fetishism, in psychology, a form of sexual deviance involving erotic attachment to an inanimate object or an ordinarily asexual part of the human body.
The term fetishism was actually borrowed from anthropological writings in which “fetish” (also spelled fetich) referred to a charm thought to contain magical or spiritual powers. Its influence on psychiatric usage is indicated by Sigmund Freud’s reference, in his Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, to the sexual object of the fetishist as being comparable to “the fetich in which the savage sees the embodiment of his god.”
Fetishism as a mental condition may be defined as the necessity to use a nongenital object in order to achieve sexual gratification. The object may be some other body part, an article of clothing, or, less frequently, some more impersonal object. The condition occurs almost exclusively among men, and most of the objects used relate to the female body or female clothing. Long hair or the foot may be the primary object of sexual attention; cases in which a certain hair colour or type of body blemish is required for sexual stimulation are also generally classified as fetishism. The articles of clothing most commonly used are shoes and items of female underclothes. Olfactory sensations are also frequently important.