Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a body part.^[1] The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has a fetish is a fetishist.^[2] A sexual fetish may be regarded as a mental disorder if it causes significant psychosocial distress for the person or has detrimental effects on important areas of their life.^[1][3] Sexual arousal from a particular body part can be further classified as partialism.^[4]

While medical definitions restrict the term sexual fetishism to objects or body parts,^[1] fetish can, in common discourse, also refer to sexual interest in specific activities, peoples, types of people, substances, or situations.^[5]