I had a similar orthodontic sexual epiphany back in the winter of '99 at the Oregon Correctional Intake Center on my way to prison. We were herded into a classroom, handed #2 pencils, and instructed to fill out a 567-question personality test by an unremarkable-looking woman who, I reckon, was in her mid-forties. She wasn't bad-looking--slim and proper with neatly clipped bangs which swung back and forth while she walked up and down the aisles handing out the tests--but there wasn't anything outstanding about her which raised my drawbridge, either. That is, until she parted her lips and smiled...and revealed a set of steel braces. Blinding, divine, whiter-than-white, ultra-luminous fluorescent light flashed off those wondrous braces. It was an Erotic Valhalla for me.

I have other dental fetishes such as an affinity for bucktoothed women with that cute little bunny-rabbit overbite which pushes out their lips and makes it look as if they've been sucking cock all their lives. And speech impediments caused by dental problems, such as lisps and the oh-so-sexy whistling "S," are also the tops with me.

Naturally, there are limits to this fetish. I don't want her to be toothless. A mouth full of rotting tombstones isn't a turn-on, either. Dentures don't do a thing for me. The idea of her drooling all over my cock with her bare, bleeding gums doesn't exactly spin my spurs. I don't want some rotted-toothed sea hag with purple, green, and black teeth slurping on my Love Rod, if that's what you were asking.

Perhaps there's something wrong with me, but how can something be wrong when it feels so right? My raging tumescence for orthodontically challenged females undoubtedly has a psychological basis, but if the fetishist were to come to terms with the roots of his fetish, t'would cease to be a fetish, t'wouldn't it? And so I waddle onward, brazenly straddling the line between fetish and perversion. Yet it occurs to me that any sort of orthodontic irregularity calls attention to a girl's mouth, which in turn calls attention to what that mouth is good for.

It goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway because I have to fill this column with 900 words or I don't get paid, that if a woman has a set of perfect, gleaming choppers, it makes it easier for her to bite you. And maybe that's why I like a girl with dental problems. It gives her a sweetness and vulnerability, a goofy, childlike smile which conjures warmth and cuddliness; by contrast, a woman with a grille that would do a Great White Shark proud is more likely to be emotionally distant and domineering. I don't like perfect women. They don't need love. For me to be interested, the girl has to be damaged in some way. A girl with dental problems likely has more problems than that.

Peut-être I suffer from a silly, fatal romantic streak which makes me think I'm emotionally equipped to conjure an invisible Tooth of Love where no real tooth exists, or that my overbearing affection will prove to be an ersatz set of emotional braces that will straighten out the poor girl's soul. In my own delusional way, I'm not that much different from Romeo, Valentino, or that dude who selflessly threw his jacket over the mud puddle and let the bitch walk over it, ruining a perfectly good jacket.