Bad As You Wanna Be...

Welcome to our annual Sex Issue. This year we decided to look into the more risqué side of Springfield: Fetishes

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Welcome to our annual Sex Issue. This year we decided to look into the more risqué side of Springfield. Everyone we spoke to for this feature said people would be stunned how many people in Springfield engage in activities like BDSM and swinging—and even more stunned at who these people are. Alas, none of those sources felt comfortable enough to come “out” and reveal their own full names. At least for now, actions speak as loud as words.

But GO, you say, you’re so depraved! Not really. Ty Pierce, an instructor of abnormal psychology and human sexuality at Drury University (he also spends time answering sex questions for sororities and in dorms) says a sexual practice can only be defined as a disorder, or abnormal, if it meets one of the American Psychiatric Association’s following three criteria:

• The person who does it suffers anxiety, guilt, or despair as a result. You can grease yourself up with Wesson and masturbate to C-Span while wearing Janet Reno’s nightgown, but unless you wake up the next morning thinking “Oh, no! I did THAT again,” it’s okay.
• Your sex act centers on an inanimate object (a fetish)
• It harms another living thing (primarily includes rape and child molestation). Ty takes it a step farther than the APA, substituting “living thing” for “person” because, as he puts it, “A guy who tortures a dog to death by having sex with it is not firing on all cylinders.”

What’s a fetish, anyway?
Most of the practices in this feature are not fetishes per se, even though the word is commonly used to describe any sexual obsession. Fetishes, Ty says, are limited exclusively to inanimate objects; there’s no such thing as a foot fetish unless you cut it off and carry it around in your briefcase. So now you know.

Even though we offer tips and resources for learning more about some of these activities, we highly suggest you do your own research before you cuff your partner to the kitchen sink.

Finally, it’s important to talk to your partner about any and all desires you have or activities you’d like to try—communication is the key to a fulfilling sex life, even if it’s as tame as, say, The Andy Griffith Show.