F is for Fetish

[the_siobhan]

A friend on LJ made a post a little while back that got me thinking about fetishes. The post was basically said Friend reacting very strongly to somebody showing up at a fetish night wearing a Nazi uniform. Friend was extremely offended by the dress choice and strongly condemned the individual wearing it.

My very first instinctive reaction to the post was to be surprised.

After all, one of the defining characteristics of a fetish is that it isn't under conscious control, right? And the whole point of why fetish events got started in the first place[1] was so they could provide a safe space where one can explore all the dark, oogie, uncomfortable[2] places in one's psyche. Where people with fantasies about violence or humiliation - things they could never inflict on a non-consensual partner - can instead be acted out in a structured environment. Where people who are fascinated by inappropriate lust-objects can do a little harmless role-playing and not hurt anybody.

The idea of being turned on by role-playing a Nazi is pretty disturbing. But I figure that it's kind of inevitable that somebody - or maybe a whole bunch of somebodies - would eventually develop that kind of sexual association, given our culture's apparent fascination with the power and abuses of Hitler and the Third Reich. And it's certainly not the only disturbing fetish that is openly explored at play parties. Pedophilia isn't exactly what I'd call socially acceptable, but the image of the Catholic school girl is so common in fetish events that I've seen entire theme nights based around it.

So this is all the stuff that initially goes through my head. And then the second thought hits, and I remember. The person who made the post is part of the goth/industrial community. And goth/industrial fetish nights have nothing to do with sex. They're all about dressing up in PVC and going dancing.

So what friend was offended by was not some guy coming to terms with the problematic parts of his sexuality in a safe environment - it was some dork who thinks Nazi dress looks cool at a club.

Never mind then.

OTOH, it did make for some interesting dinner conversation later. And as the_axel pointed out, any time he's ever met somebody wearing any kind of Nazi regalia - they've turned out to be a Nazi.


[1]In the queer community. At least in Toronto.
[2]Or to be more accurate, where other people can explore the dark, oogie, uncomfortable places in their psyches. I keep mine firmly repressed.

Comments

[northbard.livejournal.com]

hey...was that my post, like, ages ago...?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Not specifically, but I'm not surprised it's come up more than once.

Siouxsie Sioux has nothing on you

[greylock.livejournal.com]

After all, one of the defining characteristics of a fetish is that it isn't under conscious control, right?

Is it? If you say so.

places in one's psyche. Where people with fantasies about violence or humiliation -
If I turn up in pajamas, a shaved head and a yellow star would that be fetish?

but the image of the Catholic school girl is so common in fetish events that I've seen entire theme nights based around it.
I don't know about that. The School Girl is iconic from the time we are sexually aware. I'm not sure it is pedo as much as it is age play.

The person who made the post is part of the goth/industrial community. And goth/industrial fetish nights have nothing to do with sex. They're all about dressing up in PVC and going dancing.

I had a paramour who wore a nazi hat once. I found it creepy then.
I can't comment on the goth/fetish thing as, is well recorded, I'm still not sure there is a crossover.

it was some dork who thinks Nazi dress looks cool at a club.
They were a well dressed army.

OTOH, it did make for some interesting dinner conversation later. And as [info]axel pointed out, any time he's ever met somebody wearing any kind of Nazi regalia - they've turned out to be a Nazi.

I'm not shocked.

Re: Siouxsie Sioux has nothing on you

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

If I turn up in pajamas, a shaved head and a yellow star would that be fetish?

If it turns you on.

If rape fantasy is common among women, then I can see prisoner fantasy being common as well. (I seem to recall that Tom of Finland had a lot of prisoner/guard themes.)

Re: Siouxsie Sioux has nothing on you

[the_axel]

After all, one of the defining characteristics of a fetish is that it isn't under conscious control, right?

Is it? If you say so.

The clinical defintion of a fetish is that it is required or strongly preferred for sexual excitement. Typically a guy with a fetish can't get it up without it.

Of course, as with most things, that definition has been watered down with overuse in popular parlance.

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between fetish and political affiliation. Submission requires a Domination... that figure needs to have authority.

In this case the authority is dark and sinister. How is this less acceptable than the Dom who plays a serial killer or a torturer? These are no less repugnant but they do require more role-playing to establish than a uniform does.

A uniform automatically gives authority. In this case the uniform happens to be highly charged and the propaganda regarding the German army is extremely negative. People attracted to either side of this relationship are buying into this propaganda and get off on it.

Coming out and saying that this is a fetish for you is a provocative action. I applaud the person for doing it, but there are repercussions. Outing always comes with a backlash and the more extreme the fetish outing the more extreme the backlash.

Privacy and fetish go hand in hand. If you out yourself you should be prepared for the backlash.

[the_axel]

There is a difference between fetish and political affiliation.

Yep.
In the context of an event for expresing sexual play preferences dressing like a Nazi is as valid and should be as acceptable as any other.

In the context of an event for dressing in leather & rubber and showing off shiny whips while listening to Goth/Industrial/EBM, dressing like a Nazi is as unacceptable as doing so on the street [1].

And, as the_siobhan mentioned, everyone I've ever known who wore Nazi gear in a club setting turned out to be a neo-Nazi [2] rather than a Nazi-uniform-wearing [5]fetishist [3].

[1] The street in this case being New Utrecht Ave, between 50th & 55th.
[2] For some reason my German ancestry makes such English, Canadian & Americans think that I would be agreeable to such views and consequently willing to share their opinion with me.
[3] Conversations with former [4] partners have indicated that the Nazi uniform wearing is not a sexual fetish - a preference at most.
[4] Usually former shortly after the "I <3 Hitler" conversation.
[5] Which is a very narrow band for a fetish - akin to a fetish for only Black-Watch-tartan-wearing Catholic school girls.

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

Gawd, I really am weird. Not that that is exactly a newsflash but posts like this really remind me just how far from normal I actually am. I'm not a big fan of Nazis walking down the street but it never would have occurred to me to question it at a Fet Night. In that context I actually had a hard time wrapping my head around why people would find it repugnant. Clearly I'm missing some basic compassionate or relating gene somewhere

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That was where I think the disconnect was - the difference between something like that at a fet night and at a "regular" club night.

It's all about context.

[lilactime.livejournal.com]

No... I'm thinking the same thing. Maybe it was just all those years of reading Propaganda in the late 80s, where Nazi-type imagery was as prominent as pictures of Bauhaus or bands wearing those black felt hats banded in conchos. Combined with a personal collection of vintage pin-ups that had a lot of Nazi imagery, it's not really a look that would make me think twice, other than something along the lines of "great coat", or "shiny boots!"

Now skinheads with red suspenders and cherry docs, otoh... that look worries me.

[ladystardust-xs.livejournal.com]

I've often felt ripped off that the SS had the hottest black uniform in history. Love the uniform, hate the fuckers who ruined it for everybody else.

I can certainly see how some people would get off on the Nazi thing, just like I could see people getting off on a KGB interrogation set up. There are probably people writing private Abu Garib porn.

I think that for some people though, the line is crossed when the fantasy material comes from recent, recognisable history with very serious and shocking consequences. Serious consequences aren't supposed to be part of the sexual fantasy game but with the above examples most of us are reminded most powerfully of the aftermath first, and that is what stops it from being a fetish despite the Nazi uniform's obvious use as a symbol of bad, dangerous power.

Ignoring the consequences shows something disturbing about the person's psyche. He/She is perhaps too good at psychological compartmentalising or lacks the empathetic imagination to understand what happened for the real victims.

Ambivalence probably helps with the sexual charging of a power symbol too. Nazis are too all-bad in all-ways for there to be any of that "No-but-yes-but-no!" dilemma, unless I suppose, one has lived in a culture (Austria perhaps?*) in which there was an ambivalent experience of the Nazi occupation.

I guess I can see a sub finding the Nazi ruthless objectification of bodies as a turn on but I'd worry a lot about anyone who wants to play at being a Nazi.


* I could be talking out of my ass though.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

I've often felt ripped off that the SS had the hottest black uniform in history. Love the uniform, hate the fuckers who ruined it for everybody else.

The uniforms were carefully chosen because they worked. That visceral cool-factor was exactly what was wanted, to attract and retain exactly the right kind of person, and inspire exactly the right reaction from someone not wearing the uniform. It wouldn't have been the same thing (for example) done up in sky-blue with white accents, or dark green and orange.

[lucybond.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of a recent TV documentary about World War II re-inactors (godsdammit, how does one spell that?) where they went undercover to interview the Nazis.

Now, I'm of the opinion that you can't play war if there are no bad guys, so there HAS to be a bunch of blokes dressed as SS officers & suchlike, or nobody can play.

I really hoped that nobody took it too seriously, and the German side's officers were all very reasonable when on-camera, but as soon as they were filmed covertly, they proved themselves to be a raving bunch of racists & fiul of white-supremacist idiots who travelled from all over Europe to attend the big UK events.

*sigh*

I admit, I have a knee-jerk reaction to people in Nazi uniforms, even at fetish nights.

In the Asian Ball-Jointed Doll hobby, I've also found that the Koreans & Japanese are very keen on SS-style uniforms, & like to market doll-sized ones in every online doll-store I've been to. So, hmmm... maybe they don't have such a reaction these days.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Not their theatre of the conflict, perhaps.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

The Koreans and the Japanese seem very into Nazis, period. A friend of mine who lives in Japan had a theory that because there's no population there to really make a stink (Jewish, or anyone who fought against the Germans), it's pretty huge. People cosplay in Nazi getups all the time. I sort of hurts my brain.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

Sadly, there have been a few notable cases in Asia where it's clear that they just don't get it. It's a major disconnect.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/2000/0605/southkorea.trouble.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/outrage-over-taiwans-nazi-theme-restaurant-727310.html
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view_article.php?article_id=130756
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/17/asia/AS-GEN-Thailand-Nazi-Gaffe.php
And this site has pictures from that offending parade in Thailand. Um, NSFW, despite everyone being clothed:
http://absolutelybangkok.com/?p=442

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

After all, one of the defining characteristics of a fetish is that it isn't under conscious control, right?
Well, we don't choose our fetishes (or perhaps even our kinks) but we do decide when, where, and how to exercise them, so even if one can't help being turned on by Nazis, one can choose not to dress as a Nazi to a fetish night. Whether one _should_ is a separate question, of course.

I think there's a difference between the Catholic schoolgirl thing and the Nazi thing (although I may simply be rationalising a gut reaction here); dressing up as a young girl doesn't make one a young girl, it's just play-acting, and generallyfairly obvious play-acting. After all, real-life Catholic schoolgirls generally don't actually look like that. On the other hand, as you say, the vast majority of people who dress as Nazis actually are Nazis, so it's not as easy to write it off as nothing more than play-acting.

I used to have a Russian Borderguard jacket. I was once wearing it around town, and a young woman caught sight of me and visibly blanched; she came up and asked me, in a strong Eastern European accent, if I was something to do with the Russian army. Quite honestly, before that, it hadn't even occurred to me that the jacket was anything more than a cool jacket, and the fact that it so obviously scared someone who, I can only assume, had first-hand experience of what it stood for, left me feeling rather ashamed.

Hasn't stopped me wearing a French Foreign Legion blouson, mind you.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people wear military stuff, in one form or another. I wonder how many people out there we're triggering, who've left war zones, or oppressive regimes.
Interesting, I never really thought of it.

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

Hasn't stopped me wearing a French Foreign Legion blouson, mind you.

Be VERY careful with that. If a real FFL soldier ever sees that and you aren't FFL, you're in for a real beating. Be careful.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Well, we don't choose our fetishes (or perhaps even our kinks) but we do decide when, where, and how to exercise them, so even if one can't help being turned on by Nazis, one can choose not to dress as a Nazi to a fetish night. Whether one _should_ is a separate question, of course.

Also a valid point.

I think there's a difference between the Catholic schoolgirl thing and the Nazi thing (although I may simply be rationalising a gut reaction here); dressing up as a young girl doesn't make one a young girl, it's just play-acting, and generallyfairly obvious play-acting. After all, real-life Catholic schoolgirls generally don't actually look like that. On the other hand, as you say, the vast majority of people who dress as Nazis actually are Nazis, so it's not as easy to write it off as nothing more than play-acting.

That has been the case with most of my experience as well. But I still can conceive of an individual who is horrified by fascism but who still has a sexual reaction to the imagery. I've certainly read enough angsting by feminists with a strong sexual response to rape fantasy. Whether or not somebody without the political alignment is likely to choose to role-play that fantasy is another question.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Wow. Amazing thread. Amazing responses. Kudos to everyone.

One point not made: sexual fetish play is about consent. Fetish nights make everyone consent to everyone else's fetish in such a way as to make "consent" moot.

We'll be doing fetish nights soon. They will be themed fetish nights, with the theme well advertised. *I* will be skipping military fetish night, because I do not consent to having my scene (in the fetish sense OR the subculture sense) invaded by nazis. I hope people will come to the fetish nights that excite them, and skip the ones that don't.

Another point that gets lost on people who defend nazi uniforms in fetish clubs: I am an organizer and DJ for the fetish nights in question. When we discussed themes, and military came up, I did not say, "Let's not do that theme." I said, "I'll skip that night." The hardly subtle difference is often lost on people who like to dress that way. I take that as a sign...

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Fetish nights make everyone consent to everyone else's fetish in such a way as to make "consent" moot.

That is a good point. I made a post once (about a year ago?) snarking out people who who act out look-at-me-I'm-so-naughty flogging scenes in non-kink space like house parties.

When we discussed themes, and military came up, I did not say, "Let's not do that theme." I said, "I'll skip that night." The hardly subtle difference is often lost on people who like to dress that way.

Interesting reaction from people who want their choces to be respected.

[inyou.livejournal.com]

The idea of being turned on by role-playing a Nazi is pretty disturbing.

Unless of course you also own a Ferrari (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article3649197.ece)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

At least he's doing it in private.

Yeah

[theevilchemist.livejournal.com]

I can see where you're coming from. Though it is difficult to accurately judge a person and their fetish without actually asking them about it. Maybe they never thought about it, but most likely they have.

Along a similar lines is that whole Death in June "Marching Music". On the surface, it looks like neo-nazi crap, but when you start to ask people about why they like it, you get a lot of rational response that have very little to do with anti-semitism.

I have a friend who likes dressing up in "marching uniforms" (not nazi, but with similar aesthetics) to go to marching music gigs, and I did ask him once about this. His response was;

"jonathan [sic], this is not about specifics, it is about processes. You can look at the processes surrounding events without condoning the events. For the German people that period of time was very shameful. We are almost forbidden by law to look at it, but if we can not look into it and understand it's processes, we cannot reconcile and we risk repeating."

I kind of look at it almost the way goth explores images of death without being "Pro death" (though Same Rosenthal might diagree) [1]

On another related note, I have a friend who is a Dominatrix who had a client (african american) who asked her to treat him like a antebellum southern slave, something she simply could not do. He pleaded with her, but because anti-racism is such a strong stance with her, she could not, even when pleaded to, act racist toward someone.

Fetishes are strange. I never really get them.
jv
[1] Sam once wrote an article about being pro-death as he believes in a woman's right to have an abortion and a person's right to commit suicide.