horrendous. There is no point in watching it and it is just abuse and toxic and, like I'll be honest, I preferred 50 shades of gray from compared to 365 days. Like, what is this? What? What it was? No, I mean even one of my favorite bdsm movies, which is secretary. Um, even that's a bit toxic.

Speaker 1: 29:50

Um, it's very difficult to find unless you find some independent. Um, there was a series which I watched and I can't remember what it was and it was an independent porn series and it was really good, but they never got to finish it. I think she was writing a book and it was. It was really good, but they never got to finish it. I think she was writing a book and it was. It was really good. It was like the I, I think. I think it was really good. Um, it was really really. I'm gonna. This is gonna kill me. Um, because I can't exactly type into google porn series is it sucks, because I've been trying to find out for a good while now. I just Remembered the name of one of the actresses and I believe it was produced by kinkcom, but I will double check. Oh, my god, I'm so happy. Um, you guys are witnessing me. Um, oh, I'm so happy because I think I'll be able to find it now.

Speaker 1: 31:05

Right, okay, there was a series called submission that was made in 2016 and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. I can't I will have to re-watch it, because it was a good while ago. Um, yeah, there was only one season and there was only six episodes, so I don't think they properly fully finished it, but it was so good. I will re-watch this and then in um, in a month's time. Um, we will see if I need to edit this audio. Um, um, if it was good or not, but I'm pretty sure it was. But we'll see.

Speaker 1: 31:58

Okay, so what I'm reading is that it did end, but like it could have done with a few more seasons. It's not like game of thrones, but like, oh, it was so good. Thank you guys. You are really helping me out right now and, uh, you're gonna hear me babble for god knows how long about this. I swear I've just babbled for like five minutes about this porn that I couldn't find. Um, but, yeah, that submission it's I. I actually really enjoyed it. Um, but, yeah, definitely watch secretary as well. There is a few bad parts in it where it's like there wasn't really consent there. But it's all right, it's not too bad. Um, I've talked about story of oh in a few other episodes.

Speaker 1: 32:47

It it's something, let's just put it that way. So now we're gonna look at the lovely blueprint in our brains of desire. So your brain builds it from experience, pairing sensations with reward. It's not just sex, it's survival, emotion and context. From the first crush to the first orgasm. Your brain is recording data, filling it under. This turns me on, even if you might not know it.

Speaker 1: 33:20

So let's start with the lovely science. Sexual stigma lie light up the limbic system, especially the amygdala, which is emotional intensity, the hypothalamus, which is the primal drive and arousal regulation. Dopamine floods, the reward circuitry, the nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area. We did go over this in the neurochemistry of kink and we did a two-part episode. Please go into that and you can have like a lovely deep dive. It's very good. And so that starts to make the body learn that that felt good. Do again. So has anybody heard of Pavlov's dog? Right?

Speaker 1: 34:21

So, just like how they salivated at a bell, humans can become aroused by heels, latex objects, sounds, a command, a whip, crack rituals like a collar, a kneel, for example, a person's first orgasm happens when being spanked. Forever after spanking equals high arousal. The body remembers even when we forget, which is such an interesting part of my job because I really love asking people like hey, how do you think you got this? And some people don't even know, and some people find out in their own ways that maybe it was through childhood. It's crazy. So associative learning arousal gets accidentally paired with a non-sexual stimulus, for example leather gloves worn by a first lover, your first crush, which could result in erotic fixation on leather. So then we've got early infant theory. So adolescence, the brain, sexual wet cement. Strong experiences like porn fantasies or encounters leave permanent marks for a teen stumbles onto bondage porn at age 14.

Speaker 1: 35:54

Ropes become lifelong arousal cues, fetishes as symbolic ways of processing unmet needs, taboos or trauma. So an example of that is a person who is bullied for their weakness grows arousal patterned around humiliation, turning pain into erotic power. A fetish really is a door. Sometimes it opens to a memory, sometimes to power, sometimes to need. And I would like to point out just because you have a fetish doesn't make you submissive. I don't want anybody to ever come away from this or in general and think, oh, because I have a fetish, I have to be submissive. No, no, that's not the case. No, that's not the case. So now we're going to talk about kink as a psychological playground. Kink is less about objects and more about relationships to sensation and structure. So we're going to break that down.

Speaker 1: 37:06

What does kink do in the brain? So you've got the flow state. You've got deep focus, immersion, present moment, intensity. Again, we do talk about this in the neurochemistry. Go check that out, if you haven't already. You've got the endorphins. You've got pain plus risk equals natural opioids. Then you've got the dopamine reinforcement, the thrill of playing. You got the oxytocin, bonding and trust, aftercare, intimacy come on, we've got to be there. We've got to ask them, whoever you're playing with, or even yourself, do you need any aftercare? Do you need any aftercare? And neuroscience findings, brain scans show kink reduces default mode network activity, which helps quiet, quieting, overthinking shame and anxiety. It does so much, it really does.

Speaker 1: 38:08

Intense scenes mimic altered states, like meditation, trance, like runners high. Even pain can activate pleasure pathways, depending on the context. The brain in kink is not disordered. It's so, so, deeply alive. It's so, so deeply alive. So why do we fantasize about being hurt, used or degraded when we're the ones orchestrating the scene. So now we're going to talk about their control paradox.

Speaker 1: 38:43

Kink allows surrender within structure, fetish provides certainty. This always works. Both flip powerlessness into chosen empowerment for trauma survivors exposure therapy effect, facing fear safely. Now I've spoken about this before when it comes to consent, non-consent and rape play, where, with trauma survivors, some of them do want to do this because they're in a safe environment with somebody they trust and that can be healing. And it can be the same, for if you're reading a book that includes CNC in it, you're in a safe space. You can then explore that in a safer environment. It is that simple. You can then, of course, find validation in the roles once used against them, so like being a slut or an object.

Speaker 1: 39:42

When done right, kink and fetish don't re-traumatize, they reclaim pleasure, pathways and pain. Why some like it rough? Why does pain feel like pleasure for some and hell for others? Pain and pleasure overlap. Both use the same neutral circuits. Pain triggers endorphins and adrenaline, which can create euphoria. Context decides meaning Torture versus spanking, meaning the same nerves, different brain story. Kink adds layers. Ritual pain with purpose, consent, chosen suffering is empowering. Contrast pain makes pleasure sharper. The brain doesn't always separate sensation. It asks do I feel safe in this pain? If the answer is yes, the arousal door opens.

Speaker 1: 40:43

So, yeah, I think that concludes today's episode. I think I've covered quite a bit and if you think there's anything I have left out, I would love to know. And yeah, I will surely add to that. Um, yeah, this has been behind the battle podcast. We're in Folsom, victoria, talking about the differences between fetish and kink, and if you've enjoyed this episode, please go give us some stars on Spotify, apple, wherever you're listening. It would be greatly appreciated. And yeah, if you want any subjects or any topics to be discussed, I would absolutely love to hear it. If you want to write in, for whatever reason, please do. I always love hearing about how and not to toot my own horn, but I've helped in some way and yeah, that's it. Thank you very much for listening. I have been both in Victoria and goodbye.