Reviews for Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power

The average rating for Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-09-25 00:00:00 Germain Robichaud Initially, I was pleasantly surprised. The book goes beyond the standard source material of Bettie Page stock photos, the Bizarre back catalogue and wasp waist horror stories and into the world of Polaire, DSC and Rops. Steele's references are extensive, ranging from Mr. Pearl and Fakir Musafar to Marx and Engels. In terms of research, this is a solid work. There is no denying that this woman is archetypically cishet, and uses inconsiderate terms such as "transvestite" (and, rather condescendingly, "hermaphrodite") pretty loosely. Yeah yeah, Zeitgeist and all that. Still, it became too bothersome to read about even more "perverse" fantasies from "transvestites" and made me feel highly uncomfortable. Furthermore, statements such as "fetishism is almost always a male perversion" rub me the wrong way, describing women as free of perverse want and lust, not engaging in the act of fetishizing anything and perhaps even being afraid of anything outside of "the norm". As a side note, she needed a better editor. Extremely common names, like Bettie Page, were misspelled, and she talks about a new and upcoming group of creative club kids in New York in the late 90s, long after Michael Alig killed Angel and Giuliani cracked down on NYC nightlife. What I liked about the book: solid effort, great resources, psychoanalytic theory from Kaplan to Lacan, interesting subject matter. Would only recommend to those really into corsetry, shoe fetishism etc.: too lengthy for a more general audience.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-12-31 00:00:00 Doreen Accatino Overall an ok read. Was written in the 90s and you can tell as the world has evolved since then. At time almost comes across as a bit pretentious, but that is probably more on me ha. Very interesting things though that I never new about fashion and fetishes.