I’ve seen it
mentioned recently in a couple of tweets that “People are not a fetish”. I
agree with the sentiment behind that statement, although I would refine it to read
that “People should not be a fetish.” Because the
reality is that people’s racial and ethnic backgrounds are, unfortunately,
fetishes for some.
Since I’m a
big nerd, though, let’s go to the dictionary (Thanks Merriam-Webster!):
fetish
noun fe·tish
1a : an object (such as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical power to protect or aid its owner; broadly : a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence
b : an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion : prepossession
c : an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression
2: fixation
3: a rite or cult of fetish worshippers
Speaking as a black male, there are multiple subcultures where black men (and our skin color) are the focus of somewhat irrational reverence or prepossession; where our bodily parts are viewed as an object of fixation and the presence of certain parts are necessary for the sexual gratification of some individuals/couples.
Is that correct
or nice? No. No one should be reduced to being viewed as a collection of
discrete parts. And yet it happens a lot; too often in fact.
(Porn is
guilty of doing this. All the damn time. In all kinds of different fucking
ways, by the way).
Let’s move
on to another word, though, that might make more sense in the context of some
of the things we see bandied about online:
