How likely is it that any given person has this fetish?

[Pixieflower]

I hope I’m not the only one who’s been wondering about this for years now. This question is what kept me from making an account on this forum for so long, because I was paranoid that someone I know would somehow be on here and recognize me by my miscellaneous interests or by the obs I would write. I know there’s no way to be sure exactly how much of the population has this fetish, but does anyone here know of a rough estimate? And is it one of the more common fetishes or a really rare one? It would be so cool/weird if I knew another closeted fetishist in real life this whole time and not know about it, but the same time... I would be mortified if someone I knew figured out my biggest secret and my identity based on my posts on this forum.

[Show&tell]

@Pixieflower

My husband and I ran into each other as a chance encounter in real life, so its not impossible. 

That being said, it's probably a fairly rare fetish.  Certainly not as popular as say, feet.  

6000 members on this forum.  Lets assume that only 1/50 people sign up to the SFF.  So 6000 x 50.  300,000 people.  Seems like a lot, right?  Well, NA alone has like 350 MILLION people in it.... 

So.  Less than 1% of North America.  And that is probably me being very generous.  

I tried to figure this out recently.  Look at the "most popular" videos on YouTube that involve sneezing.  Some have like 100k views.  But in the comments sections, you get "vanilla" people saying things like "what is this and why did it get recommended to me", so not ALL those views are from a fetishists.  Plus those views can account for people watching the video again and again which fudges the numbers even more. 

Honestly I think my 300k estimate is much too high. Maybe only 40 or 50k in North Anerica.  But I'm curious to hear other peoples thoughts! Its an interesting discussion.

[Sequoia]

I've been thinking about this as well. And I still have no idea. As Show&Tell said, not everyone signs up here. But everyone who has the fetish will find this forum sooner or later and maybe visit it- of only as a guest. There are usually about 50 guests online and we have 6000 members. But that doesn't really help in getting an actual number :'D Also, there are some troll accounts and accounts of people whose partner has the fetish. So it's actually even less.

But other than with 'popular' things like feet or maybe leather, normal people(Yay, we're special :D) don't even know that something like a sneeze fetish exists. Especially because a fetish usually refers to some kind of object and not, well, to a process like sneezing   There is not even a wikipedia page about it, the amount of other articles is about four, if I remember correctly. Literally no one knows about it. So it's nearly impossible that someone might recognize you. If he does, he would be one of us and then it wouldn't be that bad, I suppose. Even if you have some super special hobbies, there will be millions of other who do the same. And one can never be completely sure it's you  

And even though I know that, I still have the same problem as you do. Especially with obs. And my hobbies. I know that there are thousands of people (in Germany alone) who keep tarantulas and watched a person sneezing in a bus yesterday and still I have the feeling everyone I know would recognize me immediately if he/she read this. 

There is a reason why I use a completely different email address and username. I really have the need to hide behind the largest tree in the world :'D But I should start posting obs anyway. No one will find out. I only have to convince myself of that...  

I'm sorry I can't give you a number. Show&Tells first calculation sounds too high to me, too. I have the feeling that there are much less of us. Just try and search for other fetishes, they usually have larger communities than we do. There is even scientific research about them  

[NoV]

I think it's very difficult to tell just how prevalent a sneeze fetish is. Certainly a great many more than are signed up on this forum. Sneezing videos on YouTube often get a large number of hits, but this is probably due to this fetish being generally under-catered for on sites catering specifically for fetishes.

Essentially, there are probably more out there than you expect, but it is still a very, very niche fetish imho  

By the way, welcome to the forum  

[sneezybaby]

I wonder about this every day!!! I wish there was a way to determine for sure how many people have it, but of course, there isn't

[Woodsie]

As someone that doesn't have the this fetish before my GF told me about it I had no idea.  I was always ashamed of sneezing in public and still am but have opened up for her to explore .  I must shay the feelings it gives me are amazing and I think more people would enjoy if they just relaxed. 

I know this has nothing to do with numbers but I can say I never knew it existed before her and I joined here because I wanted to learn .

[Pixieflower]

Thank you for the replies! 

On 1/13/2018 at 2:12 PM, Show&tell said:

My husband and I ran into each other as a chance encounter in real life, so its not impossible. 

Wow! Lucky you! What are the odds? 

On 1/13/2018 at 4:07 PM, Sequoia said:

And even though I know that, I still have the same problem as you do. Especially with obs. And my hobbies. I know that there are thousands of people (in Germany alone) who keep tarantulas and watched a person sneezing in a bus yesterday and still I have the feeling everyone I know would recognize me immediately if he/she read this. 

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I actually went and created a new email just for this forum as well, so I completely know what you’re talking about. 

And I realized what you guys said about there being waayyyy more common fetishes than this one is so true! After reading these comments, I went searching the first word that popped into my head and following that word with “fetish” on google, and a lot more stuff would come up than when I searched “sneezing fetish”. Just by doing this, I found out there are a lot of other obscure fetishes that I had never even thought existed before I tried this little experiment. And now that I think about it, I’m always really paranoid that someone I know will be on here and figure me out, but at he same time, I can’t imagine anyone I know having another fetish, like feet, and  going or posting on an online community for that fetish instead.  So I guess I’m pretty reassured now that I know that there’s probably a 0.00001 chance of someone I know figuring me out.

[Stargirl]

I think there is always a concern about people finding out. My other half knows and some friends know I have a fetish but not what it is. I would hate for people to know about it as then they might make fun of it which would upset me. It’s a private thing.

[Lexie13]

I'm very curious about this, but usually for the opposite reason—every time I go on a date with someone new, I wonder what the odds are that they'll also have the fetish (shoutout to @Show&tell, I'm so jealous!). I've become very open about my fetish with partners over the year, but I can't help wishing I would meet someone naturally that could enjoy it in the same way I do. 

[Alyssa1146]

I think it may be a bit more common than others think.  I also think if you know someone is turned on by it, you can become naturally curious and become turned on by it as well. k  So I think it CAN be contagious to some extent too.

I think a larger percentage will never search for information.  Others will search but never post on here or watch videos.  Some will never admit their interest enough to themselves to even come up with a term for it.

[zneeze]

When the forum was much further away from attaining 7,000 members, I used to say that we're literally one in a million. I rounded up to 7,000 to account for people who live in parts of the world without internet access, people who chose not to join the site, and the very young and very old.

Now that we're well past 6,000 members (99.9 percent of which are at least interested in sneezing to an unusual degree, if not turned on by it) - I would say my old estimate is too low. 350,000 is too high, though. Maybe around 10,000, 15,000?

[Show&tell]

I feel like saying more than 40k MAX would be pushing it too far. My 300k estimate above was just to showcase that even that bloated # is infinitesimal compared to the total pop of even just NA.

After rethinking this topic again, I'm on the other side of zneeze and think maybe 15-30k.

[bloom]

I actually don't think it's really that rare. Even if it's .001% of the population (and I kind of think it's more), that's still 76,000. I would definitely guess it to be at LEAST around there, but possibly into the hundred thousands range, just accounting for people who will never join the forum/have no internet access/don't speak English/are too old/are too young/etc. The idea that over half of the people in the ENTIRE world who have this fetish have joined this forum is, to be honest, absolutely ludicrous to me, because it basically assumes that every one of those people is an English speaker.

I've come across another fetishist organically online before, and so has a friend of mine who doesn't have the fetish. It's not as common as a lot of fetishes, but I don't think it's as rare as a lot of people in this thread seem to think. 

You have to realize just how many people 7.6 billion is. Like, a lot of people think oh, a billion sounds like a million so they're similar numbers, but they're seriously nowhere near comparable. To put it into perspective, a million seconds is 11.5 days, but a billion seconds is 31.7 years. There are a fucking LOT of people in the world. The idea that there is a number as low as 10k of us in the world suggests that we only compose 0.00014285714285714% of the world's population, and there's just simply no way that that's the case.

Edited January 20, 2018 by Junia

[Show&tell]

@Junia

Fair points!  My 30k estimate was in regards to adult, self realized individuals. And strictly only North America.  

Certainly the numbers probably swell considerably with the full planet and such factored in.  It's a fun thought

[Red Irish Lass]

On 1/14/2018 at 6:43 PM, Woodsie said:

As someone that doesn't have the this fetish before my GF told me about it I had no idea.  I was always ashamed of sneezing in public and still am but have opened up for her to explore .  I must shay the feelings it gives me are amazing and I think more people would enjoy if they just relaxed. 

I know this has nothing to do with numbers but I can say I never knew it existed before her and I joined here because I wanted to learn .

Woodsie, you sound like an amazing guy

[Woodsie]

On February 12, 2018 at 1:22 AM, Red Irish Lass said:

Woodsie, you sound like an amazing guy

I just want her to explore and enjoy instead of hiding.

[CeruleanBlue]

There’s something else I’m not sure is being accounted for. A sneeze fetish may (at least partially) also be part of a larger thing. For example, I think my fetish tends to tie back to vulnerability and hurt/comfort (I am 100% hurt/comfort trash that’s literally all I write) more than actual sneezing. That then leads to illness and sick sneezes being my favorite, and allergies or other sneezes also being vulnerable. That’s just a theory of mine though and I honestly might be wrong haha. Anyway, maybe there are more? More people sort of like me who have the fetish partially or completely by connection of 1+ other things?

[Sequoia]

For me it's actually the other way around.

I also like H/C and, as you said, vulnerability (this tough guy losing control ). But it's 'only' nice, just like reading a cute love story. Sneezing feels like more, so it's probably my main fetish, while colds, H/C etc. are the circumstances in which sneezing (or some similar act of losing control) might appear. 

But then again, before I really accepted this fetish, I was completely sure H/C is the thing I like most and colds/sneezing are a part of it. I wrote stories with lots of H/C and I had no problem with showing them to my friends, I only wanted to hide the sneezing parts and added them later on. Silly me.  

There are quite a few people who only write H/C. If they're all hidden fetishists, we might be an even larger group...  :'D 

[Luisa39]

On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 0:31 AM, CeruleanBlue said:

There’s something else I’m not sure is being accounted for. A sneeze fetish may (at least partially) also be part of a larger thing. For example, I think my fetish tends to tie back to vulnerability and hurt/comfort (I am 100% hurt/comfort trash that’s literally all I write) more than actual sneezing. That then leads to illness and sick sneezes being my favorite, and allergies or other sneezes also being vulnerable. That’s just a theory of mine though and I honestly might be wrong haha. Anyway, maybe there are more? More people sort of like me who have the fetish partially or completely by connection of 1+ other things?

Yes!  My hurt-comfort fetish is actually stronger than, yet absolutely related to, my sneezing fetish.

[nancy]

i feel like it’s definitely rare but i’ve come across people in my real life who said or did things what made me wonder if they had the fetish lol

[Coolio]

15 hours ago, gemma said:

i feel like it’s definitely rare but i’ve come across people in my real life who said or did things what made me wonder if they had the fetish lol

Me too