How to Tell Your Partner about Your Sexual Fetishes

Anyone who ever tells you they don’t have a secret fetish is lying. The term fetish has a surprising origin. It once referred to a religious object such as a talisman or charm that had an almost irrational importance to someone. With the rise of atheism, where increasingly religion has taken a less important role in our day to day lives, the term fetish has taken on a new meaning, one denoting sexual desire or fantasy.

Even today, the word fetish has some negative connotations, somehow implying sexual deviancies that cannot be admitted to others for fear of feeling that you are in some way perverse.  The truth is that this is not true at all. We all have hidden desires and fantasies that we hide for fear of being labeled perverse. The first step to overcoming your fear of telling your partner about your secret desires is to understand that they are completely normal and that they will most certainly have some too.

Your desires are part of who you are and so should never be repressed or denied. Obviously, there are some desires or fantasies that should never be acted upon, as they are either illegal or would do harm to others. For the most part, however, fetishes should be seen as a completely acceptable part of your normal sex life.

What exactly is a fetish?

A sexual fetish can be anything that is not part of your ordinary sex life. These fetishes can be anything from a desire to be tied up and spanked to being involved in non-consensual acts such as torture. Sometimes sexual acts like oral sex are even considered fetishes to some, because they might not be available to that person because their partner won’t perform such acts. Generally, however, a fetish is regarded as a desire for a sexual act that doesn’t exist within the boundaries of ‘normal’ sex.

It is for this very reason that most people consider it very hard to discuss with their partner that they have a fetish.

Do you really need to tell your partner you have a fetish?

The first thing you need to consider before you tell your partner you have a fetish is do you really even need to tell them at all? Many fetishes such as self-asphyxiation or feeling the need to spank your testicles with a wooden paddle while masturbating don’t actually require anyone else to know. You might want to tell your partner because they have noticed your strange behavior or you may just need to confide in someone to help get it off your chest, but you don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to. Whatever the reason, you should take a moment to decide if you really need to tell them or not.

If you decide not to tell them you don’t need to feel guilty

Guilt is a sign that you feel bad for doing something wrong. A clear distinction needs to be made here regarding the secret exploration of your fetishes and doing something wrong. Provided the fetish is being carried out on your own and is not harming anyone else then there is no reason to feel you are doing something wrong. Once you have accepted that there is nothing morally wrong in exploring this desire,then you can treat it like any other form of sexual behavior you might engage in while your partner is not around. After all, you wouldn’t run off to tell your partner every time you masturbated in the shower or watched a porn movie, so exploring your fetish need be no different.

How can you tell them?

If you decide that you need to tell your partner you really need to consider what is the best time and place. This will really depend on what kind of fetish you have and what type of person your partner is. If they are quite conservative then you really are probably much better slowly guiding them into it rather than sitting them down at the kitchen table to tell them face to face. This softer approach could be, in the case of spanking, waiting for an intimate moment and either gripping their hand and motioning them to slap you, or saying something like ‘I like when you slap me’, for example.

The soft approach is a much better way of easing your partner into your fetish, but is not really suitable for the more full-on fetishes such as strangulation and bondage. For these fetishes, it is defiantly advisable to sit your partner down to discuss it at length. Though this is a more difficult approach, it really pays off in the end as it gives you the space to let out your feelings and explain exactly what you are into. If you are telling your partner in the hope that she or he will get involved in acting out your fantasies, then understanding is certainly the first step.

What happens if they don’t understand?

Being honest about your fantasies is as important as being honest about anything else. In order to maintain a healthy mental state, it is important to learn to be who you really are. Part of this learning involves being open and sharing everything with your partner that you feel you need to. If they become upset or don’t understand your sexual fetishes then you really have a choice to make.

If you are happy to continue to live with things the way they are, provided your partner is at least ok with knowing, then you can just go on as you were. If on the other hand, you wish to begin to explore these fetishes with them, then you really need to continue trying to get them to understand. To do this, you can sit them down again and stress the strong importance of your fetish to you before directing them to some books, articles or other media to help them to understand. With any luck, with a little time and persistence, you and your partner will be exploring those fun fetishes and making your sex life exciting again.