# Fetish > A fetish is arousal focused on a specific object, material or body part. In casual use it means any strong kink, which is why the word causes confusion. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/fetish/ - Section: A–Z - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. A word that means one thing in a clinic and something looser everywhere else. The gap matters, because plenty of people read a diagnostic definition and quietly decide there is something wrong with them. --- ## In short - Strictly, a fetish is arousal attached to an object, material or non-genital body part. - Casually, it means any strong sexual interest outside the mainstream. Both uses are current. - DSM-5-TR treats these interests as disorders only where there is significant distress or impairment. - Wismeijer & van Assen (2013) found BDSM practitioners scored no worse than controls on psychological wellbeing measures. ## What it means In the strict sense, a fetish is arousal that attaches to a thing. Leather, latex, shoes, feet, uniforms, a particular fabric. The defining feature is focus: the object is not a garnish on the situation, it is where the charge lives. In ordinary speech the word has drifted a long way from that and now means roughly any sexual interest a person considers unusual. Somebody saying they have a spanking fetish is not making a clinical claim. They are saying this is a real and specific appetite and they have run out of gentler words for it. I use the loose sense on this site because arguing with usage is a losing game, and because the strict sense fits spanking badly anyway. What most people want is not an implement. It is a situation involving another person, an expectation, and being on the receiving end of it. ## The clinical distinction, briefly DSM-5-TR, the current American diagnostic manual, lists fetishistic disorder and sexual masochism disorder, and both include a threshold that people rarely quote. The interest alone is not the disorder. There has to be clinically significant distress, or impairment in ordinary functioning, caused by the interest itself. So a person who enjoys being caned, arranges it with a consenting adult, and gets on with their life has a preference. The same person, if the interest has taken over and they cannot work or maintain relationships, is describing something else. The dividing line is consequences, not content, which is covered at more length on [what is masochism](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/what-is-masochism/) and [am I normal](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/am-i-normal/). Worth knowing alongside that: Wismeijer and van Assen, publishing in the *Journal of Sexual Medicine* in 2013, compared BDSM practitioners with a control group on standard personality and wellbeing measures and found the practitioners no worse off, and on several measures slightly better. One study is one study. It is still a useful counterweight to the assumption that any of this indicates damage. ## Where the confusion comes from Reading a diagnostic criterion as a description of themselves. It happens constantly, and it is why so many people end up awake at two in the morning convinced they have a paraphilic disorder. The manual is written to identify people who need help, not to catalogue the population. Assuming the word means the interest is fixed and total. Most people who say fetish mean strongly preferred. Genuine exclusivity, where nothing else works at all, exists but is much less common than the vocabulary implies. And using it to make an interest sound more serious than it is. There is a faint status advantage online in having a fetish rather than a kink, which is silly, and it muddies a word that had a specific job. > **If the word is bothering you.** The useful question is not which label applies. It is whether this is costing you anything: your relationships, your work, your sleep, your money, or your ability to think about anything else. If the answer is no, you have a preference. If the answer is yes, that is worth taking to a GP or a therapist, and Samaritans are on **116 123** at any hour if it is heavier than that. ## Read next - [Am I normal?](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/am-i-normal/) - [What is masochism?](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/what-is-masochism/) - [Humiliation](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/humiliation/) - [Shame and arousal](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/shame-and-arousal/) ## Sources 1. American Psychiatric Association (2022). *DSM-5-TR*, fetishistic disorder and sexual masochism disorder. [psychiatry.org](https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm) 2. Wismeijer, A. & van Assen, M. (2013). "Psychological Characteristics of BDSM Practitioners." *Journal of Sexual Medicine*, 10(8), 1943–1952. [doi:10.1111/jsm.12192](https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12192) ## Common questions ### Is liking spanking a fetish? In everyday speech, yes, people call it one. In clinical language, probably not. A fetish in the strict sense means arousal focused on a non-genital body part or an inanimate object, and DSM-5-TR only treats it as a disorder when it causes significant distress or impairment. An interest in spanking is usually about the situation and the relationship rather than about an object, so the word fits loosely at best. ### What is the difference between a fetish and a kink? Kink is the broad, casual term for any non-mainstream sexual interest. Fetish is narrower and, used properly, implies the interest is necessary rather than preferred. Most people describing their fetish mean something they strongly enjoy, not something they cannot function without, which is why the two words have effectively merged in ordinary use.