Fetish Pride Flag

Overview

David Jatko published the design in 2019 as a general symbol for fetishists rather than for one specific fetish. The red four-part device shows, in his words, people with open arms joined through the shared passion of their fetishes, and he drew it “minimalistic and stylized” so it would work beyond the flag, “as a pin, as a tattoo or as jewelry”. On the flag it sits on the nine black, blue and white bands he calls “the classic black-blue-white stripes” of kink and leather flag tradition. He states that the flag and emblem may be used freely as public domain. ^[1]

Identity & Context

The flag is a cross-orientation fetish symbol, not an LGBTQ-only sexual-orientation flag. Jatko frames fetishism broadly rather than by any single object: “an object, a material, a substance, a body part or some more abstract phenomenon”, located in “well-being, attraction, sexuality, identity, how to live and love”. ^[1] Fetishism, BDSM, leather culture and Queer identity are overlapping but distinct categories, and the entry treats them that way. The flag's place in Encycloflaggia rests on its explicit pride framing, its field drawn from leather and kink flag tradition, and the rainbow and bisexuality versions Jatko himself publishes. ^[1]

Creators

The Creator

David Jatko

Designer and fetish-rights advocate

David Jatko is a Swedish fetish-rights advocate who describes himself as an open and proud fetishist, and he designed the Fetish Pride Flag in 2019. ^[1][2]

His advocacy predates the flag by a decade. In 2009 Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare removed fetishism from its disease classifications, and Jatko took part in the advocacy for that change together with people from RFSU and RFSL, the Swedish sexuality-education and LGBTQ organisations. He marked the moment in his own way: “I remember New Year's Eve 2009. I walked around with a large bandage on my head on which I had written the abbreviation of the diagnosis for fetishism. At the stroke of twelve I took the bandage off and declared myself cured!” Ten years on he argued that little had changed in practice, and that the central problem is low public awareness of what fetishism is, because accounts of it so rarely come from fetishists themselves. ^[2] The flag he published that year is addressed to exactly that gap: a symbol fetishists of every kind can carry for themselves.

Ottar's June 2019 profile, published the year he dates the flag, places him in Stockholm, studying gender studies at university. ^[2] Peer-reviewed scholarship on Swedish kink communities identifies him as the founder and longtime webmaster of Darkside, a Swedish digital BDSM, fetish and kink platform. ^[3]

His flag site publishes the flag, the symbol, vector source files, a dimensioned construction drawing, and rainbow, bisexuality and plain-black versions, and states that the symbol and flags may be used freely as public domain. ^[1]

I remember New Year's Eve 2009. I walked around with a large bandage on my head on which I had written the abbreviation of the diagnosis for fetishism. At the stroke of twelve I took the bandage off and declared myself cured!

On Sweden's 2009 removal of fetishism from its disease classifications, in Ottar, 11 June 2019. Translated from the Swedish. ^[2]

Fetishists, let us parade this symbol to show our pride in our love, in ourselves and in our ways of life!

His call on the flag's own page. ^[1]

Attribution notes

David Jatko designed the flag and dates it to 2019 on his own site, where he publishes the artwork, vector source files, a dimensioned construction drawing for the symbol, and the statement that “The symbol and flags may be used freely (public domain)”. ^[1]

Origin

Country

Sweden

City

Stockholm

Digital Origin

fetishflag.com

Origin Type

national origin with documented creator context

Physical Origin Status

Specific design site unconfirmed.

Recorded with Sweden as national origin and Stockholm as documented creator context; the exact design site is unconfirmed. ^[2]

Indigenous land context

Sámi — Sweden includes part of Sápmi, the Sámi homeland; Stockholm is outside Sápmi (Indigenous name: Sápmi). Sápmi, the homeland of the Sámi people, runs across northern Fennoscandia; on the Swedish side it reaches from Idre in Dalarna north to the Arctic coast and east to the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Stockholm lies outside it. ^{[4] [4]}

Colonial / settler context

The Swedish state has a history of colonization and assimilation in Sápmi, pursued through the church's mission among the Sámi and, around the turn of the twentieth century, through race-biology and social-Darwinist ideas. ^[4] This is national land context: no source connects this flag or Jatko to Sámi communities. ^[4]

David Jatko's flag site does not name the place where he made the design. A Swedish profile published in June 2019 places him in Stockholm that year, so Encycloflaggia records Sweden as the flag's national origin and Stockholm as its documented creator context, not as a confirmed studio or first-publication site. ^[2][1]

Dates & Chronology

Year Created

2019

The flag arrived ten years after a change its designer had campaigned for: Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare removed fetishism from its disease classifications in 2009, a change the WHO followed in ICD-11 on 18 June 2018. Jatko took part in the 2009 advocacy alongside people from RFSU and RFSL. ^[2]

Lineage

Direct predecessors

Leather Pride Flag

Sibling flags

BDSM Rights Flag (2005, Tanos), Chicago Leather Pride, Foot Fetish Pride Flag (2020, Fetishie), Leather Girl Pride Flag, Leather Woman Pride Flag, Pup and Handler Pride Flag, Puppy Pride Flag, Two-Spirit Leather Pride Flag

The 1989 Leather Pride Flag is the direct formal parent of the principal design. The field reproduces that flag's nine-band black, blue and white order while replacing its canton heart with a centred white disc carrying Jatko's red emblem. Jatko himself does not name Tony DeBlase's flag: his wording is “the classic black-blue-white stripes” representing “fetishism in kink / leather culture tradition”, and the formal comparison is Encycloflaggia's. ^[1] GayFetishGoth’s guide, which names no author and cites no source, also describes the field as echoing the Leather Pride Flag. ^[5] The rainbow, bisexuality and plain-black versions are designer-published variants of the principal flag, not additional parents; Jatko invites others to “let the background depict your particular fetish or context”. ^[1]

Lineage tree

Every record reachable from this one through documented parent and child relationships: 2 records across 2 generations.

Ancestor

Leather Pride Flag

This record

Fetish Pride Flag

Colors & Symbolism

The symbol shows, in the designer’s words, "People with open arms (the left and right elements) joined in their passion of their fetishes (the top and bottom elements)." ^[1]

Designer’s vector. ^[6]

The left and right elements, two thick crescent arcs

People with open arms.

The top and bottom elements, two plain discs

The passion of their fetishes, in which the people are joined.

Jatko assigns meaning to the symbol’s four elements and not to the colours of the field, which he describes only as “the classic black-blue-white stripes” of kink and leather culture. No stripe-by-stripe meaning has been published. A graphic he issued for International Fetish Day in 2021 pairs the flag with the words “pride, openness, solidarity”. ^[7]

Values read directly from the designer’s SVG. Jatko does not assign separate meanings to the four colours. ^[6]

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · documented

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

9

Layout

nine horizontal bands with a central emblem

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

black, blue, black, blue, white, blue, black, blue, black

Center Symbol

A white disc charged with a red device of four elements: two plain discs at top and bottom, two thick crescent arcs at left and right, reading as a broken ring

Nine horizontal bands of equal depth, each one ninth of the height, with a white disc at the centre carrying the red symbol. The designer’s own vector is drawn on a 192 by 115.2 canvas and declared at 19.2 by 11.52 centimetres, which is the documented 3:5. ^[6] His dimensioned drawing gives the symbol in proportional units: discs 5 across, arcs 2 thick and set 1 clear of the discs, the device 13 tall overall. ^[8] The band structure matches the Leather Pride Flag of 1989.

The designer publishes the flag as PNG at 2000 by 1200 and 6000 by 3600, and as SVG and EPS vector files, together with the symbol alone on a transparent ground in black, white and rainbow. ^[1]

Usage & Adoption

Current Status

Commercially available; independent photographed community use not yet established

The flag is commercially available. Jatko’s own page currently links a pin from Chambers of Love and stickers through a Redbubble shop. ^[1] At least one current specialist flag seller, Flags For Good, offers the physical flag. ^[9] Commercial sale demonstrates circulation and reproducibility, not widespread community adoption or official status. No independently verified photograph of the physical flag being carried or flown at an event has been located.

Image Archive

The symbol

Versions the designer publishes

The designer’s own promotion

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

• The flag artwork as the designer publishes it; his 6000 by 3600 pixel original is fetishflag_6000px.png on the same site. ^[1] · Credit: David Jatko · fetishflag.com · 2019 · creator states public domain · Creator states free use
• The designer’s dimensioned construction drawing for the symbol. ^[8] · Credit: David Jatko · fetishflag.com · Creator states free use
• Portrait of the designer, published with Ottar's profile of 11 June 2019. ^[2] · Credit: Photograph by Daniel Ivarsson · OttarRights Copyrighted; permission not documented. The designer's public-domain statement covers his flag and symbol files, not Ivarsson's photographs.
• Second Ivarsson photograph from the same Ottar profile, 11 June 2019. ^[2] · Credit: Photograph by Daniel Ivarsson · OttarRights Copyrighted; permission not documented. The designer's public-domain statement covers his flag and symbol files, not Ivarsson's photographs.
• The symbol alone, black on transparent, as the designer publishes it. ^[1] · Credit: David Jatko · fetishflag.com · Creator states free use
• Designer-published rainbow version. ^[1] · Credit: David Jatko · fetishflag.com · Creator states free use
• Designer-published bisexuality version. ^[1] · Credit: David Jatko · fetishflag.com · Creator states free use
• Designer-published plain-black version. The spelling is the source’s. ^[1] · Credit: David Jatko · fetishflag.com · Creator states free use
• The designer’s social-sharing graphic. Symbol free use per the designer; background photograph by Reflective Desire, a third party. ^[1] · Credit: David Jatko; background photograph by Reflective Desire · fetishflag.com
• The designer’s International Fetish Day graphic, 2021. Symbol free use per the designer; background photograph by Reflective Desire, a third party. ^[7] · Credit: David Jatko; background photograph by Reflective Desire · fetishflag.com