Huh...here I've been using the term "paraphilia" incorrectly. Thinking it was the preference but not need for certain things to achieve orgasm. Strictly speaking for me it's not a pure fetish. I don't NEED WAM, but it certainly makes things magnitudes hotter.

Especially interesting because Natalie Wood couldn't swim!

Terrible missed opportunity that possibly proves the answer to this question is "no:" A TV commercial for Purple Bricks online realty has two women eating a berry pie. The know it all tells the homeowner she could have saved thousands selling her home with Purple Bricks. The homeowner frowns and shoves the remaining pie into the sink. Then the know it all says "you could probably have bought this one for thousands less, too."

The unhappy picks up the know it all's piece of pie in her bare hand and....

At this point, most of US would have shoved it in the know it all's face.

Instead, the homeowner throws the piece of pie in the sink and starts the garbage disposal.

Mark notes a good distinction....and it shows that there is disagreement (among professionals) as to what is/is not a fetish. Strictly speaking, a fetish is simply a magical object (or material) that confers power onto the user/wearer (this is the pre-modernist definition, before the term became synonymous with "sexual perversion" or kink)....Obviously, this definition can then be extended to sexual fetishism, etc. But, rather than an "either/or" type of sexual behavior, I prefer to view sexual fetishism as a 'spectrum' or 'continuum' -- ranging from hard core (not able to achieve orgasm without the fetish) to moderate (prefer it, or often masturbate with it) to mild ("take it or leave it")....roughly.

If being gay is a fetish, being straight must also be a fetish for exactly the same reasons. By your reasoning, the only people who don't have a fetish are ace/bi/pan/omni people?

"What's your fetish?" routinely gets asked on reddit and WAM is usually nowhere to be seen. /r/WetAndMessy only has ~14,000 subs and the content on there is usually pretty mild by our standard. Considering reddit is one of the most active websites on the internet, I'd say WAM is a pretty niche fetish.

I will say, I've run into more WAMmers than I would have expected within the furry fandom, both online and locally. This has surprised me a couple of times since I got involved with it. But then, furries probably have a higher incidence of most niche fetishes than the general population!

How big is this fetish?

I put the name of a very well-known lady celebrity, who has had high-profile messings in her time, into youtube and sorted by number of views.

Results as follows:

1) Short skirt 3.4M views

2) TV show clip 3.3M views

3) Cleavage 2.8M views

4) TV show clip 2.1M views

5) Large breasts 1.8M views

6) Ice Bucket Challenge 1.1M views

7) Cleavage 870K views

8) TV show clip 826K views

9) Cleavage 793K views

10) Advert 791K views

I'm getting bored of this, so let's skip on a bit

107) Gunge clip 36K views

108) Alternative copy of same clip 35K views

109) Water-related clip 34K views

and eventually

115) Ice Bucket Challenge again 31K views

116 & 117 both about what she wore 31K views each

118) Pie clip 31K views


We've a long, long way to go if WAM is to be as popular as breasts. Or advertising for goods and services.

Thanks for that work, Max!

Brownie - while i appreciate your 'research'...Reddit is hardly a gauge or bellweather for the popularity of any given fetish....it is, after all, about what one has or is reading...NOT what one is viewing; wam is a visual fetish afterall.

MAX....no one is here saying that wam is as popular as other (selective) "activities"....I am saying that it is more popular than "1500 people world wide"...particularly in the form of salirophilia/mania...which is not gauged in your survey (and which needs to be defined for people first)....ANY given fetish is going to be espoused by a minority of nearly any selected population....the question is whether it is SO obscure or SO rare as to be limited to a couple thousand (at most) world wide...in fact, your brief survey actually proves my point, as the pie in the face (as an example of wam) had 30 K + views, which was roughly 5 - 10 % of the other more popular, celebrity image viewings...this may be an exaggeration (with multiple views by the same person, etc.)...but even if the total views was 1-2% of the more popular (celebrity) image views -- and you are trying to extrapolate from this survey to wider (maybe global) audience -- then you have 1-2% (of this theoretical general population) who find wam (or salirophilic) imagery appealing enough to view it...

As someone who does research routinely as part of my work, I have to say that either research technique (Brownie's or Max's), and especially their conclusions, are inadequate; neither reveals ANY statistical or anecdotal reality or 'real-world' correlation.

It has to be more than 1500 people world wide. Splosh! had a circulation of 7,000, so there's that. I think people are hung up on association with WAM/Sploshing specifically. People could be into it and not engage the community. For instance, on Fetlife "Wet and Messy" fetish only has around 2k followers. When you change the search to "food play" you get 17,219 individuals. What's in a name, I suppose.

I think the keepers of the mud wrestling flame at this point are me and that one other guy (you know, the one who ISN'T a dick).

Here's a point of discussion. Being gay is not a fetish because, well, duh.

But, is bi-curiousity a fetish? I mean... a lot of people seem to be bi-curious for a long time.

Also, if you're a guy into lesbian porn... isn't that fetishistic?




**ducks and runs**

/thread_won

Um, I think you're taking this over-seriously. I didn't intend to suggest that I undertook any *statistically valid* research, although that's not to say that there's no value in anecdotal evidence.

I blame postmodernism.

Sexual sadism and sadistic personality disorder are in fact related, but just because someone is a sexual sadist does not mean they have sadistic personality disorder. That said, those that do have sadistic personality disorder are often sexual sadists as well.

The point I'm making is that your assertion is overly broad - because A's are included in the alphabet, then the alphabet must be made up entirely of A's. We know that statement to be false, and I would posit that your implied argument is also false (fewer bondage fetishists means fewer serial killers). Further, your comment includes both people who like to bind as well as those who like to be bound. Bondage does not necessarily include an element of sadism or masochism, and a bondage fetishist is not necessarily a sadist or a masochist.

That said, I'm into bondage and am also a masochist - those two kinks live side by side and are not necessarily related. Also, I'm in no way a sadist; quite the opposite really. Under your definition, I'm a sadistic serial killer, which I think is kind of silly. That said, I didn't take offense to your post, mostly because 1.) these are kinks and not fetishes for me and your comment excluded me because of that, and 2.) there is an underlying message to your post that I think is healthy - if you are dealing with a sexual sadist, then you need to be on the look out for sadistic personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder. If you see the tell-tale manipulative behaviors, then "fade away" from the relationship as quickly as possible and avoid being alone with that person. If you're involved in the kink scene as a submissive, then it's wise to restrict all interactions with dominants to public places for as long as possible to rule out the possiblity of SPD or NPD. If a dominant wants to go straight for private interactions, then that's a big red flag.

Also, the reason I'm responding to this is because your statement hits on a dangerous stereotype. There are places in the world where people are imprisoned, maimed, or executed for their sexual interests because of this exact line of thinking. When people don't understand something, they will instinctively fear it, which allows overly broad assertions like these to propagate. Once this cultural ideal makes its way into the legal system, it can ruin peoples' lives and can cause a serious drain on society. For examples of this in action, see marijuana users, LGBTQ members, and various minority communities.