I have a friend who’s really into dating highly educated people, with three of her last four partners having had PhDs. Another friend is a white girl who is always pursuing a person of color every time we go out. One of my clients, who has a sneeze fetish, specifically seeks out women boasting what he considers “cute sneezes.” Another client is a self-proclaimed devotee: someone who is aroused by disability. Their last three partners have been wheelchair users. I tend to be into nerdy Jewish boys who have lived at their parents’ houses for too long.
When it comes to whom we are attracted to, where is the line between pursuing your preferences and objectifying people? And is there a way to ethically fetishize someone?
The point at which a preference tips into a problem is hard to identify, but there is a question you can ask to figure it out: Are you considering the person as a whole human, or is the rest of them just a vehicle for the thing you’re really into? Because the other, rather obvious, but wildly underutilized rule for how to be both decent and horny is to treat people as... people. Like, whole humans who lead independent and complicated lives independent of your sexual desires.
An Example of the Human-First Approach to Fetish
Meet Robin, a smoking enthusiast. Broad, compelling, and thoughtful, he comes off a bit like a football coach with a smoking fetish and an interest in 19th-century literature. An alluring woman with pink glasses and a cigarette hanging from her lips stared past us from a picture frame behind him on our Zoom call, underscoring his success in integrating the sexy act of smoking into his everyday life. He drew her, as well as many other beautiful smoking portraits, as a way to explore and understand his rather unusual muse.
He chooses his words with care. It’s obvious that he has spent a lot of time thinking about his fetish, making sense of it to himself and patiently explaining it to others.
“Including your mama?” I inquired. “Yes, of course,” he responded. His fastidious choice of words and kind but firm affect make him an effective—if somewhat understated—ambassador for smoking fetishes.
His fetish began when he saw George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” music video, which he described as “incredibly smoky and sexy.” Like many fetishes, Robin’s fascination with smoking goes back to early childhood, and as his sexuality developed, so too did his eroticization of it.
He shared matter-of-factly that “the highest anybody could be is an eight if they aren’t smoking.” He enjoys “smoking as an enhancement of femininity, smoking as a tool of seduction, the sensuality of smoking. The taste, smell, feel, sound, and tension.” As with so much of what we find hot, it’s hard to describe in detail what makes it so alluring—you get it, or you don’t.
As is common, Robin’s arousal is related to someone else smoking, which we obviously know isn’t great for your body. Although having a couple drags of a smoke during a sexual encounter probably isn’t going to give you cancer, being with a partner who encourages you to smoke for their own pleasure can affect your health in a serious way. The same way dating a boy who’s super into candy hasn’t at all helped my quest to grate that gouda on my stomach.
Robin gushed, “In high school, I convinced my girlfriend to smoke for me during foreplay,” which was exciting for both of them. After all, smoking and teenagers go together like coffee and cigarettes. But as he grew older and his partners became more health-conscious, incorporating smoking into sex got more and more dicey. He eventually managed to both marry a smoker and refrain from divulging his smoking fetish to her. This guy is no joke.
A few years into their marriage, Robin’s wife quit smoking. Still in the processing-shame-and-secretly-drawing-smoking-women-in-notebooks phase of his fetish exploration, he didn’t share anything but encouragement. After all, nicotine is a damn hard thing to drop, and he’s a kind man and supportive husband. Yet, the smoking fetish smoldered in his loins.
Years into their marriage, and a long time after she’d quit, he finally got up the courage to share his desire with his wife. He was very clear that he didn’t expect any change in her behavior—he just wanted her to know about this part of him. Of her own volition, she expressed interest in creating clear and agreed-upon boundaries to explore erotic smoking. They took it slowly, from her holding a smoke during sexual activity to her taking a drag or two once or twice a year during sex. Robin was thrilled to be able to explore this fetish with his wife, and he shared that outside of these stand-alone experiences, his wife has not started smoking again.
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Of course, if she were a less strong woman, having smoking images around the house and taking the occasional drag could be enough to get her addicted again. Does this make Robin’s behavior unethical?
No. Robin thinks about his fetish within the context of his relationship as a whole, valuing his wife’s needs as much as his own. They married because of mutual love and admiration—not because Robin was fiending after smoky sex. It was only after they’d settled into a happy life together that he started a conversation about his fetish, and only after she’d assured him that this was cool with her that they created a plan for how to explore it.
Every step of the way, he put her love on top (thanks, Beyoncé, for always helping us find the words)—he honored her and their relationship above his need to realize his fetish. There were so many ways for him to not do this: He could have tried to pressure her into smoking during sex by threatening to leave; he could have tried to trick her into smoking full-time again; he could have told her that he’d only love her if she smoked like Tony Soprano. Instead, he put his fetish in the context of his relationship, and they found a path forward together.
That’s the human-first approach. Any desire that carries risk—physical, emotional, or otherwise—demands that humans be prioritized over pleasure. This applies just as much to a one-night stand as it does for your partner of 52 years.
When you are disclosing a potentially dangerous fetish, I want you to ask yourself: Have I shared my fetish without an agenda, or am I secretly hoping to persuade them? Can I accept a no without punishment or withdrawal (or bringing it up every three days until my partner feels pressured into exploring it)? Have I made it clear—explicitly—that their comfort matters more than my arousal? The takeaway is simple: Express your desires clearly and prioritize your partner’s health and comfort more than your own pleasure.
Robin had the advantage of wanting to realize his fetish with his loving wife, whom he would presumably do nearly anything for (he gave that vibe). But we need to value the humanity of our casual hookup partners in the same way. Inconvenient as it may seem, "randos" are human beings who are far above being used as instruments of your lust. Being a good person to those we don’t know, as the fire of desire rages inside us, takes discipline. It’s worth it.