Fetishism according to Freud
Year of publication: 1927 in the 'International Zeitschrift' as well as in the 'Almanach'.

Freud's observations of the fetish do not rely on direct psychoanalytic observations because most of his patients did not feel their sexual abnormality as an affliction, but as a relief for their sex life. Most of his observations were side aspects of the usual psychological analysis of other psychotic afflictions. According to Freud the fetish originates in the childhood but he only ascribes this to male patients.

The first sighting of the female genitals is a shock that every man has to make during his early years of  childhood. But since every boy only knows his own gender, and through that believes that everyone has a penis, the first sighting causes shock and the fear of castration. Therefore some boys suppress what they have seen and replace the expectation of the female penis with an object. According to Freud the fetish for an object is a penis replacement. The boy doesn't forget the female gender but transferring the hope of a  female phallus into an object lets him keep this hope up. Freud also believed that producing such a fetish prevents the boy from becoming homosexual.

Freud's Theories are that the choice of the object is determined by the reminiscence near upon the discovery of the female gender. Those things are still peaceful and harmless to us because they still let us believe in the female phallus. This means as fetish objects are often those chosen that can be seen from the bottom up until short before the shock. It is this direction because a young child is much smaller than a woman. For instance things like feed are chosen or fur and velvet because they resemble the pubic hair and are therefore the last protection before the shock. Hence especially underwear is predetermined to be raised as a sexual fetish. Silk, satin or artificial products like nylon (Polyamide), that has comparable attributes like satin, could resemble the smooth skin of the female legs. 

The fetish for shiny nylon shorts could be explained by two reasons. First because of the visual protection of the clothing against the true gender of the female and second because of the sense of touch of nylon (polyamide) that reminds us of the smooth female legs which lie before the castration shock in our memory. No other material looks or feels quite as sexy as a pair of nylon shorts on a female, for some they can not perform without this exciting accessory in the bedroom.