The Meaning and Genesis of Fetishism1

Fetishism has been psycho-analytically studied by R. Bak, M. Balint, P. Bergman, M. Boss, O. Fenichel, S. Freud, P. Greenacre, W. H. Gillespie, J. Glover, D. Hunter, E. Kronold, S. Lorand, S. Payne, M. Romm, R. Sterba, H. von Hug-Hellmuth and M. Wulff with results of great value. The exposition of the present case will therefore be limited to an attempt at determining the importance of pregenital positions in the genesis of fetishism and the meaning of the fantasy of the feminine genital organ with a penis in relation to castration-anxiety.

The case is that of a man whose libido oscillated between fetishistic practices and others previous to his fetishism, a fact which made it relatively easy to discover psycho-analytically the reason for his perversion.

Owing to professional discretion the exposition of the patient's psychic mechanism is possible only in a very general way.

His fetishism, which may be traced back to the age of 5, consisted in practices of caressing the feet, and at times the legs as well, of various people, usually women, and of smelling their stockings and shoes, with great genital excitement, which he often satisfied by masturbating.

This man's fetishism may be understood in the light of his instinctive development. He developed a very intense castration-anxiety as regards the feminine genital organ. He considered it as a wound, through which a woman could empty herself out. Through his submission to women, whom he supposed phallic, he used to perform coitus always in doubt as to who really possessed the penis. He also thought the feminine genital organ was toothed and liable to bite.

This man's genitality underwent a regression to anal and oral-digestive instinctivity. The onset of his interest in excrementitious matters dates from his early infancy, and is clearly connected with the weaning trauma. In this interest in excrementitious matters this man masochistically satisfied instinctive wishes of various kinds. Above all it was in some way