A Thorough Answer To 'Why Does One Have A Bellybutton Fetish?'

A Thorough Answer To "Why Does One Have A Bellybutton Fetish?"

CAUTION: Some explicit but non-violent language follows which might be considered objectionable for the more sensitive.

Original posted question: "Why does one have a bellybutton fetish?"

Probably a good way to tackle this question is, why does anyone have any kind of fetish?

It's complicated, it really is. If I knew the answer I'd be a zillionaire. The secrets of the psychology of sexual response would be worth lots to various organizations, whether they wanted to use the information for good or evil purposes. You can hop on your favorite search engine if you want to look up what the concept of a fetish is, it's a well-worn path for discussion.

I think it's fair to say that fetishes are not created so much as discovered. There must be factors of some kind that sow seeds into the psyche of the individual that ultimately result in some kind of arousal, but obviously not everyone gets those seeds, and I don't believe honestly that one can consciously program a fetish into one's self any more than one can program (say) one's sexual orientation.

Put simply, in my own words, a fetish can be described as a sexual craving attached strongly - and that's a key concept - to a particular body part, object or activity that is traditionally not considered sexual. The female breasts, for example, are a point of stimulus sexually for many males, but such an interest is not considered a fetish, because it's so widely expected behavior and that's supported by cultures internationally. Male genitalia are a point of sexual excitement for both straight women and gay men for the same reasons - because so many millions (billions?) are turned on by the sight of them.

The bellybutton is one of those body parts that isn't generally considered a sexual organ or feature by the masses. (This is largely why its exposure in public doesn't usually rise to the level of indecency, although your local culture may be different.) Biologically speaking, it's a remnant of a pipeline for nutrition to a pre-fetal being - literally, a scar. Having a bellybutton fetish myself, I have found myself wondering how I got this. I do not think it's a gay thing exclusively because both gay and straight people have navel fetishes, but it's usually straight guys liking women's bared navels.

Cultural influence is another question altogether. I read once that the bellybutton is sexually exciting because it's "liminal" - or (as I recall the definition) the indicator of crossing a bright line, perhaps a line that's taboo. It's a body part where, if it's showing, someone may say or imply the other person is showing too much. Yet it's not as obvious as showing male or female sex organs openly, which would be considered over the top.

Another factor worth considering is the gender of who's showing their navel. Again, cultural conditioning plays a role here. In many cultures it's considered sexy for a female to bare her midsection, of which the bellybutton is part of the area. The belly dancer is probably the epitome of this, although when the two-piece bikini bathing suit emerged for women decades ago, navels were suddenly everywhere in the West, to the delight of straight men and gay women everywhere.

Males have not quite been accorded the same approbation when it comes to their bellybuttons specifically. Here in the U.S. where I live, males are considered sexually appealing for body parts surrounding the navel, but generally not the navel itself. A guy who has "shredded" abs (aka "washboard" abdominals for the appearance of a washboard one used to scrub dirty clothes on for their corrugated appearance and masculine roughness) is considered sexy by many straight women and gay men. Ditto for the pectoral muscles (male equivalent to the female breasts). (If you need proof of that, just take a gander at the thousands of shirtless guys on Instagram sometime - developing shredded abs has become a male cultural beauty competition.) A bared bellybutton might telegraph that a set of abs have been exposed to the open air, but little else.

And whereas the bikini was the game-changer in fashion for baring the bellybutton on women, in the U.S. during the late 70s/early 80s it was what used to be known properly as the "half shirt", now commonly referred to as the "crop top". The half shirt name came from the fact that an ordinary T-shirt was literally cut in half, the lower half removed. Such a garment hung off a guy's shoulders, revealing only his stomach area. The "crop top" name refers to a cropped - that is, cut - garment, worn on the "top" or upper half of a male. (Females would don crop tops in later years also.)

An interesting thing to me about the half shirt/crop top is that one didn't have to have particularly muscular abs in order to wear one - indeed, for me, a guy with undeveloped abs in a half shirt but with a bellybutton showing is more sexually appealing than the most muscular specimen. The very act of sporting a half shirt - particularly if one had an unusual looking bellybutton (one that protrudes, which we in the States affectionately call an "outie") was daring and perhaps defiant on a level, again, because of that whole "liminal" thing - the notion of showing just a little too much, showing a bellybutton playfully, turning heads, and causing others to steal looks. Another part of that, I have to believe, is the being a rebel thing - showing your bellybutton when few others are showing theirs could be considered a different sort of display of masculinity. A natural side effect of such garments, though, is that they're self-ventilating and, indeed, that was part of their genesis - they were popular in warm-weather states like California and were enough to circumvent eating establishments who had a "no shoes, no shirts, no service" policy.

By the way - both gay and straight males have sported half shirts over the intervening decades since their invention, but since they started on athletic fields at colleges and universities, my inclination is to believe that originally half shirts were considered "straight" garments, although the gay male community would adopt such garments as their own in later years. Indeed, in the mid 2010's, clothing designer Calvin Klein put the crop top on the fashion map again, and social media sites began to feature images of guys wearing these shirts with varying degrees of attractiveness and effectiveness. Remember, a key element of a "real" half shirt or crop top is that it indeed exposes the bellybutton. A shirt that doesn't do that might be a bit on the short side, but it's not the real thing.

So, we have these navel-baring garments, and obviously some folks are game to wear them. But why is it that only some of us are turned on at the sight of a bared bellybutton while 99% of the rest of us shrug in baffled indifference? As someone who's gay and loves seeing guys (and some chicks) showing their bellybuttons, I don't know. I think it's an oversimplification to say that a watershed event was responsible because, as I said earlier, others exposed to that same watershed event are unaffected. Perhaps the best explanation I can venture is that something somewhere in the psyche of such fetishists make it a fertile ground for sexually liking the sight or touch of a bellybutton. Even hearing someone "hot" in other ways saying the word "bellybutton" aloud turns me on. What that "something" is remains the mystery - was it the universe, was I subconsciously channeling something else, who knows?

Having such a fetish has been good for me because, not being a "hot" person, I don't get to enjoy the pleasures of physical intimacy with another, so being able to enjoy sexuality on some level is a nice enough recompense for being largely shut out of the sex and dating pools. Since bellybuttons are pretty much everywhere - outdoor parks, swimming pools, diving boards, locker rooms, fashion, jogging trails, clothing catalogs, yearly beefcake calendars, advertising, and when someone out of sheer boredom stretches until his shirt rides up and his bellybutton does a "peek-a-boo" - I don't have the need to get myself into indelicate and perhaps dangerous situations to get my proverbial rocks off.

Addendum to original response: Very often I see the name for the part written as two words, "belly button". I distinctly remember seeing it as one word, however, growing up, and many, many others write the name of the part as one word, "bellybutton." As an example, the indie rock band Jellyfish not only named one of their albums "Bellybutton" (one word), but also featured a close-up photo of a rather attractive, oval, vertical innie navel. (I, of course, bought the album.)

We often make close associations between our initial encounters with something sexual, and it stays with us. In my case, seeing the term "bellybutton" as one word made those eleven letters sexually charged in (perhaps oddly) a way that the two-word writing does not.

There is also the notion that many other body parts have one-word spellings (e.g., it's "eyeball", not "eye ball", or "kneecap", not "knee cap"). The term "bellybutton" fits that pattern very well.

Everyone (especially in the States) is going to continue to do whatever they're accustomed to, as well, and that includes me. If your first impression, upon seeing my writing, was "well, now, he spelled it wrong", my response would be "perhaps, for you." Some words just have that in their nature. The word "colour" is perfectly fine for "color" if one is from Canada or the United Kingdom. The spelling of the body part will continue to be a sideshow controversy, second in significance to the main questions lobbed daily: of showing it or hiding it, and innies vs outies.