The Nascence Of My Fetishes

[lupestripe]

Many psychologists believe that kinks, fetishes and other psychological deviations from "the norm" (and please don't pick apart that term, I use it merely for reference) are fostered in childhood, particularly through childhood experiences. Thinking back, I have realised that a couple of my kinks were a part of my identity from a very early age.

Furry - Age 10 - Watching The Animals Of Farthing Wood, I remember feeling empathy for and wanting to be Fox. I also remember seeing fursuiters about (on very rare occasions) and wishing that I could get a costume of my very own.
BDSM - Age 9 - The police visited our primary school to talk about crime and self-defence techniques. They got two volunteers from the audience and put them in handcuffs. I remember feeling so jealous of them and cursing my shyness for not volunteering.
Pup Play/Rubber - Age 7 - Through The Dragon's Eye was a children's TV show involving a dragon in a rubber-clad suit. Again, I was obsessed with this. The same was true of Woof! - the kid who turned into a dog for no discernable reason. I wanted to be him!!
WAM - Age 7 - I always wanted to go on Fun House with Pat Sharpe. I was never interested in the Fun House itself, or that go-karting thing, but the gunge games. This became somewhat obsessional at an early age.

There are probably other cases if I think back hard enough but these came to me recently. For me, certainly, the way I am was definitely something borne from my early childhood. So I blame my parents :P

Comments

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I'm not forcing a connection at all, it's reliving memories. Everyone is different psychologically so perhaps what works for you, doesn't necessarily work for other people. I'm saying that those programmes catalysed an interest in anthropomprophics because they did. It's that simple. It was a deeper interest than having a plush when I was a baby.

[enteirah]

For someone who's interested in philosophy, I'd have thought you'd take a slightly wider look. =:P The point I'm making with the example is that if you dig deep enough, it's possible to read a connection from anything really, so how do you know for sure there is one? When you're looking at something with a direct link it's easier, but when you're looking at something retrospectively which involves an indirect connection from years back, the lines are bound to be much fuzzier.

I still believe that a lot of it is to do with our own psychology though. We have an actual need for a reason for everything, so start looking for them, regardless of whether there may or may not be one. Who knows, perhaps there is a reason! But then again, perhaps being a furry doesn't have one, and it's something that just is; however as a species striving for reason and explanation we're not happy when presented with such an idea.

You should fill in the Furvey sometime if you've not already (though preferably don't just throw it up on LJ, as people will treat it like a silly little meme then x.x). Its a bunch of questions designed for Furry Lifestylers, and is intended to search for reasons and connections on everything; it was that that really got me thinking along this line in the first place. =:P

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Of course you can take a wider look and I think I have done that in some of the comments I have made. All I am saying is that I can see parts of my adult life in childhood experiences. I'm not saying they started there, I'm merely saying that an argument could be made that I had some of these interests at an early age. Is it steadfast? Of course not - many life experiences (both of ourselves and our parents) make up who we are and to ascribe a single thing as a root cause to who we are today would be folly. But it is still interesting to observe retrospectively how we grew into the people we are today.

It's not a reason for anything I am looking for - merely a thought that occurred to me whilst lying in bed last week. Is there a connection between the events I have described in childhood and my kinks today? Possibly. But I am not looking that deeply into it. I'm just saying that the groundwork for who I am as an adult was laid at an early age. Does it really matter? No. But it's nice to have an appreciation of who we are and where we come from.

I don't believe that anything is just how it is - everything has a cause and a reason for existence. I think searching for that cause, in whichever way, is something that humans have striven for for centuries. Nowadays, we use science or religion to explain such things. I don't see why there is an issue in ascribing a cause to the people we are today.

Hmm, may have a look at the Furvey. It sounds interesting in a morbidly fascinating kind of way.