What’s in a name? Apparently, a lot. Fetish. The word can ignite distinct mental images. Handcuffs. Leather. Golden Showers. Spankings. Whips. Nurse costumes. Basically what a fetish boils down to, right? Wrong. A sexual fetish can be a lot of different things. You need an alarm clock to go off to have an orgasm? That would be a fetish. You’re only attracted to obese, blonde men? That might be one, too. You can’t be sexually aroused by someone who is not clean-shaven in his or her pubic area? You probably have a fetish.

 A fetish can be both a sexual need and a sexual want. It’s hard to get experts to agree on what a fetish actually is, but they do agree that the negative social connotation associated with it has made it into a taboo. Dossie Easton, author of "When Someone You Love is Kinky," says she defines a fetish as a sexual delight that someone believes is sick, wrong or too far out.

 For Mark, a graduate student from Orlando, Fla., it seems very little is too far out. He claims to have a fetish for “trying new things.” He says he doesn’t need any particular thing to happen on a regular basis, but he does need to constantly explore new sexual ventures. Often, his girlfriends have been willing to explore with him, but that’s not always the case.

 “I go in knowing the parameters and the limits, but I’m always willing to test them,” Mark says. He is currently in a relationship in which his girlfriend is also willing to try new things. His first comment about his fetish was that over the weekend he had given his girlfriend a “rim job” for the first time. The act involves oral stimulation to the anus of the recipient.

 “I had never done anything like that, but I’ve always wanted to,” Mark says. “We just kind of went with it, but we talked about it afterwards.”

 Communicating openly about one’s desires is not something a lot of couples are able to do, but for those who are, experts say they will have a much more gratifying and intimate sexual relationship.

Having “The Talk”

 Sexual adventure doesn’t always come so naturally to Mark as his rim job experience did. In some relationships, he says he and his partner talk about what they are going to try beforehand. This was the case when he and a past girlfriend decided to give golden showers a try.

 Mark says he had been thinking about trying something new to switch things up. He hadn’t planned it ahead of time, but when she mentioned that she needed to use the restroom, he suggested she do it on him. People who experience sexual pleasure from golden showers either enjoy urinating on someone else or being urinated on by their partner.

 “She was hesitant at first, but she said ‘alright, I’ll give it a try,’” Mark says. “It felt pretty good, but she wanted me to return the favor and I couldn’t because I had stage fright.”

 Mark says communication about his fetish for exploring new practices has been key in his past, as well as current, relationships. Experts agree that discussing fetishes openly, regardless of how intimidating it may seem, is well worth the pay off.

 Having the courage to sit down and discuss your fetish and what it does for you can be healing, says Carol Queen, sexologist and columnist for Good Vibrations Magazine. She says some people are nervous to even mention a fetish to their partner because they feel it’s bizarre, have been made to feel embarrassed by it in the past or have had a former partner react negatively to experimenting with them.

 “With some couples, it can be very healing to have your partner explain how their fetish tends to manifest importance in their sexuality because in itself, the conversation is an intimacy building exercise,” Queen says.

 She says college students today, unlike past generations, are generally open to exploring their sexuality and are much more willing to understand that not everyone is the same sexually. She says this alone should vest young people with more confidence in talking about fetishes openly.

 Still, she acknowledges that many people feel ashamed about fetishes they have and are inclined to keep them secret. Queen says it’s never too early to talk about sexual desires.

 This is a hurdle Mike, a 2010 graduate from Leawood, says he has not been able to overcome. He has yet to have a relationship last longer than two or three months, and says he hasn’t felt he has ever reached a level of intimacy in which he felt comfortable talking about some of his sexual fantasies.

 Despite his passive personality, he says he tends to like intelligent, driven girls who are willing to dominate the relationship. He hasn’t dared try it yet, but says he would like to try a toned-down version of S&M one day.

 “I’ve always envisioned that I would enjoy the submissive end,” Mike says. “It’s not something I’ve ever done, but I think I would like to try domination and humiliation type of stuff.” He says he would be interested in using handcuffs with someone he feels comfortable with, but hasn’t had the opportunity to venture that far in his past short-term relationships.

 Talking about sexual fantasies might require a couple to reach a certain level of intimacy, but it may also be a way to combat mundanity for long-term couples. Mike Anderson, a doctoral student in communications who studies healthy communication in romantic relationships, says it’s important for couples to explore fantasies in order to avoid coming to a sexual stalemate.

 “People who communicate their sexual likes and dislikes have better sexual satisfaction, which is related to better relationship satisfaction,” Anderson says. “Exposing a sexual fetish allows us to reap the benefits of knowing about our partner’s sexual likes and having access to an avenue of variety and experimentation in the bedroom.”

 Studies have repeatedly found that couples who experiment with sexual variety are much happier than those who don’t. Sexual relationships tend to become routine over time, but Anderson says this is the easiest way to prevent that from happening.

 Key to discussing experimentation, Anderson says, is communicating your desire for the fetish to remain private. He says people are often afraid their partner might share the information with someone else, but discussing your desire for privacy will help ensure that the trust will not be broken.

 Examining the reasons why people tend not to talk about fetishes and fantasies is a focus of Anderson’s work. Though he has yet to reach a conclusion, he speculates people either feel their sexual desire will be viewed as deviant or they’re afraid their partner will be unwilling to try out their fetish.

 “Chances are, if you’re a female in a relationship with a guy and you’re scared to tell him what your fetish is, you shouldn’t be,” Anderson says, “Because it’s probably not nearly as raunchy as what the guy has in his mind about what he wants to do sexually.”

 Anderson says when approaching your partner, you should be careful not to make him or her feel inadequate. He says letting your partner know that “you please me in the sexual arena, but you know what would really please me? You’d be all ears.”

Ready for the next step?

 But how do you know if you’re ready to “go there” yet? Depending on the fetish, it can be easy. For Elizabeth, a graduate student from Iola, getting what she wants sexually is as simple as pulling a guy towards a wall.

 “I really like doing it up against the wall,” Elizabeth says. “Most guys will just go for it. They’re so distracted anyway, they don’t really care.”

 Just making out up against the wall turns Elizabeth on and most guys don’t fight it. Though her fetish isn’t socially stigmatized, she says she ‘d be willing to initiate anything she wants because she assumes that guys are willing to try almost anything a girl can think of.

 Elizabeth says she would prefer to have sex up against the wall regularly, but if her partner didn’t feel the same way, she’d be willing to compromise. “I’d say ‘Hey, every once in awhile let’s do it my way and then every once in awhile let’s do it your way,’” Elizabeth says. Though Elizabeth may be willing to meet her partner halfway, not all people are able to do so.

 When Dylan, a senior from Overland Park, let his girlfriend shave his butt before she gave him a rim job, he knew it wasn’t something he’d do again. The couple showers together every night and he says “she shaves my bum every now and then,” but on his 22nd birthday, she decided to also shave between his cheeks and give him a rim job for the first time.

 “It was kind of relaxing because we were in the shower, but at the same time I wasn’t anticipating it,” Dylan says. “I liked it, but I didn’t love it.”

 He’s not sure why she wanted to give him a rim job and he says he doesn’t want to know. It was something he was willing to try, but didn’t find sexually pleasurable enough to do again. He says he has allowed his girlfriend to continue shaving his butt because he knows she prefers him to be clean-shaven.

 Experts say couples like Dylan and his girlfriend who experiment openly are likely to benefit from trying. The same experts say that disclosing the truth about your fetish can be more difficult depending on the degree to which the practice is associated with deviance.

 Before his current relationship, Mark, from Orlando, participated in what is socially regarded as more extreme forms of sexual exploration. While he was single this summer, he visited Club Erotica KC in Kansas City three times. Visiting a swinger’s club had always been on his bucket list, so he decided to take a chance.

 He says the first time he visited, he delivered oral sex to a woman while her husband watched. Mark says giving oral sex is his favorite sexual act. The woman wanted to return the favor, but Mark says he was too uncomfortable to go through with it. Though this wasn’t a sexually satisfying encounter for Mark, he was contributing to the husband’s voyeuristic fetish.

 His third and final trip was more adventurous. After giving oral sex to a woman, he “ended up having intercourse with her while she was eating out another girl and her fiancé was getting that girl from behind.”

 Although he enjoyed his experiences at Club Erotica KC, he says he doesn’t plan on retuning anytime soon because his current girlfriend wouldn’t be willing to go with him. Mark can accept that because she is still willing to explore her sexuality at home.

 Though going to a nudist, exhibitionist, voyeuristic, swinger’s club might sound “far out” for some, the owner says about 50 percent of his patrons are college-age. The man known as Poker opened the establishment in 2000 to promote sexual exploration and open sensuality in a “comfortable, house party” setting.

 “I give people a place to explore their fetishes because a lot of times these things have become so taboo that they can’t be talked about,” Poker says. “People have the wrong idea about swingers. It’s all about enriching couples’ relationships with each other and finding people you can share with.”

 Before having to pay the entry fee, Poker gives visitors a tour of the house, during “party hours”, so they can decide if they are interested in staying to try things that may or may not be new to them. He says people sometimes choose to leave immediately, but those who choose to stay even if they’re nervous, generally end up coming back.

When fetishes go wrong

 Given Mark’s need for adventure, there is no room for sexual close-mindedness in his romantic relationships. In fact, a past girlfriend’s inability to explore ended their relationship.

 “She was so hesitant to try anything new that it became a deal breaker,” Mark says. “It was just tough to overcome that.”

 Sexologist Carol Queen says fetishes can cause relationship problems for couples for two major reasons: the person cares more about satisfying their fetish than intimacy with their partner or one of the people has a fetish that the other just can’t handle.

 “Sometimes it’s I can’t go there with you and sometimes it’s I can’t stand it that you go there,” Queen says. She says some people have secret fetish lives—choosing never to disclose a fetish to a partner, but satisfying it independently—so meeting halfway is often enough to save a relationship, yet few reach that level of compromise.

 When someone decides to explore their partner’s sexual fetish, but rarely has their own needs met, the relationship is likely to end. Queen says people sometimes feel like they play a production assistant role in satisfying a fetish, rather than a lover to the person with the fetish.

 Dr. Sandra Scantling, a sex and intimacy therapist, gave an example of how this can become a problem by describing a teddy bear fetish. The fetishes she sees most involve inanimate objects; in this case, a woman must have a teddy bear present in order to reach climax. She says in most cases fetishes are accepted, but “when things start to get crowded in the bedroom” couples will begin to resent the fetish. She says that as long as no one is hurt and both parties are willing participants, the relationship will probably not suffer from the existence of a fetish alone.

 Dossie Easton, author and sex expert, says avoiding the negative side of fetishes is as easy as saying “no.” She says that if your partner’s fetish actively distresses you, you can choose not to participate, and if you and your partner have an open relationship, either of you can find satisfaction elsewhere.

 “Most of the problems caused by fetishes devolve from forbidding or pathologizing them,” Easton says. “I think most everyone can enjoy some ornamentation in their sex life. I agree with Kinsey when he states that the only unnatural act is one which cannot be performed.”