I Hate My Fetish

Understanding Self-Hatred

Start #

I get emails from people with all sorts of fetishes:

• Cuckolding

• BDSM

• Fat women

• Muscular men

• Public sex

• Hypnotism

• Feet

• Being spanked

• Spanking others

• Whipping others

• Dinosaurs (yes, really)

…and lots more.

The one thing that all of these people have in common is that they hate their fetish, and think it’s the most shameful thing in the world. They each think that their fetish is the worst one, and they’d much rather have any other one.

This confused me. How can someone be so upset by simply wanting to spank others?

The answer is simple. Fetishes form from emotional pain, among other things. This means that the things that you hate the most – your greatest fears, insecurities, or hurtful concepts – are also what arouse you.

It also means that the things that arouse you – your fetishes – are also the things that you hate the most.

Think about that. Your fetishes are the things that you hate the most.

This means that everyone will naturally hate their fetish, if they can’t separate their sexual desire from real life. Some people can, and that’s why they don’t hate their fetishes. Some people can’t, and that’s probably why you’re here.

Shame = arousal, and arousal = shame. The things that you hate the most are also your fetishes. And your fetishes are the things that you hate the most.

It’s not just you and your fetish. It’s all fetishes. It doesn’t matter what the fetish is. You’re aroused from the things that you hate – and that means that you hate the things that arouse you!

This post aims to tackle self-hatred, from the perspective of wanting to change your fetish, and teach the ways that you can develop a healthier relationship with your sexuality, for the purpose of decreasing your fetish’s control over you.

How To Change Your Fetish? #

To change your fetish, you need to tackle this pain. Tackling this pain means both trying not to be aroused by it, but also trying not to be upset by it. Hating your fetish is what causes it. Shame = arousal, remember? Your fetishes are the things you hate the most – fears, insecurities, or pain. These are also what cause shame. The more shame you have, the more you hate these things, and the stronger your fetish becomes. Shame = arousal. It’s shame that causes your fetish to get stronger. And the more ashamed you become, the more pain you feel, and the stronger your fetish becomes. So if you want to be less aroused, you need to become less ashamed. This is just part of the solution, and it’s easily misunderstood, so allow me to explain what this means, and explain what fetishes really mean about you.

Having a cuckold fetish – for example – means you’re particularly hurt by the idea of being cheated on, being inferior, being inadequate, being submissive etc.

This also makes the cuckold fetish particularly shameful to you, because you’re particularly hurt by being cheated on, being inferior, being inadequate, being submissive etc.

The solution – if you want to change your fetish – is to heal this emotional pain, and become less hurt by all these things.

This leads us to some important principles of fetishes. Understanding these will mostly heal your self-hatred, and by doing so, they can start to loosen your fetish’s control of your sexuality.

1. Fetishes Have Nothing To Do With Who You Really Are. #

Having a cuckold fetish, for example, doesn’t mean that you ARE inadequate, inferior, and you’re destined to be a submissive male in your real life.

It usually means the opposite. It means you hate that idea! You hate the idea of being inadequate. You want to be assertive, confident, well-liked, and not cheated on. You want this so much that you fear/hate the idea of being inadequate, which is what causes the fetish. And it’s also what makes you so upset about having this fetish! It’s your worst nightmare! Sometimes, it can come from a sense that you are inadequate, but mostly it comes from the fear of being inadequate, and the pain around the concept of inadequacy. This means you hate the idea of inadequacy and want your life to be the opposite.

The pain causes both the fetish and the shame around it. And the pain causes you to want your real life to be the opposite.

In this way, you need to accept that:

• Fetishes are sometimes the complete opposite of what you want in real life.

• Your bedroom desires are completely separate from your real life desires, and there’s no correlation between the two.

• You can live the life you want, even with the most contradictory fetish.

This is the most common cause of self-hatred: thinking that your fetish is who you are, and that’s “bad” in some way.

Let’s be more specific, just to be clear:

• Sexual sadists can be nice, caring people in real life.

• Sexual submissives can be confident and assertive in real life.

• Sexual dominants can be peaceful, agreeable and co-operative in real life.

• People who like being humiliated can be respected and admired in real life.

Your fetish can be the opposite of who you really are. It has nothing to do with your real life.

There’s a misconception that the most “dominant” people in real life – CEOs, world leaders, billionaires etc – must have particularly dominant sexual tastes. And, that “submissive” people – perhaps carers, or something similar – must be sexually submissive. This is utter nonsense. And, in some cases, the opposite is more true.

So, don’t think that your fetish determines your real life, because it doesn’t.

Hopefully, by understanding more about fetishes, you’re starting to develop a healthier relationship with your sexuality. This can help you to be less ashamed.

But Don’t Do This… #

“Be less ashamed” doesn’t mean “Just accept it… Accept that you’re a weird loser with an awful fetish and no-one will ever like you because you’re a hopeless pervert and this is just your true nature”.

No. That’s not even close.

It means accepting that you’re NOT a “weird loser” – it’s mostly shame that makes you think you are. It means accepting that this is the opposite of your “true nature”, and that’s why you have it. It means accepting that you’re a normal person, and this normal mechanism has caused a thing that you’re naturally inclined to feel ashamed of, because shame = arousal.

Self-hatred is ultimately unproductive and unnecessary. But the worst part is that fuelling your own self-hatred just increases the emotional pain that causes arousal, and you end up getting much worse: into more extreme fetishes and further away from normal.

2. Fantasy vs. Reality #

Another reason why people hate their fetish so much is because they struggle to separate fantasy from reality.

The cuckold fetishist thinks they really would get aroused from being cheated on. The sadist thinks they really would get aroused from hurting people. This is not true. They get aroused from the concept. They get aroused from the fantasy. But when it happens for real, it’s completely different, and much less arousing.

This is because fetishes are caused by overcoming emotional pain. When our deepest fears, insecurities, or hurtful concepts are turned sexual, we have the chance to overcome them (either by “submitting” to the pain, or by “dominating” the pain; we overcome it by either acting it onto ourselves or others, and learning that it can’t hurt us, which makes us gain power over our pain and find immense pleasure from that).

But when the pain is real, you don’t overcome it. Instead, it just hurts. And it’s not arousing, because you’re not overcoming anything, you’re just adding to the pain. If you were actually cheated on, right in front of you, it wouldn’t be nearly as arousing as the fantasy of that happening. Cuckolding in real life is only pleasurable if you know that your wife really does love you and won’t leave you for someone else. Otherwise, it’s just as hurtful as you’d expect. Being cheated on is a horrible experience, and there’s absolutely no “overcoming” that with sexual thoughts, because it’s real, and it really hurts. You don’t overcome any pain if it’s real.

Sure, some people do take their fetish quite far, and there are some cuckold fetishists who do let their wives sleep with other people. But in this case, it’s still just fantasy – because they know it still isn’t “real” (their wife isn’t really cheating, because they’re consenting to it and it’s just to fulfil their kink, and they know that their wife really does still love them. If they asked their wives to stop, they would. They’re still in control of the pain, and they’re still overcoming it). It’s always fantasy.

Another example: some people have a fetish for the idea of being raped. But they definitely wouldn’t enjoy actually being raped! Because it’s a horrible experience. They just think they would, because they can find validation from overcoming that pain when it’s a fantasy. But when it’s real, they wouldn’t be overcoming pain, they would be creating pain. So, it’s just not arousing in real life. People with an incest fetish don’t actually want to have sex with their real family members. It’s just the concept. People with a fetish for whipping and punishing others don’t want to actually hurt someone without their consent, because that would be real pain, when the pleasure comes from overcoming pain. (People who don’t understand this can often find themselves beginning a self-reinforcing spiral of sexual abuse – using their fetish to try to escape bad feelings, which are only reinforced by acting out their fetish in a non-agreed upon way and thereby making themselves feel bad).

It’s very hard to tell the difference between being aroused by something, and being aroused by the fantasy of something, because they both feel identical.

But fetishes come from overcoming emotional pain, and that can’t happen when the pain is real.

Fetishes are just fantasy. Even when you role-play them in real life, you still know it’s not real.

So, if you’re ashamed because you think that you want to be cheated on in real life – or whatever your fetish may be – rest assured, you don’t want that. You just think you want that, because the fantasy allows you to overcome that pain.

Society would be better off if everyone understood that fetishes are just fantasy, even when they’re acted out in real life – it’s only pleasurable with consent and enjoyment (because that’s more validating!).

It’s all just fantasy. Your sexual desires are not what you want in real life.

Understanding this is an easy way to tackle shame, because when you learn that it’s just fantasy, you feel much more in control.

Shame #

Remember, shame = arousal and arousal = shame. Fetishes are caused by pain, and pain causes shame too. So, you hate your fetish more than most other people hate your fetish, because you have more pain around the concept.

The reason why you have your fetish is the same reason as why you have shame around it. Changing your fetish means removing the shame too, whether you remove the shame first or it goes away after, it’s an integral part of the process of moving on, and you can’t move on unless you’ve also removed the shame.

So, hopefully, you’ve already learned principles of fetishes which reduce the shame you feel about them:

• Learning to draw a line between your fetish and real life, between fantasy and reality (and between porn and your relationships).

• Learning to accept that your fetish is probably the opposite of the “real” you.

• Learning that it’s probably more common than you think, you just never know when someone else is into it, because it doesn’t affect real life.

• Learning that it only affects your sexual life, and doesn’t mean anything about your real life.

Common Objections #

When I tell people that they need to become less ashamed, they usually reply with one of the following:

“But my girlfriend will think much less of me because of my fetish” #

Many people are worried about how their partner would react to their fetish. Particularly for more extreme fetishes.

The solution is: you don’t have to tell her! It’s ok to not act on your fetish in your relationship. You’re in charge of your boundaries, and what you find acceptable. And if you’re genuinely hurt by role-playing your fetish, then don’t do it!

But these people think there’s something wrong with that. Mostly because they still have that toxic idea that their fetish is who they are in real life. They think that keeping their fetish to themselves is impossible. They think it’s their “true nature” or something. It’s not.

They also, usually, become so caught up in the cycle of shame and arousal that they become both incredibly ashamed and incredibly aroused. Their fetish gets more extreme, along with their shame, and their arousal towards more “normal” things decreases. Their fetish takes over their sexuality.

When their fetish takes over their sexuality, the idea of their partner reacting badly to their fetish becomes an all-encompassing rejection of their entire sexuality. As opposed to in other people, it would be a rejection of a redundant accessory – and that hurts less, and hardly matters.

You don’t have to act on every sexual desire you have. That wouldn’t be healthy at all. Some of them are best kept for your own personal alone time.

Yes, it’s completely possible to be sexually healthy and keep this fetish to yourself.

But it’s also not healthy to completely suppress all thoughts about your fetish when you’re alone. Thoughts don’t hurt you. Draw the line in the right place – where you can stop any bad consequences, but not need to constantly fight yourself. Your fetish doesn’t need to affect your real life in any way.

“But I can’t get aroused any other way” #

Then you have a problem! Most of the time, it’s a problem of shame and insecurity, and you can get so deep into your fetish that you lose the arousal to normal things. Try taking a step back, cut down on porn of your fetish by 75-90%, and only masturbate when you’re aroused (not just bored!).

“But doesn’t everyone hate my fetish? Isn’t it universally shameful?” #

Lets take cuckolding as an example. Sure, it’s seen as socially unacceptable, because most people value monogamy, and think it would be weird to have a wife who sleeps with anyone while the husband isn’t allowed. They think that would be unfair, and sometimes even assume the husband must be hating it, but too weak to do anything about it. This “weakness” is shameful, dishonorable, and not “right”.

But they don’t feel the pain that you do. They think it’s weird, and they don’t get why someone would like it, but when the assumption of “weakness” is replaced with a realisation that the husband usually has to be very assertive in asking the reluctant wife to do this, and the husband feels great about it, they don’t really care – at least, not nearly as much as you do.

This applies for all fetishes. They don’t feel the same pain that you do. Sure, they’d care if you’re doing weird things that are socially unacceptable. But they care less when they realise it’s all just fantasy. It’s more just weird to them.

“Why are there some people that aren’t ashamed?” #

It’s true. Not everyone hates themselves for their fetish.

Some fetishes aren’t caused by emotional pain. But usually, these people started out with their boundaries in the right place.

They’re able to draw a line between fantasy and reality, between sex and real life. They still likely hate the things that their fetish is about, but they know that their fetish doesn’t affect their real life, and they know it’s just fantasy and not what they really want, so they just don’t care. They don’t think it’s a big deal, and they think websites like this are pointless and stupid. They don’t understand why someone would feel this way.

Remember, your fetish doesn’t affect anything to do with your real life. I once had someone who thought that their submissive fetish meant that they couldn’t be a leader of an organisation because they were submissive. NO!! Your fetish is only related to your BEDROOM life, and it’s often the opposite of the rest of your life! Another man thought that his fetish for sadism and punishment meant that he couldn’t be a nice person, and that he shouldn’t have children. NO!!! It only affects your bedroom life.

As an example, think of a fetish as if it’s a favourite food. A person who’s favourite food is pizza will be a very normal person in every aspect of life, and you’ll only ever realise their food preference if you ate with them. Your favourite food doesn’t have anything to do with your real life. Neither does your fetish. It only affects your sexual life, not the rest of your life. The pizza-lover won’t gradually start to speak with an Italian accent and call themselves Mario. Neither will the cuckold fetishist start to become inferior to other men. It’s ridiculous to think that.

Conclusion #

Shame = arousal and arousal = shame.

Fetishes can be caused by emotional pain. The pain – the things that we hate or fear the most – can be eroticized through fetishes, which turn pain into validating sexual pleasure.

This pain is also what makes you hate your fetish. You fear it or hate it, and the idea of it being your real life is awful to you.

Shame = arousal, and arousal = shame.

The reason you hate your fetish is the same reason you’re aroused by it.

Fetishes can naturally come and go over the course of a lifetime, but you’ll only change your fetish when your hatred also changes. (And by that time, believe it or not, you won’t really care that much anyway).

You can start by applying healthy boundaries and developing a more accurate understanding of fetishes.

Over the course of your life, your fetish may naturally change as your sexual tastes move on to something else. Or you could learn how to speed up the process, and that’s what this site is for.

This is not easy. Which is why I have a self help course and lots more for people with a cuckold fetish. This takes work, and effort.

The point of this post is: there’s no reason to feel like you’re a worse person because of your fetish. There’s no reason why you should have low self-esteem, or avoid certain parts of life like relationships. It’s just your perspective, combined with your lack of good boundaries and a poor understanding of your fetish’s role in your real life.

Source #

Author(s) || Connor McGonigal

Website || howtostopbeingacuckold.com

Article || I Hate My Fetish

Date || Between February 6th and July 5th, 2020

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contributors: ["Connor McGonigal"]

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