Why?

So why does anyone do this stuff anyway? What could they possibly be thinking about?

Any fetishist does what they do because to them it is sexy. Think about it, why do you go out to dinner, a movie, dancing? Why does he wear that leather jacket? Why does she put on that cocktail dress? Because it's fun and romantic. But what does that have to do with sex? To the average person, everything.

In any society, with any group of people, there is a definite ritual that spells out and symbolizes what takes place between people when they have sex. It is no different with WAMers and other fetishists. Only the symbolism, the language if you will, is different.

Let us explore an example. A woman in western culture puts on a white dress decorated extensively with lace and pearls, possibly including a vale that she wears over her face. She then attends a gathering of people that includes a man that she stands with, dressed in his formal best. Together, the woman in white lace, and the man in formal attire, face a member of some religious denomination's clergy and publicly make vows.

Two questions:

A) What are the man and woman doing publicly?

B) And what will they more than likely be doing privately later that evening?
A) They are, of course, getting married.
B) Later that night, it is expected they will engage in conjugal relations. Not to put to fine a point on it, sex!
Was there any question in your mind that a wedding was being described? Think about it, you knew exactly what was going on based on a simple description of attire and the context in which it was worn. That is because people use clothing and other cultural symbols to tell other people what is going on. The message was plain. In fact, clothing is used universally in all cultures to symbolize and communicate many things (perhaps the best explanation yet for the number of clothing fetishes that have been documented around the world).

The point of this exercise was to illustrate that within our culture there are very definite messages being sent between a man and a woman based on nothing more than a given situation and choice of apparel, and these messages result in sexual intercourse; a mating ritual if you will.

So, since it is perfectly normal and natural for humans to send messages to one another about sex with symbols, what determines those symbols, and at what time does the response to those symbols become, less than reasoned?