You know how many men I’ve met who were SO ashamed of their fetish that they believed they had to hide it away – stuff it down so deep that they would never be able to experience it with a long-term partner?
It breaks my heart because your fascination with feet, or urine, or impact play, or BDSM…. isn’t nearly as taboo as you might think.
As a sex coach, I have worked with HUNDREDS of men who felt like they had to hide away their fetishes.
They believed they would NEVER find someone who accepted them.
And these men are married to smokin’ hot women and they have successful, sizzlin’ sex lives. In fact, their sex lives are adventurous, colorful, and FUN.
All because they did the inner work to accept themselves … Because it’s really hard to ask for someone’s acceptance if you’re not ready to accept yourself. Your kink can be your superpower.
You just have to take the following steps listed in. this article.
If you have a fetish, you’ve thought of yourself as “different” for a long time.
Depending on the source, it’s thought that anywhere between 30 – 70% of all men in the United States have some kind of sexual fetish.
So whether you derive sexual pleasure from a foot fetish, humiliation, role play, or bondage, you’re not alone. (There are gender differences — it seems these are more prevalent in men.)
But regardless… It feels scary. It’s also heavy, carrying this secret. You might consider your “weird fetish” to be this deep dark part of yourself that you may never be able to tell the woman you love.
I’m here to tell you – respectfully – that you’re wrong. There’s absolutely nothing shameful about having a fetish.
In fact, many couples end up embracing and accepting each other’s kinks and spectrums of sexual interest and they end up having the MOST fun.
Seriously, their sex lives are a far cry from “vanilla”. And they like it that way. Honestly, this is a beautiful opportunity.
A Fetish can be a healthy and regular part of your sex life.
This article will show you the exact steps to take in order to tell your partner about your fetish – no matter how “weird” you think your specific fetish is.
After reading this, you’ll know how to get in the right mindset so you can share this information with her — no matter how scary it feels right now.
But we won’t stop there.
We’ll also cover how to incorporate your offbeat sexual attraction as a healthy and, dare I say — regular sexual activity in your life.
But perhaps most importantly, you’re going to learn how to never feel shame again. You’ll know how to eventually feel comfortable in your own skin and OWN it.
Other articles don’t talk about how to actually start playing around with your sexy obsession in a way that will actually be FUN for your partner. We’re going to break down exactly how to involve her in a way that works for her.
But first…
What is a fetish?
You might have some type of fetish if there’s an object or body part that needs to be involved (either in real life or fantasized) in order for you to achieve sexual arousal or orgasm.
For example, a man that has a shoe fetish needs to think about footwear, play with shoes, or see shoes in order for sexual satisfaction.
This man might always need shoes as a fetish object to be a part of each sexual experience in order to have a fully expressed sex life.
What are some common fetishes?
Good news — your fetish might be more common than you think!
Some of the most common fetishes include:
- BDSM (think Fifty Shades of Grey with a dominant and submissive partner…)
- Feet
- Impact play (meaning spanking, flogging, and using a paddle to consensually strike)
- role-playing (whip out the costume!)
- anal sex
- dainty and feminine clothing items such as lingerie and underwear
- sensation play (think: using a feather or ice cube on your skin)
- psychological play (like the desire to be humiliated)
- paraphilic infantilism (where you like dressing up in a diaper as an adult baby and being taken care of)
- voyeurism (because watching other people have sex is fun!)
Of course, there are way more fetishes than this (if you think your office printer is sexy, you’re not alone, my dude.)
Okay … well how is a fetish different from a kink?
You might have a kink if the thought of wearing your wife’s underwear turns you on — but you don’t NEED to wear her underwear in order to get aroused.
In this way, kinks aren’t quite as intense.
Someone that has a latex kink loves to be jacked off by a sexual partner wearing latex gloves. It might be a huge turn-on for him.
But a man with a latex FETISH will be experience sexual excitement simply by the presence of the latex gloves as a sexual object…the latex is enough to get him hard and get him off — sexy latex-laden woman or not.
Think of it this way: a kink makes you say “I like that.”
A fetish makes you say “I need that.”
Why do fetishes happen?
The scientific community isn’t 100% confident about the origins, but there are some growing explanations and insight. We’re getting closer to a solid understanding of what causes this.
Namely, scientists are starting to realize that different fetishes occur because of experiences that happen before or around puberty.
Perhaps you got turned on when you were watching your neighbor give herself a pedicure, and ever since, you’ve associated a woman’s feet with arousal.
So whether it’s an inanimate object, body part, or scenario, chances are, your brain associated it with sex from a relatively early age.
Jessica O’Reilly, Ph.D., a sex therapist since 2001, compares it to odors.
When we smell falling rain, autumn leaves, or fresh laundry, a memory from our childhood might surface, bringing us back to that place. Fetishes are the same way. “You can recognize and associate certain feelings with smells 20 years later. Maybe they’re comforting feelings like that from a perfume your mother wore, or perhaps they’re destabilizing like the smell of a cologne an ex used to wear,” O’Reilly tells Healthline.
Can you be in a happy relationship when you have a fetish?
Fetishists typically need their fetish object to be present in order to express themselves fully and have a fulfilling, satisfying sex life.
Some individuals with fetishes never end up telling another soul. They turn to porn to get their needs met.
But these people might not ever achieve full sexual gratification with their partner.
How can you feel like your partner fully accepts you if she doesn’t know about this very central part of what gives you sexual arousal?
Happily, I’m here to tell you that yes — many men end up successfully sharing their sexual fetishes with their partners.
But does your partner need to share the same sexual interests in order for you to have a happy relationship? Not at all! Many women do not share the same sexual fetishes (or even kinks) as their partners but are more than happy to participate in them.
“I feel special knowing that I’m the one who can share this with my fiancé,” says one woman in Michigan, whose fiancé made sure to tell her about his latex and anal fetishes early on in the relationship, “When we first started dating, he talked about it so much that I thought he was over-prioritizing sex, but his fetishes were never a problem for me.”
You too, might be surprised at how open and positive your woman will be when it comes to your sexual fetishes. Proof that sexual bliss and fetishes go hand in hand!
So without further ado, here are the 8 steps to telling your partner about your fetish — so you can put to rest feelings of shame, accept yourself for who you are, and impress your woman by owning your sexuality.
Heck — you’ll even learn how to use your fetish to become a better lover. Yes, it can be done.
8 Steps to Introducing Your Fetish to Your Girlfriend
Here are the 8 steps that will make it so much easier to break the news to your girlfriend that you’re not exactly the most vanilla man out there…
- Learn about your own fetish
- Do the inner work to accept yourself
- Be an attentive, loving partner
- Have the conversation
- Leverage porn as a teaching tool
- Ask her about her fantasies and kinks too
- Be patient and know it can take time for her to involve herself
- Know when to walk away from a relationship that puts you down (and find a partner you can trust)
Let’s break these down.
1. Learn about your own fetish
The first step is “know thyself.”
I suggest you do all the research you can about your own fetish. The more you know, the better you’ll understand it, and the easier it will be able to discuss it with your partner.
Furthermore, learning more about the science behind your fetish is the first step in accepting yourself and crawling of of your shame hole.
You will discover that you are acceptable, normal, and healthy.
To get you started, here are some of my favorite books that explain the psychology of sexual fetishes and can empower you to embrace this part of yourself without shame:
Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us by Jesse Bering
My Other Self: Sexual fantasies, fetishes and kinks by Angela Lewis
Decoding Your Kink: Guide to Explore, Share and Enjoy Your Wildest Sexual Desires by Galen Fous
Fetish Sex: A Complete Guide to Sexual Fetishes by Violet Blue
If you still struggle with feelings of shame and being “a total and complete freak”, I encourage you to reach out to one-on-one coaching or seeing a licensed mental health professional who can help you work through these feelings.
Which leads us to our next point…
2. Do the inner work to accept yourself.
Imagine for a second that you have to break the big news to your partner … that you drive a Ford Pickup Truck. This is going to be shocking news to your woman, because she thinks you’re just a “normal Chevy kind of guy”. But in reality, you think Ford trucks are the best.
In fact, you feel proud rumbling down the country roads in your F-150 and you wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s going to be easy telling her that you’re a Ford guy, because you’re PROUD of being a Ford guy, and you never plan on changing.
Hell, you can rattle of a list of reasons why Fords are best for your specific lifestyle, and if Ford trucks aren’t for her, that’s fine, because you feel comfortable and confident in your decision to drive a Ford.
This story serves to show how much easier it is to break the news to your woman if you feel confident in yourself — if you feel no shame about being the badass fetishist you are.
Furthermore, if you have the conversation without shame — and you’re able to tell her “this is who I am” without apologizing for it, she’s going to see that you’re a healthy, well-adjusted man who isn’t here to snivel through apologies.
You like what you like, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Self-acceptance squashes anxiety.
So how can you get to the point of feeling this confident when it comes to your sex life? How can you accept this part of yourself? Especially when sometimes it feels like it would be SO much easier if you didn’t need handcuffs and a blindfold in order to get an erection and have intercourse, and yet here we are.
Watching porn can be a great way to start accepting yourself.
You heard me right — grab your laptop and start searchin’, because watching porn is a great way to see a lot of people enjoy what you enjoy, and there’s nothing wrong with it. (after all, who cares if a good, consensual golden shower turns you on? It’s not hurting anybody.)
There’s something cathartic about seeing so many other people enjoying the same thing you’re afraid of sharing with your partner.
It might get you thinking, “Wait, why can’t I have this kind of sexual relationship?” (Hint: you can.)
3. Be an attentive, loving partner.
If you’re attentive to your woman’s needs, she’s going to be more attentive to yours.
If you’re open minded about your woman’s needs, she’s going to be more open-minded about yours.
But if you’re critical, ornery, demanding, and untrusting, you’re not giving your relationship any space to explore any kind of sexuality together — much less dive into unknown sexual territory.
Trust and acceptance go both ways. If she feels taken care of by you both emotionally and sexually, she’s going to be WAY more likely to feel GOOD about indulging your needs.
So give your woman a little bit of love — give her a massage, show her your devotion, and be there for her. This is essential for a healthy relationship. In fact, relationship experts say that for every one negative interaction you have with your partner, you must have five positive interactions in order to keep the relationship going strong. Do your part.
4. Have the conversation
As a sex educator, I’m always telling couples to communicate more.
However, WHEN you have the conversation matters. You don’t want to drop the bomb that you need her to wear high heels and stomp on potato chips when you’re in the middle of a sexual encounter.
Find a time when you’re both feeling good and when she can actually ask questions and understand you.
Timing is everything: Consider pillow talk
Typically a great time to have the conversation is during “pillow talk” — those relaxing moments when you first climb into bed and snuggle up together is naturally a time of intimacy and tender conversations.
Fight the impulse to drop the bomb on a weeknight, in case she has a long string of questions. (Which, she might!) You don’t want to be up until 4 am hashing this out.
The role of humor when you’re breaking the news
Having a sense of humor about yourself is going to make this conversation go way easier.
Imagine: if you broke the news that you have a fetish to your girlfriend and you’re stone-cold serious and shameful about it. How is she supposed to handle that? How is she supposed to feel good about your fetish if YOU don’t feel good about it?
Can she have a sense of humor about your fetish if YOU don’t have a healthy sense of humor about it?
This goes back to our discussion about “doing the inner work” and getting to a place where you genuinely feel like you have nothing to apologize for.
When humor gets in the way of true communication
With all that said, there IS such thing as hiding behind humor and not allowing a real, healthy conversation to happen.
Avoid cracking so many jokes that she either doesn’t know what you’re saying, doesn’t get the point, or can’t have a serious discussion with you.
Humor can relieve tension in the room and make it easier to calmly talk about uncomfortable things. But it can also make it far too easy for us to avoid the real conversation that has to happen. This is essential, because sex is RARELY easy for couples to talk about — even when you’re not asking your girlfriend to let you wear her sundress as she steps on you.
Taking a more serious route
While humor is important while talking about sex (and maintaining a sense of equanimity in your relationship), starting out the conversation on a serious, honest tone can also be beneficial.
You can start off by saying “I have something to tell you and I’m really nervous to tell you this because I’m afraid you’re going to judge me…”
Guys, nothing will grab her attention faster than opening up a conversation like this.
There’s also a HUGE benefit to this: her brain will prepare her to hear ANYTHING: did you cheat on her? Do you not love her anymore? Did you run over a nice old lady in the grocery store parking lot and never told her? Are you in the Polish mafia?
Once it comes out of your mouth, she’ll realize that “OH PHEW THATS ALL? YOU’RE NOT CHEATING ON ME WITH YOUR SECRETARY?”
Be honest. Tell her you’re worried about her judging you. You’re worried about her being disgusted by you and leaving you.
The more open and honest you are about your feelings, the more she’ll realize that it’s important for her to be supportive, and how much this means to you.
Let her know that you trust her with this knowledge.
And finally, let her know that you’re telling her this at all because you trust her. “I really enjoy being with you and the reason I’m telling you this is because I see a future with you and trust you, and I think this will bring us closer together.”
Appeal to how she views herself.
Does she consider herself a partner that values love-making and intimacy? Tell her that exploring this fetish with you will bring you closer together. Does she consider herself a fun and adventurous lover? Present it to her as a chance to have some adventurous fun!
After all, she’s sharing her sex life with you too, and this has to also make sense for her.
5. Leverage porn as a teaching tool
Porn is a great tool you can use to show her exactly what you mean.
For example, if you’re into impact play, maybe she doesn’t quite understand what that looks like when it comes to bringing that type of stimuli into your sexual relationship… maybe she has no idea what that means or what role she would play in that scenario. Porn is a great way to show her! (And it can also be a fun experience for you both to snuggle up on the couch and enjoy some racy videos together).
Furthermore, watching porn allows you both to gain more creative ideas on how you can satisfy your desires in a way that you’ll both enjoy. Through porn, she can discover how she can enjoy participating in your fetish with you — and gaining some sort of pleasure of her own (even if say, a foot fetish isn’t her thing.)
Which brings us to our next point…
6. Ask about her fantasies and kinks too
If it’s hard for you — a man — to bring up your fetishes to her, imagine how hard it is for HER to talk about her sexual attraction, kinks, and preferences in bed.
By opening up to her, you’re giving her an opportunity to show you her true sexy colors.
While it’s true that men are more likely to have fetishes than women, it’s not unheard of for women to be kinksters and fetishists. In fact, according to Rooster, it’s incredibly common for women to fantasize about having sex with a bunch of dudes at once. (Women are 75% more likely to search for group sex porn.)
Furthermore, plenty of women are into BDSM, public sex, watching two men have sex, and cuckolding, just to mention a few. (Read my article here about why so many women fantasize about cuckolding and how you can use this knowledge to blow her mind.)
Our society tells the lie that women aren’t as sexual as men — that they don’t have as many kinks or sexual preferences. Guys, this is a load of bullshit. Chances are, your partner is SUPER kinky but just hasn’t mustered up the courage to talk to you about it.
After you enlighten her about your fetishes, she’ll be way more likely to share hers.
What if she STILL feels too shy to talk about her fetishes or kinks?
Even if she wants to share her fetishes and kinks with you, it can be hard to put it into words. After all, most people aren’t experienced in talking about what they want in bed. Women aren’t exactly taught to be assertive in the sack, and most women are horrified of being judged — that their partners will think less of them — if they share that they’ve always wanted to have an orgy with a forest of penises.
A great way to grease the wheels is to watch porn with her, and give her the remote. Sit back and say, “Babe, I’ll enjoy anything you want to watch. I showed you my freak flag, so now it’s your turn to show me yours.”
And CELEBRATE IT!! Put your money where your mouth is. Be cool with the porn she pulls up. Be supportive.
Once you start seeing a pattern in the porn she watches, you can say something like “I’m noticing you like it when the man is the dominant partner!”
This lets her off the hook because now she doesn’t have to articulate what she likes — she can simply show you!
7. Be patient and know it can take time for her to involve herself
Just because you told her about your fetish doesn’t mean she has to participate in it with you. Tell her this!
You can say something like “I would absolutely love it if you rained down a golden shower of urine on me,” but ultimately, it’s up to her if she really wants to take that route.
The sexual relationship you have together belongs to both of you. This means that both of you need to be 100% comfortable with everything that happens in bed, and you need to make sure you get her consent before moving forward with any sex act. This not only takes the pressure off (and potentially makes it feel less intimidating to her) but also shows that her consent and comfort is your top priority.
When you start exploring together, have a safe word. Maybe it’s her first time experimenting with impact play or spanking…
If at any point the sensation gets to be too much, establish a safe word (and have the discipline to honor it.) If she becomes uncomfortable, she can shout out the safe word, which means “stop!”
With all that being said, you need to consider whether you want to be in a relationship with someone who NEVER wants to participate in your sexual desires.
8. Know when to walk away from a relationship that puts you down (and find a partner you can trust)
There is nothing wrong with having a fetish. So why be with a partner who puts you down and shames you for it?
Both men and women assume that sexual rejection doesn’t hurt men much. This is a toxic myth. You are an individual with emotions and sexual needs, and you should be with a woman who respects that.
According to a community survey published in Psychology Today, when men experience sexual rejection, their self-esteem plummets. One man said, “If she doesn’t want me, she somehow is not interested in me…It offends me somewhere inside…I know she is not interested in me and she doesn’t like me. She doesn’t want me. It’s like, forget it. I don’t feel it anymore.”
When your partner rejects your sexuality, it can feel like they’re rejecting you.
What does sexual rejection really look like?
When you tell her about your fetish, pay close attention to how she reacts and how her reaction makes you feel. Is she open-minded and curious? Or does she instantly act judgy and turned off?
A woman that says “Oh interesting! I’ve never thought about that before but maybe I’ll feel willing to try it sometime” is not rejecting you. Every woman has a right to think about whether she wants to participate in your fetish or not.
It gets toxic when a woman has a reaction that looks more like “That’s disgusting” or “That’s horrifying” or “Yikes I’m NOT into that” and then refuses to have a conversation about it.
These women expect you to bury your desires deep down — so they never see the light of day. They want nothing to do with that part of you. And you must decide if this is a relationship you really want to be in or if you deserve to be liberated from that kind of harsh judgement and bullshit.
A fetish, by definition, is central to your sex life. If your partner is horrified and disgusted by your needs, and actively puts you down for them, you need to ask yourself if this is a relationship worth keeping.
After all, a partner that isn’t open to indulging your sexual needs in anyway — and who puts you down for them — is a selfish lover. In the wise words of Dan Savage, “any amazing woman who truly loved you would regard indulging you as a no-brainer.”
It’s time to be proud of who you are.
You don’t want to hide in the shadows your whole life. Especially when there’s nothing that needs to be hidden.
There is no reason to carry around all this shame and pain and hide from your true colors. This is just not the best way to live your life and you deserve better. I promise you — someday you’ll look back and laugh about how nervous you were. You’ll want to tell your younger self, “Don’t worry. You are worthy of love.”
You will soon see that there are plenty of women in this world who will be honored to love you for everything you are, for everything you need, and will enjoy taking you hostage and being your sexy flogger queen. ;)
