Cultures of Fetishism (2 page)

1. Psychoanalysis and culture. 2. Social sciences and psychoanalysis.
   

3. Fetishism. I. Title.

BF175.4.C84K37 2006

150.19
'
5––dc22 2006043197

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: October 2006 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

For Ariel and Marae

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C
ontents

Permissions
xiii

References and Notes
191

Index
213

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P
ermissions

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote:

From
Writing Lives, Principia Biographia
by Leon Edel, copyright © by Leon Edel, 1984, 1959. Used by permission of W.W. Norton and Company, New York.

From
Robots
, by Daniel Ichbiah, translated from
Genese d’un peuple artificiel
by Ken Kincaid. Published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York. All rights reserved.

From “Full Pockets, Empty Lives” by Paul L. Wachtel, copyright by Paul L. Wachtel, 1999.

The author also gratefully acknowledges:

Peter Rudnysky, editor of
American Imago
. The introductory pages of chapter four, “The Body of a Woman: Making Films.” are derived from a paper I delivered at the spring meeting of Division 39 on April 14, 1993, and subsequently published in
American Imago
Winter, 1993, Vol. 50, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Chapter Four is a much expanded version of some of the ideas in “Fits and Misfits.”

Howard Levy’s classic
Chinese Footbinding: The History of a Curious Erotic Custom
. Levy’s extensive research helped to inform the details of the imposturous memoir in chapter three, “My Beloved and Terrible Lotus,” purportedly written by A Hsui. I also thank Brian McMahon, the permissions editor at Prometheus Books, for granting permission for this use of Levy’s research.

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O
n e

F
etishism and the

F
etishism
S
trategy

T
his book is about
the fetishism strategy
and the cultures that breed and nurture that strategy. You will not find “the fetishism strategy” in your dictionary, listed among the “extravagant, irrational devotions to some material object, idea or practice”
1
that define the word “Fetishism.”

The irrational devotions you might find listed in a standard dictionary are:

1. The belief and use of magical fetishes; natural objects such as feathers, or artificial objects such as wooden carvings which are believed to have the power to protect its owner because of animation of the spirit embodied in the object.
   

2. The displacement of erotic interest onto an object, such as a shoe or a part of the body, such as a foot.
   

3. A devotion to a religion or to religious and cultural practices marked by the use of magical fetishes.
   

Most people do not consult dictionaries to tell them what fetishism means. They assume that the word “fetishism” has something to do with bizarre sex- ual practices of one kind or another. In the course of reading this book, you will come to appreciate that the need to transform something unfamiliar and intangible into something familiar and tangible is one of the major principles of the fetishism strategy. In that sense, an appreciation of the ingenuities of the strategy can help to make sense of the power of sexual fetishism, where some people need to employ a familiar tangible object, like a shoe, a whip, or a garter belt to ease their way into that otherwise frightening activity of sexual intercourse.

The fetishism strategy
is a strange and unfamiliar term. Unlike fetishism, the sexual perversion that usually heads up a diagnostic inventory of bizarre sexual practices, the fetishism strategy is not even mentioned as a phenomena

that might help to explain the power of the irrational devotion to fetishism. Outside the realms of social criticism, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, very few people have ever thought about it.

It is hard to dispel the commonplace notion that the strategy of fetishism must be somehow similar to sexual fetishism, or perhaps something akin to the shoes and whips and garter belts that usually accompany the practice of sexual fetishism. Compared to the strategy of fetishism, sexual fetishism, bizarre as it sometimes can be, is a relatively friendly and familiar term. Unfamiliar terms, like the fetishism strategy, are off-putting. You can’t quite pin it down with a handy definition. Until you understand what it means, it is intangible and ambiguous, and therefore a little frightening. Familiar terms, like fetishism, even when they represent acts that are irrational and perverse, are reassuring.

The fetish object, the shoe or the whip or the garter belt, is a tangible thing; something that can be seen and felt. It reassures the person who sees or holds it that he need not fear that he is entering into unfamiliar, dangerous territories. It calms the anxieties that can sometimes arise in connection with the uncertain vitalities of the living, breathing human body.

It takes courage to allow yourself to enter a realm of something so unfamiliar and enigmatic as the fetishism strategy. Therefore, let us embark on our explorations by standing for a few moments on firmer ground.

Let us begin in the world of the familiar, with a few popular associations to the more ordinary term, fetishism. These associations will be our fetishes, the props and tangible objects we will use to reassure ourselves about exploring the mysteries of the fetishism strategy. Holding on to something familiar is a good way to approach the unfamiliar, and when you don’t need the props anymore you can let go of them. Little children do this with their security blankets, and when they are ready to move on to a new stage of development, they get rid of them—or maybe hang on to a little shred as a reminder of feel- ing safe. As we shall be seeing, social critics, philosophers, and psychoanalysts also hold on to their props of safe, familiar ideas, especially when they are about to embark on some new and as yet unknown formulation or theory. At various turns in our journey, it will be useful to fall back on these more famil- iar versions of fetishism. However, in the end, in order to move on to a new way of participating in the world around us, we will be safer and more true to ourselves when we keep in touch with the elusive meanings of the fetishism strategy. The more familiar forms of fetishism cannot be trusted. They are imbued with falsehood. This should not surprise us.

The word fetish came to the English language via the Portuguese
feitiço
, meaning false or false values.
2
Feitiço
was used to describe the veneration and worship of seemingly useless objects that the Portuguese explorers had discov- ered in African religions. Furthermore, like many words deriving from the Latin
factitious
, fetish or
feitiço
suggests mask, masquerade, disguise, fake. In turn, fetish is derived from the French
factice
, fictitious, false, or artificial. Another derivative from the French is
feint
, feigned or simulated.

In general, fetishism refers to the practice of worshipping. Fetishist refers to the person doing the worshipping. Fetish refers to the object being

worshipped. And, as I suggested at the outset, what usually comes to mind first and foremost are the bizarre sexual practices of fetishism, and the sort of person who is irrationally devoted to these practices, the fetishist. The fetishist is thought of as some sort of weirdo who desperately worships his fetish, perhaps a pair of stiletto shoes or boots (which either he or his sexual partner may wear), which he employs to enable and enhance his sexual escapades. Aside from the infamous stilettos, the fetish objects that come most readily to mind are the garments worn by prostitutes, porn stars, movie starlets, and just plain ordinary teenagers, mothers, and grandmothers who want to look sexy: black stockings, preferably with seams up the back, tightly- laced corsets, lacy lingerie, garter belts, panties, bustiers and bras, or, as in recent years, some kind of underwear as outerwear.

In a
Fashions of The Times
article, “Rubber Maids,” William Norwich described what was then the very latest word in fetish fashions; rubber and latex dresses, pants and other articles of clothing designed to feel and look like a second skin. “Its no stretch to suggest that fashion is becoming kinky . . . The line between fashion and fetish is blurred.”
3

A few years later these obvious forms of fashion fetishism had all but disappeared from the runways and been replaced by a return to the respectabilities of the days of yore: flowing chiffon, organdy, crushed velvet, puffed sleeves, lace inlays, and embroidered collars. Despite their innocent surface, these fashions from grandma’s attic exuded sexual innuendo. After all, white stockings, lace and velvet are standard fetish items. Childlike purity is as much a sexual turn-on as latex and rubber pants or stilettos.

Of course, there are other fetish garments and fetishistic practices that do not derive their attraction and desirability from sexual innuendo. For example, there is the altogether everyday, seemingly rational devotions to purchasing, owning, and wearing the latest designer outfits produced by Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Prada, Hermes, Marc Jacobs, and Chanel tweeds à la the new “Mama” Madonna, who, temporarily at least, traded in her career as an underwear-as-outerwear pop icon for motherhood and authoring books for children. These usually high-priced designer label gar- ments are respectable and fit to be seen in the best places. Those who are attracted to these fashions sense there is something vaguely fetishistic about the fashion advertisements that bombard them from billboards, television, newspapers, and magazines. However, they don’t usually think that their needs to possess these objects might be reflections of their personal irrational devotions or a worship of false values.

But they are wrong. Material objects that are regarded with extravagant reverence and sought after with a compelling, “I’ve got to have it,” are fetishes. Such items could be almost anything—chiffon scarves or Manolo Blahnik stiletto sandals, or Prada handbags or Chanel jackets, or Gucci sneak- ers, or Perla bras. Or, to leave the world of fashion, there are kitchen utensils, or cell phone attachments, iPods or the latest SUV or Moto Guzzi, or a hot new Baby Einstein CD that we’ve been told will transform our babies and toddlers into geniuses. The person afflicted with this form of fetishism might

even concede, “I have a fetish for kitchen gadgets.” “I have a fetish for Manolo Blahniks.”

If we persist in exploring the varied associations to the word fetishism, we discover that any excessive activity or heightened devotion could be referred to as a fetish. Bertrand Russell once described the German military as “a goose stepping army that makes a fetish of discipline.”
4
Any false belief that is widely held by a group of people could be called a fetish, such as Theodore Dreiser’s “the fetish that birth and station presuppose superiority.”
5
Any activity or practice that is engaged in with a sense of urgency and necessity might be regarded as fetishistic. “She suffers from a fetish of weekly housecleaning.” “He has a fetish for tying his left shoelace before tying his right one.”

In recent years, contemporary social and literary critics have taken to using “fetishism” in a manner that suggests they are aware, consciously or uncon- sciously, of the implicit duplicity, falsehood, and fakery that is inherent in the term.

In a
New Yorker
essay on Diane Arbus’ photographs, Judith Thurman protests that even though Arbus’ subjects;—the freaks, female imperson- ators, gangsters, dwarfs, groupies, nudists, widows, fetishists, diaper-derby contestants and ethnic beauties—may have been objects of her ardent lust, “she never fetishized them.”
6
Aside from the fact that she is using the term pejoratively, Thurman’s “fetishized” is ambiguous. Does she mean Arbus never eroticized her subjects? Never falsified them? Never portrayed them as objects of worship? Most likely she used the word loosely to express an easy- going amalgam of the three possibilities.