Rule #5: Garden your fetishes

12 Rules of Malesub Life: An Antidote to Being a Loser or a Pest (articles unlock every Sunday)

COMING SOON!

For who exactly I mean by malesub, see the Introduction.

Careful what you wank for!

Just to be clear, all the no-fap in the world won’t alter your sexual or kink orientation. One does not simply masturbate into a new identity, or out of one.

However, repeated masturbation does create and feed fetishes — that’s how they’re acquired. Something pushes your buttons somewhat, then through fantasising and masturbating, or actually doing the thing, you literally train yourself to respond sexually to it. Remember Pavlov’s dogs salivating whenever a bell rang?

And that gives us a handy way to distinguish between a kink and a fetish. A kink is something… kinky (OK definitions are hard, but you know what I mean) that you like or want to do, whereas a fetish is anything possible or impossible that you’ve trained yourself to become aroused to, which could be a kink but need not.

For example, bondage is a kink and possibly a fetish, whereas stockings (whatever you do with them) aren’t a kink but can be a fetish, which can be used to enhance a kink.

The “enhance” part of that is important.

Fetishes can be great. They are leverage for your lover, especially a dominant one, and the older you get, the more grateful you will be for having an “on switch” not involving chemicals.

However, there are two potential problems:

• Fetishes can be compulsive, up to and including the point where they colonise your entire sexuality.

• Fetishes can be inconvenient, as in disruptive, difficult, uncomfortable, dangerous, or immoral to satisfy.

These two issues can interact with each other in ways that put the in “erg!” in “negative synergy”… which is why you need to garden — or curate, if you want to be middle class about it — your fetishes.

That’s what this rule is about.

For example, as you might guess from my erotica, I used to have a thing for redheads, to the point where it became a fetish.

My excuse is that I was young and inexperienced, and it was easier to visualise… salient anatomical regions when the hair was a striking colour. The snag was, that not all compatible women were redheads, and not all redheads were compatible with me.

Plus, I am pretty sure, some red-haired women really dislike being objectified for their hair.

My redhead fetish was therefore a good example of an inconvenient fetish.

There are other far more inconvenient fetishes.

Some fetishes turn you away from real people. For example, developing a thing for being used by a giantess is not exactly conducive to seeking out real-world relationships. The same could be said for fetishes focussing on objects or niche costumes, or activities generally thought to be gross.

Some fetishes — like cuckolding, sissification, or really complex bondage games — are likely to be an annoying imposition on a partner, limiting your dating pool or stressing an existing relationship. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with these fetishes in themselves, and some people do manage to find enthusiastic partners. Even so, they make life harder. Which takes us to…

Some fetishes — including things like forced-bi if you really are straight, or heavy whippings if you aren’t a masochist, or submitting if you aren’t submissive — are hot because they go against the grain of your sexuality. You may not actually enjoy doing them for real, and pursuing them could be disruptive to relationships and confusing or objectifying for potential participants. There’s also a risk of such fetishes taking you to a dark place, and then you fetishising dark places in general. Which takes us to…

Some fetishes are just a bad idea — think potentially fatal self bondage adventures, and fantasies that flirt with mutilation and self-destruction... the tragic way (usually) conservative politicians sometimes end up in the news. At best, these can be off-putting for a partner, even at the sharing fantasies stage. At worse, these can be morally and legally dangerous, to the point where just consuming the related porn can make you a bad person and get you into trouble. And, since they get their buzz from shock value, leaning into this kind of fetish can train you into fetishising being shocked in the first place… which can lead you to some pretty disturbing places.

I don’t think you can erase a fetish, but I do think you can feed good fetishes at the expense of bad ones.

Good fetishes are ones that are plausibly doable with a realistic partner. So turn off your screen and fantasise about women who are not professional dominatrices or porn performers.

Focus on things that don’t demand much effort — stockings, for example, or basic bondage, or Virgo style chastity. For added points, explore kinks that the women you imagine might realistically enjoy, for example kinky improvements on common vanilla activities, or basic expressions of the human dark side. Imagine serving and suffering, and keep in mind: “What’s in it for her?”

If you have never actually done any real life femdom, exploring good fetishes can be scary. It means imagining what a real kinky relationship might be like, which in turn opens up the potentially scary possibility that such a thing might be possible… which can leave you feeling very naked indeed.

However, speaking as somebody in his tenth year of a very kinky Female Led Relationship, I think that’s a worthwhile step to take. I’m also fairly sure that we’d have gotten here much sooner if I’d had been less enthusiastic about my more inconvenient fetishes.

Which is why I think you should garden your fetishes.

(See the other rules for malesub life.)

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While you’re waiting for the next Rule, tale a look at my manifesto…