What Excites Us

Episode 3 - Tidbits with Shahn

Transcript

Shahn  0:00  
I was raised to be instantly embarrassed talking about my own butthole. I don't intellectually feel embarrassed. It's just that old childhood like

Gwyn Isaacs  0:14  
Yeah

Shahn  0:15
Mother would scold me.

Gwyn Isaacs  0:17  
She would have been horrified.

Shahn  0:19  
She would have been Yeah. Yeah. 

Gwyn Isaacs  0:20  
I mean, she she was frequently horrified. 

Shahn  0:22  
Everybody, everybody has a butt 

Gwyn Isaacs  0:24  
Yes

Shahn  0:24 
But we don't talk about it.

Gwyn Isaacs  0:25  
We don't talk we don't talk about. We don't talk about that.

Shahn  0:28  
We don't talk about that.

Gwyn Isaacs  0:37  
Folks, welcome to What Excites Us the show that talks about sex and sexuality throughout time and place, including the here and now. That means that if you are a kid, I have to tell you, you're not supposed to be here. So go listen to something else. In today's episode, I'm talking with my good friend Shahn, about some interesting sex practices throughout the world and history, including some favorite fetishes. But first, what's the word?

What's your favorite kind of porn?
Speaker 2  1:15  
Uhhhh missionary. Can I say what my absolute dislike is like? I hate all the fetishization of like the step sibling and the weird. Like, there's a lot of rape kind of fetishization, which is like, awful.

Speaker 3  1:34  
My favorite style of porn, would be same sex. Girl on girl, guy on guy. Then I would have to say and be like, like hardcore, group sex. Yeah

Speaker 4  1:51  
What's my favorite kind of porn? Umm I I don't actually want to

Speaker 5  1:57  
I'm a pansexual in a straight monogamous relationship. For those reasons. My favorite style of porn is lesbian.

Speaker 6  2:06
Uh my favorite style of porn to watch is girls masturbating, usually, without toys. And I'll usually often if it's a new one, skip to the end to see what she sounds like when she's coming. And then try to time myself to that. It's just sort of a little more fun that way.

Speaker 7  2:25  
I prefer homemade amateur cream pie. Where the guy is very vocal, especially during his orgasm. 

Speaker 8  2:32  
Gosh this is embarrassing. Squirting and, like full pleasure and physical representation of pleasure from a girl

Gwyn Isaacs  2:42
Favorite kind of porn?

Speaker 9  2:44  
Feminist porn. I like it to be really sensual and romantic and be realistic. 

Speaker 10  2:50  
I don't do porn. I do the real life thing.

Speaker 11  2:53  
I think it's easier to narrow down kind of porn. I don't like than to see what kind of porn is my favorite kind of porn? I really enjoy using porn to explore see what's out there and challenge my ideas of what sexy you know, I really don't like basic heteronormative porn starlet and super chiseled porn, bro fucking in three different positions until he comes on her face. I would much rather see people who are actually getting off. So what's my favorite kind of porn? Porn that's real?

Gwyn Isaacs  3:53  
Hi Shahn, thanks for coming in. Or shall I say, Thanks for hosting me in your apartment where we have children playing outside and airplanes and all of the fun, fun, new and exciting noises. So this might sound a little different. But this is gonna be really super fun. 

Shahn  4:09  
I think so. 

Gwyn Isaacs  4:10
We are going to share with the listeners. Interesting or perhaps unusual sexual practices. You did a whole bunch of research for this episode.

Shahn  4:22  
A whole bunch of research on x and xx.com. 

Gwyn Isaacs  4:25  
Oh, shoot.  

Shahn  4:27
We're not sponsored by x and xx.com or whatever the heck it is. It's just a porn website.

Gwyn Isaacs  4:35  
I'd like to be sponsored though. If y'all want to sponsor me, by all means. Feel free to reach out.  So what were you researching?

Shahn  4:45  
I was researching tentacle porn. Which actually I think if I remember correctly started out actually as a joke. That I'm not the like current researching tentacle porn but my being interested in tentacle porn started out as a joke when people would ask me, oh, gosh, I'm trans. So there was a time when people would ask me like "What's in your pants?", and uh you know, like, "Have you had THE surgery?". And so for a while, I would just mess around and say, you know, oh no, I'm waiting for the tentacle surgery. I would like a prehensile tentacle penis. Gwyn is laughing

Gwyn Isaacs  5:37  
I've trained myself to laugh quietly, but this is hilarious.

Shahn  5:41  
Yeah, and it's meant to be hilarious.

Gwyn Isaacs  5:45  
I gotta say, I haven't really zero interest in having a penis. 

Shahn  5:49  
Sure.

Gwyn Isaacs  5:49  
I'm quite content with with the genitalia that I have. But if if a prehensile penis was available, I-I  might be more interested because that's kind of fucking cool.

Shahn  6:01  
Prehensile tentacled penis. I would like to be able to hold someone down and fuck them with my penis 

Gwyn Isaacs  6:08
At the same time? 

Shahn  6:09  
with just my penis.

Gwyn Isaacs  6:10  
Okay. So it would be it would be prehnsile style. And and multi pronged. Yes, hence the tentacle? Mm hmm. Gotcha.

Shahn  6:20  
Yeah, I'm thinking like five to 10 individual penises. All prehensile 

Gwyn Isaacs  6:25  
Sure.

Shahn  6:26  
of course. So like a front tail. Just a riff off of the like front butt thing 

Gwyn Isaacs  6:33  
Oh my gosh

Shahn  6:37 
I've thought way more about this than I normally will admit.

Gwyn Isaacs  6:43  
So tell us about hentai. You do you say? You say "hen-tay" 

Shahn  6:48  
Yeah it's H-E-N-T-A-I

Google voice  6:51  
Hentai

Gwyn Isaacs  6:53  
That's what Google says. Yep. hentai?

Shahn  6:56  
I'm not 100% trusting of Google when it comes to foreign language pronunciation, but we can go with that for now. 

Gwyn Isaacs  7:03
Sure. 

Shahn  7:04
Some people have very strong beliefs about how to pronounce it in for both pronunciations for either pronunciation

Gwyn Isaacs  7:12  
That somehow doesn't surprise me. Anyway, so hentai 

Shahn  7:17  
Hentai

Gwyn Isaacs  7:18  
Which is what I was saying first time

Shahn  7:20  
Basically animated porn. Like, yeah, but it's specifically Japanese animation. Or anime. Sometimes it's censored. Like they'll even censor the like cartoon bits. And like, you know, yeah, throw up like pixelation. Not Yeah, pixelation over the cartoon genitals. Yes. But you can also watch uncensored hentai... Hen-tie. We're gonna just say "hen-tie hen-tay hen-tie hen-tay...animated porn.

Gwyn Isaacs  7:56  
Animated porn. So what is it? Is it all animated porn? Or is it a specific variety of animated porn?

Shahn  8:05  
Hentai?

Gwyn Isaacs  8:05
Yes.

Shahn  8:07
I think these days hentai is just about anything. In animation. I mean, now, actually, there's a subcategory called, I think it's called like real life "hen-tay... hen-tie", which is often tentacle porn. Because now like, there's special effects and whatnot, that's good enough that you can actually get these like huge life person sized, like, tentacles that move and there are tentacle dildos and whatnot, too. And so you could probably like sort of attach one to an animatronic kind of thing, and then it becomes a tentacle fucking machine. And those are kind of cool. 

Gwyn Isaacs  8:56  
Okay, but, 

Shahn  8:58  
But mostly, they're cartoon because, you know, tentacles don't actually happen in nature so much. I mean, a little bit, but you don't really want to set up an octopus versus like, human kind of porn situation, because that's a whole consent issue, but also like, it would be expensive to keep an octopus just for porn. 

Gwyn Isaacs  9:22  
Yeah, no doubt. 
Like that would destroy your ROI.
At the very least, and probably PETA would get involved and it would just be a whole mess.

Shahn  9:30  
Absolutely. Yeah, that's an ethical nightmare. So it's any animated porn actually, like there's like cartoon porn that isn't necessarily Hentai. Like just cartoons.

Gwyn Isaacs  9:44  
Okay. But so if it's Japanese animated porn, that's hentai.

Shahn  9:51  
I think so

Gwyn Isaacs  9:52
Okay.

Shahn  9:53
I'm sure somebody has a more expert opinion than I do.

Gwyn Isaacs  9:56  
Sure. Hentai which in the pronounciation does also have the long vowel over i. So it is indeed "hen-tie" is a genre of Japanese manga and anime characterized by overtly sexualized characters and sexually explicit plots and images. So yes, it is all.. See I always thought of it as just tentacle porn. I didn't realize that it was all of the

Shahn  10:25  
Yeah, yeah, it's even human porn.

Gwyn Isaacs  10:28 
Yeah.

Shahn  10:30
I mean, arguably, it's all human.

Gwyn Isaacs  10:32  
It's gonna say isn't tentacle porn often with humans as well? It's tentacles going

Shahn  10:38  
There are humans in it.

Gwyn Isaacs  10:40  
It's tell tell us more? Because I'm envisioning tentacles in orifices.

Shahn  10:47  
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. And also on nipples. Yeah, but like in mouths. So often entering the butt, and then coming out the mouth, which I think would be far less pleasant in real life. Hence, it's also I think, far less achievable. In life. I mean, theoretically, like, there there are, like, you know, the tubes from you know, like, from the butt to the mouth, like, is connected.

Gwyn Isaacs  11:24  
There's an awful lot of material between here and there.

Shahn  11:28  
There's a long and winding road.

Gwyn Isaacs  11:33  
*Musically* Long and winding road

Shahn  11:36  
*Musically*Tentacles inside my butt

Gwyn Isaacs  11:42  
Oh my god 

Shahn  11:51 
Anyway, so, so the first tentacle porn I saw was a uh often it was a human man, or a human looking man uh would uh want uh desire, a small lady uh so much that he just had to have her and so consent was not an issue for him.Uh. And he would, quote unquote, take the lady uh and his, uh his penis would kind of like explode into tentacles. And so it seems like it was almost like an alien mating ritual, that the man maybe wouldn't survive, but also that the lady doesn't survive either. Because the tentacles are like, they all enter like one or two orifices, which ends up being a little bit more than the structural integrity of the person can really handle. That scenario, in particular, is a consent free kind of situation. Yeah. Which is not my favorite part of tentacle porn. What I really like, I think what I really like is that it's just it's not just a regular old dick. Like it helps me forget, or not care as much that like, my body doesn't conform to societal standards of what a dude looks like.

Gwyn Isaacs  13:27  
Because at least you don't have a tentacle there.

Shahn  13:30  
No, because the people I'm watching don't have traditional dude, 

Gwyn Isaacs  13:34  
Gotcha

Shahn  13:36  
Type bodies. And so I'm not looking at a guy with a penis and thinking, "Oh, I kind of wish I had that."

Gwyn Isaacs  13:44  
Gotcha. 

Shahn  13:45  
Yeah, I'm thinking, you know, I'm looking at a guy with tentacles coming out of his crotch thinking. "I know that would be horrifically inconvenient, but I kinda wish I had that, but nobody can have it. So it's okay." It's not what's wrong with me that I don't have tentacles down there.

Gwyn Isaacs  14:06  
If anybody wants to draw Shahn with tentacles down there, let me know and I will send you an image.

Shahn  14:12  
Nice.

Gwyn Isaacs  14:13  
Okay, it's all animated porn. However, what I've known it as is tentacle porn. Yes, but tentacle porn is not just tentacles anymore.

Shahn  14:23  
Not anymore. Now well, or the tentacles don't just spring forth from a male crotch anymore. Sometimes you don't even know where they come from. Like it's very, like sort of, quote unquote, victim centered. You know, because it's not it's less about, you know, like, look at those sexy tentacles. And more about, like, watch this person get penetrated by like three different things and it all look the same.

Gwyn Isaacs  14:57
And are they often shaped like tentacles Like you know, kind of cone shaped 

Shahn  15:03  
No they look much more like penises usually, like really long penises. Or like snakes with no eyes or mouths.

Gwyn Isaacs  15:12  
Okay.

Shahn  15:14  
Sometimes though they do have like, like little like suckers on the very end uh and they suck with them they attach onto nipples and suck that way attach on to a clitoris. There's the occasional tentacle on boy porn, which doesn't happen enough if you ask me. Where they will like they will engulf a penis, like an entire penis into the tentacle. And that's pretty fun. There are robotic tentacles now.

Gwyn Isaacs  15:47  
Oh, like in real life or in the in the anime? 

Shahn  15:51  
Oh both actually, but I'm talking about in the anime, okay. Like, sometimes the tentacles are attached to a like robotic thing. And the the like, quote unquote victim is it starts out kind of non consensual, like, they have no idea that tentacles are going to be there. And then they start entering wherever they're entering. You know, that usual places. And it takes a varying amount of time before the quote unquote victim is just so overwhelmed with the physical sensation of it all that they get into it. Because animation is so labor intensive. Like the vast majority of hentai is like five minutes long. 

Gwyn Isaacs  16:38  
Oh!

Shahn  16:39  
And so yeah.

Gwyn Isaacs  16:40
Oh I had no idea. Okay, clearly this is not my thing. 

Shahn  16:44  
There are other - there are longer, like films and whatnot. But there's also like, because I'm mostly on like mainstream porn websites, and don't pay for access. I get a lot of clips.

Gwyn Isaacs  16:59  
So you had also mentioned insect porn? Is that a part of

Shahn  17:05  
Yeah, sometimes it's insect with tentacles. There was one and I couldn't find it, because I haven't watched it in some months. And I think it's just sort of lost, left the rotation on these websites. But there was one with like a human sized mushroom that had tentacles. And it was so amazing. It was like in a garden. It was kind of almost romantic? Though, I mean, like the victim, the woman starts out like, you know, saying like,"No, no" so it's a little bit hard to think of it as romantic but at some point she gets swept away. Uh so the mushroom like tentacles its way into all her holes. Not all of them but that like the usual ones. It it just seemed really beautiful to me in a lot of ways I don't just something about it. I also like I mean, it was a very, like, phallic depiction of a mushroom, like kind of a button mushroom type of looking thing. So and I think it was still in the ground. It's really cool, though. I'm still looking for it.

Gwyn Isaacs  18:20
So do the insects all look like recognizable insects and mushrooms and other things?

Shahn  18:28  
Sometimes. There's there's also face hugger porn. What's the face hunger? Is that from Alien?

Gwyn Isaacs  18:33  
That was a really visceral reaction. Sorry. 

Shahn  18:36
Well, no, I mean,

Gwyn Isaacs  18:37  
Try not to yuck. Anybody else.

Shahn  18:39  
Yeah, I think that's responding just to like facehugger right. 

Gwyn Isaacs  18:43  
Oh, absolutely. 

Shahn  18:44  
Because that's from the Alien movies. 

Gwyn Isaacs  18:46  
Yeah. Yeah. 

Shahn  18:47
That's not something I ever would have thought of as sexual. But then, you know, like, you look at those um. There are these sex toys that go on a vulva that are meant to like, you know, strap on, so to speak that I think they're called butterflies. 

Gwyn Isaacs  19:04  
Yep. 

Shahn  19:05  
And it's basically that. 

Gwyn Isaacs  19:07  
Okay.

Shahn  19:07
It basically like just whoomp attaches to vulva sucks clit, etc. 

Gwyn Isaacs  19:14  
Eh, could be worse.

Shahn  19:16  
And then the, you know, has a little tail or kind of a long tail. There's one that has something that looks like kind of a giant Hornet almost like about that long is that like a yard ish?

Gwyn Isaacs  19:30  
Yeah, yeah, maybe two and a half, two and a half to three feet?

Shahn  19:34  
Yeah, more like a yard like three feet. So a giant Hornet. Like with it's like top part, you know, like it's four legs. Holding the person down. And then with it's like stale.. Stale? It's tail slash stinger. 

Gwyn Isaacs  19:52  
Yeah.

Shahn  19:53  
Uh would be like fucking her that way. And ohh, I'm not a fan of hornets. But watching that actually does kind of help me get over my fears of flying insects and things.

Gwyn Isaacs  20:09  
Oh, so look at that porn for the win. Is it all the same style of like manga anime

Shahn  20:18  
Pretty much 

Gwyn Isaacs  20:19  
Okay. 

Shahn  20:20  
Yeah um

Gwyn Isaacs  20:22  
That like very Naruto..

Shahn  20:24
Yep. Oh god and now there's actual Naruto porn.

Gwyn Isaacs  20:28  
Of course, cuz it's OVER 9000

Shahn  20:34  
That would be "rule over 9000" I think. Yeah, there's Skyrim porn. There's 

Gwyn Isaacs  20:41  
Sure, all the kinds

Shahn  20:43 
All the pop culture porn.

Gwyn Isaacs  20:45  
Yeah, that makes sense. Is there anything else about hentai that that is important to share?

Shahn  20:52  
Well, there's a sub sub maybe sub sub sub set of hentai that? Well, there's Yaoi, or yah, yah, Yaoi, which is actually it's gay men having sex, but made by and for women. So it's like, the main characters are male, but they're often like softer. They're sweeter. All of that fun stuff. 

Gwyn Isaacs  21:21  
Is that hentai? 

Shahn  21:22  
Yeah. 

Gwyn Isaacs  21:23 
Oh, neat. 

Shahn  21:24 
Yeah. I also thought I originally thought that Yaoi was um was like young boys. But I don't think it is actually specifically young boys. I think it's actually just like, they look a bit more feminine. And they're softer than your sort of typical like, manga man.

Gwyn Isaacs  21:47  
Right.

Shahn  21:48  
Because they often can look like super burly. And then I think even possibly sub to that as a subset of furry porn. There's yiffy which is Cartoon Animals fucking

Gwyn Isaacs  22:07  
Sure.

Shahn  22:08  
which I I also enjoy. 

Gwyn Isaacs  22:10  
Excellent. 

Shahn  22:11  
I do not have a fursuit I just want to make that clear. I do not have a fursona 

Gwyn Isaacs  22:17  
okay. 

Shahn  22:18  
Don't call me Lindsay Lohan.

Gwyn Isaacs  22:21  
Absolutely not.

Shahn  22:22  
She just 

Gwyn Isaacs  22:23  
Is she a furry? 

Shahn  22:24  
I don't think so. 

Gwyn Isaacs  22:25  
Oh, okay. 

Shahn  22:26  
But she wore a fursuit and posed for a crypto NFT. And it's got like furry a community really pissed off because it's not actually faithful to the furry style. And I can't remember why now. It's too humanistic.

Gwyn Isaacs  22:46 
if any furry would like to come and chat with me about this. I would love to talk to you. 

Shahn  22:52  
Awesome. 

Gwyn Isaacs  22:53  
Yeah, that would be fantastic. Okay, it sounds like there are anything that you can imagine. sub genres of  hentai?

Shahn  23:03  
What does that rule 34? 

Gwyn Isaacs  23:05  
I think it's rule 34 

Shahn  23:06  
Rule 34 can be you know, the rule 34 A is and also be a cartoon. Yeah, like, if it exists, there's porn of it. And there's also cartoon porn of it.

Gwyn Isaacs  23:20  
Yeah, that makes sense. I'm I thank you for teaching me. I love learning. Learning is like kind of my favorite thing ever.

Shahn  23:31  
Thanks for giving me more reasons to watch porn.

Gwyn Isaacs  23:34  
Oh any time. Happy to oblige. 

Shahn  23:39  
I spent most of my life not watching porn. So it's been kind of fun. 

Gwyn Isaacs  23:43  
Do you want to hear about what I looked into? 

Shahn  23:45  
Yeah. What did you look into?

Gwyn Isaacs  23:48  
I looked into this culture in I believe it was the Cook Islands. It's a place called Meng Gaya, M-A-N-G-A-I-A. It's an island in the South Pacific. And the information on this is fairly dated. There was a anthropologist named Douglas Marshall, who went there and at least published this information in 1971. So we don't know. I looked and looked and looked, I could not find anything more recent. So I have no idea if this is still the practice or if it's been westernized or what have you. It's a culture that's often talked about in intro to sexuality theory, sort of one on one sort of stuff. Because it is so completely different from ours, our culture, it is a place where sex is celebrated. Not like woo hoo we're gonna have a party, but the idea of virginity and certainly of frigidity. which is not a term that is used today. But the idea of not enjoying sex is just weird to them, like they cannot wrap their like, What is wrong with you? There must be something physically wrong with you, with your body if you don't enjoy this, which, you know, there are some issues around that. But this is a relatively small culture. So they just don't have, you know, much like somebody who grew up in the Caribbean would not really understand snow. Like they could intellectually understand it, but like they couldn't, you know, viscerally understand that it's that same sort of thing, I think. Okay, so it's a relatively small island, I couldn't find an actual number about population in this study. But it seemed relatively small. Okay, comparatively speaking to you know, where we are today. Anyway, the thing that I thought was really fascinating about these folks is that not only did they think sex was important, but they set out to actually teach their children at a very young age, girls and boys were played together from like, you know, up until about three or four. And then that changes and everything gets segregated all the way up through until like, family households, and then around eight little boys are taught how to masturbate. Which I thought was interesting. And little girls are taught to enjoy their bodies, although not necessarily how to masturbate. Okay, at least from what I read. Again, I did not read the actual study. I was not in scientific mode when I was doing this. So this is very much gleaning.

Shahn  26:55  
Yeah. We don't know, what kind of biases the researchers might have have, etc. etc.

Gwyn Isaacs  27:01  
Absolutely. And I did not go and find Dr. Marshalls original study. So

Shahn  27:07  
Sure

Gwyn Isaacs  27:07 
I am gathering all of this information from a variety of Internet pages that I will link at the end of the show notes. So they little girls do start masturbating and having sex. But that's not until a little bit later than boys. So once boys start hitting puberty, then they are taken to do a ritual that involves a super circumcision. Which sounds pretty painful at that point.

Shahn  27:40  
That does not sound super. 

Gwyn Isaacs  27:41  
No, that sounds pretty awful. Yeah. But during the time that it's healing, they are. They spend that two to three weeks alone with elder men who verbally instruct them, about sex and sexuality and how to please a woman because it's very important in this culture to be able to please women, then when it's healed enough that they can actually enjoy touching it again. They go off with an older woman. 

Shahn  28:19
Okay.

Gwyn Isaacs  28:19  
Who actually teaches them

Shahn  28:22  
I think I read about this a little bit. 

Gwyn Isaacs  28:24  
Yeah, because it's really fascinating. Who actually teaches them how to please a woman.

Shahn  28:30  
Nice. 

Gwyn Isaacs  28:31  
Like actually teaches them not just the the high school fantasy of the older woman. 

Shahn  28:38  
Or, you know, please the woman kind of instruction. Thanks. 

Gwyn Isaacs  28:45  
Right. 

Shahn  28:45 
That was super helpful.

Gwyn Isaacs  28:47  
Right. She she she will actually demonstrate how to oral sex, and digital sex, and penis and vagina sex and so that it is important for the man to know that. Um orgasm while it's not the end all be all the way that it often is here. It is a valuable part of their life experience.  And then so around 15 ish. Teenagers are encouraged to fool around.

Shahn  29:23  
Oh okay. 

Gwyn Isaacs  29:23  
And there's no marriage involved. There are lots of illegitimate quote unquote, illegitimate children. But there's no stigma around that. Yeah, if a young woman gets pregnant, then yay, our family now has another child.

Shahn  29:39  
Okay. 

Gwyn Isaacs  29:40  
So it's all the way up until they get married, that they are encouraged to play the field as it were. And it would be there's no way you would marry somebody from this culture if you hadn't already had sex. 

Shahn  29:59  
Okay, yeah.

Gwyn Isaacs  29:59  
And knew that you liked it enjoyed the physical chemistry of the two of you together. And I just think that's beautiful. 

Shahn  30:08  
That's pretty neat. 

Gwyn Isaacs  30:10
Not so much the, you know, circumcision at 13. That sounds pretty painful, intense, but, um, but it's okay. Because there's all this other thing. So parents urge their daughters to sleep with lots of different men, and the parents will pretend to be asleep, so that they can so that the teenagers can do their thing. They're encouraged to go down to the ocean because they're an island in the South Pacific. And it's just yeah. So we were going to talk about the word fetish.

Shahn  30:44  
Yeah, fetish. Have we Googled fetish?

Gwyn Isaacs  30:49  
Oh, we have not Googled  fetish. 

Shahn  30:51  
Let's Google fetish. I feel like there are roughly two definitions of fetish. One being more synonymous with kink? Yeah, like, you know, something that we enjoy, or are curious about, or whatnot. And then there's also the Fetish that is I am unable to orgasm without this. Kind of, so I have a fetish for my vibrator. No, that's actually a mechanical issue in my body.

Gwyn Isaacs  31:26  
And there's also the definition of small stone animals. I don't know if they have to be small, but but

Shahn  31:32  
I don't think they even have to be stone or animals. But you mean like, like a religious focus?

Gwyn Isaacs  31:37  
Totem of some sort? Yes. But that is not what we're talking about. Although there are Perhaps people who have a fetish for fetishes.

Shahn  31:47  
Oh, I'm sure. 

Gwyn Isaacs  31:48  
I hope so.

Shahn  31:49
I'm sure they're actually so I would call that a I'm just going to call that a religious fetish, the like object. Okay. And then there's sexual fetish. And wouldn't it be funny if someone had a sexual fetish for sexual fetishes that they represented with like an object fetish? 

Gwyn Isaacs  32:09  
That's amazing

Shahn  32:10 
I'm getting too meta. 

Gwyn Isaacs  32:12  
Shocking

So Google, so from Oxford, Oxford languages? That's the dictionary that came up when I typed in fetish definition, "A form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree, a particular object, item of clothing or part of the body or an inanimate object worshipped for its supposed it magical powers because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit. And see, I would not have necessarily thought either of those things. I am much more inclined with what you were saying. So I think of the technical term as you can't get off without it. Yeah, being a fetish. And that's what I think would be considered a disorder. Yep. And then well, certainly in the West, right, quote, unquote, DSM probably listed as, yeah. Or the way that it is used commonly in kink communities, whereas a thing that you're really into

Shahn  33:21  
yeah, yeah. Or yeah, like, like the sexual version of special interest?

Gwyn Isaacs  33:28  
Right. Right. Right. Because so for a little while, I was talking about having a fetish for I don't remember Pyrex or something like that. I do enjoy Pyrex. But another vintage II things. But Shall we pick a couple of the things trade? So I found a whole bunch of information. I'm just going to talk about what I found, because, because I think it's interesting. And then we'll just go into like a couple of smaller from the book, things. Does that make sense? Yes, that work for you? Yeah? 

Shahn  34:06  
Yeah. 

Gwyn Isaacs  34:07  
It is my show, but I care. I want it to be good for both of us. So what I looked up shocking of all shockers, was the flagellation brothels of old London.

Shahn  34:20  
Ooooh

Gwyn Isaacs  34:23  
Of which there were a lot.

Shahn  34:25  
Interesting.

Gwyn Isaacs  34:26  
A lot, a lot. So it wasn't just that every brothel had some people who were happy on either side of the flogger, for lack of a better word. But there were entire brothels devoted just to flagellation in the Victorian era give or take. Now, my theory is that it is because of how many children were dealt corporal punishment at a young age and I found this really, really nifty letter that would verify the theory of course, it's just a theory. And I'm not a social scientist. I have not studied anthropology or sociology or any of those things. It's really just what I think but it makes sense to me. So there was a whole bunch of flagellation brothels and there was one woman in particular named Teresa Berkeley. Who was the without a doubt the most famous female flagellant

Shahn  35:35 
Flagellant. Flagellator. Like that's my next science fiction movie. Flagellator. 

Gwyn Isaacs  35:45  
Excellent. Someone wrote about her establishment. At her shop. Whoever went with plenty of money could be perched, whipped, fustegated, scorched, needle pricked half hung, holly brushed, firs brushed, butcher brushed, stinging nettled, curry combed, phlebotomised, and tortured until he had a belly full.

Shahn  36:13
Wow. A bellyful! A belly full of what?

Gwyn Isaacs  36:18  
I guess they just meant until they were satiated. 

Shahn  36:20  
His own blood?

Gwyn Isaacs  36:22
Yet right after all that. What is fustegated?

Shahn  36:27  
I don't know my phone is still plugged in. 

Gwyn Isaacs  36:29  
Oh we'll have to look that up in a minute. He went on to say that her instruments of torture were more numerous than those of any other governess. Hence my you know theory. Her supply of birch was extensive and kept in water so that it was always green and pliant. She had

Shahn  36:49  
I like that. I am a fan of caning that is of me holding a cane and using it to inflict pain on people. Oh my goodness. The thought of like a wet cane. Oh! Stinging!

Gwyn Isaacs  37:09  
And birch has little bits of menthol in it as well. 

Shahn  37:13  
Really? I didn't know that, oh gosh. So if it cuts, then it'll like sting even more.

Gwyn Isaacs  37:20  
Even more, yeah. She had shafts with a dozen whip thongs on each of them a dozen different sizes of cat of nine tails. Some with needle points worked into them, various kinds of thin bending canes, leather straps like coach traces, battle doors made of thick sole leather with inch nails run through to docket, and curry comb tough hides rendered callous by many years, flagellation.

Wow. I have to look up curry comb too I think.

Yep curry combs on the list. Holly brushes, firs brushes, prickly evergreen called butchers Bush. And during the summer, a glass and China vases filled with a constant supply of green nettles. To which she often restored the dead to life. She also invented a device I think it's called the Berkeley ladder? So flagellation is one of the more common quote unquote, fetishes in the kink community. You wanna you want to pull you had there was the what was the crying one?

Shahn  38:34  
Oh, dacryphilia yes.

Gwyn Isaacs  38:39 
It's all good. So what is that?

Shahn  38:43  
Dacryphilia is sexual arousal when someone cries? I thought we were gonna talk about fetish.

Gwyn Isaacs  38:52  
Oh, I thought we were to 

Shahn  38:53  
Or fetish v kink?

Gwyn Isaacs  38:54
Yeah, so talk.

Shahn  38:57
So I think fetish is a great word. And I think it's also really nice to like un-pathologize the word or I don't know what you'd call that. I don't need to get into it right now. 

Gwyn Isaacs  39:10  
Normalize?

Shahn  39:09
Yeah, normal-well, I think un-pathologize because I don't want to normalize like pathological stuff, or pathologizing in general. But there there I think there's a significant portion of using the the word fetish to basically just mean like a kink or an interest. 

Gwyn Isaacs  39:10  
Yes. 

Shahn  39:12 
Something we like. 

Gwyn Isaacs  39:18 
Yes. 

Shahn  39:19  
As opposed to, like something we need, or something that is out of our control. Like, a need that's out of our control.

Gwyn Isaacs  39:46
I see

Shahn  39:47  
Like a compulsion or because I think like the DSM may have at one point, defined a fetish as like an uncontrollable need. you know compulsion kind of, yeah, like a bad thing quote unquote.

Gwyn Isaacs  40:04  
When you say you want to deep pathologize the word So you mean that you want to take it from meaning that you have to have this thing to get off to more of the how it's used commonly.

Shahn  40:20  
Yeah, something one enjoys maybe is even enthusiastic about. Yeah, but not like it's not a compulsive need. It's not considered a bad thing.

Gwyn Isaacs  40:31  
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Well, folks, that's it for this one. Next time I'll be chatting with Eco the wandering love mystic about their foundation Enlightened Consent and their mission to help all of us who have alternative sexuality be seen and accepted. Please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen, it helps us be heard by more folks. And if you would like to learn more about the show or talk directly to me, you can do that at whatexcitesus.com. While you're there, please answer the question of the week. What Excites Us is produced, edited and hosted by me Gwyn Isaacs, all music is under the Creative Commons Attribution license. This week it includes the Vendetta by Steven Kartenberg, Future House Sport by Skill Say and Harmony by Polyplus. Tickle.life hosts us and many others. Please go there to hear more great sex and sexuality podcasts. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you