I prefer analyzing transformation in terms of Deleuze and Levinas with influences of cognitive ethology (primarily phenomenal conscious theories applied to nonhuman animal species (
http://philpapers.org/rec/ALLAVO)) and zoopoetics. Zizek don't do nuttin' for me besides his critique of Dennett-Chalmers.
I find your analysis, brandygang, to be rather anthropocentric and irreconcilable with diffusion/de-centering of identity suggested by contextualist epistemology and social constructivism. That isn't to say that it isn't well-formulated, but that it is not able to incorporate alterity/irreconcilable neurological and psychological deviance (as well as sexual abnormalcy and unusual conception of motivation) as well as performative identity (not your fault, but Lacan's). It is incomplete as its conclusions are restricted to its domain of inquiry...
When I say that I identify with horses, I mean to say that this is imaginative embodiment, as such, it has reification in conception (in a sense, Lewisian possibilism but discordant with Kripke's rigid designators (par for the course)). In other words the meaning of "I am a horse" is not only contextually dependent but it is asserted as imaginative embodiment entangled with performance translating across various relational constructs of identity.
By this, transformation is not a fetish but rather a phenomenal inquiry of distinct Otherness. The sexual dimension is a corollary of such inquiry not the fixation and origination.
Exemplification:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8264245/
In general my motivations and treatment of the subject are aesthetic and amoral. I am not at all shocked nor phased by the depiction of suffering and emancipation alike in transformation artwork. And I am indifferent to the sexuality of it, that is not to say the sexuality is not signified and symbolized. The thing I find erotic is alteration of phenomenal perception and mentality, so if anything is fetishized it is the autoerotic symbolism of transformation itself, but not the ideation of the subject...
Quote:
Originally Posted by brandygang
"Individual" fetishes are a term that I coin for those based on focus purely on just that, the individual. It's hard to describe but revolves on ineffable qualities, mostly subjective ones that make up a person beyond the ones above that you could go through a checklist. One's personality, feelings and experiences outside language or the describable. Transformations that involve becoming an entirely new person and killing their identity while creating an entirely new one are like this. But just playing around with an individuals identity (With "Masks" in a metaphorical sense) with less repercussions fits too. I've been really interested in this category lately, so much that I've discovered my love for tfs into new lives characters and entirely new people not ever existing before, giving the direct aspect of creation through transformation an incredible thrill.
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I think you are looking for "fetishization of transrational phenomenal perception"---(alteration of phenomenal perception experienced subjectively from a privileged intersubjective perspective of prior and ultimate states (example:
http://www.davideagleman.com/descent.html)). Which might be kind of an oxymoron depending on the theoretical grounding of these terms. Regardless, I don't really care for Lacan and most psychoanalysts' self-indulgent claims to explain a universality of generation in individual thought. 'No one was around for the mirror stage.' Furthermore, the recognition of one's representative image is not a prerequisite for imagistic metacognition. It is theoretically possible for nonhumans without such recognition to experience second order awareness, and preprioception with instrumental cognition of environmental signs may be enough. Lastly, there is no distinct mirror stage in philosophy of psychology: analyses of early development illustrate a plethora of disparate developmental stages, including object permanence, false predication and moral reasoning (the later two Piaget and Kohlberg et al demonstrated).
I am sorry for being a harsh critic, but the intent is not maleficent.