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List of fetishes A to Z: names, meanings, and fetish vs kink

This is an A to Z of fetishes: the formal names, what they mean in plain English, and, unusually, how much evidence there is behind each one. That last part matters, because most of the -philia words you'll find online are reference-book curiosities or internet coinages, not diagnoses, and only a handful have been studied at all. Before the list, this page covers what counts as a fetish, how it differs from a kink, when psychiatry would call it a disorder (rarely), and how common fetishes really are. For broader interests and how to talk about them, see our kink list.

What counts as a fetish

Wikipedia defines sexual fetishism as a sexual fixation on anything not considered sexual by its nature. The object of desire is the fetish and the person is a fetishist. When the focus is a non-genital body part, feet, hands or hair, the technical term is partialism. The French psychologist Alfred Binet first used fétichisme in an erotic sense in 1887, and the word itself comes, via French and Portuguese, from a term meaning a charm or spell. The broader word paraphilia was coined by Friedrich Salomon Krauss in 1903 and popularised in the 1980s by the sexologist John Money.

Fetish, kink or disorder?

Three words get muddled. A kink is any unconventional sexual interest, including acts, roles and power exchange. A fetish is narrower: it needs a thing, a material or a body part. Wikipedia notes that some people distinguish them by saying a kink enhances intimacy with a partner while a fetish can replace it, but there's no scientific consensus. A useful test of our own: if the arousal centres on an object or body part, call it a fetish; if it centres on an act or a role, call it a kink.

A disorder is a different matter. Under the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5, fetishistic disorder requires intense, recurrent arousal from non-living objects or a highly specific focus on non-genital body parts for at least six months, and it must cause significant distress or impairment. Clothing used for cross-dressing and devices made for genital stimulation don't count. The APA puts it plainly: most people with atypical sexual interests do not have a mental disorder. The World Health Organization went further in ICD-11, in effect since 2022, which no longer lists fetishism among the paraphilic disorders at all; its working group argued that unusual arousal without distress, dysfunction or harm isn't a mental disorder.

How common fetishes are

The most-cited study, by Scorolli and colleagues in 2007, analysed 381 online fetish groups with at least 5,000 members. Body parts were the focus of 33% of the groups and body-related objects such as shoes of 30%. Feet were the clear leader: 47% of the body-part groups, while footwear was 64% of the object groups. It's a snapshot of internet activity, not a population survey, but it's the best map available.

As fantasies, fetishes are mainstream. A 2015 survey by Joyal and colleagues found 27.8% of men and 26.3% of women had fantasised about sex involving a fetish or non-sexual object. As a clinical problem they're rare: fewer than 1% of general psychiatric patients present with fetishism as their main issue. In a 1983 review of 48 clinical cases by Chalkley and Powell, the commonest fetishes were clothing at 58.3%, rubber at 22.9%, footwear and body parts at 14.6% each, and leather at 10.4%.

Fetishes A to F

Evidence notes: "studied" means peer-reviewed or clinical research exists; "reference" means the term appears in sexology reference books or lists but hasn't been researched; "internet" means a popular label with no academic source we could find.

• Agalmatophilia. Attraction to statues, dolls or mannequins. Studied: a 1975 paper called it the statue syndrome, linked to the Pygmalion myth.
• Alvinophilia. A navel or belly button fetish. Reference.
• Armpits, or maschalagnia. Reference only, with no prevalence studies.
• Balloons, or globophilia. Arousal from balloons. Reference.
• Biting, or odaxelagnia. From the Greek for teeth. Kinsey reported in 1953 that about 26% of people had a definite or frequent erotic response to being bitten. Bites that break skin can become infected, so keep it gentle.
• Breasts, or mazophilia. Reference.
• Buttocks, or pygophilia. Reference; see also body worship.
• Clothing fetishism. Studied: clothing was the most common focus in clinical cases. Specific items, aprons, denim, suits and ties, wedding dresses or nuns' habits, have no studies of their own.
• Crying, or dacryphilia. Arousal from tears or someone crying. Studied, barely: the first empirical study, in 2015, interviewed eight people, half of whom linked it to comforting someone who cried.
• Ears, or otophilia, and eyes, or oculophilia. Reference.
• Feet, or podophilia. Studied, and the most common of all. Our foot fetish guide covers it in depth.
• Food play, or sitophilia. Arousal from erotic situations involving food. Reference, with weak sourcing.
• Forniphilia. Using a person as furniture. Reference; see human furniture.
• Fur, wool and soft fabrics. Studied only as a group: soft materials made up 6.3% of one clinical series.

Fetishes G to M

• Gender swap and transformation. Fantasy themes about changing body or sex. Internet, no research.
• Giantess, or macrophilia. Attraction to giant women. Reference; our giantess fetish page covers it.
• Glasses. Internet.
• Gloves. Wikipedia has a short article but no prevalence figures; see glove fetish cams.
• Hair, or trichophilia. Studied: about 7% of the body-part groups in the 2007 study, plus a 1970 case report.
• Hands, or cheirophilia. Reference; in the 2007 study about 13% of participants mentioned nails, often treated as part of hand fetishism.
• High heels. Sometimes called altocalciphilia online, though that word appears only on blogs. Covered under shoes below and on our high heels page.
• Lace, satin and silk. Internet as named fetishes, though common in practice.
• Latex and rubber. Studied: rubber was 22.9% of one clinical series. See latex fetish.
• Leather. Studied: 10.4% of the same series.
• Legs, or crurophilia. Reference; legs or buttocks were 33% of the clothing-related groups in 2007.
• Lips, or orisophilia. Reference.
• Masks. Internet as a named fetish; see masked mistress cams.
• Muscles, or sthenolagnia. Arousal from displays of strength. Reference; muscles were 5% of the body-part groups.

Fetishes N to Z

• Nose, or nasophilia. Reference.
• Petrification. Fantasies of being turned to stone. Internet; the closest studied cousin is agalmatophilia.
• Piercings and tattoos, or stigmatophilia. Reference.
• Raincoats, wetsuits and swimsuits. Internet; the nearest listed term is wetlook, arousal from wet clothing.
• Robots. Known as ASFR, after a Usenet group, and the subject of a 2001 documentary. No peer-reviewed research.
• Scent and perfume. Common in practice, but we found no research on a non-waste scent fetish.
• Shoes, or retifism. Studied in the sense that it's well documented: named after the French writer Nicolas-Edme Rétif, whose Fanchette's Foot appeared in 1769, and footwear was 14.6% of one clinical series.
• Sneezing and stretch marks. Internet; no papers found.
• Stockings and nylon. Common and well documented as part of clothing fetishism; see nylon fetish cams.
• Teeth, or odontophilia, and tongues, or glossophilia. Reference.
• Tickling, or knismolagnia. Studied: a 2024 survey in Frontiers in Psychology found about a quarter of participants could reach orgasm from tickling alone. Practitioners call the tickler the "ler" and the person tickled the "lee".
• Wrists, forearms and knees. Internet.

What this list leaves out

Lists of paraphilias online include some that have no place here, and we've left them out deliberately: anything involving minors, animals, the dead, people who haven't consented, bodily waste, blood or breath restriction, or serious harm. Those aren't kinks to explore; several are crimes. Everything above is about adults, consent and things that harm no one.

If something on this list is yours, you're in large company, and you don't need a Greek name for it to be valid. Our femdom glossary covers the vocabulary of domination itself, our guide to kink shaming covers what to do with judgement, and the strip at the top shows dominant women live now, many of whom list feet, latex, leather or nylon among their favourites.