Blown away: A brief look at ‘wind fetishism’

I have to start by saying that this article is not about flatulence fetishes (which I’ve covered in a number of previous blogs, here, here and here) but about individuals who are sexually aroused by the wind. I decided to write this article when I came across a relatively detailed first-person account online. While I cannot guarantee the veracity of the account, the level of specific detail leads me to the conclusion that the account is genuine. Here I include verbatim text followed by my commentary.

• Case 1, Extract 1: “I’ve never had an outlet where I can speak openly about this aspect of my sexuality before. Sorry if I get too excited. My fetish is unusual and, from what I can tell, exceptionally uncommon. I haven’t even found a proper term for it in the 4 years I’ve been prowling Google for related content. I have a wind fetish. Specifically, I love powerful winds – the stronger, the better, and watching people and objects get blown around. My favorite things to watch are people with long hair and loose clothing, as well as trees. Trees are great. The sound is also a massive component, and is often enough to get me aroused on its own. I do love the idea of being out in strong winds, but the only time it’s windy where I live is when it’s cold or raining. That ruins the fun”.

I agree that the fetish is uncommon because I’ve seen so few references to it either online or in academic texts. In his 2009 book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices, Dr. Anil Aggrawal does list ‘wind fetish’ in his long list of sexual parahilias and defines it as “sexual attraction to being blown by the wind”. In the case described here, the individual also gets sexually aroused from watching other individuals and objects being blow around (which goes beyond the definition defined by Dr. Aggrawal). Interestingly, the sexual attraction has a number of sub-components such as the reference to long hair and loose clothing being a particular turn on. The other aspects I found interesting were the references to trees and the sound the wind makes. Both of these aspects have associations with other paraphilias that I have written about, namely dendrophilia (sexual arousal from trees) and acousticophilia (sexual arousal from auditory stimuli usually from a very specific sound). The fact that the sound of the wind itself is sexually arousing suggests this is more likely to be acousticophilia than wind fetishism. In addition, the source of the sexual arousal (i.e., the wind) has to be contextualized for it to be sexually arousing. In the case described here, wind in the cold and/or the rain dampens the sexual desire (no pun intended). She then goes on to say:

• Case 1, Extract 2: “I’ve had this fetish for as long as I can remember, and I can’t think of what triggered it. When I was very young, I remember having a dream that involved a tornado; that was the earliest thing. My favorite game growing up was always bringing out our big fan and playing with my Barbie dolls in front of it, and I brought wind into a lot of other imaginative games I played. In elementary school I found one book on meteorology in the school library, and whenever we had library time I would hide in one of the lesser-visited aisles and read over the Beaufort Scale over and over. I remember feeling deeply ashamed about it, but I didn’t know why. I would always have trouble sleeping when it was windy outside. I used to think that my feelings about wind stemmed from a phobia, but I don’t think that was it. Never went through the same pattern with spiders. Anyway, I don’t remember the point when I figured out it was arousal, but the next thing I knew I was getting off to storm chaser videos”.

Here, the individual admits she has no idea about the roots of her fetish but does note that wind featured heavily in both her early leisure and educational experiences. The shame element also suggests that her fascination with wind (such as repeatedly reading the Beaufort Scale) was sexual but she didn’t realise it at the time. She then goes on to say:

• Case 1, Extract 3: “Sex has never done the same things for me. I’ve tried watching regular porn, but it just made me feel numb. I haven’t had too much experience with real sexual acts, but the amount that I’ve done hasn’t gotten me turned on. In that way, I suppose I’m thankful for my fetish. It gives me an avenue into sexual pleasure that my sex-aversion would have denied me otherwise. At the same time though it makes me feel incredibly alienated, especially given its rarity. I managed to find one online community for it, and although it’s tiny (an Experience Project page that gets maybe one post per month), at least I know I’m not completely alone. But it’s hard to talk about sex with other people when your entire sexual identity is wrapped up in something that’s socially unacceptable to discuss openly”.

Here, the account is suggestive of a true fetish (in that no sexual desire is experienced unless the source of the fetish is present). It also indicates that other individuals have the fetish in that she was able to find others online who had the same fetish and that this makes her feel better because she is “not completely alone”. Another individual replies to her post and comments:

• Case 2, Extract 4: “What you said about fetishes encompassing more than just arousal is absolutely true for me. Mine comes bundled with a host of other emotions – fear, awe, anticipation, excitement, hunger, so on. There’s nothing else in my life quite like it. I am fixated on the wind on multiple levels, to the point where I have trouble separating it from my core identity. I wish I was brave enough to create content like you do, but I’m still too embarrassed and afraid of people finding out. I can’t even bring myself to store related files on my computer in fear of people discovering them…I’ve actually been trying to get myself into macrophilia (I’ve always had an emotional fascination, and having a fetish that people actually produce content of would be nice), and so far results have been only mildly successful. I don’t think it’s ever going to stack up to my love of wind”.

This individual (gender unknown) also finds wind fetishism shameful and is embarrassed by it. The fact that this individual describes it as core to their identity and is fixated at a number of levels underlines that this is something that is far from trivial. The growing interest in macrophilia (sexual arousal from giants – and which I covered in previous blogs here and here) – unlike the interest in wind – is something that the person is trying to develop (which perhaps implicitly means that the wind fetish has been around as long as the individual can remember). A different individual (presumably male but could be female) noted:

• Case 3, Extract 5: “I’ve been doing a great deal of reflecting on my fetish, and have come to the conclusion that the excitement comes from imagining what out-of-control wind feels like on girls, particularly in regards to their clothing. Weird thing is, this is clearly sexual to me, and yet the idea of a girl lost in a blizzard seems more romantic (I like to imagine rushing out to give her a warm hug and bring her to safety). I think perhaps the whole clothing thing is related somehow – for example, something I find really exciting is a girl wearing a warm hoodie/sweater and wearing a small skirt completely out of control due to wind. Contrast, perhaps? Maybe I’m overanalysing again”.

Here, the wind is perhaps associated with a type of clothes fetishism and other weather (i.e., a blizzard) as well as ‘damsel in distress fetishism’ (which I looked at in a previous blog and is why I suspect this person to be male as most individuals with this fetish are male). The cross-pollination and/or co-existence of multiple fetishes and paraphilias is well-known in the academic literature. Another person wrote:

• Case 4, Extract 6: “Ever since I was younger, I’ve always loved watching and hearing trees and grass get blown all around in the wind. All the sexual fantasies and wet dreams I’ve had always had something to do with the wind blowing trees or something. It’s kind of embarrassing, since I always get flustered when it’s really windy out and someone comments on the weather”.

This short account shares similarities with the first case in that the aural element of the fetish is also an important part of the fetish (although the visual elements are equally stressed). Like Case 2, the accompanying embarrassment about having the fetish is also noted. In an online discussion (on Reddit) about the strangest fetishes that people had come across, one discussant claimed that there was a woman on the discussion group who was “sexually aroused by wind and masturbated to videos of tornadoes” although I was unable to locate her.

I did go looking online for further evidence of wind fetishes and managed to locate a few first-person confessions:

• Case 5, Extract 7: “I am talking about air currents on the surface of our planet. A windy day can, if I let it, get very inside my head, and can drive me crazy. I have seen some very well worded descriptions of it on this and other forum websites”.
• Case 6, Extract 8: “I have a fetish for strong winds. Watching people struggle against the wind is just about the sexiest thing every to me, although people need not be involved. (In fact, the presence of a human is more of an imagination aid because it helps me imagine how it would feel to be out there myself; I don’t feel any attraction to the person being blown) Just trees getting blown around turns me on. Although visuals are important, the audio is the biggest thing for me. The sound drives me nuts. I’ve found that this is a rather inconvenient fetish to have, for two reasons. The first is that almost no one else has this so very little specialized content is actually produced. More than half of the “porn” I watch ends up being storm chaser videos. The second reason is that I have no control about when it is or isn’t windy outside. It’s annoying when I desperately want a windy day and all I get is a little teasing breeze, but also equally frustrating when a windy day comes along when I have work to be doing and I can’t focus on anything…I don’t seem to have much of a sexuality beyond this. I’ve never been able to masturbate to regular porn, and the only time I’ve orgasmed was during Hurricane Sandy. This might be partially due to other sexual issues I have (I probably have vaginismus), but for now wind stuff is the only thing I can enjoy. I may have a minor thing for macro/micro too, but not enough to get off on”.
• Case 7, Extract 9: “We’re so small of a group of people that share such a rare fetish, that there isn’t even a scientific term for it. Even the most obscure psychological diseases have a name given to them. It’s kinda depressing for me almost…All in all, finding out about this makes me feel a bit isolated”.
• Case 8, Extract 10: “Now I do agree with you that we NEED a place where we can safely have fun with our fetish. It would be really fun to be able to interact with people who have the same ‘desire’ we do…Well, compare the amount of people we have in this group compared to how many people known fetishes are associated with. We’re an extremely small group compared to them. Also just because you get delighted looks from wearing certain clothes in the wind, doesn’t really mean that they have a fetish of it like we do…Maybe this fetish is ‘rare’ because ours is not socially highlighted like others…I think the reason for my fetish is an extremely rare set of conditions when I was about 2 to 3 years old. I remember seeing wind push people in at least two episodes of a show I used to watch, and there was this movie where there was this wind that was sentient and blew stronger every day or something, I think it was the ‘Neverending Story’ or something. I don’t know. However, remembering back right know the physics were all wrong and would probably cause goose bumps to me now at how horribly executed I remember them as. Of Course back then they were perfect”.

All of these snippets provide useful information concerning wind fetishes. The cases appear to be a mixture of both males and females, and one female (Case 6) suspects that her wind fetish is in part determined by the fact that penile-vaginal sex is painful due to a sexual dysfunction and that the fetish she has doesn’t need sexual intercourse to be sexually fulfilled. The rarity of the fetish is again spoken about (Cases 7 and 8), as well as the co-existence of macrophilia (along with microphilia too) is also noted (Case 6). Their visual source of ‘porn’ comprise clips of wind and tornados in TV shows and news footage, and some (Case 8) claim that others don’t really have the fetish if it’s liking clothes that are blown about in the wind. Based on my own research into the topic, I think that wind fetishism exists but as most of the cases I found highlight, it looks to be extremely rare. I would also argue that even among these small number of vase studies, there appear to be different sub-types of wind fetishism and that most individuals’ experiences of wind fetishism began back in childhood. Unlike most fetishes and paraphilias, wind fetishism does not appear to be male-based as some of the cases unearthed are clearly female. As with many fetishes I have looked at, the chances of any academic research into the topic are going to be limited at best.

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK 

Further reading

Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Love, B. (2001). Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. London: Greenwich Editions.

Mai, F.M.M. (1968). A new psychosexual syndrome – “Ecouteurism” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2, 261-263.