What's in a Fetish? Traumatic Sexual Experiences Often Shape Arousal Patterns

Oct. 28, 2009 — -- What might seem mundane to some -– a person's feet or the sound of somebody's sneeze -– can be a real turn on for others.

Take the Texas man, for instance, who was arrested last month after investigators learned he had been blowing pepper into an employee's face to make her sneeze. The man, whose identity was not revealed at the time of his arrest, told authorities that he finds a woman's sneeze to be sexually arousing.

A man in Malaysia was arrested earlier this year for stealing more than 70 pairs of panties from women to satisfy his underwear fetish. And, in Florida, a 35-year-old man is awaiting sentencing after confessing that his foot fetish led him to break into the homes of sleeping children so he could touch their feet.

Sneezes, underwear and feet are among the many objects of arousal experienced by patients suffering from paraphilia, the medical term for the sexual deviance triggered by objects or situations that are not typically considered erotic, medical professionals say.

"If it's out there, somebody somewhere is sexually attracted to it," said Joseph Plaud, the director of Applied Behavioral Consultants in Whitinsville, Mass., and a practicing clinical psychologist.

Plaud, who has never encountered a person with a sneezing fetish, said the most common fetishes he treats are those stemming from specific parts of a body.

"I've seen it all by now but the most common fetishes involve human body parts, like feet, hands or elbows," Plaud said.

Fetishes involving women's underwear is also not unusual, said Plaud, explaining that they are likely attractive to people because of their proximity to a woman's genital region.

"It's that sexual excitement via association," said Plaud, adding that feet are often the object of fetishes because they lead to a leg, which leads to genitals.

He's also familiar with hair and leather fetishes.

An estimated 2 to 4 percent of males have a fetish arousal pattern, said Washington, D.C., psychologist Barry McCarthy, who authored the 2008 book "Men's Sexual Health."

While it is commonly believed that men alone develop fetishes, more and more women have been seeking treatment in recent years, psychologists told ABCNews.com.

"Fetishes usually develop in childhood or adolescence and are controlled by this combination of high secrecy, high eroticism and high shame," McCarthy said. "It's a poisonous combination.

"There are some men who are extremely erotically charged to full-length boots on women and would not be charged by anything else. Usually, this is due to an experience in childhood that, for whatever reason, gave a powerful sexual charge to that object that the man then masturbated to exclusively."