from my understanding, a fetish is essentially something one finds pleasurable (sexual or not) that does not involve the parts of the body designed for sexual pleasure. so for example, "bullying" could be considered a fetish. does bullying someone (psychological or physically) have anything to do with sex? no. in spite of this fact, people still find it pleasurable to be degraded.
that's my definition I'm operating under, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there. and if i am incorrect, please give me the word that describes my definition so i know in the future what term to use.
There's an older definition, which I'm not really a big fan of either, that denotes that the term "fetish" strictly speaking applies to elements outside the norm that are both used and required for achieving sexual pleasure/gratification. I.e. they're kind of pathological, while IIRC the term for elements outside the norm that are merely used to derive pleasure from, but not required, would be referred to as "kinks". I think it's fair to use the terms interchangeably, as they commonly are colloquially anyway, and I think that's what you were getting at.
I'm also a bit bothered by the word "bullying", because what we have here is people mildly, gently and lovingly teasing each other, while "bullying" aims to destroy a person. (The first chapter or two of Nagatoro-san kind of seemed like they might fall into "bullying", but that cleared up and mellowed out rather quickly).
yeah, i think they can be interchangeable in most contexts. though, the way i see it, kink is nature and fetish is nurture. a kink is a divergence of an objects natural path of motion. so in nature, we have sex with our sexual organs, but someone with a kink might only be able to get off with feet involved or some other "unnatural" condition. then there's fetish which is more of a special interest or obsession of something that is usually intertwined with ones sexuality. so something can be considered both, one, or the other depending on context. however, one big similarity is that both can develop into a philia when mixed with the wrong circumstances.
as for bullying, i suppose i could have used a more acceptable term there, but i wasn't really referring to the life destroying aspect of it. i guess teasing would be a more fitting word.
last edited at Apr 19, 2023 12:42AM