Hiding my porn... when it's not porn
December 13, 2009 10:05 AM   Subscribe

How do you keep your fetish materials secret when they look perfectly normal? I don't want a porn buddy; I just never, ever want to have to explain myself or talk about them.

I have a cast fetish. I've never shared it with anyone and am very reluctant to do so. It's not a big part of my life, but I do look for YouTube videos very discreetly and fantasize about other people. That's pretty much it. I don't want to get myself all plastered up, and I really, really don't want to get my partner involved.

I would like to get a couple of novels featuring casts/broken bones in subplots. The problem is that I don't generally read novels, and the ones I want to order are typically cheesy, older and look it. If I ordered one specially, there's a good chance that my partner would see them and wonder why I had this tacky old paperback lying around. If I had two or more, my partner would probably associate them (due to their look and subject matter) and think, "Uh, what???"

It's highly possible that my partner wouldn't care, but I'm not personally comfortable with it to even admit that it turns me on, let alone to openly enjoy it or play around with it. Even though I'm usually pretty open and relaxed about sex, it's taken me a long time to even ask this question in the first place. (I don't get into roleplaying at all, and I don't even like the faked fetish videos.)

It's not just a case of getting them at the library or hiding them outside of my apartment. Ideally, I'd be able to keep them around and read them in comfort.

Should I try to scan them and put them in a .pdf hidden somewhere on my computer? Should I get some sort of locked box? We don't actually have any other completely secret places (either places to hide things or places that are locked), but we're not suspicious of each other, so maybe I could just put it in a storage closet somewhere.

Throwaway: embarrassingcrap at gmail.
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (24 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

 
Just keep them in the bottom of a Banker's Box or other type of storage box with some other keepsakes or odds and ends on top. If your partner happens to look inside the box (chances are he/she won't even bother to peek inside; I've been married for 15 years and have many old boxes of "treasures" from my past - from old jewelry to books to video tapes to whatever - that Mr. Adams only ever remarks on when we've had to move. "Is there any of your old junk we can consolidate into maybe one box?") he/she will see old stuffed animals, or some folded up linens from your grandmother that she prized but which you have no use for, or old cassette tapes ..... stuff like that. Mark the side of the box "Anonymous' Junk" or "Old Desk Stuff" or something like that, keep it in your closet or under your bed and make like it's always been there.
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:15 AM on December 13, 2009 [1 favorite]


Is it that obvious that casts are part of the subplot in the novels you want to read, or is it just your self-consciousness? Outside of them all being titled similarly and cast-relatedly, or all having pictures of people with casts on the cover (or your partner being a P.I.), I think your self-consciousness and fear of being found out might be overblowing your idea of what your partner's reaction to your newly-found reading habit might be.

Anyway, especially considering you don't read, you could always say "I'm trying to start reading novels." Not everyone dives into Moby Dick right away, and it seems like you'd be more comfortable with your partner thinking you read trashy novels than what's really going on. (Are you the type to enjoy things for ironic value? Even better!)
posted by griphus at 10:17 AM on December 13, 2009


Scan to .pdf and upload to a kindle (or just buy and upload to a kindle)? Potentially expensive and time consuming, but an idea nonetheless.
posted by buzzkillington at 10:20 AM on December 13, 2009


You could also buy a few other old cheesy novels to throw off any pattern recognition. You could even create a cover theme, like WWI, and nobody would have to know you only read a subset of the books.
posted by salvia at 10:30 AM on December 13, 2009 [5 favorites]


If I had two or more, my partner would probably associate them (due to their look and subject matter) and think, "Uh, what???"

I mean this very gently: it is extremely unlikely that your partner would notice a common theme of minor physical injury in your choice of fiction and assume you have a fetish about broken bones or casts. My husband doesn't read much fiction, but if I saw that he had several books whose plots happened to involve cars, I wouldn't think he had a gasoline fetish. I'd just think he'd found a few books to read.

Of course, it might stress you out to have the books around where your partner can see them, and I don't want to minimize that, but honestly if you just put them in a desk drawer a storage box, I think your secret will be perfectly safe.
posted by Meg_Murry at 10:31 AM on December 13, 2009 [4 favorites]


I think the more you try to conceal them the more likely that someone will discover them and make the connection that they are part of a naughty fetish.

I have a bunch of weird books (not fetish-related, just odd books I have purchased for various reasons) that are stored openly on my shelves, which no one has ever questioned, or, to my knowledge, even looked at.

Hide them in plain sight. If ever asked about it, just say, "Oh, yeah, I ran across those books in a 50 cent bargain rack outside a used bookstore. I thought they were enchantingly weird, so I bought them." That is a perfectly reasonable explanation that keeps your secret a secret.
posted by jayder at 10:31 AM on December 13, 2009 [12 favorites]


I think Jayder has it. Go for the Purloined Letter solution. Mix them in amongst your other paperbacks. No one will notice.

And honey? Your kink is not all that weird. Don't angst about it.
posted by ottereroticist at 10:37 AM on December 13, 2009


Not a helpful answer - but I just want to say that it's highly possible that your partner would find your kink pretty hot. But if you're sure you don't want your partner involved - do what Jayder's suggested: order the books, spread them through your shelves, and find solace in the fact that this kink will probably go unnoticed by any partners provided you limit it to paperbacks.
posted by jennyhead at 10:51 AM on December 13, 2009


If you're anything like me, you'll totally lose track of the hidden files you bury like so many chestnuts in the bowels of your computer.

The greater lengths you go to hide this, the worse off you'll be. I can't imagine anybody jumping so large a logical chasm as would be required to connect your fetish to your cheesy paperbacks.
posted by thejoshu at 10:52 AM on December 13, 2009


Yeah, I don't even know how much evidence I'd have to see to put together that someone was a cast fetishist.

"Hmm... two books in which someone breaks a bone? There's a cast fetishist afoot!"

I think you're okay with the books, and FWIW I think your fear of talking to your partner about this is entirely unnecessary. I can't see anyone being horrified or weirded out by this particular kink. Your partner in all likelihood would enjoy it just knowing that you do.
posted by cmoj at 11:37 AM on December 13, 2009 [1 favorite]


Honestly, your partner needs to know there's such a thing as a cast fetish in the first place to even make that connection and I think statistics are probably on your side there.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:12 PM on December 13, 2009 [10 favorites]


Please please please share your harmless fetish with your partner.... unless the secrecy is a big part of the fetish. Seriously, a GGG (good, giving, game) partner might chuckle at first, but before long will be more than happy to help you explore this avenue to both your heightened pleasure. Really! Do it! Just introduce it during any old boring conversation: "hey, this may sound kind of wierd, but there's this thing that really turns me on that I want to tell you about. It's okay to laugh, but this isn't a joke and I really care about our relationship and I believe it's very important to not keep secrets." With a buildup like that, your partner will be thinking OMG HE LIKES STUFFING GERBILS so when you say "i like casts, you know -- plaster casts, like the broken bone kind. I think they're hot." You'll get a laugh and then you can explore it.

SHARE!
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:30 PM on December 13, 2009 [5 favorites]


I think salvia's right. Buy some cast books and some other books and mix them together.

Alternatively, just buy three or four cast-related books and if anyone says, "Why are you into books where people have casts?" just say, "Oh, yeah, I guess all of the books have characters with casts. Weird coincidence!" Nobody will care.
posted by christinetheslp at 1:50 PM on December 13, 2009


Instead of reading about casts, have you considered that it might be more satisfying if you took up sculpture and got into making plaster body molds?

I did my whole body from head to toe for an art project, and even though I don't have a fetish it was very sensuous....something about the heaviness and coldness and smoothness was absolutely wonderful. Plaster and cloth from an ordinary hardware store is dirt cheap-- try it!

Failing that, buy some other cheap paperbacks for the covers, surgically remove the contents with an exacto knife (sans title page) and tip them in with rubber cement.
posted by aquafortis at 1:52 PM on December 13, 2009


a quick note regarding aquafortis' suggestion: plaster of paris can heat up and potentially cause burns if on the skin for too long. dental plaster can do the same thing.

In my opinion, anything you do to conceal the book is going to make it more suspicious. if you are determined to hide this from your significant other, definitely go with the hiding in plain sight. I had no idea that cast fetishes even existed, so your partner might not either.

And I know you said you had no interest in telling your partner, but really, i would advise that you share this with them. it's not like you're asking them to break their arm so you can see them in a cast.
posted by dubold at 2:07 PM on December 13, 2009


Another vote for hide it in plain sight. A book or twelve about someone who breaks a bone on a shelf? I wouldn't notice. Happening across them all hidden in the sock drawer or in the back of the cabinet where the cleaning supplies are? Then I'd be all, "well...now why is this here?" And then, the more important, "why didn't I know about this? / why doesn't s/he feel like they can share this with me?" If your partner does notice the books on the shelf, say you're starting a collection of books with cool covers or something.

Also, sure, it takes a lot of courage, but everything seanmpuckett said. You'd be surprised. Until now, I never even realized this was a Thing, but if a guy I was with brought this up to me, I certainly wouldn't be weirded out. People like stuff, you know?
posted by AlisonM at 2:25 PM on December 13, 2009


I'd say another thing to remember is that this is a very... specialized fetish. Even if someone were to notice that you had a lot of books featuring casts, the leap to "you probably get off on that" is not as obvious as you might think. Lots of people have books on an obscure hobby or interest; if someone had several meters of books on dentistry nobody's first thought would be that this must be something that arouses them sexually.
I'd hide stuff like that in the open, maybe have some remarks prepared like "Oh yeah, I've done some reading on casts - my uncle / nephew / friend in school broke his arm once, and I've been fascinated with them ever since. You wouldn't believe the advancements medical science has made since the days of the old gypsum-and-linen stuff." Just be able to give enough info to be boring, so no one suspects any other motives to your interest.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 3:23 PM on December 13, 2009 [1 favorite]


While I am open about my fetish* with my partners, I do indeed have mine out in the open among other books and never thought twice about it when I had friends over who didn't know. Mixed in, you can't tell; in many cases, they're only subplots of books. On the other hand, none of the outright fetish books I've purchased have the topic I've been collecting. If that's your case - anything more like Taschen or photography books or something - stick 'em in with a bunch of other coffee table books. Anyone asks, they're gifts from that weird college roommate you had.

*technically, I do not need my bad priests to get off, as is the technical sense of a 'fetish', but I sure as hell like it.
posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 4:49 PM on December 13, 2009


Put them in a mailing envelope, ideally with an old date, and somebody else's name and your old address. No return address, Shove this in some other junk. Yeah, weird, those were mis-delivered.
posted by theora55 at 5:47 PM on December 13, 2009


As someone who's basically fetish-friendly, let me add my voice to the chorus of those saying "hide it in plain sight." Because you could have two, or six, or frankly fifty books about people with casted injuries lying around, and it would never occur to me that this was wank material. I'd probably have to catch someone in some sort of elaborate faux-bondage old-style traction device, wearing a cast, watching a Red Cross instructional film about casting, and masturbating furiously with a roll of gauze bandage in order to catch on, honestly. At which point, the conversation proceeds pretty naturally.
posted by KathrynT at 6:00 PM on December 13, 2009 [5 favorites]


Maybe they're from back when you were thinking about becoming a nurse.
posted by salvia at 7:09 PM on December 13, 2009


If you are with your significant other for a significant amount of time, they will almost certainly eventually figure out your kink and find your stash, no matter where you hide it. The worst thing that could happen is that they might discover that you have a secret kink long before they figure out what it is. This sometimes causes a lot of unnecessary stress on both parties. If you take a hide-in-plain-sight approach, this "discovery" may take a lot longer to happen and will probably be a fairly mild thing, unless your partner has a really strong reaction against your particular kink (in your case, it'd have to be some kind of unlikely cast anti-fetish, but for someone else in a similar situation with a different kink, such a thing might be much more likely). Even if it is something that bothers your partner, then they may simply ignore it. People are astonishingly good at not talking about things that make them uncomfortable. I've seen this work fine for decades, and I've also seen it cause enormous amounts of stress.

I guess my point is that it's probably best to get it out in the open with your partner eventually, but I totally understand that it's pretty unlikely that you'll be able to do that, even if you do think it's a good idea. That's just human nature. In the meantime, it's probably a good idea to "hide" it the way most people "hide" taking a crap. In other words, make it so no one's going to stumble across it accidentally, but don't secure it in such a way that your partner can discover that you have a big secret without being able to find out what it is.
posted by ErWenn at 8:45 PM on December 13, 2009


Do you know about recortho.com? I bet they'd have good suggestions for you. I stumbled on the site after I broke my leg, posted photos of my xrays and cast online for far-away friends & family to see, and noticed I was getting HUGE hit counts on the cast photos. I finally tracked down where they were coming from: recortho.com. I hadn't even know this fetish existed until then. And I left my photos up for anyone & everyone to enjoy.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 4:41 AM on December 14, 2009


follow-up from the OP
I went ahead and ordered the books.

More importantly, though, I had another anonymous MeFite e-mail me, also with a fake e-mail, who shared my fetish. We both knew that this was a somewhat common thing, but neither of us had ever contacted another person about it directly. Having a real live person to talk to who is (so far) not skeevy is pretty unbelievable.

I know that I would never join an online group because I'd be afraid of leaving the slightest trail. The combination of an anonymous AskMe and anonymous fake Gmail accounts, though, has given me enough separation to make a fetish buddy for the first time in my life.

Thanks, MetaFilter!
posted by jessamyn at 12:57 PM on December 15, 2009 [3 favorites]


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