Fetishes are a funny thing. Some of them are understandable, even if you don’t share the fascination. A man who is really into spanking, for example. Some guys love it and others can’t

even begin to imagine what their woman would say if he told them he was going to smack her around a bit. But, generally speaking, most people can see the sexy aspect of the fetish.

This isn’t always the case once you start diving a bit deeper into the world of sexual fetishes. Some are popular within the fetish community but not that well known in the mainstream. Foot and shoe fetishes are perhaps the best example. The majority of adults know these fetishes exist but they aren’t as clear as to how it works or what people who engage in the fetish actually do. Still, even if it isn’t what gets their motor revving, they can at least understand where a person is coming from.

But then you start learning about truly weird fetishes. Things that you try to remain open minded about but that still leave you scratching your head. That’s pretty much where I was when I started researching fart fetishists. Yeah, you read that right. Not only is a fetish for flatulence a thing, it’s not quite as weird as you might think.

PornHub, arguably the most popular adult entertainment website today, boasts more than 4,000 videos when you search for ‘fart fetish’ in their impressive database. The options vary from fairly tame clips of one partner smelling the farts of another to videos that feature interesting uses for gas masks. And, of course, once you start searching through them you find the fetish that many of us only ever thought of as a novelty – the cake fart videos.

In these videos, women lightly it or just barely hover over a cake which is heavily frosted. They then unleash a massive fart which, if done properly, sends the frosting flying. Variations on this theme include women farting against rubber sheets covered in water or oil, farting on balloons covered in shaving cream and up close shots of a woman’s butt-hole that is covered in frosting before she farts. By the time you watch a few you start to wonder (and even hope) that someone out there has a cleaning up fetish because these things get messier than you’d probably imagine.

But, to be fair, the people who are into cake or messy farts are far and few between. Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of the material available for the fart fetish community focuses on the more normal (by comparison) approach of simply directing and sniffing farts. Some community websites even offer up special diets for people who want to achieve a specific kind of fart smell or quality.

While understanding what motivates a fart lover may be more challenging than understanding other fetishes, people who are into it are far from alone. There is a fairly thriving community online with fans sharing stories, photos, videos and advice. There is even at least one notable fart fetishist. The famous author James Joyce was outed as a flatulence fan when the letters to his wife were published. Many of his fetishes were revealed in the letters (although they were fairly well known already) but his love for farts was the most curious. When describing his wife, Nora’s, farts, he wrote: “I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also. “

As with anything else, when it comes to sexual turn-ons, one man’s passion is another man’s poison. While farts might not be tempting for every man, it is clearly a community with plenty of passion and a growing membership thanks to the power of the Internet.