Love at First Sight or Latent Fetishism

Do you believe in love at first sight? The answer depends on the meaning we attribute to this seemingly simple and unambiguous concept. If «love» implies mutual respect and reliance and similarity of opinions and interests then the development of such a feeling really takes some time. However, if we use this word to describe medically or logically incomprehensible phenomena, such as uneven breathing, shiver in arms and legs or irresistible desire to leave everything behind and follow the person to the earth´s end, then we should accept that such a reaction can be immediate. Should we rely upon this sudden and strange feeling?

Despite the very idea of love «at first sight», there are some other senses that are responsible for its emergence, of course, if we do not speak about looking at the photo or watching a movie. One feels some special fragrance of a particular person, hears his or her voice and percepts warmth and vibrations of his or her body even at the distance. That is why euphoric impulse that we feel about someone can be a sign of biochemical compatibility and sexual harmony.

This feeling has special importance for women. Unexplainable attraction to a man, which arouses a kind of fever and disables all logical motivations, can be the call of her maternal instinct, which is rare to mistake. This call as such cannot guarantee that your family with this man will be happy and strong. However, the children you bear with him will certainly be smart and healthy unlike the descendants conceived in exceedingly pragmatic marriage.

Meanwhile, the same abrupt passion may turn out to be illusory. Psychologists call this effect an imprinting, which denotes establishing of a firm connection between primarily impressions and circumstances which accompanied them. A newly hatched duckling concentrates on the first moving object it sees, which can be a ball or something, and follows it afterwards as if it were its mother-duck.

Primarily erotic feelings emerge at the age of early childhood when sexual experience yet remains unconscious. These flashbacks sometimes may represent the most vivid and unaffected emotions of a particular person since they have not been reversed by adult logic or self-control. These emotions may be concentrated on any particular detail, for example on figure of the object, his or her hair color, the pitch of his or her voice, special perfume or garment. The thing is that the whole situation and sometimes even the owner of the abovementioned details may get lost in the child´s memory. Later on this lost feeling may suddenly imbue the person with excitement as soon as one of the particular details once again comes into his or her notice. What happens next is a mere product of imagination and romance.

An extreme point of such a mechanism is named fetishism. It does not matter for a fetishist what the woman he deals with is. She must certainly obtain the particular detail he is fond of, for example, she must wear black stockings or red panties. There also some who even do not need presence of a woman at all. The stocking is quite enough. Unlike male fetishists women hardly ever concentrate on men´s underwear – black socks or red trunks do not inspire them. However, that does not mean that there is no detail in the image of a man that is able to launch the whole mechanism of erotic feelings deep inside of her.

If that is the case, you may ask me what should be done for a man whose only possibility of communication is to sit in front of his computer and look through the girl´s photo. How can he prevent being captured by his so-called hidden fetishism and avoid facing further disappointment? First of all, one should look not only through the photo but also read questionnaires thoroughly, pay attention to compatibility reports and listen to the advisor´s recommendations as long as the advisor knows the girls personally. But the main thing is not to be too hasty about making decisions and exchange several messages before taking any steps.