Fetishes: what are they and are they bad?

[BennyJackdaw]

I've come to feel uncomfortable around this word, to be honest. I feel like, now a days, all I ever draw are fat characters. I have a few different styles I like to use. Sometimes I draw characters with perfectly round bellies and thick arms and legs. Sometimes I draw them more proportionate with a slight bit of detail in their belly. Other times I draw them without visible legs, just a few droops over the feet kind of like certain Akira Toryama characters like Buyon/Jiggler. And yet I try to be tasteful with them.
 
 ...And that might be why I don't like using the "F-Word." People often associate fetishes with "sexual" or an extreme I generally don't take my characters to. Yet deep down, I think it might be a more harmless word than it's made out to be. So what constitutes as a "fetish?"

[Rocco Rex]

NOUN

• an inanimate object worshiped 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.:

That last definition is what the vast majority think of. Sexualization of a nonsexual object.
My suggestion? Use the term obsession.

[Angder]

After giving this thread some thought, the mod team have decided it probably is not appropriate to keep this open due to the volatile and mature nature of the topic at hand. While no warnings will be given this thread will now be locked.