In a case presented at the 2015 annual meeting of doctors at the American College of Gastroenterology, a patient with a unique case of fetishism was required to undergo surgery after complaining of abdominal pain for several days.
The patient, a 57-year old man has decades history of fetishism. Unlike other cases of fetishism that involved a partner's clothing, the man experiences sexual gratification from ingesting heads of dolls. This wasn't the first time that the patient had sought help from medical practitioners for his unique case of fetishism. He already underwent two exploratory laparotomies in the past after having his small bowel was blocked by one of the dolls.
When the patient underwent CT scan, it revealed five foreign bodies - doll heads with sizes ranging from 1.7 to 2.4 inches. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed a liter of foul-smelling gastric fluid and five doll heads with one head wrapped in plastic.
Nasogastric decompression was done in attempt to remove the doll heads. But it proved to be unsuccessful after 6 days of doing it. Hence, a surgery was done to remove the foreign bodies and relieve the man from the abdominal pain.
This isn't the first time that fetishism gets into the person's health. In 2013, a 35-year old man came into a healthcare institution complaining of abdominal pain. It was found out that the pain was brought about by a swallowed doll head.
Fetishism is a form of sexual disorder or paraphilia. It is characterized by persistent actions involving objects or nongenital body parts in order to satisfy one's sexual desires. Some of the common sexual fetishes include a partner's clothing such as undies or a partner's nongenital body part like a foot.
A distinctive characteristic of fetishism is that it involves recurrent sexual urges on the object or part. A person is said to have this sexual disorder if there's a consistent record of actions involving certain objects and he/she experiences sexual gratification after acting on the urges on a specific object or body part.
The exact cause of fetishism is not clear though it's thought to start out of curiosity. Over time, with the consistent association of object or part with sexual gratification, the association between the two is reinforced; hence, the fetishism on that object is born. However, there are cases of fetishism that are brought about by sexual abuse.
People who have this sexual disorder have consistent sexual fantasies (at least for 6 months) on certain objects. When these fantasies are not acted on, they usually feel distressed. This becomes a sexual disorder as their practice often causes disruption on their daily living.
