The Fetish Revisited: Objects, Hierarchies, and BDSM

In this episode, RSP Co-Host Breann Fallon talks to Professor J. Lorand Matory of Duke University on the topic of fetishism. After outlining the concept of “fetishism,” considering the Portuguese origins as well as the term’s use in the work of Marx and Freud, Matory discusses his latest book The Fetish Revisited. Matory highlights his re-thinking of fetishism, particularly in the way it critiques how social theories are treated as self-existent and contextless ideas from superior white minds. In doing so, Matory shows the importance of turning our gaze back onto the theorists from which our methodologies stem.

The second half of this interview moves to Matory’s current work on white American BDSM as an Afro-Atlantic spiritual practice with implications for the current populist political moment. In particular, he draws our attention to the problematic links to slavery used in typical dom-sub hierarchies of BDSM practices.