Sneeze Fetishism Hereditary?

[liricospinto]

I'm pretty sure that my mother has a sneezing fetish that she hasn't admitted even to herself -- I've always noticed that she seems unusually interested in men's sneezes, and always looks in the direction of a sneezer. Just to test her, I mentioned that my x-tra hot main squeeze had a bit of hay fever over the weekend, and she perked up right away. I'd never ask her about it because I'm sure it would embarrass her to death, but I'm curious . . . do any of you have family members with the fetish?

[Dawnie]

Well it is quite possible that my mother has or had it and never really realized it. The reason I think this is because when I was young, I shared a bedroom with her and I use to catch her inducing when she thought I was asleep. It was horrible. I mean, imagine that you woke up and realized your mother was "satisfying" herself in the same room as you. It was just as disturbing to me. I couldn't stand it. I use to put the pillow over my head to drown her out. Or I'd make a noise so she's see that she was waking me up and stop. However, as much as her doing that upset me, it make me curious as well. I already had a huge fascination for sneezing at this time, but it was all so freakish to me at the time. I couldn't determine if it was giving me pleasure or discomfort. But because I did see my mother doing it, I figured out how to do it and have been doing it ever since.

Other than that major thing, the only other thing that I can think of that might have contributed to the possibility that she had it or has it was the way she would make such a big deal when someone sneezed. With the continuous "bless you's" and hovering.

[Sneesee]

Um, well, it wasn't my mom I was concerned about, but my sister always has (and still does) made a big deal about sneezing for some reason. She constantly talks about her own sneezes, and used to comment on mine when we both lived at home. One of the major reasons I hated sneezing in front of my family was because of her reaction to it. Well, that and my mother. Anyway, I have always been annoyed with my sister's fascination with sneezing and talking about it. I don't neccessarily think that she has the fetish, but it kind of makes me wonder. I mean, mabe she does have it, but doesn't care and doesn't realize she does. Otherwise, why would she talk about it so much? I don't know. Either way, she does have some sort of fixation on sneezing. So, perhaps it is hereditary.

[count tiszula]

I am certain that my father was one of us; naturaally, therefore, it was never mentioned and I cannot bring myself to say any firther details. Exceept that it was like Jasmine's mother, only more so. In fact from a very young age I just assumed it was hereditary. Also that it first derived from enjoying sneezing oneself and extrapolating from that. Not so sure now.

I often wonder what he must have thought when i did all the asking for sneezy stories bit as a child.

[Lamborghini]

Good question. You know, I think my uncle has the fetish, my dad's brother. He has allergies, and always stifles. People usually tell him that it is not healthy, but he just nods his head and says "I know, I know." And he usually avoids talking about it, his sneezing and/or allergies, and he never says the word sneeze. So i think he does have it.

Lamborghini

[Sapphire]

Once when I told a therapist that my father would get angry and yell at me and my sister when we sneezed, she asked me if I thought that he had the fetish too and did not want to associate his kids with sex in that way. But I told her I highly, highly doubted it. He yelled at my mom too, and presumably, with the fetish, one would find one's wife's sneezes sexy. Also, he yelled if we coughed too much, but it was just less frequent than the yelling about sneezing.

In the nature and nurture debate, I often think that there is a good element of nurture that goes into the development of our fetish. I agree with someone who posted a long time ago in another thread who hypothesized that there may have been a sort of hyperattention to bodily functions, particularly sneezing, in some of our families that helped to contribute to our having this fetish.

I hope no one takes this offensively because I don't mean it to be that way. It's just a thought really. But for most of the things posted in this thread so far about how parents and relatives reacted to sneezing, I could easily come up with alternative explanations as to why they did that besides that they have this fetish. I think that Fifi has a point that the large majority of us became very careful about covering our interest in sneezing at a very young age because we felt that it was private in some way and better left unsaid. For the people who run around drawing attention to sneezes (I guess besides those who have made a conscious choice to do so because of this forum) all the time, I would conjecture that it is something else going on besides a fetish.

I've posted about this before, but my mother always comments on her own sneezing, and says how good it felt (crap like that). Who knows at what age I started understanding and tuning into that? She was the primary caretaker for me, and the secondary was my dad who hated sneezing and yelled about it. So, was I maybe going to be a kid who paid a lot of attention to sneezing? I'd say so. Was it necessary for any family to pay that much attention, and such polar opposite attention, to the simple act of sneezing? I'd say no. I've also posted before that sometime during the 90's, my mother called me up, said that she had seen on TV (hell if I know what show we were featured on) that some people were sexually turned on by sneezing and she was laughing and asking me, "isn't that weird?" And then she said that she was going to need to quit saying that her sneezing felt good or people would think she was turned on by it. So, um, yeah, that was a bad 60 seconds on the phone. BAD.

It's also kind of hard for me to think that people would not be aware that they had this fetish. I think that we all may not have had a name for it before we came here, but we definitely understood that sneezing had some special significance for us. I certainly knew that I did not meet the norm in my attitudes toward sneezing. I can't imagine anyone not realizing that if they have this fetish. However, what I can imagine is something mentioned a while back about their being perhaps degrees of sneezing interest ranging from hating it to being indifferent to it so that it doesn't ever register, to enjoying one's own, to being a compulsive blesser etc. etc. to having the fetish. Maybe there are more people in our family who, rather than being quite indifferent to sneezing, are at some extreme sides of this interest.

Who knows? Maybe all of these family members do have the fetish.

Whatever, I drank too much wine, and I should be in bed.

[Trillium]

I think it's extremely unlikely that anyone in my family, immediate or remote, has the fetish. So I can't explain it. I think it's just another sign that I was actually adopted. I'm not like them in any other respect, either.

[KawaiiKitty]

If anyone else in my family ever had it, they hid it pretty good! Except for perhaps my brother. One day, a very long time ago when he was still very young he and another child had been drawing picture after picture of just giant running noses. But I never saw any signs other than that (and I'm fairly perceptive when it comes to people) so I'll never know if perhaps the drawings were the other child's idea, or his.

I would certainly hope that nobody else in my family did have it. Because then they might find the forum and join it! And...could you imagine the surprise of signing on one day and realising that another poster here was actually related to you?

[kate]

I'm pretty positive that none of my family members have it. If they do, they do a much better job at hiding it than I ever could.

[count tiszula]

Interesting that this time round about half the posters are going with heredity ; if I am right last time the feeling was very strongly against. I am always surprised in the nurture/nature debate that the possibility of a sort of half and half is not considered more; it would seem obvious that this is likely.

Is there some reason for dislike of nature that I am misssing? After all, we all resemble our family physically; you would think that since sneezing, and sex, aare very physical it would be straightforward to make that connection. I even wonder if the fact that genetics is taking over from psychology as a trendy subject is affecting people's perception.

Inciddentally, since we all have different types of fetish, some are presumably more nurtury, or natury, than others. I can see exactly what you mean about your situation, Sapphire. Except that, if we were cnsidering a genetic model, might we not postulte that the combination of genes of two could we say persons with a semi-fetish style concern with sneezing might be expectedto combine to give A fully fledged fetishist in the next generation...? And we could be talking several generations here.

[Sapphire]

It's interesting, count, that my perception of the forum is that it is, and always has been, very natury. From what I have observed, I believe that about 99.99% of people on here will say that they were born with the sneezing fetish, and I could be misinterpreting it, but I think that being born with something makes it a nature thing, right? Since I'm really quite certain that I was not born with this fetish, I've generally felt in the minority over this issue.

Where I usually start to balk is when we get down to the level of the gene because it's hard for me to imagine that we have the specifics of a fetish for sneezing, and not for say, coughing or hiccuping or for balloons, encoded in our genes and that your parents pass down two recessive SF genes, and bingo, you've got the sneezing fetish in the same way that two recessive genes cause blue eyes. Of course, I don't know. There could very well be a sneezing fetish gene, since sneezing is a reflex common to us all.

But then, I get back to the balloon fetish, and I think, O.K. is there a gene for a balloon fetish? That's one that is even harder for me to imagine than a sneezing fetish gene because presumably balloons didn't always exist (what is the history of the balloon anyhow?), so how did it get into our DNA? I don't think that human beings have been alive long enough or the balloon has been in existence long enough or that the balloon fetish provides enough of an evolutionary advantage to justify our DNA evolving to accommodate a balloon fetish.

I actually tend to see myself as leaning toward a combination of nature and nurture on almost all issues. With the fetish, I usually go with the idea that there could be a gene that increases the predisposition for a fetish of some kind (maybe something in our brain that makes us connect the generally non sexual with the sexual).

Or maybe -- we sneezing fetishists are the small minority of the population that retains a trait that once provided great advantage to Cro Magnon man/woman but has since lost the advantages it once had (I'm presuming or else wouldn't this fetish be much more widespread?)

Now, mind you, I'm completely throwing things out there. I'm no evolutionary biologist or even psychologist. (In other words, I'm full of crap right now with this post)

[Secret98]

I learned about how fetishes come about in my human sexuality class. Classical conditioning. Something happened in our pasts that made us associate sneezing as sexually arousing. I've noticed that we (us in this forum) all have a different degrees of this fetish. Some of us only get alittle truned on, while others wll full blown turned on by just one sneeze, and thins in between this... Something had to happen in our pasts that made us take an interest in sneezing, some where in our pasts we also learned to associate it with sex. The same thing goes for other fetishes. I doubt it's hereditary. I mean, maybe if you and a sibling have this fetish, yous both grew up together and could have both been brought to pay attention to sneeze and then even further into fetishism. For those of you who think you might have parents with the fetish, it's possible that they do, and if they do, they probably payed attention to sneezing, some how causing ous at a youg age to pay attention to sneezing as well. Which after a while could have caused yous to get this fetish, as well.

This is just my theory...

[kate]

Or maybe -- we sneezing fetishists are the small minority of the population that retains a trait that once provided great advantage to Cro Magnon man/woman but has since lost the advantages it once had (I'm presuming or else wouldn't this fetish be much more widespread?)

I often wonder just how widespread this fetish is. It doesn't seem to be an overly common fetish that is known about (thank goodness!), but a lot of people do seem to be "interested" in sneezing, even if they don't have a full-blown fetish. Just think about how many tv shows/childrens books focus on sneezing...if sneezing were such a non-event, why would something like the much referenced Alice in Wonderland scene come to exist? There was so much focus and build-up placed around that sneeze-And there's tonnes more examples were that came from. For such a commonplace, garden-variety human function, sneezing seems to have rather high "stature". For intance, you never see coughing given the same sort of focus. Even the fact that people say bless you after someone sneezes, it's as if something special has happened-even to the non-fetishist.

[brokensneeze]

I actually tend to see myself as leaning toward a combination of nature and nurture on almost all issues. With the fetish, I usually go with the idea that there could be a gene that increases the predisposition for a fetish of some kind (maybe something in our brain that makes us connect the generally non sexual with the sexual).

This is the explanation I always think of for fetishes. Although I have only one fetish, I really seem to in a way "get" many other "deviant" sexual preferences (with the exception of the more violent and/or obscure ones). In a way, I could see myself having lots of fetishes.

However, while I do consider this a biologically-based tendency, the inheritance doesn't seem straightforward, since my parents come across as very un-fetishy (i.e. I don't think I have ever heard a "perverted"-sounding idea from either of them).

[Idle_Sneeze]

I, personally, think that my brother and father both not necessarily have the fetish, but like sneezing. My father used to tell me sneezing stories with characters and animals that were always sneezing when I was a little kid, and my brother did the same thing. Why, I don't know.

[Sawyer]

Okay. While reading this, I came up with another theory, that is most likely a load of crap. I'm honestly doubting myself here, but.

I'm going to take Sapphire's gene idea and GS-Coyote's whole childood-happening thing or whatever. You could have been born with somewhat of a gene, a very weak one, that somehow relates to being sexually aroused by sneezing, nurturing, whatever. Maybe everyone was. Maybe it was few of us...I'm honestly not sure. Anyway. Here's when GS-Coyote's theory/idea/whatevershelearnedinhealthclass comes in--- something could have happened when we were very young, maybe even too young to remember, just the simplest thing, that enhanced it. As you got older, other things may have happened that could have enhanced it more, if just not a little, and over time realized that sneezing had some sort of significance. Or whatever fetish it is, even. And that would decide whichever fetish you were blessed with? (no pun intended)

Yeah, I have no idea what I'm saying. XD

~Furetto

[count tiszula]

It's interesting, count, that my perception of the forum is that it is, and always has been, very natury. From what I have observed, I believe that about 99.99% of people on here will say that they were born with the sneezing fetish, and I could be misinterpreting it, but I think that being born with something makes it a nature thing, right? Since I'm really quite certain that I was not born with this fetish, I've generally felt in the minority over this issue.

Where I usually start to balk is when we get down to the level of the gene because it's hard for me to imagine that we have the specifics of a fetish for sneezing, and not for say, coughing or hiccuping or for balloons, encoded in our genes and that your parents pass down two recessive SF genes, and bingo, you've got the sneezing fetish in the same way that two recessive genes cause blue eyes. Of course, I don't know. There could very well be a sneezing fetish gene, since sneezing is a reflex common to us all.

But then, I get back to the balloon fetish, and I think, O.K. is there a gene for a balloon fetish? That's one that is even harder for me to imagine than a sneezing fetish gene because presumably balloons didn't always exist (what is the history of the balloon anyhow?), so how did it get into our DNA? I don't think that human beings have been alive long enough or the balloon has been in existence long enough or that the balloon fetish provides enough of an evolutionary advantage to justify our DNA evolving to accommodate a balloon fetish.

I actually tend to see myself as leaning toward a combination of nature and nurture on almost all issues. With the fetish, I usually go with the idea that there could be a gene that increases the predisposition for a fetish of some kind (maybe something in our brain that makes us connect the generally non sexual with the sexual).

Or maybe -- we sneezing fetishists are the small minority of the population that retains a trait that once provided great advantage to Cro Magnon man/woman but has since lost the advantages it once had (I'm presuming or else wouldn't this fetish be much more widespread?)

Now, mind you, I'm completely throwing things out there. I'm no evolutionary biologist or even psychologist. (In other words, I'm full of crap right now with this post)

Perhaps we are just paranoid, Sapphire; or at least I am.

My problem with pure nurture is that a sneeze fetish isnt really a fetish in the classic sense; hankies yes, sneezing no; in that hankies are inanimate and hence not obviously physically sexual, like balloons; incidentally I suspect that if there were such a gene it would apply to any equivlent of teh inanimate object; other cloths prior to hankies; pigs' bladders for balloons?

But it's not at llclear to me what a normal physical interest is. After all, lips are not genitalia, and yet it seems to be regarded as normal to achieve a climax mereely by kissing; yet just above the lips is an equally sensitive , aesthetically pleasing organ which can be stimulated to produce what is very like a climax in itself; yet to find that sexual is abnormal; well, which other bodily parts are normal?

Plus the fact that for some of us the very sensation of sneezing ourselves is clearly sexual and arousing; this doesn't seem to be a fetish, or even a paraphilia [if that means a physical sexual practice not approved of]

Sneezing freequently and powerfully has an obvious evolutionary advantage; the sneezer has good defensive reflexes and healthily expels all germs and irritants. If people are attracted to Child-bearing hips, muscles, long legs, swollen breasts for such reasons, why not be instinctively attracted to a skilful sneezer. Indeed, I suspect that somesuch evolution has takn place, or why would people sneeze so unnecessarily violently.

[Secret98]

My problem with pure nurture is that a sneeze fetish isnt really a fetish in the classic sense; hankies yes, sneezing no; in that hankies are inanimate and hence not obviously physically sexual, like balloons; incidentally I suspect that if there were such a gene it would apply to any equivlent of teh inanimate object; other cloths prior to hankies; pigs' bladders for balloons?

But it's not at llclear to me what a normal physical interest is. After all, lips are not genitalia, and yet it seems to be regarded as normal to achieve a climax mereely by kissing; yet just above the lips is an equally sensitive , aesthetically pleasing organ which can be stimulated to produce what is very like a climax in itself; yet to find that sexual is abnormal; well, which other bodily parts are normal?

Plus the fact that for some of us the very sensation of sneezing ourselves is clearly sexual and arousing; this doesn't seem to be a fetish, or even a paraphilia [if that means a physical sexual practice not approved of]

Sneezing frequently and powerfully has an obvious evolutionary advantage; the sneezer has good defensive reflexes and healthily expels all germs and irritants. If people are attracted to Child-bearing hips, muscles, long legs, swollen breasts for such reasons, why not be instinctively attracted to a skilful sneezer. Indeed, I suspect that somesuch evolution has takn place, or why would people sneeze so unnecessarily violently.

I can say that I have a fetish for sneezing not a paraphilia. A paraphilia is intense fantasies, behaviors, or urges that someone finds sexually arousing, and it gets in the way of their life for over a six month period of time, and you also have tobe obsessive about it. I took a human sexuality class, and this how I know what a paraphilia is.

Another thing is that in some cultures people find kissing to be very gross. Seriously, because of some belief that the soul goes can come out of the mouth or something like that. When some people of this culture saw some people from our culture kissing, they said something like," look at them they eat each others saliva." This is what it said in my college text book, for human sexuality class. So kissing is something that we were classically conditioned to believe as arousing. Also in other cultures people who are fat are considered attractive, where as we know in our culture skinny is considered attractive, the point is that all this stuff is classically conditioned...

[Sapphire]

Paranoid? Probably - I wouldn't be surprised. We do seem to be among the few oldies (vs. newbies) around here who still care to engage in the "how did we get the fetish" debate. It seems that we just don't tire of it, do we?

You're right about the evolutionary advantage to sneezing, which is why it persists in most (all?) species. Do fish sneeze??? Through their gills? Hmmmm..... But I'm not sure what advantage might be traced to the sneezing fetish itself, maybe more sexual virility and potency given that it's a quick and easy turn on and thus more reproduction and passing on of one's genes?

I understand your reluctance to go with a pure nurture theory. I don't think I can either. I just haven't figured out what combination I want to conjecture and then believe. Nobody's doing any research for us on this, so we've all got theories, right?

As far as enjoying our own sneezing, there are people without the fetish who enjoy their own to a degree, so maybe this is genetic and is a mutation of a pleasurable sensation attached to sneezing that is encoded in some people's DNA (realizing of course that not everyone experiences a pleasurable sensation from sneezing).

Well, it would certainly be interesting if there were genes for each little turn on that exists out there. Being an emetophobe though, I shudder at the thought of the gene for the vomit phobia and that I could unwittingly be a carrier for it.

On a related note - Researchers still haven't found the homosexuality gene, last I read, but something makes me believe that there could be one, though the pros and cons of finding one (for the gay community) have been debated. I wonder which lab is searching for it currently because someone probably is. Maybe they should just call it the sexual orientation gene, and see if they find out what gene combinations make a person heterosexual.

It's interesting, count, that my perception of the forum is that it is, and always has been, very natury. From what I have observed, I believe that about 99.99% of people on here will say that they were born with the sneezing fetish, and I could be misinterpreting it, but I think that being born with something makes it a nature thing, right? Since I'm really quite certain that I was not born with this fetish, I've generally felt in the minority over this issue.

Where I usually start to balk is when we get down to the level of the gene because it's hard for me to imagine that we have the specifics of a fetish for sneezing, and not for say, coughing or hiccuping or for balloons, encoded in our genes and that your parents pass down two recessive SF genes, and bingo, you've got the sneezing fetish in the same way that two recessive genes cause blue eyes. Of course, I don't know. There could very well be a sneezing fetish gene, since sneezing is a reflex common to us all.

But then, I get back to the balloon fetish, and I think, O.K. is there a gene for a balloon fetish? That's one that is even harder for me to imagine than a sneezing fetish gene because presumably balloons didn't always exist (what is the history of the balloon anyhow?), so how did it get into our DNA? I don't think that human beings have been alive long enough or the balloon has been in existence long enough or that the balloon fetish provides enough of an evolutionary advantage to justify our DNA evolving to accommodate a balloon fetish.

I actually tend to see myself as leaning toward a combination of nature and nurture on almost all issues. With the fetish, I usually go with the idea that there could be a gene that increases the predisposition for a fetish of some kind (maybe something in our brain that makes us connect the generally non sexual with the sexual).

Or maybe -- we sneezing fetishists are the small minority of the population that retains a trait that once provided great advantage to Cro Magnon man/woman but has since lost the advantages it once had (I'm presuming or else wouldn't this fetish be much more widespread?)

Now, mind you, I'm completely throwing things out there. I'm no evolutionary biologist or even psychologist. (In other words, I'm full of crap right now with this post)

Perhaps we are just paranoid, Sapphire; or at least I am.

My problem with pure nurture is that a sneeze fetish isnt really a fetish in the classic sense; hankies yes, sneezing no; in that hankies are inanimate and hence not obviously physically sexual, like balloons; incidentally I suspect that if there were such a gene it would apply to any equivlent of teh inanimate object; other cloths prior to hankies; pigs' bladders for balloons?

But it's not at llclear to me what a normal physical interest is. After all, lips are not genitalia, and yet it seems to be regarded as normal to achieve a climax mereely by kissing; yet just above the lips is an equally sensitive , aesthetically pleasing organ which can be stimulated to produce what is very like a climax in itself; yet to find that sexual is abnormal; well, which other bodily parts are normal?

Plus the fact that for some of us the very sensation of sneezing ourselves is clearly sexual and arousing; this doesn't seem to be a fetish, or even a paraphilia [if that means a physical sexual practice not approved of]

Sneezing freequently and powerfully has an obvious evolutionary advantage; the sneezer has good defensive reflexes and healthily expels all germs and irritants. If people are attracted to Child-bearing hips, muscles, long legs, swollen breasts for such reasons, why not be instinctively attracted to a skilful sneezer. Indeed, I suspect that somesuch evolution has takn place, or why would people sneeze so unnecessarily violently.

[count tiszula]

Golly, am I rreally an oldie? I don't feel like one [except in real life, of course]. Does this mean that I will inevitably stop wanting to discuss matters sneezy? This is a sad thought...

Meanwhile, I've had an idea; *lightbulb*. Since sneezing is an evolutionary advantage, it must be evolutionarily good for peolple to associate it with pleasure, and hence sexual pleasure; yes. we are more advanced than the common herd!

And another thing; since apparently only some ladies get a sexual thrill from having their nipples stimulated [ although again it would seem to be an evolutionary advantage], we must assume that this pleasure is not inherent. So it must have been caused by some key event in their early lives [heaven knows what]; in fact, just like kissing or being trodden on in shiny shoes, it is a fetish, and any woman who feels this must be driven out of the village...!

[Niceguy]

Being adopted myself I can't say much regarding my parents. (But no evidence that [my adopted parents] had it in any case. Just to be clear.) But man - my three year old son? ALWAYS making the fake-sneeze sound. Someone sneezes, and he imitates it for like ten minutes after.

It's kind of annoying actually.

[geminimom616]

If any of my family members have the fetish, I don't know about it & I think it's better that way otherwise I definetly would feel akward...

[Geist]

Thankfully, no one in my family has it. I swear, I have "sneeze fetishist radar" (because I've met several of "us" randomly in my life and NOT via this forum) and I think I'd "know" if they had it.

[Trillium]

. . . .

And another thing; since apparently only some ladies get a sexual thrill from having their nipples stimulated [ although again it would seem to be an evolutionary advantage], we must assume that this pleasure is not inherent. So it must have been caused by some key event in their early lives [heaven knows what]; ...!

I tend to agree that early influences somehow give rise to our fetish. But I'm not of a philosophical bent, so for me, analyzing this is neither enjoyable nor productive, because there is no definitive answer. (Which is not to say that I disapprove of others analyzing it; whatever floats your boat; have at it.)

[Sneesee]

Being adopted myself I can't say much regarding my parents. (But no evidence that [my adopted parents] had it in any case. Just to be clear.) But man - my three year old son? ALWAYS making the fake-sneeze sound. Someone sneezes, and he imitates it for like ten minutes after.

It's kind of annoying actually.

I can definitely relate. My three year old daughter does this CONSTANTLY! Drives me crazy! But, I htink for children, it is mostly just funny, and that's why they do it. I think if he did have it, he'd probably have a somewhat different recation when someone sneezed. When I was that age, I wouldn't have dared immitate a sneeze in front of anyone. I do remember saving the pretend sneezes for my dolls and stuffed animals when I was all alone.

So, does he or doesn't he? Guess you won't know for awhile. I really hope none of my children have it. I have three girls, and I wonder. I mean, I'd probably go ahead and be open about it, but (and this will sound selfish), I'd hate to end up having to share this fetish with any of them someday. Ya know? But then, I wouldn't want them to walk around their whole life, like I did, wondering what was wrong with them. It's quite the sticky situation for me.