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A Critical Period for Lactation Fetishes

Published: May 17, 2019, 5:24 p.m.

Enquist et al\xa0on lactation fetishes is one of my favorite papers.

They wonder \u2013 as we\u2019ve all wondered at one point or another \u2013 how people develop fetishes. One plausible hypothesis is \u201csexual imprinting\u201d. During childhood, you have a critical period (maybe ages 1 to 5) where you figure out what sex is. If you see some weird stuff during that time, you could end up with a fetish. For example, a child who sees latex used in a sexualized way (for example, they catch a glimpse of a sexy movie where someone is wearing latex) might grow up with a latex fetish.

Enquist et al realize lactation fetishes offer a natural test of this hypothesis. Children with younger siblings will see a lot of breastfeeding going on during their critical window; children without younger siblings will see less. Since it\u2019s easy to ask people how many siblings they have, you can see if younger siblings correlate with lactation fetishes.

They survey some online lactation fetishist communities and ask everyone how many older and younger siblings they have. Although by chance we would expect an equal number of both, in fact the fetishists have many more younger than older siblings:

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