i have a weird fetish and i feel so guilty about it

[liana421]

i'm 17, and ever since i was around 9 i had this weird fetish. it's an existing fetish as i've seen ppl discussing it on the internet, but i feel so ashamed bc of it. when i was younger i didn't know about sex and fetish stuff so i watched videos related to that specific fetish. after i knew that it was a fetish i felt immense guilt and immediately stopped all of the things related to the fetish. i'm living a completely normal life, but whenever i see something that's related to the fetish i get turned on and i feel embarrassed. weird fetish doesn't make me a horrible person, right? i'm really insecure when i think about it and i wanna know if this is common and if it's just overall 'ok'.

[Sam W]

Hi liana421,

As a quick point of clarification, a fetish is actually something, generally an object, that is required for someone to experience sexual arousal. I don't know if what you are talking about falls under that rubric, but I always try to share with people that "fetish" often means something much narrower than people assume.

To your main question: no, having a fetish, or a kink, or any kind of sexual preference, makes someone a horrible person. Human sexuality is weird and diverse and sometimes unpredictable, and plenty of people enjoy or fantasize about things that might be deemed strange, or even things they like thinking about but would never want to do. Those thoughts and fantasies aren't hurting anyone.

Too, what you're describing of seeing something and getting turned on can happen to anyone who experiences sexual desire; it's not some side effect of your preferences or a sign you're doing something wrong. When we have things that we find arousing, sometimes we run into those things in non-sexual situations and still feel that arousal. Does that make sense?