I doubt very much that your children, if you have them, will ask you "What's a fetish?", the way I asked my father, "What's an aphrodisiac?" It could happen but it probably won't and if it did, I'm not absolutely certain you'd know the correct answer. Most of us probably think of a sexy pair of red high-heels when we hear "fetish" and then picture a kinky shoe salesman hovering over a nylon stocking, footed female, gently placing that shoe upon her foot. You would be mistaken if you thought that the shoe was the fetish, technically, the fetish would be toward the foot. A "fetish" is an erotic interest on a part of the body, as the foot. The word derives from the French word "facticius", as an adjective it means "artificial" and as a noun it refers to sorcery or to the magical power a charm might possess. If you wear a crystal around your neck to ward of evil and protect you from disease, the crystal would be a fetish. So would a "good luck charm".

Suellen Ocean is co-author of The Common Sense Guide to Good Sex, and the author of the contemporary novels, Gold River and Gone North available at Amazon, B&N and Ocean-Hose. http://www.pacificsites.com/~oceanhose/