After all, how much missionary can most people take?

Yet somehow fetish remains the last frontier. It's depicted (if at all) as deviant and weird, its characters marginal, criminal or simply played for a cheap laugh (think of The Gimp in Pulp Fiction). Exceptions exist of course, but they're rare.

Here's a look at mainstream movies with identifiable fetish content. Some explore fetishes honestly, while others have the honor of being instrumental in shaping fetish communities themselves.

Film: Belle De Jour (1967)

Fetish: BDSM, Feet

The always intoxicating Catherine Deneuve plays Séverine Serizy, also known as Belle de Jour, in this work -- considered a startling piece of erotica in its time -- directed by French master Luis Buñuel.

Deneuve's character shares a very asexual relationship with her handsome young bourgeois husband, but her many erotic flights of fancy, which sometimes are indistinguishable from the reality of the movie, involve bondage, S&M and a famous whipping scene.

Deneuve seeks to explore this side of her secret passion for kink and finds work in a brothel where she engages in the fetishes of her customers. Although this film at times feels dated (show me a film from the 60s that doesn't), the blending of fantasy and reality and the growth of Deneuve's character make this a must-see.

As a side note, director Buñuel was widely known to have a foot and shoe fetish, hence the many shots of Deneuve's feet. Also, Deneuve's shopping ventures in the movie involve her buying shoes only.

Film: Secretary (2002)

Fetish: Bondage, S&M

Finally... a movie that doesn't show S&M as sick or abhorrent behavior. Secretary affirms what everyone in the S&M community already knows: the slave in a master/slave relationship has just as much power as the master.

James Spader stars as the perfectionist lawyer, Edward Grey. Maggie Gyllenhaal is Lee Holloway, a young woman coming out of a short stopover at a mental hospital who gets a job as Grey's secretary. Their professional relationship gradually turns into a sadomasochistic one with Spader as the domineering boss/top and Gyllenhaal as the bottom.

The two leads provide terrific performances and there's absolutely nothing gratuitous about the S&M scenes as they provide valuable insights into the two characters and the deep complexity of their relationship.

Rather than treating the relationship as a crude one-sided power trip where the dominant doesn't seem to have any limits to his cruelty (see 9 ½ Weeks), we're treated to a sensitive handling of the relationship where there is an implicit consensual understanding between Spader and Gyllenhaal.

Film: Westworld (1973)

Fetish: Robots

Robot fetishists often point to this 1973 movie, directed by Michael Crichton, as a goldmine for their kink. It's set in a futuristic theme park inhabited by robots that are programmed to provide the human visitors with everything. And I mean everything! Gunfights, barroom brawls, prostitutes -- it's like a hedonistic fantasyland where no one can get hurt. Until, of course, something goes wrong with the technology and the robots turn on their masters.

Starring Richard Benjamin, who apparently was in every single movie ever made in the 70s, Westworld hasn't really aged well -- it's very 70s, in a bad way -- but it does offer almost everything that robot fetishists find exciting: subservience by the robots, some glimpses of their inner circuitry, and the thrilling thought that the balance of power could be turned at any moment.

Want another look at sex robots? Check out the 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, where Jude Law plays a very specialized pleasure-giving robot named Gigolo Joe.

Film: Crash (1996)

Fetish: Name one...

It's hard to pick which of David Cronenberg's films to highlight for insight into a particular fetish (kudos are also due David "Blue Velvet" Lynch -- Ed). You could go with the medical fetish in Dead Ringers, or the S&M in Videodrome, or even bug fetishism in Naked Lunch. However, Crash gives us an eye-opening look at how a perceived subculture can form and operate.

Based on the novel by J.G. Ballard, Crash follows a TV journalist, played by James Spader (again... he likes the kinky movies!) who gradually finds his way into a subculture of car crash fetishists. While the car crash fetish works as the overall theme of the movie, the film actually explores many other areas of what some may consider "deviant" sexuality: medical, leather and S&M to name a few.

Cronenberg should be commended for not judging non-traditional sexual behavior. He depicts people who feel isolated in an all-too-modern world; trying desperately to find human connections with each other. Mutual connection, after all, is what fetish communities are all about.

Film: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

Fetish: Macrophilia

It's not just a great piece of 1950s kitsch. This movie is the modern template of the very popular giantess or macrophilia fetish. Just like the movie's tagline says, "See a female colossus... her mountainous torso, skyscraper limbs, giant desires!"

Allison Hayes plays Nancy Archer, who has a very close encounter with an alien in the California desert. She then grows to, you guessed it, a 50-foot woman, and seeks revenge on her jackass of a two-timing husband. Not only did this film flip the stereotype of the woefully weak woman in movies of that era, but it gave many people their first popular culture taste of the giantess fetish. It's a cult classic B-movie that's so bad it's really good.

In 1993, HBO decided to shoot a re-make starring Daryl Hannah, but you should really just stick with the original.