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The term '"[[fetish' used ]]" first came into widespread use in the eighteenth century in the context of the study of '"[[religion|primitive religions' denotes ," in which it denoted an inanimate object of worship.
In the nineteenth century, [[Marx]] borrowed the term to describe the way that, in capitalist societies, social relations assume the illusory form of relations between things ("[[commodity fetishism]]]").
He defined [[fetishism]] as a [[perversion|sexual perversion]] in which sexual excitement is absolute dependent on the presence of a specific [[object]] (the [[fetish]]).
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[[Freud]] argued that [[fetishism]] (seen as an almost exclusively [[male]] [[perversion]]) originates in the [[child]]'s horror of [[female]] [[castration]].
He stresses that the equivalence between the [[fetish]] and the [[mother|maternal]] [[phallus]] can only be understood by reference to linguistic transformations, and not by reference to "vague analogies in the visual field' such as comparisons between fur and pubic hair."<ref>{{L}} 1956b: 267)</ref>
In the seminar of 1956-7following years, as [[Lacan elaborates an important ]] develops his distinction between the fetish object [[penis]] and [[phallus]], he emphasises that the phobic object; whereas the [[fetish ]] is a symbolic substitute for the mother's missing phalluslatter, not the phobic object is an imaginary substitute for symbolic castration (see PHOBIA)former. Like all perversions, fetishism is rooted in the preoedipal triangle of mother-child-phallus (S4, 84-5, 194).However, it is unique in that it involves both identification with mother and with the imaginary phallus; indeed, in fetishism, the subject oscillates between these two identifications.<ref>S4, 86, 160</ref>
[[Lacan]] also extends the mechanism of [[disavowal]], making it the operation constitutive of [[perversion]] itself, and not just of the [[fetishistic]] [[perversion]]. However, he retains [[Freud]]'s view that [[fetishism]] is an exclusively [[male]] [[perversion]],<ref>{{Ec}} 734</ref> or at least extremely rare among [[women]].<ref>{{S4}} p.154</ref> In the [[seminar]] of 1956-7, [[Lacan]] elaborates an important distinction between the [[fetish]] [[object]] and the [[phobic]] [[object]]; whereas the [[fetish]] is a [[symbolic]] substitute for the [[mother]]'s [[lack|missing]] [[phallus]], the [[phobia|phobic]] [[object]] is an [[imaginary]] substitute for [[symbolic]] [[castration]]. Like all [[perversion]]s, [[fetishism]] is rooted in the [[preoedipal]] [[structure|triangle]] of [[mother]]-[[child]]-[[phallus]].<ref>{{S4}} p.84-5, 194</ref> However, it is unique in that it involves both [[identification]] with [[mother]] and with the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]]; indeed, in [[fetishism]], the [[subject]] oscillates between these two [[identification]]s.<ref>{{S4}} p.86, 160</ref> [[Lacan]]'s statement, in 1958, that the [[penis ']] "takes on the value of a fetish' " for heterosexual women raises a number of interesting questions.<ref>{{E, }} p.290</ref> Firstly, it reverses [[Freud]]'s views on [[fetishism]]; rather than the [[fetish ]] being a [[symbolic ]] substitute for the [[real ]] [[penis]], the [[real ]] [[penis ]] may itself become a [[fetish ]] by substituting the [[woman]]'s [[absent ]] [[symbolic ]] [[phallus]]. Secondly, it undermines the claims (made by both [[Freud ]] and [[Lacan]]) that [[fetishism ]] is extremely rare among [[women]]; if the [[penis ]] can be considered a [[fetish]], then [[fetishism ]] is clearly far more prevalent among [[women ]] than among [[men]].
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