A psychological process in which an apparently non-sexual thing (animate or inanimate) is given the value of a sexual object. For example, the proverbial shoe fetishist finds the sight of shoes arousing. On Freud, Annaâs reading, the fetishist starts by desiring to look at the sexual parts of the body (e.g. face, breasts, and genitals), but out of fear and shame does not, and looks away; however, by looking away consistently, the thing they look away at, such as another personâs feet, rather than their face, is able to remind them of the thing they actually wanted to see. The process is complete when the alternate object becomes the actual object of desire. See also commodity fetishism.