Ideally people are looking for safety in a partner. Many have argued that things we are attracted to sexually can be linked to fertility and suitability as a provider and parent to our children.
You're not really differentiating "sexual excitement" from what someone looks for in a long-term partner, though, and you can't always equate the two – although dumb people usually don't have any qualifications for long-term partners other than sexual attraction.
People are often attracted to danger. How many women do you know who are much more attracted to borderline criminals than nice guys? Often they go through several terrible relationships before they realize that being with a bad guy is not a life plan that's going to make them happy. If you want to talk about fetishes you don't have to think very long to realize that certainly the things some people find extremely exciting are far from safe.
Victims of childhood trauma usually turn that into a source of sexual attraction in some way. Many boys who are raped by men become homosexual. Many women who are raped by men seek out abusive men. Women whose fathers leave often are attracted to unavailable men. People who have been abused subconsciously find abusive partners and the cycle continues.
I'm not saying it's truly prophetic, but there is some truth to the intro of
Idiocracy:
http://www.livevideo.com/video/1EFA0...acy-intro.aspx
So while people
should want safety and
should be attracted to the conditions surrounding safety, in reality there are a lot of screwed up abused and outright stupid people for whom the opposite is true, and horrible parents outbreed good ones exponentially. I think the whole reason 2% of the US population is in prison is because this cycle is reaching critical mass – although draconian drug policy and the fundamentalist anti-abortion and anti-contraception agenda are certainly factors.