Fetish

For fans of Mating in Captivity and Come as You Are, this practical book uses recent psychological research and personal stories to dismantle the stigma attached to fetishes. This guide provides clear actionable tools to help readers understand where their desires come from and how to leverage them for a more happy and fulfilling life.  

Resources for folks with unique desires are few and far between, and often perpetuate the debunked notion that fetishes are antisocial aberrations that ought to be suppressed. Sex educator Niki Davis-Fainbloom is here to change the cultural narrative by tackling these tired stereotypes with fascinating stories and new research aimed at understanding a constellation of unique desires that are vastly more common than people think. 

Fetish is the first book of its kind, providing practical tools to help individuals understand the physiological and psychological underpinnings of their unique desires, overcome shame and fear, and navigate modern intimacy and relationships with confidence. Readers with a fetish will finish the book with a fresh set of strategies for living full, beautiful lives with their fetishes, while readers without a fetish will find themselves surprised and amused at the enormity of human sexual diversity—equipped to be caring partners and strong allies to folks with all types of desires.  

With years of experience as a researcher and sexuality counselor focused on fetishes, Davis-Fainbloom offers a personal, candid, compassionate, and rigorously evidence-based exploration of what it means to have a fetish. Within these pages you’ll learn:

● How culture, media, and society shape our desires
● Why fetishes develop (spoiler: it’s not just childhood trauma)
● How they impact romantic relationships and intimacy
● Practical guidance for overcoming shame and building self-acceptance
● How AI and digital exploration of desire are reshaping our brains and our desires

This book is an essential resource for anyone seeking to better understand their desires and embrace an authentic, shame-free relationship with their sexuality.

• “Research increasingly shows that our sexuality is multi-dimensional—shaped not only by who we’re attracted to, but also by what we’re attracted to. Fainbloom makes a compelling case that fetishes are not perversions, but natural and healthy expressions of human sexuality that deserve curiosity and compassion.Fetishes are too often pathologized and exiled to the shadows of shame, but this book boldly brings them into the light of day where they can be normalized, explored, and ultimately embodied in ways that are healthy, playful, consensual, and connecting.”
  Ian Kerner, New York Times bestselling author of She Comes First
• "With warmth, wit, and sharp humor, Davis-Fainbloom takes readers into the world of fetishes. Using both story-telling and research, she offers readers not just insight, but permission to question, to explore, and to integrate the parts of themselves they’ve been taught to hide. You don’t have to have a fetish to benefit from this book. It will help anyone who wants to understand desire in all its complexity, and to build a more honest, expansive relationship with themselves and others."
   
  Laurie Mintz, author of A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex and Becoming Cliterate, Forbes 50 over 50
• "Blending science with storytelling, Niki Davis-Fainbloom takes on one of the most misunderstood subjects in human sexuality. Smart, unapologetic, and impossible to ignore, this book doesn’t just explain desire. It dares you to own it."
  Justin J. Lehmiller, author of Tell Me What You Want and host of the Sex and Psychology Podcast
• "Provocative, sympathetic, and deeply researched, FETISH elevates a subject often considered taboo to the realm of human narrative and deep inquiry into the workings of mind and body. Grounded in case studies and her professional expertise, Niki Davis-Fainbloom offers both a meditation on the deeper regions of desire and a rich resource for dismantling shame and inhabiting the erotic self. FETISH delivers a rare and welcome blend of scholarship, storytelling and practical guidance that is bound to resonate with readers wishing to surface subterranean longings and living out their authentic sexuality."
  Katherine Rowland, author of The Pleasure Gap
• "Whether you are someone living with a fetish or simply seeking to better understand, this book creates a rare and much-needed space for open, non-judgmental exploration. It invites curiosity, encourages self-reflection, and ultimately leaves the reader with a deeper sense of acceptance, both for themselves and for the diversity of human sexuality that too often goes unspoken."
   
  Laurie Betito, PhD, Clinical Psychologist and Author of The Sex Bible for People Over 50
• Fetish is the book I've been waiting for someone to write. It's playful without coming across as dismissive, deeply researched without being dry, and human on every page. Whether you have a fetish, love someone who does, or are just curious about the wide and wonderful landscape of desire, this book will change how you think about what's 'normal,' and why that was never the right question to begin with. Read it, share it, and let it open some doors you didn't know were closed.
   
  Rachel Wright, MA, LMFT
• "Finally, a bible that explores the complex world of human desire in a way that is bold, humorous, and compassionate. Fetish tackles shame head on, drawing from biology and its complex history, psychology, and neuroscience, while bringing in pop-culture and real-life anecdotes. Niki Davis-Fainbloom is our guide, allowing us to explore our own transformations in a way that’s sex-positive, free of judgment, and heartfelt. Just the way desire should be. We only have one life and it’s about damn time we bring our complex world of desires to the forefront. And Davis-Fainbloom nails it (no pun intended).”
  Dr. Evan Goldstein, Founder & CEO of Bespoke Surgical and Future Method, and author of Butt Seriously