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Kickle
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Fetish
#26959123 - 09/28/20 04:57 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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I had a weird dream the other night that really made me ponder the concept of fetish.
It was a sexually charged dream linked to an object. This is atypical for me and so it stood out. I woke up pondering it and thinking about objectification, of religious fetishism, and a variety of other offshoots.
I wondered if the tendency to objectify others has roots in our sexuality. Or if objectification just spreads into our sexuality. And by objectification here, I mean turning dynamic, contextual and interdependent phenomena into something solid, fixed, and independent.
And so of course this same question applies to religious fetish. Is this a similar phenomena to sexual fetish? Objectification of one's desires to an extreme degree? Taking something nebulous and pinning it down to something seemingly concrete and manageable?
Fetish has this connotation of being very specific. But I wonder if a broader understanding might net a greater understanding of many cultural phenomena. Up to and including science and literature. Where we encapsulate something larger than the words, than the theory, than the idea -- into something that feels more concrete. IMO one could say through culture we fetishize the world because of how it makes us feel. In control.
What do you think?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,706
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Re: Fetish [Re: Kickle]
#26959255 - 09/28/20 06:28 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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What does Freud say about polymorphous perversity?
sounds like a natural aspect of our infant selves which we learn to subdue and apply in acceptable ways.
it's a dream about a pleasure seeking force of nature you could say poetically speaking.
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Kickle
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Yeah I think I agree Red. Did not expect you to use Freud but I dig it
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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laughingdog
Stranger

Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 4,829
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Re: Fetish [Re: Kickle]
#26962712 - 09/30/20 07:37 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: ..I wondered if the tendency to objectify others has roots in our sexuality. Or if objectification just spreads into our sexuality. And by objectification here, I mean turning dynamic, contextual and interdependent phenomena into something solid, fixed, and independent.
And so of course this same question applies to religious fetish. Is this a similar phenomena to sexual fetish? Objectification of one's desires to an extreme degree? Taking something nebulous and pinning it down to something seemingly concrete and manageable? ....
"I wondered if the tendency to objectify others has roots in our sexuality" . I doubt it. Primates, of the same species, routinely attack those, in separate groups. Among humans this often happens along 'racial', or language, 'lines'. Xenophobia, unfortunately seems the norm rather than the exception.
"Or if objectification just spreads into our sexuality." . No it doesn't normally happen, it is an abnormal event, that for some reason had strong conditioning value. . A classic example is getting spanked as a turn on. It goes like this: Someone was spanked by their mom, say for example, and their dick rubbed against her thighs while being spanked, and they got aroused, - then mom felt guilty for spanking the child, and embraced the child holding it against her breasts. So getting turned on gets associated with the pain of the spanking. This is called conditioning.
. I don't know what you mean by a " religious fetish". Certainly religious practice is full of rituals and symbols, that are designed to evoke moods. . In 'primitive' religions drums and dancing, for hours at a time, are actually used to induce trance states. . Modern middle/eastern and western religions lost this most effective aspect of primordial religions. Tribal initiation rituals also use fasting, darkness, and isolation as powerful tools to alter consciousness. . This does not seem to be a case of 'objectification', but of a sophisticated use of knowledge of both human biology and psychology. IMO
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Kickle
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Quote:
A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent value, or powers, to an object.
That's what I was referring to with religious fetish. I think anthropologists refer to it as fetishism and Christians as idolatry
The use of a cross to ward off a vampire would be a pop culture portrayal of a religious fetish in action.
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Rahz
Alive Again



Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,248
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Re: Fetish [Re: Kickle]
#26966515 - 10/02/20 07:03 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Interesting topic and I had to digest it for a few days before responding. Both sexual and religious fetish is a conditioned response (?), so there's an entity which we attach significance to and can respond to without the entity's physical manifestation being present. Sex and death are two of the big emotional attractions/aversions so it makes sense that they could be exaggerated in some, or that objects or ideas pertaining to them take on a significance greater than the actual thing.
Carrying it further, I might say that fission was a scientific fetish of mine. There's a train of thought that suggests fission is the world's only true hope of a sustainable future and without it we're doomed to "die"/melt back into nature. Whether this is true or not I don't know, but there's a significance I place on the idea.
This could also be true of politics, hobbies, etc. in their own way, a significance that's only there because we think it's there. Knitting is relaxing, surfing is refreshing. Some people don't want to touch a ball of yarn or go in the water. There's no inherent significance but that which we give. Is that what you had in mind? A kind of exaggerated response to something specific which provides meaning in an otherwise objective and meaningless world?
I'm not sure if that touches on your gist.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,706
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Re: Fetish [Re: Rahz]
#26967018 - 10/03/20 06:35 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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I create little psychedelic teddy bears.
cute small pouches that have complete salvia kits, hash smoking kits, lysergamide carry kits.

the empowerment is make believe.
but even if I never take a dose of visionary medicine when I am not home, the pocketed fetish allows me to carry the keys to the 'other side' - and that, in a tiny way, makes me feel more at home where ever I might be.
I do not recommend this childish practice. but hey, if you do carry a fetish - keep it minimal.
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Ferdinando


Registered: 11/15/09
Posts: 3,678
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I htought you said you never take it at home...
hahaha ykwim
it's nice that you can grow it
it's free psychedelic super power
in any amount you want
-------------------- with our love with our love we could save the world
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Kickle
Wanderer


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Re: Fetish [Re: Rahz]
#26967294 - 10/03/20 09:55 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
There's no inherent significance but that which we give. Is that what you had in mind? A kind of exaggerated response to something specific which provides meaning in an otherwise objective and meaningless world?
Yes. But consider this: one can understand (to a degree) another's meaning without prescribing to it or even having experienced the meaning themselves. What's up with that? And does this have any role in culture?
The origin of men's fashion in the Western world is pretty interesting IMO. One dude set off a cascade that has lasted for nearly 200 years. And here we are all entrenched in it's hold having absolutely nothing to do with it in terms of creativity or meaning directly. Fashion is an easy pin-point because we know instinctually it's arbitrary. And so it's easy to see it's cultural influence.
But what about things that appear less arbitrary? Simply, let's take gravity. Where an idea becomes "universal" even though very few who grok it have any relation to it's conceptualization. Meaning that there is an idea that has become so synonymous with a phenomena without being the phenomena, that it has become an underlying fabric of cultural reality. One mistakes gravity as the phenomena itself rather than a conceptualization of a phenomena. Yet largely this distinction can be understood with effort. But in extreme cases, one loses this distinction entirely.
To me that is fetishism at work. That is objectification at work.
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Ferdinando


Registered: 11/15/09
Posts: 3,678
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i was scared/shocked and then relieved
like I found out you have a good time
-------------------- with our love with our love we could save the world
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Kickle
Wanderer


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I'm a believer that sexual pleasure is not a one way street but at least two. Dreams indicate the way mental states can influence bodily responses just as much as bodily states can influence mental responses.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,706
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@Ferdinando, largely a good time, lots of beginning again even while continuing.
@Kickle, in a way, any word or idea is a reduced symbolic generalized fetish of the real thing or of various related specific things.
in that way it is a kind of binding. like phylacteries:

Hit me up, God!
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Kickle
Wanderer


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yeah I agree once we can all agree on that then I think we can get on to the lemonade from these lemons like zealotry, bigotry, and all sorts of fun consequences of our mental fetishes
one's that make sexual fetishes look like kids play IMO
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Ferdinando


Registered: 11/15/09
Posts: 3,678
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Re: Fetish [Re: Kickle]
#26967355 - 10/03/20 10:29 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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good description visionary medicines
meaningful and awesome
-------------------- with our love with our love we could save the world
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Ferdinando


Registered: 11/15/09
Posts: 3,678
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that's cool man
after thousands of hours just a little meditation has big benefit for me
trump is in the hospital that's a relief everyone has it better
you are lucky you can do psychedelics I wish I had that you guys don't know how lucky you are
-------------------- with our love with our love we could save the world
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