Fetishism Fetishism is the use of an inanimate object or a specific part of the body for physical or mental sexual stimulation. This results in clinically important distress or impairs work, social or personal functioning.
Some disorders have similar or even the same symptoms.
The cause of fetishistic behavour as a pattern of sexual gratification cannot usually be explained easily. It is only when these patterns become part of a larger picture, at least in the far more common cases involving a male, such a picture involves typically involves doubts about ones own masculinity and potency and a fear of rejection and humiliation. By his fetishistic practices and the mastery over an inanimate object, which comes to symbolize for him the desired sexual object, the individual apparently safeguards himself and also compensates some what his feelings of inadequacy. Cognitive, behavior, and psychoanalytic therapies are used to treat individuals with paraphilias. Hormones are prescribed occasionally for individuals who experience intrusive sexual thoughts, urges, or abnormally frequent sexual behaviors.