First, let’s not split hairs over what is and isn’t a fetish. If you consider yourself very into somethingets call that a fetish for the sake of this particular conversation. So like if someone asks you “boobs or ass” and you says “ass” that’s not a fetish, but if you think You’re into ass more than the average person then let’s say that’s a fetish. I think some folks may define it as being extremely into something and only that thing. Let’s not use that definition for this thread. It’s fine if you disagree about how I’m using the term, I just want to be clear about what I mean when I use it here.
The other night I was with friends and someone said they know folks with fetishes that “not even the CIA could get them to admit to” so I’m expecting them to say something horrifying. One of the next things they said was “I don’t know anyone with a foot fetish who isn’t straight.” To be fair, it wasn’t necessarily them saying a foot fetish is something that warranted keeping a secret even under a CIA interrogation (I know it is a figure of speech, but still I’d expect something disgusting like scat). After they said that I joking was like “yeah totally, me neither, I don’t know anyone into feet” thinking it was obvious I was saying I was into feet. They didn’t really pick up on it.
So eventually they got that I was saying I was and I explained it. It feels like the “Joker meme” where it’s like “someone says they’re really into boobs or ass and nobody bats an eye, say you’re into feet and everybody loses their goddamn mind.” I explained how it feels weird to be able to comment on cleavage looking good or tight jeans looking good but how is that any different than saying shoes make a foot look sexy?
They asked me why I think people want to hide foot stuff specifically. I have a good answer because I specifically am not into all foot things. A lot of foot fetish stuff you see out there is like “dirty feet” stuff. Like a degrading “I’m making you lick my sweaty toes I haven’t washed.” And while I like some dom sub stuff, to me that’s just gross. The same way I would want to wash my dick if I knew someone was going to suck it. I don’t think folks are wrong for that, it’s just not what I’m into. And to me that’s a very gross kink (no offense). So for me I don’t want people to think I’m into that. In addition, a lot of people just view feet as always dirty. Because honestly they usually are, they’re not wrong.
But it got me thinking – having someone sit on your face feels very in vogue right now. It’s talked about a lot in horny memes. It’s odd to me that folks view that as more okay. You’re close to an asshole. A pretty nasty body part. When people say they like ass they usually don’t mean assholes, but yet face sitting’s Overton window seems to be shifting to be more acceptable to talk about. But it feels like telling someone “I want someone to step on me” which is extremely similar to “sit on my face” feels way more taboo. People joke about both but it seems folks are more serious about the face sit one.
So my question is, what are some taboo fetishes you have and where do you think the line of taboo is?
To me someone face sitting feels just as kinky of a fetish as wanting to be stepped on or given a foot job but for whatever reason feels way less taboo.
I draw a few distinctions. There are “taboo” things which is just anything you can’t bring up in front of your grandma (you know, anything except sex in the missionary position with the lights off with the sole purpose of procreation), which is kind of where any political discussion of sex has sat for a long time. Anything else is just “whatever you do in your bedroom” and exists in a box over there somewhere no one really wants to dig in to.
Anything that would be hazardous to someone’s physical or mental health to practice IRL is taboo for me. Scat play, pretty much anything to do with needles, rape or other non-con where the target is being harmed or held at gunpoint or knifepoint. Sexualizing minors, sexualizing animals. Anything like this. Not that anyone should be outright shamed/shunned but I think indulging anything here is potentially dangerous to at least some degree.
Then there’s stuff I just don’t really understand but is so kind of off the deep end that I don’t necessarily think it’s hurting anyone - I just don’t get it. Giant people, vore, insects or spiders, super inconvenient sex organs (like the size of cars). Most other things, even “alternative” or unusual/taboo kinks like body mods, dominance/humiliation via bodily functions i.e. urination, tentacles, futa/shemales, latex, mind control, all that stuff at least makes sense to me even if I’m not in to it.
The one that’s hard for me to address is incest. I’m not personally in to incest, practicing it IRL seems like it would be insanely harmful to the mental well-being of everyone involved, yet it’s like the biggest kink by content volume on the major porn video sites. I can’t really wrap my head around it, but considering how ubiquitous it is while also recognizing most of this content is literally just captioned in this way and no other effort is made to make it “about” the kink, I think ultimately it’s less about anyone fantasizing about any specific (real or theoretical) person in their life, and instead fantasizing more broadly about someone they would simply have easy access to and is therefore about the literal incest and more about the convenience of… idk, state sponsored GF’s or whatever else. Jury’s out on incest for me.
Interestingly your example of “gross” feet is I think a crossover of something that’s totally unrelated to the body part specifically, and part of a broader kink that involves e.g. smothering in sweat after a workout, cleaning a dirty partner in unsavory ways/ways our brains tell us we know we shouldn’t do because we’ll get sick. Even I think “omarashi” or however you spell the farting/gas kink is kind of wrapped up in this. It’s just taking stuff that our bodies do, we know it’s gross, and sublimating it in to kink territory, even if it’s actually unsafe (however mildly) to indulge in. There can also be a dominance/humiliation aspect here, which again can be detached from both feet and bodily fluids.
I find it interesting you call out facesitting. I think as peoples’ hygiene has improved, we’ve realized you know, the vagina is just a place on the body. The asshole is just a place on the body. If they’re clean, they’re not unhealthy to play with, and you can get a lot of pleasurable sexual mileage out of both. So if you’re clean, why should cunnilingus be taboo? Or even eating ass for that matter? It takes some prep, but so does anal. And if cunnilingus is okay, why shouldn’t facesitting be, since it’s essentially just a specific orientation/arrangement of cunnilingus. Again there can be a “dominant female” attachment to it if you want, and there can be a gross-out/dirty factor too, but those are both independent things that you can choose to involve in the kink or not.
To be fair most of the “incest” is very soft incest. Step sibling stuff that effectively removes the taboo aspect by taking the concerning part out. I don’t think anyone with the kink is there for that.
Personally incest I can personally relate to is off limits. I have the advantage of not having sisters so I don’t really have a real life equivalent to make it weird to me.
Re: incest
You make a good point about most incest porn not feeling very incesty. I watch it sometimes but only specific types. I’m into dom sub stuff. A lot of it out there tends to be super hard and over the top. A lot of step mother incest porn tends to hit the same notes of the dom sub stuff but in a gentler way. That they’re supposedly a family is not part of it for me. It’s more the kinkiness of someone taking advantage of you that has a trusted position of authority over you. Like if it was a boss and employee I’d still enjoy it. The content tends to be more gentle in the domination than content tagged as BDSM. There you find stuff like people tied up. I like that too but a variety is nice.
I think you’re pretty accurate on the incest stuff, at least for me. Which is probably also why the “step-sis” stuff is so popular. I think for a lot of people the literal blood relation isn’t necessarily the important part. It’s the shared secrecy, sneaking off, hiding, being quiet, the easy acces to someone of your preferred sex right next to your own bedroom without the strings of a relationship attached.
By the way, ‘omorashi’ is the Japanese word for wetting yourself. It’s a desperation and pee fetish, it has nothing to do with farting. (Although it does seem those fetishes go hand-in-hand a lot.)