How fetishes form (NSFW)

This gentleman, a Swiss officer in charge of marksmanship training, endured some friendly ribbing about the short rifle he brought to the even dominated by long-barreled Sig 550s. In the US, short barrels are restricted and so get attention. In Switzerland, they are merely “short-range toys for the lazy”.

Similarly restricted rifle mufflers (sound suppressors) get oohs and aahs, but in New Zealand they are no more noteworthy than mufflers on cars. When people photograph automobiles, they don’t usually emphasize the exhaust because it’s so commonplace.

Human ears and hair, here and now, are seldom fetishized because they are in the open everywhere. The same is true of ankles. However, a conversation set in 1867 described the contemporary British view: “I am as fond as the next man of a pretty ankle. I don’t blame you. But don’t tell me that the price is not fairly marked.” Where hair and neck are seldom in view, people wrote sensuous — and repressed — poetry about those. And, behind the facade of decency, Calvinist or Moslem or some other, the more restriction were piled on, the greater the discrepancy between the official virtue and the abuse of actual people.

And this brings me to the next image. It’s got hair and details not dissimilar to the ears, and piercings too. Yet, if this image was to be made public on TV or in mainstream print, quite a few people and most of the upholders of public virtue would freak out and try to punish the originator. Considering that the only emotional load attached to this body part is what long-standing cultural repression has generated, I find it illogical.

Half the population has something similar on their bodies, the other half probably see it on a regular basis. And yet the nearly complete removal of depictions from the public sphere makes it somehow shameful or improper. It’s skin, hair, muscle, mucous membranes and subdermal fat, the same stuff that makes up our faces. Hard-core Muslims are at least more consistent, they treat women’s faces the way Americans treat vulvas. The whole prohibition on visual representation just breeds fetishism. Some parts of Europe aren’t as hung up on it, which may be their contribution to a more healthy culture.