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Fetishism is discussed in terms of early object relations. A thirty-one-year-old unmarried schoolmaster sought treatment for a macintosh fetish which had begun at thirteen. The macintosh was a substitute for a maternal aunt with whom he had shared a bed for several years until he was twelve, but even earlier associations with the fetish were an anesthetic mask used during his circumcision at two and a half; his mother's sweaty smell; and the suffocating impact of her breast. The macintosh had for him several advantages over a woman: it had no power over him, it could not withdraw its affection, it could be controlled. These attributes were derived from his observations of the relationship between his parents and the difficulty of obtaining maternal love. He had a terror of women, and looked on sexual activity with the macintosh as much safer. After three years of analysis he married an essentially feminine woman but the relationship was stormy. She did not fulfil his fantasy of a phallic mother who would both excite and protect him. He feared intercourse in several ways: genitally, with the anxiety that a son would destroy him; in phallic terms, fearing that his penis might touch and damage a baby inside;