(NSFW) Freckles are a popular kink, so why are many people ashamed of having them?

JMHO but I love my freckles. I’ve recently had a new one show up on the tip of my left big toe and I think it looks cute. I had another one show up just under my butt and I love that one too.

I don’t much pay attention to what other people’s hangups are.

I have a weak spot for red heads, who tend to have freckles. I also enjoy some of the bigger mole-like-freckles on some girls. Like millions of freckles is not a turn on to me though, and could bring the attraction down a bit… But that’s really just personal preference.

Never understood the disdain towards freckles and red heads.

I’m heavily freckled and have never been ashamed of them but growing up a pretty average looking female, I knew I’d never be the clear, creamy complected ideal of magazines pics, fiction, poetry, song, etc.

A physical feature that turns people on isn’t a fetish, nor a kink.

Freckles and red hair are and were associated with the Irish, especially before they were considered white. To make fun of someone being a “ginger” was not just about saying “ha-ha, you look x way”, but “ha-ha, you’re genetically and racially inferior to me”. People finding freckles hot is often a way to combat that attitude, to validate and eroticize something that has normally been denigrated.

@Aethelflaed Titles need to be short and safe for work. It was the best I could do. Also, freckles are a fetish for many people.

@JeSuisRickSpringfield Look up the definition of “fetish”. (And, yes, I’m being nitpicky, but how is “fetish” safer for work than “many people find freckles hot”?)

I’m not ashamed of mine. I’m just not all that crazy about them.

I don’t find them unattractive, but there is such a thing as too many.

Something came to mind this afternoon, kind of a history flashback. When I was a girl, -10yrs old, my mom made mini-me holly hobby dolls for me and my best friend. She painted freckles on mine so it would look like me and I HATED IT. I was so incredibly jealous my friend’s doll was “pretty” and mine was now ugly after the freckles. My mom was floored, she hadn’t a clue I thought my own freckles were ugly and up until today, I’d forgotten all about that.

Somewhere I got the idea freckles were ugly. Also until today, I never imagined they were anyone’s fetish- that’s cool :)

I’m just old enough that I remember being made fun of for my red hair and freckles when I was a kid. I never had a problem with mine, though, personally, and by the time I was a teenager I was getting nothing but positive comments on them. I’m really glad my youngest daughter (also a redhead) is growing up in a time where red hair and freckles (in the US, at least) aren’t something to make fun of anymore.

Here’s another thing dug up from memory while I was dreaming. Someone told me when I was a pre teen that because of my freckles, I could never be pretty or beautiful- cute yes. This was in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Maybe somewhere along the way, freckles became cool and I missed it? oy.

@Aethelflaed From the Oxford American Dictionary:

fetish (noun)
• an inanimate object worshipped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.
• a course of action to which one has an excessive and irrational commitment : he had a fetish for writing more opinions each year than any other justice.
• a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc. : Victorian men developed fetishes focusing on feet, shoes, and boots.

I suppose you are probably thinking of a particular medical definition and assuming that it is the only proper one. It is a word with a rather wide range of colloquial uses, however, and they are all correct. So technically, you are not being nitpicky at all. You are insisting that everyone conform to your idiolect.

In any case, the word I used in the title was not “fetish,” but rather “kink.” From the same dictionary:

kinky (noun)
• involving or given to unusual sexual preferences or behavior
• (of clothing) sexually provocative in an unusual way : kinky underwear.
• having kinks or twists : long and kinky hair.

While freckles are not unpopular, they are not exactly a typical sexual preference either. Perhaps that points to a way of answering the question. Regardless, the question does not seem to be linguistically irredeemable even if I did not word it in precisely the way you would have had it been your question rather than mine.

I’m an auburn-haired freckle faced woman. I think my freckles make me look younger than I am..so I don’t mind them so much now. (I am turning 40 this year) I used to hate them as a kid.
I’ve had compliments on my “pretty” skin all my life..but I never knew there were men out there that specifically liked freckles. News to me!

I’m super-pale white (my kids practically glow in the dark as well)..but if I get in the sun my freckles stand out a bit. (And I turn lobster red. Instantly.)

I lived for years in Japan and there they have an obsession with whitening creams (it’s like this in a lot of parts of the world.. it’s one of the many reasons I hate Unilever..because they market whitening creams to women in India, China and Japan—and their marketing insinuates that there is something wrong with their natural skin color. That pisses me off…but I digress) – and many of the women I met and befriended in Japan would tell me I should take better care of my skin to avoid freckles.

Except the Japanese word for freckles is more negative than that.. it’s “shimi” which is also the same word for a “stain” (like when you drop off your dry cleaning and point out the “shimi” on your dress…). So, freckles have a very negative connotation in much of Asia (e.g. Japan, Korea)...and while I lived and worked in Asia as a young woman I was always self-conscious about my freckles.