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A CONTRIBGTION ON FETISHISM *
In his paper on ' Fetishism ' * Freud has pointed out that the fetish
usually signifies a penis-substitute. Here I should like to describe two
further interpretations of the fetish that came to light in a case analysed
by me, and which led me to suppose, after looking through the litera-
ture on the subject, that they play an essential rble in nearly every
case.
There are very many people for whom the one or other quality
of the love-object is of special significance in their love choice, some-
times representing even a ' conditio sine qua non '. These people are
certainly not quite free: that is, strictly speaking, not perfectly
healthy, but still not really perverse. Only those can be called
fetishists in the real sense who do not need a sexual partner, but only a
fetish, and whose sexual activity has not the act itself as its aim.
These people-as is generally known-are with few exceptions
men. The actions that give them gratification consist nearly always
in putting on the fetish, or in putting part of their body into the fetish.
Very many fetishes are by nature hollow or are used as receptacles in
the perverse actions ; such are shoes, corsets, articles of clothing,
under-linen in general, especially drawers, then fur articles, hand-
kerchiefs and, for instance, in a remarkable case told me by Dr.
Pfeifer, the hollow part of an artificial leg. The interpretation of these
objects as the vagina and the womb respectively is quite as obvious as
the penis interpretation of the use of the body itself or part of the body.
Thus fetishists are men who dare to consummate coition only sym-
bolically-distorted by two parallel displacements. In the case I
analysed this was readily admitted. But much harder to make con-
scious was the fact that the part of the body used represented also the
father's penis, to whom coition was allowed and perhaps, at bottom,
the patient himself, as quite a small child, in the sense of Ferenczi's
Gulliver fantasies.8 Here we have arrived at castration anxiety and
the mastery of it : that is to say, Freud's interpretation.
I have no personal experience of feminine fetishists. But what I
know about some quite isolated cases of women fits in well with my
line of thought. They are described as very masculine persons and

1 Translated by Barbara Cooke. Read at a meeting of the Hungarian

Psycho-Analytical Society, December 7, 1934.

a Ges. Schr., Bd. XI, p. 395.
a Intern. Zeilschrift f. Psa.. 1927. p. 379.
481
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482 MICHAEL BALINT

-what I consider the most important-they do the same things with
their fetishes as do men. Thus, the perverse action of a patient
treated by Dr. Dubovitz consisted in putting her nose into the hand-
kerchief used as fetish.
The fetish has, however, still another interpretation. On closer
inspection it turns out, that it is also a worthless object that has been
raised to this dignity. I know of no single case where a valuable piece
of jewellery served as a fetish and certainly none where its intrinsic
value played any part. With pieces of clothing especially it is mostly
an advantage, if not an indispensable condition, if they are old or at
least worn. Further, the fetish is a lifeless thing, which can easily be
taken away from its legal owner. On the other hand the feeling of
undisturbed possession of the love-object-at least in the case I
analysed-was of very great importance for gratification. Another
condition belonging to this complex is that the fetish should have a
smell. I think that further material is superfluous : the fetish surely
signifies foces too. On tho basis of my case, unfortunately not ended,
I am unable to say how it came to this interpretation, and more
espccially whose faeces was meant. I surmise only that it was not his
own faeces, but that of his parents and so that the act is in close con-
nection with the anal theory of birth and of coitus.
With this surmise I come very near the experience of Melanie
Klein,’ who has shown very convincingly that in a rather early period
of the child’s development the fzces and the body contents of the
parents respectively-but especially those of the mother-reach the
central point of interest and that the most important sexual aim of
this period consists in getting hold by every possible means of these
body contents, which are endowed with magical powers. The descrip-
tion of Airs. I&in is doubtless correct, only these important pheno-
mena-in my opinion-are not of a primary nature. In this connection
I should like to support C. D. Daly, who behind the faxes and body
contents fantasies would, here, look for the much more strongly
repressed mother vagina-which, we too easily forget, also smells. My
material unfortunately allows me only surmises and no cogent con-
clusions.
From these thoughts follow on two interesting parallels to klepto-
mania and transvestitism. I believe that both these perversions rest
on the same psychological basis, only in the case of kleptomania the

4 Die Psychoanalyse des Kindes. Vienna, 1932.

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A CONTRIBUTION ON FETISHISM 483

chief stress is laid on the seizure itself and in transvestitism on the
putting on and hiding in the clothes. I consider it an advantage of my
reflections that they permit us to bring these three fonris of perverse
sexual activities together theoretically also, for according to clinical
experience they are certainly related phenomena. Of course, my
reflections must first be confirmed by experience. ,

Michael Balint
((Budapest).
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