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When Fetish Goes Mainstream As Fashion
New York, 5:33 PM
Fri Dec 11
71 posts in the last 24 hours
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When Fetish Goes Mainstream As Fashion |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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As much as I love Tracie, I think that's a really uneducated and shallow opinion to hold.
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I bought mine because I like it, not because I wanted to be some sort of fashion plate or sex symbol.
06/19/09
And if fetish looks become more and more mainstream, do the festih-y items lose their power and appeal?
I think fetishes are much deeper than just an expression of fringe-sexuality, so I doubt they'd lose their appeal to those who truly possess whatever fetish is in question. Those who participate for shock value (itself a fetish, no?) might be less enthused by the fashionizing of fetish.
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I see what you're saying, but that seems akin to denying someone access to a concert because they haven't listened to enough underground obscure bands. Fetishes appeal to individuals for a multitude of reasons, just as fashion does. Indeed, one could look at fetishes themselves as being sex a la mode to a certain extent, if I'm making any sense.
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I'm just saying, I'm sick of all these baby goths growing into the industrial scene who think they get it, then you get them in bed and they're like "eeeewwwwww, you're a freeeak." Then why the hell are you at this club, wearing those piercings and those shoes? "Kids today" don't understand the symbolism of what they're wearing, that's my beef.
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I generally use, "Would the wearers/creators of this item feel comfortable around the people/culture that originated this item?" as a litmus test.
06/19/09
One season comes along and seems sweet and demure, and time passes and another season shows up all all bohemian and unstructured, and later another season is much darker and sharper, with "edgy" accents.
Sex does sell; it might be a cheap ploy to rope in consumers by appealing to their gonads, but I think that people do respond to the things that grab them emotionally. Hell, I own a steel-boned corset, long gothy skirts, and some really angry boots. They grabbed me by the emotions--"Look, Tscheese, you can be really badass and reflect your inner passions with these fashions, lol!" And the costumey, theatrical attributes are what drew me in.
(Granted, most of the time I look like a ruddy-armed, hamlike frumpy rural matron from some forgotten Soviet locale, but that's neither here nor there. Actually, I'd be sort of interested if fashion could take my uniform--a dumpy below-the-knee skirt and a cardigan--and make it seem extremely titillating and outre. I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm done now.)
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servicey!
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Aye Carumba!! Talk about servicey!
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also, horseshoes??
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I think it's amusing when people play up the edge of fetishy stuff. I suppose it's helpful that bdsm is becoming more "mainstream," but as someone who doesn't want to fly their freak flag in public, I don't care if people still think bdsm is, well, freaky.
If it weren't freaky...like Dodai said, it would lose some of its power.
06/19/09
One thing that is awesome about having lived in the Midwest is that, there, you don't get much of people pretending they're in the scene and the scene is way underground. On the West coast, the tells are all confused and everything is out in the open, kind of vanilla and played out, not deviant at all anymore.