James Macon, M.Ed., BCBA.

As a Behavior Analyst, I often find myself answering questions or settling disputes for my friends and acquaintances on the “why” of certain types of behaviors.

While the subject matter can vary from week to week or month to month, a popular and consistent theme has to do with sex.  People want to know the how and why of fetishisms, or where “kinks” come from. How and why would someone develop a foot fetish? Are clown fetishes real ? Do people “decide” to have a fetish, or it just happens? As a behaviorist, I’m happy to give my analysis to them, with the understanding that it’s all through the lens of behavior analysis.

Before we dive in, here’s my disclaimer: the content of this article is not meant to be all-encompassing or offensive in any way, and is merely a humble behavior analysis of a certain types of sexual behavior. While I’m a behavior analyst, I do not claim or purport to be an expert on fetishism. Good. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, on to the article!

On Fetishism

For our definition, we’re going to say that a fetish is a sexual fixation on a non-sexual body part or object. A broad, non-technical distinction is in order though; fetishes, like nearly any other behavior for analysis, can be “normal” or “pathological.” It becomes pathological when it interferes with someone’s quality of life or causes distress. In a lot ways, it’s similar to other behaviors that a behavior analyst would treat… either a behavior is happening too little, too much, or is occurring at the wrong time or place in a way that impacts quality of life.   A non-pathological fetish is too much of a mouthful, so we’re going to call it a “kink” instead. We’ll reserve the label “fetish” to the more life-interfering pathological type.

Pavlov’s Dog

Now that we have our definition out of the way, it’s on the science. Interestingly enough, people can technically develop a kink or fetish to just about anything. Not just people either… behavioral studies have demonstrated that fetishisms can be shaped in male and female rats and even different primates (Pfaus et al, 2012; Zamble et al, 2012; Akins, 2004). The 2 basic behavioral procedures involved in fetishism are respondent and operant conditioning.

We’ll start with respondent conditioning, or “Pavlonian” conditioning. Respondent conditioning is happening everywhere in our lives, all the time. It’s about taking neutral things or stimuli and making them more reinforcing by pairing them with known reinforcers. In case your wondering, it’s why commercials have beautiful, attractive people trying to sell us stuff.   Repeatedly pairing a neutral stimulus (a company’s product) with a reinforcing stimulus (in behavioral jargon, we call it a unconditioned stimulus, because no prior learning or conditioning is required) will automatically lend the reinforcing properties to the neutral stimulus. Over time, that neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus, and leads to a conditioned response.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so a video will do even better. Google Search Carl’s Junior sexy commercials for some unabashed examples of how a restaurant chain used this to sell hamburgers, or click the link below. Disclaimer: there is no nudity, but the videos may not be suitable for work.

Sex sells hamburgers

Some Diagramming:

But how does this relate to behavior analysis and fetishism? Sex is a primary reinforcer, and by that, it requires no conditioning or prior learning history to serve as a reinforcer. Anything that happens to occur (neutral stimuli) around sex or climax is subject to respondent conditioning (and operant conditioning), and could become a conditioned stimulus.

As an academic argument, if there were a giant article of geriatric underwear, or a shoe, or a lamp, or shapes, or colors, or a scary movie, or a particular type of non-sexual touch were present at the time of sexual arousal or climax, they could theoretically, over time, become conditioned stimuli, and could lead to a conditioned response (sexual arousal, or kinks/fetishes).

Sounds too absurd, right? Well, it isn’t. There aren’t many applied human studies into this subject matter  but the aforementioned laboratory studies with other animals provide some parallels. Mice were conditioned to become aroused in the presence of plastic toy fish. In another experiment, mice were conditioned to become aroused with Velcro (and later, couldn’t become “perform” unless they had the Velcro). Yet another with stinky, noxious odors. The studies that did involve humans were able to condition sexual arousal to boots, geometric shapes, and even penny jars by pairing those neutral stimuli with erotic material (Darcangelo, 2008).

Some More Diagramming:

Here’s an example of how researchers used respondent conditioning to turn a jar of pennies into a sexual object.

What’s consistent across these studies is the science: respondent conditioning, or paring neutral stimuli (e.g., plastic fish) with reinforcing stimuli (sex) was used to create conditioned stimuli that would elicit a conditioned response (arousal).  Where kinks turn into fetishes, and potentially become pathological, is when they start causing distress or interfering with quality of life. Reference our rat who could only “perform” when he was wearing Velcro… his quality of life was definitely impaired at that point.

Here’s where operant conditioning comes in.

Operant Conditioning

The effects of our actions determine whether or not we’ll repeat them. With operant conditioning, it’s all about the antecedents and consequences. With respect to fetishes, we’ve established that certain previously neutral things are now conditioned to elicit arousal (like the plastic fish, Velcro, or penny jars). The site of those conditioned stimuli become an antecedent to sexual behavior, and can “trigger” a response. This isn’t a perfect analogy, but it might be comparable to an itch in that the person with the fetish has been triggered, and until they scratch the itch, they cannot (without intervention) escape the itch. This is a negative reinforcement, or escape contingency. Another way operant conditioning may play a role, is perhaps the person’s behavior is triggered, and until they respond, they can not achieve satisfaction (a positive reinforcement contingency). With both operant and respondent conditioning occurring, these behaviors can become very “durable” and often very difficult to change.

How would you change a fetish?

From a behavior analytic perspective, changing this type of behavior would involve manipulating antecedents and consequences, and reconditioning stimuli. If you were the poor guy who was aroused by penny jars and it was interfering with your quality of life, you could alter both the respondent and operant contingencies.

For operant contingencies, you could start by identifying antecedents or triggers to avoid. In practice, this might look like avoiding banks and Coinstar® machines. In doing so, you would avoid the “trigger” of seeing all those pennies. For consequence manipulation, it might mean substituting non-fetish fantasies for the fetish one. Reconditioning the stimuli through respondent extinction would also be effective, as it would alter the properties of the stimuli.

That’s a wrap.

As a behaviorist, I believe the universe is a lawful, orderly, and deterministic place. I love finding behavior analysis in everyday life, including things we usually don’t talk about, like fetishism.  Have a suggestion on where we should look next?  Leave it in the comments below!