Tyra asked Scott and his girlfriend about their sex life, but you can tell by the faces that she's making that she didn't really want to know the answer.


Eventually, Tyra gave up and had the audience ask the sex questions. Things got inappropriate from here.

For instance: Catoptrophilia is the "unusual titillation in the presence of mirrors." This is not just about installing a mirror above the bed, this is getting off on your "a psychic double or doppelganger." Writes Saknussemm: "A female interviewee put it very succinctly: 'She knows what I like.'"

There's pogonophilia, the fixation on bearded men — perhaps hipster grifter territory? Chremastistophilia is excitement at being robbed or held up. Agalmatophilia is the arousal by statues, mannequins, dolls and effigies; acrotomophilia/apotemnophilia — attraction to amputees and the fascination with being an amputee. Formicophilia is the obsession with very tiny creatures - like insects, for example. Like ants. YES. ANTS. Arachibutyrophilia has to do with peanut butter; melophilia is arousal through music; eremophilia — which Saknussemm has — is arousal within deserted places.

But possibly the most interesting fetish (to me) on this list is macrophilia: The attraction to someone larger — or domination by giant women. Saknussemm explains:

Remember those 1950s horror films about colossal women? For those who love to be afraid of very big women, the Museum of Sex in New York has a fabulous exhibit on this fetish. More mundanely, we see hints of it in all those odd couples: little, reedy men and large, "ample" women. I met one couple where the size difference was so profound, the husband was referred to intimately as "The Dildo" - his whole body was seen as a sexual organ relative to his massive partner's bulk and stature.

Between Dance Your Ass Off, Tyra and the "squashers", this sculpture from the sex theme park, and the endless talk about Beth Ditto, macrophilia seems really… popular right now.

My Ten Favorite Fetishes [Nerve]

Mark Southeby, 38, was arrested after he used an online social networking site to stalk and harass young girls. Southeby used Facebook, MSN and MySpace to track a group of teens who lived in the Leeds area and went to the same high school. He went to great lengths to deceive the girls; he used fake names, adopted some of their identities and even cloned web pages on their personal sites. Southeby called the girls multiple times a day, and terrorized one 14-year-old by phoning her to say he was "obsessed" with the clothes she was wearing that day.

He eventually developed an online relationship with one 15-year-old girl, who came to believe that they were dating. Southeby even asked her to perform sex acts via a webcam, but his underage "girlfriend" refused. Southeby also asked one teen to invite her friend over to his house so that he could drug her and do what he wanted with her. This statement is especially worrisome considering his record: he was arrested twice previously, in June 2006 and January 2007, for trying to buy chloroform online.

Not only is Southeby a first class creep, he also has a strange and surprisingly dated fetish. Police found an "enormous number" of photographs of teenage girls wearing Ugg boots on Southeby's mobile phone, and the prosecuting lawyer said in court: "He [Southeby] was particularly interested in Ugg boots, which he later told police he had a fetish about."

Southeby's lawyer says his client is "highly sexed" and would be receptive of any treatment. "It's a matter that causes him daily upset. From his perspective, were it effectively chemical castration that would be a benefit," he said. "The pleasure he obtained from this contact was in having the discussions about Ugg boots with those girls and as he was having those discussions effectively relieving his sexual frustration."

Ugg Boot Fetishist Targeted Girls [BBC]
'Castrate me' Says Internet Paedophile Who Stalked Leeds Schoolgirls [Yorkshire Evening Post]

Their factory, as profiled by Adam Ellick for today's New York Times. employs a mixture of men and women and specializes in fetish and bondage wear, strictly for export. And many of their employees don't necessarily even know what they're really making.

The brothers have taken extreme measures to conceal a business that in this deeply conservative Muslim country is as risky as it is risqué.

It helps that the dozens of veiled and uneducated female laborers who assemble the handmade items - gag balls, lime-green corsets, thonged spanking skirts - have no idea what the items are used for. Even the owners' wives, and their conservative Muslim mother, have not been informed.

"If our mom knew, she would disown us," said Adnan, seated on a leopard-print fabric covering his desk chair.

In a video that accompanies the article (which you really ought to watch), one male employee explains that a sex swing is really a beach chair; another says that the fetishwear is used as a joke. But designer-turned-sales-executive Aasifa, a 25-year-old woman, knows exactly what she was designing and is now selling, and has favorites.

The Qadeer brothers aren't interested in anything but profit, however.

"We really believe that if you are persistent and hard working, there is an opportunity, in any harsh environment, even in an economically depressed environment like Pakistan," Rizwan said.

A major perk, they say, is attending international fetish shows to see how their products hold up in action.

"I go to Sin City every year," said Rizwan, referring to Las Vegas in a sheepish laugh. It's all business, he said. "Clients know our country and culture, and they don't invite us to participate. We're a little bit shy."

Aw, look, it's globalization, sexual tolerance and an ascent out of poverty all bound up in one neat little (leather) package!

Lacy Threads And Leather Straps Bind A Business [NY Times]

One 28-year-old sneeze fetishist named Jay strongly prefers the real thing. He writes: "I prefer 100% real sneezes and ones that don't have to be induced with tissues and q-tips stuck up a person's nose." Fair enough.

Yet on the Sneeze fetishest message board, some members brag about their fake sneezing ability. One writes, "I've become the fake-sneeze equivalent of a black belt or a gold medalist." Another replies: "my bf has learned to fake sneezes so well that I'm nearly starting to prefer his fake ones." (!!)

The website explains that some sneeze fetishes derive pleasure from "the vulnerability aspect of the sneeze. [Some people] enjoy that the person lost control, as sneezing is something that is beyond people's control, and is something that everyone does, regardless of strength, power, or status."

So isn't faking it, while definitely impressive, sort of... cheating?

Sneeze Porn Gets Us All Stuffed Up [Urlesque, via Andrew Sullivan]

Ah, Fake Sneezing [Sneeze Fetish Forum]

Bergner's book, as reviewer Lisa Zeidner tells it:

Structured as a series of elegant portraits, The Other Side of Desire considers four people possessed by paraphilias: sexual deviations that make "vanilla sex" distasteful or downright impossible.

Bergner's book considers whether deviation from the sexual norms of society are biologically innate or cultural (sound familiar?) and looks into other fetishistic behaviors alongside the portraits of a foot fetishist, a dominatrix, a pedophile and a man with an amputee fetish. Although not sympathetic to all the people he portrays (particularly the pedophile), Bergner is, apparently, looking for some answers to larger questions than why one guy gets off on feet.

In the book you mention how some fetishes may be informed by the culture and times.

Yes, it's very interesting — one of the sexologists I spent time with pointed out that if by looking at pornography one tries to trace the evolution of fetishes, one can see real changes, and those changes can be linked to shifts in the way we live our daily lives. Fetishizing hair is something that was much more prominent when women and mothers would sit in front of the mirror and do their hundred brushes of their locks every night. Or rubber fetishes, he pointed out, were more prominent when training pants were made of rubber.

Bergner seems to be saying that fetishes, like a lot of sexuality, are social and cultural, rather than some inherent problem — and he doesn't seemingly exempt pedophiles from that definition.

But he is unwilling to exclusively bad experiences as a cause for fetishistic behavior, unlike some of the psychoanalysts he cites in the books:

I also talked to other psychoanalysts who were very reluctant to assign any cause at all to the behavior. I mean, what is perversion? As one analyst in the book describes it, perversion is the sex that you like and I don't. Oral sex was once seen as a perversion.

In other words, he doesn't believe that every dominant or submissive is acting out childhood angst in some Freudian way, which is actually sort of an enlightened view of people with alternative sexualities — whom many people seem to regard as in need of saving from their psychological problems.

He also thinks that part of the desire to ridicule fetishists stems from an internal fear that our own sexuality might be beyond our control.

We're so quick to ridicule and regulate lust, probably because the forces of eros often make us uncomfortable about ourselves. We can handle desire, so long as it's moderated. When lust gets out of control, as in the cases of these public figures, we leap to purge it from our presence. It's as though we're trying purge our own psyches, rid ourselves of our own powerful longings, make sure our own desires don't overtake us.

He also talks a little about what he sees as some of the reasons men get tagged as perverts for certain behaviors and women don't, and vice versa.

You mention that there are very few true female sadists. Why is that?

Well, that's my understanding, and it seems to be true. There are very few women with paraphilias, in general, by which we mean outlying sexualities. But then, is that really true or are they just perceived differently? For instance, men who flash in public get arrested, and women who show their breasts get applauded.

There is also a difficulty outside of the way in which fetishism is perceived, and the way in which women and men are relatively free to express their desires outside of a socially-specified range of "normal." Women are still struggling to define "normal" sexuality as something other than a limited range of partners within a short series of monogamous relationships culminating in marriage without being labeled as "slutty" or "abnormal" — for women with desires even more diverse from some arbitrary social norm, the difficulty in accepting and admitting to one's desires is bound to be exponentially higher.

Sexual Perversity In America [Salon]

Related: What Do Women Want? [New York Times]
The Ways of Some Flesh [Washington Post]

Earlier: What Women Want? To Talk About What Women Want
More Women Talk About What Women Want

Image via goodreads

ANA MARIE: I don't think I'm going to see "W." It looks like it's TRYING to be funny. And Oliver Stone movies are the most amusing when the humor is completely unintentional.

MEGAN: I believe it is trying to be funny.

ANA MARIE: Chris and I watch "JFK" pretty much every time it's on basic cable. Now THAT is a funny movie. I mean, Joe Pesci in a leotard and fucking Kevin Bacon? Pretending to do amyl nitrate? You don't make that funnier just by saying they're playing Republican political leaders. Because then it's just a documentary.

MEGAN: Joe Pesci in a leotard is basically the nightmare I hadn't yet had, so I'll report back tomorrow on my utter lack of sleep tonight. In my mind's eye, it's purple and there is a tutu involved. And he pirouettes up to a car and proceeds to beat someone with a tire iron.

ANA MARIE: It's actually gold lame and he's (or Kevin Bacon, I forget) is dressed as Hermes. Seriously: one of America's finest cinematic events.

MEGAN: Ok, I'm just going to pretend it is Kevin Bacon. Now that I'm thinking about Kevin Bacon boogeying in a gold lame unitard.

ANA MARIE: Perhaps dancing in a county where DANCING HAS BEEN OUTLAWED? That's probably as good a segue as we're going to get to talking about McCain, btw.

MEGAN: And suddenly, in the movable diorama that it my imagination, the tiny, gold lame unitard clad Kevin Bacon stopped his dancing, and hangs his head with sadness as the old man stumbles out and starts yelling at him to get off his lawn or he's going to nuke it.

ANA MARIE: I was watching "Morning Joe" earlier and they were joking around with Robert Gibbs about something or other and he brought up the "get off my lawn" trope and I thought: That's just really unfair to people who legitimately care about their lawns. McCain's commitment to lawns is just base-pleasing pander. Besides, McCain lives in a condo.

MEGAN: Well, in one of his residences, yes.

ANA MARIE: Also? I think McCain lost Scarborough a long time ago, but the happy-happy jokey-joke with Gibbs was still kind of amazing. Not as amazing, however, as McCain loosing Peggy Noonan. Did you hear about that?

MEGAN: I saw Peggy speak last weekend, but I was very hung over.

ANA MARIE: Yesterday on "Hardball" she said she "doesn't know" who she's going to vote for.

MEGAN: She doesn't like the faux populism, which she considers empty and stupid and not a strategy as much as a pander.

ANA MARIE: And I think she once accidentally threw her baseball into McCain's lawn. (It's very hard to stay away from that joke)

MEGAN: (I'm okay with that.) So, why is McCain so fucking angry this week? Because he's losing? And will he lose it on stage tonight?

ANA MARIE: I don't think he's any angrier this week than in the past. He's just taking more pleasure in it. And as for "losing it"... I guess that's why he can't look at Obama, maybe? It's funny how the right makes fun of the liberal "grievance industry" but, essentially, what McCain is mad about is being treated unfairly. To which I believe the traditional R rejoinder is "Well, life isn't fair."

MEGAN: Well, he understands life isn't fair. He was tortured! Didn't you know he was tortured?

ANA MARIE: I am familiar with the outlines of that story, yes. I can't decide if McCain is going into this debate tonight with ridiculously high expectations or if he's entering Palin territory: like, as long as he doesn't forget what day it is, he'll be fine. This is assuming he knows what day it is to begin with.

MEGAN: Well, it's his format, right? He's Mr. Town Hall, he's going to kill tonight and between that and the torture experiences with which I am sure he will make more Americans more familiar, he will be made President as is only his due because life isn't fair. By the way, are you as familiar with Obama's supposed terrorist leanings and his radical friends and whatnot as with McCain's experience as a tortured and yet still heroic POW? Because if you're not, Fox News has a show for you. It sadly doesn't feature Jerome Corsi who has been unavoidably detained in Kenya for working without a work visa. I know I should be all like "free press! free press!" but it made me just a teensy bit pleased in a way I don't like to admit.

ANA MARIE: My favorite thing about the Corsi story is the quote from the Kenyan official, who basically admits they arrested him because, you know, he's an asshole. And,

"We still haven't decided what to do with him."

I kind of feel the same way!

MEGAN: If being an asshole is illegal in Kenya, I guess we know where John McCain won't be visiting...

ANA MARIE: Or either of us, for that matter. Were you shocked to learn about that "new poll of 600 female voters found that most view Hillary Clinton as a better mom, role model and leader than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the first woman to be named to a Republican ticket"? Because I sure was! I mean, for Palin to come in second... if it were fair, she'd come in behind "a comfy chair" in all those categories.

MEGAN: Actually, I think the right word my be "flabbergasted." You mean, Americans aren't buying her shtick? I feel like I might have underestimated Americans. I mean, except the ones calling Obama a terrorist at McCain rallies and threatening to kill him at Palin rallies.

ANA MARIE: Yeah, that does not reflect well on the Silent Majority, does it? Or rather, it explains why they are usually asked to stay silent.

MEGAN: Well, and the Palin supporter who told an African-American sound guy to "sit down, boy" at the Palin rally. I thought we had all agreed that it was unacceptable to be an open racist in modern American society? Wasn't there a consensus or a referendum or something?

ANA MARIE: Good thing that black people at Palin rallies are pretty rare!

MEGAN: Hell, I'd make myself scarcer than a condom in the Palin house were I African-American at one of those.

ANA MARIE: And as for that referendum, I believe that's scheduled for the first Tuesday of November.

MEGAN: I'm just going to go waaaaaaaay out on a limb here and suggest that racism will still exist in this country even if Obama gets elected.

ANA MARIE: But it no longer will be the first thing other countries think of when we come up.

MEGAN: That said, where would racists threaten go to avoid an Obama Presidency? Liberals are all, like, going to Canada or France, but it seems like racists hate everyone else.

ANA MARIE: Iceland is apparently in a real financial crisis right now, so a loose coalition of rich racists could probably pick it up cheap. And you don't get countries much whiter.

MEGAN: I don't think that there are enough dirty hooker toes in Iceland for Dick Morris, though.

ANA MARIE: And with that advice, I feel like my dream of ridding the country of racists is one step closer to reality.

MEGAN: We're sorry Iceland! You guys can come here, there might be a lot of space available. And, um, bring the Penis Museum for safekeeping.

ANA MARIE: Aye. Dick Morris. Why is he still appearing in public? Besides being the George Michael of toe-sucking jokes, why do I know ANYTHING MORE ABOUT HIM besides that? Who can I blame?

MEGAN: Have you seen his teeth recently? He's rather obviously still at it.

ANA MARIE: Never has a sexual fetish seemed more poetically appropriate, really. It'd be like finding out that Todd Palin likes to cross-dress. Almost too perfect.

MEGAN: See, I think cross-dressing would be too vanilla for Todd Palin. He's more like mint chocolate chip, you have to throw in a little pegging or something to make it work.

ANA MARIE: Cross dressing and dungeons.

MEGAN: I bet Sarah Palin has been wondering for a while why her nice underwear keeps getting all stretched out.

ANA MARIE: Oh, oh, oh: This is teh awesome. That awful American Carol movie? Apparently it is tanking because of a liberal conspiracy! Not because it sucks ass (or toes).

MEGAN: And not because it sucks? Also, since when to theatre owners have a political agenda that doesn't involve making money?

ANA MARIE: That's what happened with Ishtar, too, right?

MEGAN: Fucking radical commie theatre owners, trying to keep conservative movies down and out. You know they're just doing it to make sure W. does better, which it will and not just because it has, like, recognizable actors and a famous director and shit.

ANA MARIE: Well, theater-owners bias toward experimental liberal films is well-documented. And that why the megaplex down the street has five screens showing Reds.

MEGAN: It's like you think you're going to see the Batman movie and SHAZAM!! you're being indoctrinated again.

ANA MARIE: And the Koyaanisqatsi midnight showing. It's like Rocky Horror Picture Show but with people dressed as mountains.

MEGAN: And throwing glitter for snow. Unlike Rocky, though, it totally ends in a plushie orgy. Because that's what radicalized Commies do. It's why they never really succeeded — too busy fucking to fuck shit up.

ANA MARIE: And then everyone gets quiet for the five minute shot of a plane taking off. (Which is an actual scene in the movie. And, fwiw, I'm sure it does get Todd Palin hard.)

MEGAN: But, really, what doesn't get Todd Palin hard? I'm sure even Joe Pesci in a leotard and tutu holding a tire iron would do it.

MOE: Hi I IM you today from Brooklyn! I got locked out of my house.
ME: Oh, dude, no way! So, does being in Brooklyn change your perspective on politics? Do you feel more yuppified, or is that just Park Slope?
MOE: Um…primarily it changes the quantity of uppers I can access at this time. There is a coffee shop a few blocks down (I am not in Park Slope) but as for ADD drugs I am fuuuucked. Actually I should go check if there's like some coke somewhere or something. Even though a coke has less than one tenth the caffeine as a Starbucks, as I learned from the week's New York.
ME: Usually about halfway through Crappy Hour (except when I'm as hung over as I was yesterday), I'll get a craving for coffee and yet I am so committed to finishing that I never do anything about it until it's over.
MOE: Oh god Noonan today …can't disagree with her, am sure as hell not going to stir shit up by blockquoting her. Anyway she calls Hillary a bullet dodged.
ME: But at least she uses a nice picture!
MOE: Which is more than we can say for Peggy's publication!
ME: True. Also, I love that her basis for claiming that Hillary is a bullet dodged is that she's "drama."
Way to not play into any stereotypes about women that drive me crazy, Peggy.
MOE: Hahaa they just drive you crazy because you're a woman. So did you pay attention to this Air Force resignation thing? Because I keep forgetting to. What happened? (With apologies to Scott McClellan)
ME: Ha, ok, so, like this is a good but long piece. I'm pretty sure we discussed a while back how we mistakenly shipped some classified nuclear components to Taiwan? When they'd ordered, like, batteries. And then they opened the boxes and were all, dude, these aren't batteries! And we were all like, oh fuuuuuck.
Well, so, then, obviously we investigated. And it turns out that the one dude that got fired was also in the middle of some Thunderbird contracting scandal and, oh, that's right, at the same time, he was in charge when we "mistakenly" sent 2 nukes to Louisiana so the two top guys are both out on their asses and some more people will be in trouble later. But, yeah. Nukulr sekurti, we can haz it?
MOE: Okay, 1. How idiotic is this? I mean, what does a nuclear fuse actually look like? How big is it? How tough is this sort of thing to fuck up?
ME: They look like this, only with more nuclear-ness.
MOE: Oh, and that one dude = Chief of Staff Michael Moseley. God what an idiot.
ME: And it should be tough, but it apparently wasn't. And, yes. I think he is a whole toolbox.
MOE: Well, to be fair, you don't necessarily look at that and think, "wow, a nuke." Although i don't know what I would say it was. I would probably check before sending it to Louisiana. I have more trust for Taiwan.
ME: Especially when they'd ordered batteries.
I've never gone to the store to get batteries for my vibrator and mistakenly ended up with fuses of any variety. Counterfeit batteries that go dead in a day, sure, but never fuses.
MOE: Ooooh, oooooh, some good nuke news. Some international agency based in France just called for the construction of 1400 nuclear power plants over the next few decades. Pretty soon misguided fuses are just going to be part of everyday life. God I need coffee.
ME: 1400?? Where are they going to put 1400? Also, by the way, almost all of France's nuclear power plants are on the German border. Gotta love those prevailing Westerlies.
Oh, damn, Angry Johnny has reportedly definitively rules out running for VP.
MOE: I love how all these VP candidates act like it's their choice, they're the ones with some hard thinking to do. And…speaking of hard thinking, I'm…not sure what this David Brooks column about Abraham Lincoln taking mercury pills to ward off syphilis is trying to say to me.
Ah! We should have voted for Hillary.

All this suggests a maxim for us voters: Don’t only look to see which candidate has the most talent. Look for the one most emotionally gripped by his own failings.

ME: Wait, so, how did Lincoln supposedly get the dreaded syph? I find the whole thing confusing, but at least Brooks got this right:

Candidates get elected by telling people what they want to hear, leading them by using the sugar of their own fantasies.

MOE: Is he writing a book on Lincoln or something? Because, like, Obama and McCain have struggled refreshingly publicly, according to the books anyway, with their failings, what with McCain being like "Yeah I was an asshole to my first wife and I need to read more about the economy" and Obama being all "I was a bad husband and I smoked too much weed." I think we should just vote for the candidate who does, you know, not want to continue spying on us without a warrant or that sort of thing.
ME: Dude, Attackerman just made me watch this video of California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher ((R-Crazytown) talking about how putting women's underwear on Gitmo detainees heads isn't torture. Only he just keeps repeating the word "panties" well past the point of cringe-worthiness and into the realm of us wondering what exactly the Gentleman from California was wearing under his suit that day.
MOE: oooooh he's got an ambigunisex name too.
ME: I'll bet he has ambiguous sex, too. We already know he owns at least one wetsuit.
MOE: Do you love reading about Alaska? Do you sometimes forget it's a state? Can you tell me why a state would propose a $223 million bridge to between a town with a population of eight thousand and a town with a population of fifty when they don't even have a road connecting the state with its cultural and population center. Was Alaska in on the construction of the federal highway system? Was it even a state then? Have you ever been there? I had a boyfriend who grew up there once who had never heard of Three's Company. Aren't we so lucky to live in the era of the omnipresent wifi connection?
ME: Actually, I totally loved Alaska, I had to go on a business trip there a couple of years ago and my now-ex-bf came with and we took our only actual long vacation after it was over. They have a road to Juneau, it's just Juneau doesn't, like, have a road to Canada (i.e., "the rest of North America") but during the winter months I've heard the road between Anchorage and Juneau is pretty treacherous.
Anyway, Don Young is also an ass-grabber. He grabbed the ass of a junior colleague of a close friend during a fly-in while she and the folks she was with were all posing for pictures. He named the new highway bill after his wife (TEA-LU) because he could. And the bridge will apparently also incidentally financially benefit some people in his family and totally score him the 50 votes on that island.
MOE: What's the population of Juneau anyway?
ME: I appreciate that some Republicans, even if it is only the Club for Growth (now headed by former Congressman Pat Toomey of PA), are bothering to stand up to him. It's not standing up to Teddie Stevens, but it's close.
Population: just over 30,000.
MOE: jesus christ.
dude
ME: Hey, that's only slightly less than 4 times the size of the village I grew up in.
MOE: So… what do you make of the whole "takes a village" aphorism?
Oh also those French people say global warming is going to cost us 45 trillion dollars.
Just putting that out there
ME: Took a village to convince me I needed to get the fuck out of upstate NY.
MOE: the "Bridge To Nowhere" thing looks like a few grains of rice in comparison.

Pussy Foot [JT's Stockroom via Feministing]